An Angel at My Table

An Angel at My Table is an autobiography by New Zealand author Janet Frame and a film by Jane Champion released in 1990. The latter had a big effect on me. Maybe because of the scene where because of the anguish of her mental illness she’d submitted to have a lobotomy—which was stayed by news of a major literary prize for a collection of her short stories. For years Ms. Frame suffered from the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia. On the scale of personalities she was extremely shy and perhaps on the autism spectrum. She certainly had had a rough go if it growing up, losing two beloved sisters in two separate drowning accidents, as well as other disjointed and bitter family interactions.

In the end, surviving all this, she turned into a prolific literary writer and was rumored to be on a list for the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature.

What has stayed with me, at the end of the film, Frame emerges from a little trailer parked it would appear in someone’s driveway, perhaps a sibling’s or friend’s property, and looking upward at the nighttime sky begins a kind of somnolent dance.

This morning awaking in my Tiny House I recalled that scene. How it resonated with me, in my soul I longed for such a place to write, close to family, friends, but also my own place apart. I have my desire, such a place. I began to write at my desk in the in semi-darkness, as the sun slowly broke through the pre-dawn fog. I’m close enough to take a break and run inside my daughter’s house for a quick conversation, human contact, touch base with familial reality, then back to the world inside my head.

Here’s to 2023 and the world of words, the unraveling of stories, and, hopefully, breakthroughs in publishing—saved from the lobotomy, the rejection that’s part of the everyday life of a writer.