On "See Jane Run"

Regard this as a feeble substitute for an introductory article. I didn't start this account with an introduction, which is probably rude, so I thought I'd play catch up.

Two years ago I was employed by an organisation to write articles. I would interview people who had used the organisation’s products and services, and write up those interviews for public consumption. I would also write the occasional piece on an aspect of that organisation’s business that might contain a little bit of how-to, or a lesser-known perspective or approach. One year ago I handed in my resignation - things had taken a particular turn within that organisation the likes of which I’d seen before, and the likely outworkings of which I did not care to see again.

So, here I was, having had a hankering to write for years, having had an opportunity, and having bought my very first laptop, and no longer having a writing job. Here it was, then, on a silver platter: my time to begin to write in a new way, about new things, in a new forum. I’d heard of Substack, and read some authors here, and so I decided to start my own. That’s pretty much it.

I read a Mary Oliver quote years ago which stuck with me. It’s a stanza from one of her poems called ‘Sometimes’. It says

Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

When I read this I thought “That’s literally all I ever do.” And I’m not sure I can even tell you why that is. It just is the way I am. And so here I am, telling you about it.

I chose the name “See Jane Run” for a few reasons. The first is that I thought of it very quickly, and I wanted to get started before I got cold feet. Also, I can’t run at all, as in I actually can run but I’m terrible at it, so I think it’s kind of funny. Further, it’s a reference to school readers for very young children. There was a series of books about two children called Dick and Jane that were first published in the 1930s, really hit the height of their popularity in the 1950s, and were still being used in primary schools in Adelaide in 1979 when I started school there. I loved them. I loved the illustrations, I loved the colours and patterns, I loved the font, I loved that the female protagonist had my name, and I loved how simple life was in those books. Besides all of that I couldn't come up with another name I liked any better, so here we are.

I can’t really tell you what to expect here. It could almost be anything. I suspect you’ll mostly find things about human behaviour and food, because they seem to be my two favourite things. And I’m especially interested in my most favourite place where those two things meet: the kitchen table. I remember going out to lunch for Dad’s sixtieth birthday (or it might’ve been Mum’s, I’m not sure, it was nearly thirty years ago). My three brothers and I arrived before our parents, and for some reason none of their partners could be there, so it was just the four of us. We sat in the exact configuration we used to sit in for meals when we were all at home together, which was at least fifteen years earlier again, and I remarked on this with glee. My brothers simultaneously made noises of violent objection and rose as one to change places. (There’s a story there, but that’s likely for another day.)

What I can tell you, though, is what might influence these scraps of written endeavour. Obviously I am a bookish type, and my very first favourite books were by A.A. Milne. Then came Enid Blyton, and then some girl detectives - Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew. Alongside these ran a fascination with Greek mythology. I had a large, hardback book full of those stories, accompanied by the most magnificent illustrations. I would pore over the massive family tree of the gods, enthralled by their names and their various realms of authority. (I wished that I could be Athena, but I knew deep down that if I was any of them then I was Hestia. At the time I felt this to be a lack or a limitation or inferiority, but with age I have realised that we trivialise the import of hearth and home to our detriment; and also that I can, in fact, be Athena when required.) Afterwards, the Brontë sisters featured heavily, accompanied by Jane Austen, although I always preferred the Brontës.

In young adulthood I discovered J.D. Salinger, who is still in my top three writers of all time (not ‘Catcher’, though, but all the other stories), as well as Donna Tartt, Thea Astley, and Helen Garner. Similarly, as I grew into a less cerebral and more deeply known and lived faith, the wisdom literature and poetry of the Old Testament completely floored me. When I was having my babies I would buy The Monthly and Quarterly Essay religiously, even if I didn’t get through them. More recently I’ve been taken with Markus Zusak, as well as Craig Silvey, Alan Bennett, and Sarah Perry. Finally, ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows has an unimpeachable place in my heart.

At university I was privileged to have Mem Fox as a lecturer for the unit ‘Language and Literacy’. One day she spent a whole lecture expounding her belief that great writers borrow and inferior writers steal. Her example was her classic children’s book, ‘Possum Magic’. She shared how she had written the whole thing except the very first page, and though she had tried numerous times she simply could not write one that satisfied her. In fatigue and with hope, she returned to one of her favourite books, the book of Ruth from the Old Testament, and lifted the substance of its opening lines for her own. She read the first lines of each book in turn, and we sat amazed at how she had borrowed from that ancient author and interpolated their lines, now appropriately reinterpreted, into her own. It was brilliant. She shared that she herself was not a believer, but that her parents had been missionaries and so she knew the scriptures well, and still regarded them as among the great literature of the world.

Then there are the influences of our earliest years, the first trusted grown ups (outside of our parents) whom we love with all our hearts, and the places they inhabit. My maternal grandmother was my safest haven and received my strongest affections. She was fascinating to me. She lived in a little house, and she chopped the wood to light the fire to start the stove in the kitchen every morning. She grew her own vegetables, and had her own chickens, and there were a couple of old grave stones leaning against her back fence, mostly obscured by climbing geraniums. It never occurred to me to read them, or to ask why they were there. She had a front garden that bordered her lawn which she watered every evening in the summer. I loved to stand at her side as she watered, ambling slowly around the garden, studying all the blooms. I couldn’t understand her love for her japonica camellia; to me it was just sticks with some tiny red flowers and no leaves. I didn’t see what she saw.

Grandma’s house was between those of two of her sisters, and one of their brothers lived in her shed. There was a gate in the side fence that led to Aunty Amy’s house, but not to Aunty Dot’s. There was family in other streets in town, and they were in and out of each other’s kitchens almost daily. There are well rehearsed lines from the folklore of life at that time and in that place that will stay with me forever. Lines like “Well Uncle George Jones just said he was feeling funny and then he lay down in the hall and died”; and “You know they say there was foul play” (only ever said in a hushed voice, referring to the untimely drowning of their eldest brother); and “She’s learnin’”, which Uncle Ernie (of the shed) would say whenever someone complimented his sister’s outstanding culinary expertise.

Grandma never drove, and I would walk ‘up the street’ with her, her basket over her arm with her black purse with the silver clasp, and we would get the groceries she needed. Sometimes she would buy a scratchie, and I’d watch agog as she took a coin and rubbed off all the silver coverings to see if she’d won. (In my house this was gambling, and we absolutely never did that. We didn't even sell fundraiser chocolates. We just gave a donation and returned the chocolates. It was mortifying.) She was known and loved, and local children would visit her and she would feed them. She always baked, and there were always biscuits and cakes and they were always amazing, and these children loved her, and she was my Grandma. After she died Mum found screeds of receipts that showed she’d paid vast amounts of her brother’s gambling debts, and all on a widow’s pension.

Apart from all of that, all I can tell you is that I love hymns. They are masterpieces of music and poetry and I love nothing more than to sing them in the company of fellow believers. ‘Guide me O thou Great Jehovah’ and ‘Thine be the Glory’ are two of the most sublime works for voices of all time and I will die on that hill. Their lyrics and melodies are unmatched. I feel very strongly about accurate punctuation (it is absolutely vital), and also about butter (I adore it). Also, I did a quiz once to see which character from Downton Abbey I was, fully expecting to be Daisy, but actually turning out to be Lady Violet. I know. I’m as surprised as you are.

Somehow I expect all of that will seep in here, along with so much other detritus that follows we humans about. We are, each of us, an assemblage of the generations of lives that preceded us, of circumstance and predisposition, of humour and fancy, and of choices and chance. And always, always, the divine is near-at-hand.