Practically Perfect

And in amongst all this is Mary Poppins. I loved Mary Poppins, both in book form and on film. The smash hit 1964 film is the first experience most have of Poppins, as it was mine. And I loved it. Between the ages of eight and ten, when asked what I would like to do for my birthday, I would request two things: I wanted macaroni cheese for tea and afterwards I wanted to watch Mary Poppins. My mum would say, ‘Are you sure that’s all you want to do?’ and I would nod enthusiastically. I was quite sure. This happened for three consecutive birthdays and I was very happy about it. (Then I discovered Dirty Dancing which, as you may know because I’ve hardly kept it a secret, rather took over from that point on.)

Part of the joy of watching Mary Poppins as a child is the thrill of her unshakeable confidence. She is fully in control at all times, even as chaos threatens and, what’s more, she’s cocky with it. This is one of my most striking memories – her attitude. She looks so prim and proper, but underneath it all she is anarchy made flesh. She tears up the rule book with a butter wouldn’t melt expression. She’s both safe and dangerous at the same time.

You can ask people, and I have, whether they think Mary Poppins is a story about a nanny or a witch. Most, if you don’t give them too long to think, will almost immediately say ‘nanny’, then pause, furrow their brow a little and follow up with, ‘But hold on …’ Because this is the central mystery: who is Mary Poppins? Where did she come from? And then, where does she go? Not a question the film even attempts to answer and it would probably get a sharp look from Poppins herself for immense impertinence if it did. Instead, she floats into the Banks family’s life and into ours holding an open umbrella as she breaks through the line of clouds, feet turned out, magnificent but totally unexplained. In fact, as she says to her own boss by way of reprimand, ‘I never explain anything.’

I do wonder whether, once we’ve reached adulthood, we sometimes forget we still need good role models. It felt so natural as a child to have people both real and fictional to look up to and take inspiration from. Maybe I need someone like that now. I can’t do it all on my own. There are some good ones around – following the example of Michelle Obama isn’t going to do you any harm. But she’s a bit too polite to really drag me back to my best self. You know what I mean – she’s a bit too respectful and encouraging. And busy. I feel I could tell Michelle Obama anything, for sure, but then she’d just pat me on the arm and say, ‘I think you know what you need to do’ and be whisked away to her next appointment. Or perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow might provide some guidance, though I am still one jade egg down on a full set and I daren’t keep looking …

One of the greatest compliments of my life came from my husband only a couple of years ago. He had been to the supermarket and taken our young son with him for the ride, meaning that, for an hour or so, I was alone. It had been a particularly busy time for both of us and, to be perfectly frank, some basic standards had slipped. So I took the opportunity to fly around the house, tidying up. I opened windows to let fresh air in. I wiped the surfaces. I even did a bit of light dusting. It wasn’t a huge effort on my part, or terribly thorough, but it made me feel better and it made enough of a superficial difference for my husband to exclaim, upon walking in with two heavy shopping bags, ‘Oh, it’s like Mary Poppins has been!’

Well, I glowed, I’m not going to lie. Two little Poppins-esque pink of spots of pleasure appeared on my cheeks. I spent the rest of the day floating around feeling like a paragon of virtue. I was in control of my home, my life and myself – if not my son, who was already busy undoing my good work by cutting up an old magazine and pouring glitter all over it. But the point is, I felt good. I felt the way I used to as a kid when I tidied my bedroom and sat down to survey the order before me. I felt calm. I felt happy. Of course, disorder would return, but for this moment at least, all was well. I really felt like Mary Poppins.

Now, here in 2020, I find myself at a bit of a crossroads and I do think I need some help to recapture this feeling. Fast-forward 30 years from my 10-year-old self sitting smugly in my newly immaculate bedroom (always a short-lived state …) and I have to admit, as I look about me now, things have again gone a little … awry. My underwear drawer is a mess of tangled old bikini tops I will never wear again, pre-pregnancy knickers and single socks. And I still sometimes push dirty laundry into a pile in the corner of the room, carefully laying a blanket over it so I can pretend it’s not there. I have taken to cutting my own hair because I’m too lazy to go to the hairdressers. It looks fine from the front but I have occasionally caught sight of the back of my head in a lift mirror and immediately put my hood up. It’s not that there is some serious deep-seated problem or trauma that requires professional help, and I am thankful for that to be sure. It’s more just a sort of general slackening. I need tightening up a little. I need a lifestyle mechanic.

A couple of years ago, for example, I turned up to film a TV show with my dog, because we were making a show about walking. I made so little effort with my on-screen appearance that my dog ended up looking better than me. I didn’t even brush my hair. When I saw the programme, I winced at any shot of me from behind because I was mass of un-ironed shirt and haystack split-ends. I hadn’t brought any make-up with me and, given that I was going to be out in the sun all day, you’d think I would have brought some sun-cream, but no. You can clearly see that I am lobster-pink and sore by the last scene – I yelped when I saw it. I was a disgrace. I was embarrassed. I mean, it was also hilarious and god knows I’ve looked worse on TV many times, but the point is that was by design. This was by negligence.

And it’s not just on a professional level, it’s self-care too. I still eat too much rubbish; a McDonald’s cheeseburger is not a ‘snack’, I try to tell myself, tiny though it undoubtedly is. Despite reading an article at least every 48 hours on the benefits of avocado, chilli, turmeric, live yoghurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, whole grains, miso and charcoal smoothies, I will still eat a croissant at any time of day if it is available to me. I like a Pot Noodle for lunch more often than is dignified. Crisps are a particular weakness. I drink every day apart from when I have my annual bout of norovirus (which I now consider a sort of de facto detox, as I lack the discipline to undertake one of my own free will). ‘Enough is as good as a feast,’ says Mary Poppins brightly to the Banks children. Can it ever be so?

Next on this list of my current flaws and weaknesses (good to have a good clear-out of one’s character every now again, as well as your bedroom, I think): I don’t open my post in a timely fashion because, like a student, I am still scared of it. I look at my finances sideways because I know I won’t like what I see. Banks terrify me. And yet, though it is all unopened, I hoard post because I am too scared to throw it away – why? I’m not entirely sure, but it may stem from the time when I was twenty and I was threatened with legal action over an outstanding phone bill of £13.23, simply because I didn’t want to look.

My final admission is that I can’t pretend to be an exemplary parent. Not enough guided play, too much plastic-based crap that comes with children’s magazines only to be used once then broken or trodden on and pushed under the sofa. Where are the plain wooden blocks with which to build an imagination? Where are the informative books with subtle watercolour illustrations of woodland scenes? Where did I put my phone again? NO! Get off the phone, this is not how it should be … I want to be better than this. I’d intended to be better than this.

I think I need to revisit some of my ambitions to be a more organised and effective sort of person. I need to pull myself together. My life has gone from Mary Poppins to Eddie Monsoon. There’s much to be thankful for, but reader, I do not feel I am living my ‘best life’ at all. And not because of any massive external problem, but more … more … because I can’t be bothered. That looks awful written down but I think it’s true. I’m not living my best life because I’ve become too lazy. I need a kick up the bum, a stern look, a firm word. Firm, but kind, perhaps …

I can see that, at the age of 41, it is time to put some new habits in place. I sometimes feel that I made it this far on coffee, crisps, alcohol and sheer bloody-mindedness. But these days a hangover lasts three days and comes with a side order of existential despair. I find I can easily fall asleep almost anywhere at around 4.30pm every day. I have started making a noise when I kneel down and then another, slightly louder noise when I get up again. If I don’t change something, it’s not going to get better on its own.

I want to re-establish my boundaries, feel more in control and less like I am firefighting all the time. I want to remind myself to say no to things occasionally and to make time for holidays, for fun. I want to employ the Poppins Doctrine to make my life better, calmer and more productive.

I used to be terribly resourceful. I love DIY, for example, and I feel confident I could make basic furniture if required. In fact, one of the few things I learned from Guides before I was politely ejected was how to lash sticks together to make things. Never mind that the first thing we were made to construct when arriving in a field for Guide Camp was a washing-up stand, as if this was a basic tool for survival, the principles remain the same. It didn’t seem strictly fair – it was obvious to anyone with a sense of smell that the scent of smoke rising from the nearby Scout Camp meant the boys were already setting fire to things. Nevertheless, these were valuable lessons. And I learned them. Well, some of them.

Brownie Camp was mainly dominated by chores. We would arrive in some remote hut and were divided into four groups before we had even got off the coach. It was a weekend of chores on rotation – cooking, washing up, tidying the hut, clearing up the garden – and almost nothing else save the occasional game of rounders. How I longed for that elusive ‘element of fun’. Sugar was strictly rationed, of course.

I’m not entirely ungrateful. For example, because of Brownies, I was able to sew a button onto Les Dennis’s shorts during a reality TV show we did together. I was the only member of the group who knew how to do it. Someone even called me Mary Poppins. Can you imagine how hard it was not too look tearful with pride? I felt some of my feminist credentials, such as they are, slipping slightly – is it OK to feel proud of sewing on a man’s button and still maintain the required level of outrage at historic inequality over domestic chores? The comedian and writer Deborah Frances-White’s smash-hit podcast ‘The Guilty Feminist’ requires guests to say, ‘I am a feminist, but …’ and then give an example of something that undermines their claim. Well, I’ve got mine now: ‘I’m a feminist, but I was secretly bursting with pride when I sewed a button on Les Dennis’s shorts.’

It’s not just my bad habits I’ve realised I want to address. I’d also like to reconnect with some of my old sense of power, before it got battered, but the task feels daunting. I think there are plenty of us feeling a bit tired and rundown generally. It’s been a tough few years, for me anyway. Whatever your political views, there is no doubt that the waters are choppy. Nothing feels certain. Things that would have sounded crazy at the start of the decade are just rolling by now. ‘Police Arrest Man for Buying Easter Eggs’ was a headline I saw this morning, in response to the lockdown measures imposed by the UK government during the Covid-19 crisis. I barely batted an eyelid. I feel a pervasive sense of general exhaustion and powerlessness, and I’m fairly sure it’s not just me.

For women in particular, it’s been a bruising time. The #MeToo movement has achieved so much since it was started in 2006 by Tarana Burke, but at times the seemingly constant revelations of sexual harassment and systematic abuses of power have felt immensely draining.

So many have said that from 2016 onwards, they feel the world has thrown blow after blow, and we are all punch-drunk, cowering a little and waiting for the next one to land. Reports of anxiety in people of all age groups are through the roof. Financial insecurity is a growing problem with many working several jobs on zero hours contracts just to get by, and thousands are taking on debt to cover the gaps. I am not immune to any of this – my industry is as insecure as anything and I have had some bad years in my career of twenty years. I know how tired it makes you. But there must be a way to throw some of it off and travel a little lighter.

Sometimes it’s good to withdraw for a short while, and find some quiet, to gather the energy for a new push. This time of staying at home, isolating and reflecting, even if it is enforced, feels like a good moment to have a clear-out, and I have seen so many tweets and articles saying the same. Here is a moment to take stock and get rid of anything that doesn’t feel helpful. Perhaps we can emerge better. Sometimes life hands us a time-out, not always under happy circumstances of course, but if we try it can be possible to use these periods to reflect and re-evaluate what matters, how we want to live in a big sense and also how satisfied we are by the way we handle our experience of the every day.

Even if I can’t reduce my actual furniture down to whatever can fit in a carpetbag, I can certainly have a look at slimming down and off-loading some mental and emotional baggage. The world has stopped for a moment and instead of fighting it or becoming depressed and even more slob-like, instead of giving in to the temptation of simply changing from last night’s pyjamas into tonight’s pyjamas at around 9pm each day, I’d like to get a bit Mary Poppins on it all and take the opportunity to do some sorting out, to finally put some new, better habits in place, rather than allowing things to slide completely out of control. I’d like to borrow some of the Poppins fortitude and her stoic, practical approach to life’s problems. I think she may be the heroine, the role model I need right now. It doesn’t have to be hard. Just follow her example. As she would say herself, ‘Why complicate things that are really quite simple?’

I want that invincible feeling back that I used to get as a child right after I watched Mary Poppins. I want to feel I can tackle these issues that prevent me from moving through life in a happier and more streamlined way. Because I have a pile of post to open, some dirty laundry to sort out, I’m still in my pyjamas and I can’t face another moment of playing Paw Patrol with my youngest child. So I am going to watch the film again. I am going to sit down on this Tuesday afternoon and watch it – it seems the best way to begin. Perhaps I should be working on my novel or sitting on the exercise bike I bought six months ago and have ignored ever since (it still only has one pedal as I gave up assembling it) or making a batch of fig-based vegan energy balls, but I can feel Mary Poppins calling to me. Best not to ignore her.

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