0:00

This is the BBC. This

0:03

podcast is supported by advertising

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outside the UK.

0:07

Hello, welcome to the podcast of Shortcuts.

0:10

I'm Josie Long and today's episode

0:12

is about coming back to yourself,

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about going right back to the beginnings,

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understanding your past selves. And in doing

0:20

so, I read my diary from when I was 13 and,

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oh, wow, being 13,

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that's one version of yourself.

0:31

This is Shortcuts. Brief

0:34

encounters, true stories,

0:37

radio adventures and found

0:39

sound. Volume

0:42

three, issue four, girls'

0:44

lasagna gets a little bit of cheesecake on

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it. Today... I've always

0:49

had a little diary and a pen. Meeting

0:52

myself coming back.

0:54

Cheeky, chappy, full of

0:57

energy, ready to go playing and

0:59

do something impulsive and bouncing all over

1:01

the place.

1:09

There are some moments in my life where

1:12

I feel like I'm really myself, I'm

1:14

really living, coming back

1:17

to what I most care about. When

1:19

I'm cycling in the rain or jumping

1:22

into a cold pool or holding

1:24

both my children close

1:26

to me. But not

1:28

every instance of coming

1:30

back to yourself feels that edifying.

1:34

And I was talking about diarising

1:36

with a friend of mine who's a comedian who makes

1:38

beautiful shows and he read me some

1:40

of it and it was so beautifully

1:42

wrought. And when

1:44

I got home, I thought, well, I kept a

1:46

diary that same Edinburgh Fringe. Mine

1:49

probably will have details of all the different

1:51

shows I saw and the people that I

1:53

knew and the friendships I had. And

1:55

I found my diary and I had about

1:57

two entries for the entire month and both of them were beautiful.

2:00

of them were like feeling really tired don't

2:02

really want to write much sorry I haven't written for a while

2:05

some of the shows are good most are bad saw

2:07

three shows they were all wonderful just

2:10

this scant hurried apologetic

2:13

thing which I feel like would be the title

2:15

of my memoir. Some

2:20

of us keep diaries and most of us

2:22

use social media platforms in an attempt

2:25

to curate a version of ourselves that we feel

2:27

proud of but in today's

2:30

first edition artists and

2:32

audio producer Jess Shane,

2:34

next to somebody whose method of personal

2:36

curation is to put herself on

2:38

the front page of a newspaper. My

2:44

name is Jennifer Mills and I edit

2:46

a newspaper called the Jennifer Mills News which

2:49

is a one-page publication

2:51

that I have been publishing for 22 years every

2:54

Friday. All the news

2:57

is about

2:58

Jennifer Mills written by

3:00

Jennifer Mills with interviews

3:03

and reporting by Jennifer Mills.

3:09

Local woman's new vacuum is

3:11

great. One

3:12

week after dentist woman can't stop licking

3:14

her teeth. I think we've all been

3:17

here. Woman forgets raw fish

3:19

and purse. Woman finds missing

3:21

counting crows t-shirt. Woman's shower

3:23

shelf falls down after months of successful

3:26

suction.

3:26

Woman's stunning revelation leaves

3:28

her stunned.

3:34

And also the poetry corner. Here's

3:37

April Showers by Jennifer

3:39

Mills.

3:41

The rains are coming. The

3:44

lightning it could strikey. I'm

3:46

too nervous to wear

3:47

my brand new pair of Nikes.

3:52

So I finished writing the news

3:55

this morning and

3:56

now I'm

3:58

just gonna send it to my subscribers

4:02

and let you hear the send

4:04

button.

4:08

Pretty quiet button, but

4:10

I did send it off.

4:18

Do you wanna

4:21

open the archive or what

4:23

are you thinking? Yeah, I think

4:25

that's what we're here for. Hold

4:27

on, let me get a sense of the weight.

4:29

Cause this is like 22

4:31

years of moments. Here

4:34

we have volume one. I said

4:36

September 13th, 2002.

4:39

We have breakfast news. I

4:41

talk about burning my bagel, showered

4:44

with horror, a door slammed shut

4:46

while I was showering and I thought it was a ghost. I

4:49

had no idea what I was doing except for I

4:51

was at this new school and I discovered

4:53

that we were allowed to print as much as we wanted

4:55

to. And I was like, well, what can I do with a

4:57

printer? I was like, oh my God, I'll write a newspaper.

5:00

And I think I have like 20 or 30 minutes before

5:03

class and I just did it and then passed

5:05

it out. I think

5:07

things crystallized in issue two. The

5:10

headline is spinning at representative

5:12

will score Jennifer a college degree.

5:15

Yesterday at the college fair,

5:18

fair spelled F-A-I-R-E,

5:20

Jennifer Mills found herself in a rather

5:22

embarrassing, embarrassing spelled with an

5:24

I situation. While talking exuberantly

5:27

at the representative, she accidentally blew a spit

5:29

bubble. I don't know

5:31

what happened, said Mills. I've never done that before.

5:34

The guy at the booth only looked at her

5:36

funny and continued discussing the various

5:38

classes off her. I just hope

5:40

it never happens again. So

5:42

there's that.

5:44

But at some point it just

5:46

stuck. And I knew that

5:49

it was

5:49

so perfect that

5:51

it couldn't change. And I

5:54

started collecting subscribers. Here

5:57

we have the last issue in volume one. I

5:59

was... graduating from high school.

6:02

Girl will miss her school and

6:04

peers greatly.

6:06

It's a very heartfelt article.

6:08

Volume three, issue four,

6:11

girl's lasagna gets a little bit of

6:13

cheesecake on it. Okay,

6:15

volume five. Oh, this is

6:17

exciting. Volume five is

6:19

an extra, extra read all about it special

6:21

edition, girl gets internet. And I

6:23

remember this day,

6:24

I got internet in my first apartment.

6:27

And I think I had been going to the library

6:29

for like a year to get internet. Let's

6:31

see, volume seven, issue one,

6:34

girl proud to be chosen as someone's

6:37

stuff watcher. Like when you're at a coffee

6:39

shop and someone's like, can you watch my computer? Do

6:42

you remember as you were writing

6:44

this over the years, getting better at identifying

6:46

the moments and like looking for them? You

6:49

know, that's such a

6:49

relatable moment, but it's a moment that

6:51

I wouldn't really notice. That's

6:53

interesting. Okay, let me ask

6:55

you this. When was the last time someone

6:58

asked you to watch their stuff? Did

7:02

it give you any pause at all? Like,

7:05

did you feel like a slight good

7:07

feeling or a slight sense of like purpose

7:10

or duty or like wonder like,

7:12

why me?

7:15

What happened to you today? That was false newsworthy

7:18

for you.

7:19

I mean, before I came in here, I went into

7:21

that place downstairs Kiwi. Oh yeah.

7:24

Like if I was gonna write the news, I'd be like woman pretends

7:26

to use change room to use

7:28

air conditioning. So you went into the clothing

7:31

store downstairs so that you could

7:33

like be in the air conditioning because

7:35

you got to my house early. Yeah.

7:38

That's fantastic.

7:39

I would call that a big story.

7:41

That's brilliant.

7:43

Do you have another moment that is like

7:45

less incredible than that? Okay,

7:48

so my bedroom opens onto the street

7:52

and there's always people outside, but I

7:55

don't wanna put on clothes before I make my

7:57

room have lights. So I feel like I'm always

7:59

taking this slight. gamble of like will

8:01

someone see me naked? Hold on so

8:03

you have like almost all of your newspaper here

8:06

and then you would be in the poetry

8:08

section. Is there anything about

8:10

your week that you would write a love letter to?

8:13

I sometimes

8:16

think it's really nice that my best friend and my boyfriend

8:18

like each other. That's amazing I

8:20

think that would be really beautiful.

8:24

Try it. You know sometimes they're not even talking to each

8:26

other I'm just like isn't it nice you know.

8:28

Isn't it nice okay

8:32

give me the full poem. Isn't it

8:34

nice

8:34

by Jeff Shane. Like

8:38

boyfriend and friend in kitchen.

8:41

She eating toast.

8:44

He cleaning stove.

8:47

Isn't it nice that

8:49

the ones I like the most. Yes.

8:52

To them I am both betrothed.

8:54

That's

8:56

great.

9:04

This paper if it was any

9:07

more about me would be horrifying.

9:11

It's my name but it's like a

9:14

placeholder for something

9:17

more general. I

9:19

don't think that my

9:21

life is particularly newsworthy. I think

9:24

our lives

9:25

are. I have

9:27

tried to dial

9:29

in to these like teeny tiny subtle

9:31

moments of like huh or an uh

9:34

or an ah. It's

9:37

stuff that I take pause

9:40

at because I'm like this surely has happened

9:42

to everyone. That

9:44

sounds so lofty

9:45

and I guess it is but I

9:48

think just the nature of doing the same thing like

9:50

over time just because it's a project about

9:53

time inevitably it's going

9:55

to like teach you something.

10:03

Woman realized she hasn't been to book

10:05

club in a full year. Quote, I

10:08

still get the email. Woman frustrated

10:10

with can opener. Woman gets his password

10:13

after many, many years. Tired woman

10:15

doesn't want to wash

10:16

face. Woman stops wearing rings. Quote,

10:19

my fingers feel so free. Woman's

10:21

hair looks pretty in the front,

10:23

horrible in back. Woman moves

10:26

all furniture in apartment, immediately

10:28

moves it back. Woman takes drastic measures

10:30

to fall asleep. Woman gets

10:32

weird sunburn. Woman opens

10:35

window, lets in tons of flies. Woman

10:37

buys too much hummock. Woman leaves one

10:39

star review, feels terrible.

10:42

Woman wears all jean and heat wave.

10:44

Woman remembers tax season, panics on bus. Woman

10:46

not sure if smell is good or bad.

10:51

Woman misses chance to use her Halloween

10:53

tea towel. This is coming up. Can

10:55

I show you the Halloween tea towel? I

10:58

think I used it two days earlier.

11:03

The complete archive of

11:05

the Jennifer Mills News is available

11:07

online at jennifermillsnews.org. And

11:10

if you want to become a subscriber, you can. Just

11:13

email Jennifer at the Gmail account which

11:16

is printed on every issue. Hannah.

11:20

Anna.

11:21

Eve. A man. A

11:23

plant. A canal. Panama.

11:26

I love it when it feels almost as

11:28

if they're saying something deeply profound

11:31

and important. The very rules of their

11:33

existence meaning that you have to

11:35

repeat and reorder the same sounds again

11:37

and again. What

11:40

I didn't fully appreciate is that

11:43

palindromes extend to sequences of symbols

11:46

and sequences of music. You're

11:49

currently listening to J.S. Bach's

11:53

Crab Cannon, an arrangement of two musical lines. The

11:55

first line is a simple, yet powerful,

11:57

and powerful melody. second

12:00

line actually being the first in

12:02

reverse and when they played together

12:04

they formed something conceptually

12:07

similar to a palindrome and

12:09

I love what this kind of thing does to

12:11

my brain.

12:13

But what about audio

12:14

documentaries? In

12:16

our next piece Sarita and Alan

12:18

explore a common theme among

12:20

those who immigrate to new places, the

12:23

yearning to return to the lands

12:25

and the people left behind to

12:27

go back to where one begins. In

12:29

doing so

12:30

they set up to experiment with a novel

12:33

production technique creating the first

12:35

ever completely symmetrical

12:38

audio documentary, a sonic

12:40

journey that ends where it begins. When

12:43

the tape is played in reverse every

12:45

word, note and noise sounds

12:48

exactly the same. Down to

12:50

the millisecond, a true

12:53

sonic palindrome titled

12:56

Drawn Onward.

13:05

I

13:07

grew

13:13

up in Bombay in India. My family and I

13:15

came here from

13:18

Coapa Cholula Puebla

13:20

Mexico. I was born

13:23

and raised in western Germany. I

13:29

came here from Mexico.

13:35

Each

13:41

immigration community

13:42

carries their own histories

13:44

and experiences and there is a small

13:46

house named like my community. Early

13:48

in the morning the bird was singing,

13:51

birds, millions of birds. You

13:56

could hear all the noises from outside.

13:58

gorgeous as always

14:01

the city lights come on smells of

14:03

summer warm summer very

14:07

recent the slow

14:09

light even though it's crazy poetic

14:13

in the monsoons you would hear the wind i

14:16

mean it would mean most of them would whistle

14:19

through the tracks and in

14:26

the years was like a big deal

14:28

for us

14:29

nowadays all the 34

14:32

cousins and grandmothers please

14:37

my

14:42

dad used to say life is fleeting

14:45

one song which i love as a kid and i sing to my son

14:48

why

14:50

do you want to look very

14:52

very like

14:57

this trans-order spirit that

15:01

now hunts the community on both sides

15:09

22 years later i mean i need at

15:12

the same

15:13

time i lived in the house i

15:16

left india in 2000

15:19

in

15:25

the 1990s my

15:27

brother and i were smuggled into

15:30

new york most

15:36

of the diaspora is now there

15:40

i love but it's also odd they

15:45

usually i don't have anything that i

15:47

brought from mexico

15:49

no nothing they did

15:51

have this little picture

15:54

of plowing up the krishna

15:57

with uh

15:59

The gray bag, which is totally worn out.

16:04

It has all my old photographs in it. Oh,

16:06

each one? Yeah.

16:07

Whenever

16:09

I travel to that terminal, it always

16:11

be me. Oh. Soo,

16:14

shim, it's soo, shim. I've

16:16

always had a little diary

16:18

and a pen. And I have an area,

16:20

I do a little... I leave all

16:23

my clothes, my shoes, and

16:26

the phone. I didn't know the language,

16:28

no people. That's

16:33

very little, soo, shim, I was acting. I was so

16:36

afraid. I know, we used to do

16:38

that. It's just like a lot of

16:40

migration stories.

16:43

It should be fun a lot. First,

16:46

it is a small, pretty young man. Oh,

16:50

he came in. I

16:51

was crying, I was so scared.

16:57

It

17:01

was really difficult. It was hard

17:03

hiding. And

17:06

sometimes he just throw you in

17:09

the box or around there.

17:11

At the same time,

17:14

I have known that the language just makes

17:17

me feel soo, shim. The

17:19

moment I became fluent, it was

17:21

like me. I was not

17:23

an Australian.

17:26

I'm not Indian enough

17:28

to be in India anymore. I'm very used to

17:30

it. I'm not

17:32

American enough to be American.

17:35

I love the Asla made an image that's

17:37

not one that... It was all really very

17:39

different. Very sort of. There is nothing

17:41

else

17:41

between food and

17:44

a source. We

17:46

are here for the moment. But

17:48

we don't know when we're going to go back. I'm never

17:50

quite natural

17:52

here.

17:58

I'm

18:00

still making a lot of money. I'm

18:04

under the whole thing for the best. I'm

18:08

just stepping

18:09

out of my way back. I don't know if I can't

18:11

move or... Even if it's going to be for 17 years.

18:15

You're coming back to finding your roots,

18:17

but it's at a higher level now. What is home now? What

18:19

does home mean

18:22

for the new generation? When I truly say home,

18:24

I will say, you're lonely. It

18:31

means where I can see the Arabian Sea out of my window. I'm

18:33

not sure. I'm

18:36

not sure. I'm not sure.

18:39

I'm not sure. I'm

18:42

not sure. I'm

18:44

not sure. I'm not sure.

18:49

Yeah, with the old generation, we think

18:51

home means let's go home. During

18:54

the 10 years, it was very... Even

18:57

if

18:57

it's not here, I remember the sea. It

19:01

is very special. It

19:03

is very important.

19:04

Hello, hello. Come

19:08

back home. Your country is calling you home. Hey,

19:11

Rinald, what's up? They are

19:13

not allowed. They are not.

19:16

I'm not. It's more than home. I'm

19:18

not sure. I'm

19:20

not sure. It describes

19:22

your roots. Oh, you said

19:25

that last word was Revelation. Thank

19:28

you, amen.

19:29

I

19:32

will write again that after I accept him to be with

19:34

you!

19:41

I call him Rinald

19:44

home. My

19:46

dad didn't like the manufactures the libraries.

19:49

So everyone loves him. Where

19:54

do the stories that we carry about ourselves

19:56

come from? And how do they shape

19:58

who we become? In

20:01

order to record this episode, I dug out

20:03

my diary from when I was 13 years old and my

20:07

initial reaction is what I

20:09

would describe as a so deep,

20:12

entire being cringe

20:15

of deathly embarrassment. But

20:18

after that initial wave had washed away,

20:20

what I really started to feel was

20:22

such compassion to this little

20:25

girl. This

20:31

next story features a man exploring

20:34

his relationship to a boy, one

20:36

that he knows very well. This

20:39

is Man to Boy. I'm

20:44

seeing a little

20:47

boy around

20:50

like 12, 13. His

20:54

hair is sort of blondy brown.

20:56

Looks

20:57

like he might need a haircut soon. He's

21:00

got lovely green eyes, cheeky

21:03

chappy,

21:05

full of energy, ready to go

21:07

play and do something impulsive

21:09

and bouncing all over the place.

21:13

He loves football.

21:15

He loves making up stories and

21:17

being around people. He never

21:20

really likes being on his own. He sees

21:24

other friends, parents who seem normal

21:28

and he's questioning why isn't

21:30

his situation the same as theirs.

21:35

Little Jacob is noticing

21:38

a transformation of

21:40

his dad. One

21:43

minute his dad was there, the

21:45

funny, impulsive, creative,

21:49

the guy that everyone loved at the party. From

21:52

that to then this person who's

21:55

lying on the sofa, unable

21:58

to look up. He

22:01

wants his old dad back. He

22:04

wants to know what happened to

22:06

the father he had before.

22:10

Little Jacob was starting to pick pieces

22:13

together. He

22:14

was aware that this wasn't a physical

22:17

illness and that something was wrong

22:20

with his dad's head. And

22:23

this dark cloud is coming

22:25

to our home, which everyone

22:28

is afraid of, but no one's

22:30

willing to mention. And

22:33

there's nothing he can do about it. He

22:37

is powerless to the dark cloud. By

22:41

talking about how he's feeling, bad

22:44

things will happen and

22:47

it will not end well for him or

22:49

his family. It will

22:52

only alienate him more than he is

22:54

already. He

22:57

feels totally alone.

23:27

When my son was born, it

23:29

was a complicated C-section. And

23:32

then because of his breathing issues,

23:34

I didn't see him for another hour

23:37

after then.

23:39

When they showed us him, I remember

23:42

straight away feeling like, this is not

23:44

my son. He doesn't

23:46

look like me. There

23:49

was no connection. And

23:52

that's how it seemed to have started.

23:56

I remember a memory.

24:00

of him being a young

24:02

one-year-old playing around me and

24:05

just lying on the floor, wishing

24:08

for the day away. Every

24:12

morning I'd wake up going, I cannot wait to go

24:14

back to bed. If

24:16

I could just exist in bed, there

24:19

would be some happiness there. I

24:23

felt like I was like play acting to be, oh,

24:25

I'm pretending to be a great dad,

24:28

but actually deep down I

24:30

hated

24:31

those moments. I

24:36

think when you become a parent, you

24:38

look back at your own childhoods

24:41

and how you were parented, and

24:43

I think that can be

24:45

quite triggering. As

24:48

a child, I was desperate for those hugs, but

24:51

now as a parent, I was really

24:53

struggling to actually give those hugs. It

24:56

was like I was marrying my dad in some

24:58

ways, uncontrollably. For

25:03

the first two years of not talking about

25:06

how I was actually feeling, I

25:08

hadn't got any further. I

25:11

was more suicidal, more

25:14

low, so I

25:16

knew something drastic had to change where

25:18

I had to try something

25:20

different.

25:24

What shifted was I

25:26

watched a video about a man talking about feelings of depression

25:29

and suicidal thoughts and attempts.

25:33

Hearing his name's David, David tell his story, just

25:37

change everything. I'd

25:41

never really seen someone tell a story

25:45

that felt like it was a good thing. I'd

25:48

never seen someone tell a story that felt

25:50

like it resembled my story. This

25:54

person feels like me, thinks like me. Maybe

25:57

it is quite normal. That

26:01

led me to meet others

26:04

who had been through similar experiences to

26:06

my mind. And there's nothing

26:09

more real than meeting

26:11

someone face to face that

26:14

had those same dark thoughts as you. If

26:18

you can openly talk about suicidal

26:20

thoughts whilst pushing your son on

26:22

the swings, there's

26:24

nothing more powerful than that. I

26:28

find so much comfort and love

26:32

from meeting other people that are

26:34

all at different spectrums of their recovery.

26:38

That peer-to-peer support saved

26:40

my life, I'd say. I'm

26:46

still looking

26:49

into little Jacob's eyes.

26:52

My first response is

26:55

to want to give him a hug,

26:57

like if it was my own child. If

27:03

I could speak to him, I'd

27:05

want to say, you

27:08

are not alone, because

27:13

I am here for you. I'm

27:23

not alone, because I am here for you.

27:29

What

27:44

struck me was how different I feel as a grown woman

27:46

to how I did when I was younger. And

27:49

one of the biggest changes is that when I relate to

27:51

myself here in the present, I

27:55

try so hard not to be cruel or crazy.

28:00

critical or negative. I

28:02

get enough of that coming from the outside

28:04

that when I meet myself in the here and

28:07

now, I try to do so with kindness,

28:10

compassion and understanding.

28:18

Thank you for listening to Shortcuts. I

28:21

really hope you enjoyed today's programme. If you did,

28:23

you can find many more programmes to listen to and

28:25

download at bbc.co.uk slash radio 4

28:30

or on the BBC Sounds app. I'd like

28:32

to read you a little extract from my diary. Now this is

28:34

the first page of the diary for the 27th

28:36

of December 1995. I read my old diary and

28:40

decided to write a new one with my bet bud, Julie.

28:43

Turn the page, next page, 29th

28:46

of December. I can't believe what

28:48

I let myself into. I let Julie

28:50

cut my hair. And

28:52

then basically, poor

28:55

Julie, who absolutely is now

28:58

an incredible successful professional

29:00

woman who does not deserve what

29:03

this diary puts her through. The whole diary

29:05

is basically me having an attritional

29:07

relationship with Julie, desperately fancying

29:10

boys but not admitting it in the diary and

29:13

cataloging my complicated and difficult

29:15

home life. So honestly, it's been a real blast

29:17

from the past.

29:21

Hi, I'm Robin Inks. And I'm Brain Cox. And we want

29:23

to tell you about a great series we've made

29:25

for BBC Radio 4. Let's just say it's average. It's

29:27

above average. Each one is a handy little guide

29:29

to everything from the supernatural to

29:32

the meaning of infinity. Supernatural

29:34

one I'll be sure because there's no such thing. I'm

29:36

so gonna haunt you for saying that. We pulled

29:39

the best moments from the past 27 series

29:41

of the show that's nearly 15 years worth to

29:43

bring you some of the most surprising science

29:46

and sometimes, hopefully in your judgement, some

29:48

of the funniest moments with guests including

29:51

Steve Martin, Brain Blessed, Josie

29:53

Long and some scientists, lots

29:55

of scientists as well. Listen now on

29:58

BBC Sounds.