You know how it is when a tricky job is going well because you’re doing things the way they should be done, when you’re working in rhythm and feel a reassuring confidence that everything’s unraveling naturally and all will be right in the end. That’s about it: I knew what I was doing—it’s really what being professional means.
I wish I’d written that opening paragraph, but I stole it from J.L. Carr’s 1980 short poetic novel, A Month in the Country. Republished 20 years later by the New York Review of Books, it’s a story about a World War I veteran who arrives in a remote Yorkshire village to restore a recently discovered medieval mural in the local church. I came across it thanks to the Irish writer Rónán Hession. His Twitter feed, including book recommendations, is a goldmine, and he recommended this one in September. I’ve since also read another of his recommendations.
J.L. Carr died relatively unknown. Like some of the best writers he only had one great book in him. But this book has brought me a lot of joy this week and I wanted to share it with you. I like books that can make a lay reader think hard about philosophy, for example. Not “philosophy books.” But books which happen to make you think. They lead you in by the story, and before you know it, you’re thinking about other stuff. The plot is a road to deeper things.
For me, like the main character in the book, work is a meditative process that brings me joy. My best work happens alone in a quiet room with a tree out of the window and sometimes a bit of music playing. Years and years of bad writing and bad work have brought me to the point where I can write less bad words than most people. Where I can focus on the job in hand. When a tricky job is going well, that’s how I feel. Everything is unraveling naturally and all will be right in the end. I know what I’m doing. It’s what being professional means.
I must make space to do my work well. Distractions don’t help. I’ve learned over the last few years that it’s a good idea to turn down work if the client doesn’t value what I do. That can be hard, but it’s better to spend the hours not working taking care of myself than to fill them with a bad job. Then I’m readier to take on the good jobs. It’s counterintuitive at first.
It’s an honor to have the capacity to do what I do for a living and I’m grateful for it. Eventually I expect my brain to go to mush and one of the real tragedies when that happens will be the inability to retain what I’ve read. To hold words in one’s mind is a fleeting ability. To tell a story with words is at the limits of anyone’s creative ability and to do it well is beyond most of us.
My godmother’s sister is in a care home. They recently hired a professional actor to go in and read stories to the old people inside. He’s the most popular visitor. I can imagine why. He is a fleeting light pushing out people’s darkness.
That’s the point of working, for me. It’s life. How about you?
