Headscarves, notebooks, and being A Mental.

'You're a mental,' the Romanian
receptionist at work told me.

'I'm A mental?' I replied.

'Yes. You're a mental.'

She had a fair point. Mental as a noun.
I was stood outside of the building wearing over-sized sunglasses and
a bright yellow headscarf printed with horses, rolled and bowed so
that it tied just off-centre at the top of my head. It was a style
not dissimilar to a Botswanan lady detective.

I'd told her my decision to wear such
attire- coupled with a long-sleeved, floor-length black dress that
arguably looked like it was stolen from a Deacon or similar- was
based solely around the fact that I'd decided For
Serious that I wanted to pursue my PhD. In the university of my
imagination, PhD students wear headscarves.

'You're a mental.'

That was three weeks ago. Since then,
change has been underfoot. I knew it was coming. I saw friends from
adventures past recently, and I said the exact same thing. I know
that the wind beneath my sails is shifting, but I don't know yet
quite how. Is that a wanky thing to say? No,
I was told. It was A Laura Thing to say.

It's on my CV that
I am as happy counting the stars in the sky and meditating to
birdsong as I am doing absinthe with strangers called Marta and
making misguided decisions about boys. I just tend to do the hippie
shit in private.

The hippy inside is
beating the drum of my heart to get a voice of her own.

It started with an external shift. I've
had no shame in tweeting my wardrobe daily, from men's leather
waistcoats and fuchsia lipstick to yellow trousers worn with
turquoise tee shirts. Necklaces with elephants the size of my palm
have featured heavily, as have black army boots worn with everything,
no matter how fancy. And we can play the game where we argue that
fashion doesn't matter but you'd lose, because sometimes having
bright red lips makes me write better and there's no disputing the
facts.

I'll admit that last week my s7
year-old student asked me if I had come as a clown.

I think that for a minute there, I
thought I had to be a Proper Teacher with a Proper Job and wear suit
jackets and not say vagina so much. And THAT is what has made Rome
shit. It isn't Rome's fault. IT WAS MINE. CULPA MIA.

There. I said it. Let's move on.

I spent an hour on the phone to my
brother the other night. He told me he was reading a book about how
to think better, and I was all, how to THINK better? And
he was like, Yeah. I'm just trying to learn stuff. I want
to be a better person. And that
confused me for a minute, like, there's a book on that? And then I
understood that fulfilling your potential is all about pursuing what
interests you for the simple fact that it interests you. Not for a
job. Not for a boy. Just because. Like Steve Jobs said, my
brother added.

Well.
That was it. I was Googling and Amazon-ing and Internet-ing in a
frenzy comparable only to the time I met Alexander McCall Smith and
couldn't speak beyond commenting on the cucumber sandwiches. What
am I interested in? I asked
myself, and the obvious answer was writing. But
I have a library on writing. What I wanted was something that would
feed into that, but also be a means to its own end because that was
the whole point of the hippy sodding exercise.

I ordered three
books: one on modern feminism, one on vegetarianism, and one on
creativity. When that package arrives at work I really will feel like
the liberal lesbian my father frequently accuses me of being.

DAD. It doesn't
stop there.

I also
brought a notebook, and another fancy pen, and on the front page on
the notebook I wrote THE LITTLE BOOK OF CREATIVE and
then underneath wrote my name because every notebook should have your
name on the first page. It means, THIS IS FOR ME. It marks the
territory of the pages as your own.

The notebook was
inspired by a blogpost that I found. This blog changed my life.

Austin Kleon writes
that to be an artist we have to filter our influences. I follow this
in my friendship groups religiously in terms of positivity: the only
people I keep close are 'yes' people, who do things and follow their
dreams and make stuff happen.

Kleon says to be
good artists we have to do the same with a creative influences: read,
read, read and from that reading decide what we want to 'keep' and
what we want to disregard. The keeping stuff needs a notebook and
will help us be better at life if we write it all down to remind us.

So. Me and my
ridiculous list habit and crazy headscarves and new books now have a
Little Book of Creative where I keep all my ideas and quotations that
I come across and keep track of my 'Yes, and...' bucket list because
POTENTIAL!

AND IT GOES ON.
I've started taking a copy of the blog post into adult English
lessons with me, and forcing students to be excited about it. And
once these Italian businessmen and housewives and teenagers see past
the over-excited hand-gestures and the high-fives we read it together
and everybody says the same thing. I'M GOING TO BUY A CREATIVE
NOTEBOOK ON THE WAY HOME.

I'm a mental. And
it's contagious.