Alice

Dear Blog,

I only bought one book from the entire writers festival and that was Alice Pung's "Unpolished Gem".  I bought the book because she stood out for me. I didn't realised how much I related to Alice till I heard her speak. She was humble and gentle and came from a world that I understood. In her session "Culture, Class and Conflict" I finally connected with one of the authors in a way I never had before. I am an Indian Australian and my life here was very different from the Australian friends I have, from the simple things to taking my shoes off in the house to the more complicated situations where I had to explain to my parents in my teenage years that it is ok for me to go out at night, that boys were not going to attack me from every corner and that my best friend Patrick, despite being a boy did not want to have sex with me and defile my body. Alice explores this culture of being Australian as it says so on your passport and by your accent yet also looking different, having a rich overseas cultural background and being from a foreign world. She explores the topic of class which I think many Australians think of as a dirty word. Many Australians believe that we live in a classless society but I know thats not true. As soon as I learnt what class was I soon figured out that I was in the middle class. My parents both had relatively good jobs but there was nothing about us that was exceedingly wealthy and that after my parents divorce my mum struggled financially.

Alice had a few good pointers about this, something that I could connect to. She said that you are not your job and you are not your status. At the moment I am unemployed, this doesn't mean I am lowly junkie rather just looking for a new job, something invigorating.

After her session I went to go get my book signed by her and for the first time had a question for an author. I thought "Rasphal, you have finally been totally and utterly inspired by someone. Say something, anything to them and then take away their words and keep it with you." I walked up to her my nerves reeking through my body. As I spoke I felt myself settle, she looked so nice. Her smile was warm and rose gently on her face. I can't remember the niceties I stuttered out but then I gazed at her and said "I want to write a memoir and I was wondering if there was any advice you had for me?"
"You're interested in memoir?"
"Yes,"
"Well then the advice I have for you is that it's not necessary to start at the beginning, write where you feel the story is. You can start at the end if you want and figure out the beginning later."
"Yeah, I've actually had trouble with that, I get stuck in the middle,"I said
"Yeah, just write down a whole bunch of stories and put them together later." She said.

Since getting back to Melbourne I have taken Alice's words with me and started on my bits and pieces memoir, writing when I can and what I can. Skipping the memories that didn't mean much and drawing on the ones that changed me, that made me who I am.