The power of familiarity
On my 39th birthday this year my cousin gave me a pillowcase covered in illustrations from Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, my favourite book of Australian fairytales. I immediately knew it would not remain a pillowcase: I needed to wear it. I needed to embody my memories of the book I loved so dearly as a child, that Snugglepot and Cuddlepie’s magical Australian bushland home became as familiar to me as the Australian landscapes I grew up in. I gave the pillowcase to a fashion designer and asked her to turn it into a blouse for me (pictured). Every time I wear it I am encouraged by the power I learned as a girl that stories contain: they are escape, safety, belonging and possibility. They give me courage and hope. They give me instructions for where to find magic in the world, and how to make my own.
After my mother taught me to read when I was three years old, I knew I wanted to be a writer. Thirty-one years later, in 2014, my dream and calling for my life was still unwritten. One of the most powerful ways I found to help me face fear and self-doubt, to write my first novel, was not a new trick, or software package, or trend: it was circling back to myself at the age when I first fell in love with stories. It was immersing myself in the empowering familiarity of that joy and wonder. I’ve been struck by this idea ever since: how would our experience of being alive change if we took our capacity for joy and wonder as seriously as getting good sleep, eating well, and getting regular exercise?
Pop culture surrounds us with examples of how powerful the enduring familiarity in stories can be: ask any thirty-year-old Harry Potter reader what Hogwarts means to them, or watch a Stranger Things fan well up at the mention of ‘friends don’t lie’. The hunger for nostalgic (read: familiar) stories runs deep. In our digital era of burn out, disconnection and loneliness, reconnecting with stories that awaken our sense of wonder, and the deeply comforting familiarity of it, brings us home to ourselves. We are reminded of who we are — all that we love, believe in, yearn and hope for — underneath the masks of fear, exhaustion, apathy and self-doubt.
This familiarity continues to nourish me. It reminds me how to notice delight and joy in their most subtle forms. It reminds me where to go when I am despairing, to refill my sense of wonder. I consider this reminder to marvel essential. It is where I draw from to show up and do the work of being a mindful adult and artist who tries for better. It is harnessing the ability to recognise the abundant wonders that are, despite everything, still around us in our world every day.
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Pillowcase transformed into a blouse by the wondrous talents of Claire Hart www.molliebrown.co.uk
Earrings handmade by Jessica Urid www.esty.com.ukaome
