Work, Rest and Play

Who doesn't crave a simpler life?

I’m a copywriter who has never felt like a proper copywriter. I often wonder what it would have been like to have worked in the more glamorous days of advertising. Would I have spent my time thinking up catchy slogans, such as ‘A Mars a Day, Helps You Work, Rest, and Play,’, ‘Drinka Pinta Milka Day’, or ‘Just Do it’?

I prefer a slice of cake

Most days I write Facebook and Instagram headlines, YouTube descriptions, Spotify radio ad scripts, and headlines for those digital ad boards that you see in train stations, but probably ignore. A lot of ad ephemera. I don’t ever get to create memorable slogans, or work on ad campaigns that people will remember. I care enough about my job to do it well, but I don’t know if I’ve ever cared enough about advertising to aim higher.

Am I bored? Not really. But in my job I am told that many people are, and this boredom with life in general can be solved by buying new things. I’m not sure if anyone truly believes this. I think, honestly, most of us think we could all do with a lot less.

When I think about a more simple life, I think of one of my friend’s mothers. In the Eighties, she essentially used the, 'A Mars a Day Helps You Work, Rest and Play' slogan as an instruction for life. She did what she had to do in the morning, then sometime around 11am, she sat down to read the newspaper with a cup of tea and a Mars bar. There is something so startingly simple about this kind of routine that I find so attractive. It’s a million miles away from wanting more. It’s just wanting a little bit of something that makes you feel good.

This is the second of two days I’ve taken as holiday from work, to spend time with my teenage sons. Admittedly, we’ve done nothing, because when I said to them: “Shall we do something?” they both looked at me with mild confusion.

It’s been nice though, just to be at home, mooching about, doing nothing much at all.

This evening no-one is home, so I plan to read a couple of chapters of Intermezzo. I feel bad that a couple of weeks ago, despite not having read Sally Rooney’s latest novel, I wrote:  “I’m not sure I can deal with the sad women and awkward sex.” The book has neither sad women nor particularly awkward sex. Anyway, when I think of all the sex I’ve had in my life, a lot of it has been awkward. Even the long-term-relationship sex. I so remember talking about this with a friend of mine a while back, who has been with her husband for ages. She said:

“Most nights I lie there next to him and think: are we going to have sex tonight or not?” I don’t know why I found this so relatable, but it made me laugh.

Aside from what I feel are excellent descriptions of sex in Rooney’s book, there is a line that I found particularly poignant. No spoilers, so don’t worry. One of the main characters, Ivan, is asked by a woman he is seeing about his relationship with his mother.

He says: “.. she’s never happy with me… It’s weird… I feel like if I created a new human being out of nothing, I would be very happy with them. Just that they were alive.”

It really made me think about my relationships with my children. Of course I am happy they are alive. But I wonder, also, if sometimes I am rather critical. When I met Joab, I realised that his parents didn’t have strong feelings about their children’s decisions in life: they didn’t label what they were doing as good, or bad, right or wrong. They don’t seem to interfere with the status of things. It is so refreshing just to be in the presence of a family who are simply glad to be around each other, and let things be.

I suppose that I could start to try and greet each day a bit like this: just let the day be, and, see it for what it is, rather than what I want it to be.

I liked sharing what I did last week, and some of my readers shared back what they’d done too. Here’s what I haven’t done today. In essence, what I said I’d do, but didn’t:

• Buy compost and plant bulbs

• Go litter picking on the street

• Cook

• Call my daughter

• Clear space in my bedroom for the baby’s moses basket, and baby clothes

Thankfully, none of the above is urgent. Soon, as the sky grows dark, I will light candles in the kitchen. I did this yesterday. I sat at the table and watched my 13-year-old and his five friends get ready to go trick-or-treating. I listened to my elder son playing the piano through the wall. Later on, I admired his Halloween party costume. (He was going as Ennis Del Mar from Brokeback Mountain – probably because he owns jeans, and a cowboy hat, a western shirt, and a sand-coloured chore-jacket.) It seems that now you can dress up as absolutely anything.  

Something about just sitting and watching my children move about their evening felt good. It was like walking out into the garden and doing nothing. No deadheading, no weeding, no planting. Just looking around. How often do we give ourselves time to simply observe? 

To finish I’d like to say hello to all my new subscribers. I’m guessing that many of you will have found your way here via Clover Stroud’s Substack, because she mentioned my post last week in one of her videos. Although I feel a bit under pressure to write only stimulating stuff from now on, I know that won’t always be possible.

The late artist Phyllida Barlow commented that for many years, when her children were young, she made her sculptures for an audience of one. And that was herself. I loved that she didn’t focus on who was watching, but rather on her work, because that was what mattered to her most. I’m sure she appreciated her audience as they grew: she ended up becoming a Dame for her services to the arts. That must have taken a lot of determination, a lot of work, and probably not very much rest or play. 

I’d love to know what you have you been doing (or not doing) over the past few days? I’m so glad you’re here, and if you’ve liked reading, please give this a ❤️.