Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Anxiety

Finding your pandemic flow

by Leave a Comment

Flow
Flow – or being in the Zone

I keep hearing how life is looking up. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Freedom is on the way. So why do I feel more burdened than ever. Why can I complete no project? Why would I rather lie in bed scrolling through the news and social media than settle to something constructive.

Mr Fanning has used lockdown to learn how to plaster walls, move electrical sockets, and plumb in a sink. I’ve organised my spice cupboard.

Even when furlough landed in my lap, giving me twelve unadulterated weeks to write, I spent the days chatting online about how I should be writing. It was only when furlough ended that ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ saw progress.

Pandemic procrastination

At first, I blamed my Olympian level procrastination, but everyone I talk to says much the same. We’re in a collective state of bleurgh. We’re not burnt out or depressed. The notion that sits on my shoulder each day is one of “what’s the point in doing this today? Tomorrow won’t be any different.” And it’s not that I lack hope. I know this will also pass. It’s just much as the government tells us we’re ‘winning the fight’ I lack direction.

The cautious habits of last year – masks at dawn, rinsing innocent groceries, washing my hands to the tune of Deutschland über alles after opening the post – have fallen by the way. I hardly get to leave my house and mix with people these days, unless they’re also walking a dog. I try to strike up conversations with delivery men. I’m even toying with being nice to my hateful new neighbours whose sole contribution to the street seems to be six billion solar bulbs trailed through viciously pruned trees and across the once green lawns now home to grey slate.

I figure I’m sitting somewhere in between being positive about the future – my book comes out in just over a month and I’m halfway through writing another. Comedy clubs will open again and I’ve written so much new material, I could easily fill an hour (don’t worry, I won’t). I’m signing off on chapters of my fabulous new audiobook and translations of ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ ready for a summer of banging on about the book to anyone who will listen.

Moving on

I have no reason to feel down. Soon we should sell our Brighton flat and the inherited house in the Midlands and move to somewhere with no neighbours and a large abandoned garden. I might even get to slide into reduced work hours when free of a crippling mortgage, property management fees, and two stinging council tax bills.

And yet, I know my mental health isn’t great today. I’m not about to risk a drink, don’t worry. I’ve agreed that door is firmly shut. But the lack of motivation worries me. I’m no longer able to find delight when things go well or be bothered when they don’t.

I can’t be alone. This sense of being unable to produce anything of value or move on with things within my reach. Others must have this too.

Flow

I recently learned about ‘flow’. Also known as ‘being in the zone’ – a state of being where we become so absorbed that time flies by, and we forget we’re not at our best. It’s been around since the mid-seventies.

The only way to achieve ‘flow’ is to grant yourself the time and space and find that something to occupy your every available thought.

It doesn’t need to be building an extension or hanging more solar lights around a garden that can be seen from outer space. It can be as simple as an hour listening to an album you haven’t plays in five years or watching a show on YouTube, or catching up on the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest (my parties are legendary).

Taking time from our days (and guarding it) lets flow train your mind to let go of the fog. When someone interrupts (be they husband or dog), bat them away. Turn off email, turn off your phone, lock a door, turn off lights if need be. Drive to Barnard Castle for an eye test. Alone.

How are you coping with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ days?

What’s your favourite flow?

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning

Covid lockdown madness – recording history

by Leave a Comment

We're COVID-Safe

It’s lockdown, but we’ve had someone in. He came to remove two radiators and deal with the bizarre (and clearly lethal) electrics in my mum’s old house. The very idea of hosting a stranger caused much excitement.

The word ‘hosting’ suggests something far more involved than it actually was. So read on.

In readiness, we stocked up on extra strong masks. Not the usual namby-pamby blue ones. The Fannings went for five-layer filtering half masks. Mr Fanning invested in three cans of spray antiseptic. Two hours before he was due to arrive, we threw wide each window. And let’s not forget it’s February. In the Midlands. And positioned bottles of hand sanitiser randomly throughout the house. We opened each possible cupboard he might need to touch and left interior doors ajar. The dog was bribed with a bone and confined to a bedroom, and I was instructed to stay in my office and not emerge until the coast was declared clear – through a complex system of knocks and code words. (I may have made the last bit up).

Gone too soon

He was here all of ten minutes, wore a mask and gloves, and refused any suggestion of tea. Not that one was on offer. Mr Fanning offered this as a test, to test how lapse he might be with staying Covid-safe. Had he said yes, we would have felt obliged to raze the building to the ground upon his departure.

I’m telling you this because in the (hopefully) near future, I’ll look back on this time and tell myself lockdown wasn’t so bad. I just want to be sure I remember it was.

Mad.

In other news, I just finished edits on ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ – not long now until I start offering free copies in a special mailing list contest. Join if you want in.

Alcohol and me: An uneasy mix

by Leave a Comment

Alcohol and me by Mo Fanning

Ten years ago, I woke in a fog, knowing that what happened the evening before was bad. I’d stumbled and cracked a rib. Broken glass littered the kitchen floor. At some point, the police came. None of this stopped me drinking again that night.

It took another year of making a total arse of myself before I grew tired of drink. I’ve enjoyed a few pints since, but the urge to lose myself at the bottom of a bottle has gone.

Do I miss being able to drink? Yes. To some extent. I miss having an easy way to turn off my brain. Some nights, I lie awake for hours, going over the tiniest detail of some conversation that (to others) likely meant little. I replay each exchange and try to understand why I failed to be a better version of me.

Hangovers

Do I miss the hangovers? Yes. I loved to eat junk food and guzzle Orange Fanta without remorse.

Do I miss opening my eyes and trying to remember what happened before I tuned out? No. I really don’t.

I became one of those drunks who lost track after one too many. I’d still talk and walk, but wake the next day with no memory of what I’d said or done. Writing about such madness now, it sounds a million years ago.

It’s tough not drinking in a society where alcohol rules. Especially during lockdown. Every Friday Zoom meeting ends with someone saying how much they can’t wait to pour a gin and switch off. I no longer allow myself that luxury. I can’t pour myself one of anything, and so make do with none.

As I wrote Rebuilding Alexandra Small, I looked back over my career as a problem drinker and tried to work out what I wanted to say about why. The answer seemed easy. A perfect life. And thanks to the fog of alcohol, I felt sure I had one. It’s only now I’m sober that I find otherwise.

Help with alcohol

If you think you have a serious drinking problem and are experiencing any of the associated symptoms of alcohol dependence, you should consult your doctor or another medical professional about it as soon as possible.

There are also a number of national alcohol support services that you can go to for advice.

Grief: A visit to the museum

by Leave a Comment

My Mother

My mother died in February. At the time, the virus that now traps us in our homes was little more than a rumble. Second or third story on the news, rendered insignificant by reports of heavy rain or Boris Johnson’s latest infidelity. We were lucky in many ways. We had the funeral she planned, she left us surrounded by the people she loved. For a week or two, I lingered and tried to turn her silent house back into a home, finally admitting defeat and driving back to Brighton.

Then came lock-down.

Grief cannot be neatly portioned into two weeks or one month. It comes and goes.

Mine was placed on hold.

This weekend, I’ll return to the Midlands – with written police permission – to turn her museum into something new. I’ll buy three rolls of bin bags and fill them with precious photographs, ornaments, perfumes, Tupperware boxes, handbags and headscarves.

In the days and weeks that carried us through to her passing away, my temper often frayed. I grew frustrated and angry not just at her illness, but at those around me trying to help. If a cup found its way into the wrong cupboard or someone dared vacuum a rug, I lashed out. Listening for any unexpected sounds, I lay awake, knowing  that calling 999 was no longer an option. All my go-to numbers were mobile phones, people trained to deal with death.

I’m unsure how seeing her home again will change me. It would be easy to settle back to the grieving process.

I know what she’d rather happened, and plan to do everything in my power to bring life back to a too-long empty house.

Marie CurieGetting help

Grief is a natural response to losing someone you care about. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve. Everyone’s experiences of grief are individual. The important thing is to do what feels right for you. I would have struggled without the support of Marie Curie nurses. In the memory of my mother, we asked that there be no flowers at her funeral, rather donation to the organisation.

Read: Grieving in your own way

 

How’s your lockdown going?

by 1 Comment

Lockdown

How’s your lockdown going?

I’m borderline depressed. So I don’t plan on ending my lockdown life … or doing anything with it.

I haven’t learned another language or finished work on my next book.

Each day, the government issues press briefings; shit sandwiches where the bread is also made of shit.

If you go on Twitter and post something innocent like “Baking banana bread is brilliant”, within one minute a total stranger hits back with “My sister is a coeliac and this is a harmful view”, while someone else adds, “Your silence about croissants is telling”

Facebook needs a “we all know you’re not really this happy, Karen” button. Most newspaper websites feature user comments that read like Mein Kampf on shuffle.

I keep reading how the hardest part of lockdown is missing someone you saw every day. As far as I’m concerned, not having to sit opposite Pam with halitosis is more a blessing than a curse.

To keep things normal while working from home, I leave passive-aggressive notes when mugs don’t make it into the dishwasher. I’ve put all our food into sweaty plastic tubs and written my name on the outside.

I’ve never been one for sunbathing. While everyone else cultivates new moles to worry over, I’m happier indoors. My latest hobbies involve watching porn and making up dialogue, and reading reviews for places I can never go eat.

But, all of this should be over in time for Brexit, when we get to spend the next 20 years eating fox meat in an abandoned Debenhams on the outskirts of Inverness.