International Nurses' Day || An interview with Roisin Dunnett
A tiny story, an enormous thank you
I’m about to go in and meet a patient for the first time. She’s five years old, and is new to the ward. New to being in hospital.
I’m lurking outside her room, doing the never-not-awkward thing I do when I’m trying to peer through the window without looking like I’m peering through the window.
I’m scanning first for the immediate stuff: are they awake or asleep? Are their parents in the room? Siblings? Fifteen doctors on a ward round, squished into the room like stethoscope-d sardines?
Second, the person: I’m trying to speedily, surreptitiously scan for clues about who this little person is, and what they care about. Are there any pictures tacked onto the wall? A special duvet cover brought from home? Something — anything — that says: Here’s how to reach me.
But this time, I’d barely begun my lurk before Ellie, the nurse looking after her, popped her head round the door.
“We just have to finish her meds, then she’s all yours.”
Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, “She hasn’t spoken much since she got here. But I think she’ll love music. She’s got two stuffed animals — I reckon they’ll be up for a dance too. Don’t know their names yet.”
Just like that, Ellie hands me a golden key to the little world inside that room. I nod, grateful, and step inside.
She was absolutely right.
Post-session, (we’re talking Disney songs, we’re talking dance routines, led, of course, by her stuffed animals — an alligator and a bear. I copied their moves — under-qualified and overcommitted. They twirled. I twirled! They did high kicks. I did... kicks! They somersaulted. I panicked! We’re talking curtain calls and diva bows for every toy involved) I went to report back to Ellie.
“Just in case it’s helpful” I added, “The bear’s name is Marisa. The alligator is Coco.”
Now, for context, this was around 4pm, and I’d wager that Ellie hadn’t sat down since breakfast.
Here’s a little something you might have never heard before: nurses are so busy! I know, I know. But it goes so far beyond what you’re imagining! It goes so far beyond what I’m imagining, and I see them quite literally every day! They are time-bending, role-shifting, freaky-deaky Swiss-army-knife humans.
(To any nurses reading this: I’m sorry for calling you freaky-deaky. I truly mean it as the highest compliment.)
With this in mind, Ellie would have been well within her rights to have given me the ‘cool story’ nod and cracked on with her fifteen simultaneous jobs.
Instead? She smiled. Rummaged in her pockets for a slip of paper. Then, coming back empty, picked up a pen and wrote on her forearm:
MARISA. COCO.
It’s one tiny example — barely a footnote in a day — but also the whole story. This is one of a million reasons why I love working alongside the nurses at Great Ormond Street Hospital. This is one of a million reasons why they deserve the world.
Happy International Nurses’ Day.
The Cameo
My guest this week is Roisin Dunnett
What would you love for people to know about your work?
I thought about this for a while, partly because I have and always have had more than one ‘work’ (like lots of/ most people). Setting aside domestic stuff, at the moment I am an author and also work in a school library. I think what I really believe (was this even the question?) about work is that it all requires way more ‘time wasting’ than is admitted or allowed. Especially for my writing, but also for the other jobs I’ve had, it’s been absolutely necessary to spend time resting, daydreaming, swanning around, procrastinating, noticing things outside the window etc. Staring listlessly at nothing is a dying art and deserves respect.
What might people be surprised to discover about your work?
I’m not sure there is anything surprising about how I work! When I’m writing I’m spending a predictable amount of time typing and deleting and (see above) staring into space. I think I’m sometimes a bit surprised that I manage to produce anything after what in retrospect seems like a day of walking back and forth from my desk, but I am fairly consistent, so I suppose the bits and pieces add up.
I used to work in bookshops and galleries and people would say: ‘what magical places to work’, and I’d be like ‘you’d be surprised’. But actually I am finding working in a children’s library genuinely as magical as it sounds.
What helped you to choose what you do?
A really brilliant teacher in year 4, natural stubbornness and reading.
What’s your perfect breakfast/lunch for a workday? (What do you actually have for breakfast/lunch?)
I am not a breakfast person. I do not think it is the most important meal of the day. I’m all about dinner, the rest is fuel. To wake up I have a large coffee, which I really really enjoy. When I was pregnant I stopped drinking coffee and I think I genuinely lost my spark.
Do you have a set morning routine?
I wake up the earliest for my current job (6.15) than I ever have for any job in my life (I know I’m lucky in that respect), but I was primed for it because my daughter Taryn gets up most days between 6.30/7am. On a day in the school library I get dressed in the dark so as not to wake anyone up and then sneak around until I’m ready to leave. My old housemate Hannah, who is really really good at small, life enhancing amendments, suggested that on early mornings I GET THE COFFEE POT READY THE NIGHT BEFORE so, fill a moka pot with coffee and water before you go to bed and just put it on the hob in the morning and I highly recommend this. On mornings with Taryn things are a bit more leisurely and we sit together on the sofa and she has her beaker of cold milk and I have my mug of hot coffee and then we kind of collaborate on getting ready to go out, getting dressed, packing the buggy etc.
Do you have a dedicated/preferred space for writing? If so, what does it look like?
Most of my published writing so far was written either at the kitchen table of my old flat or at a trestle table desk in what is now Taryn’s room. Out of the window of that room there is a really good view of the sky and these top floor flats with totally transparent front rooms (beautiful but not that practical surely??) which I really enjoyed looking at while I was working.
Now I am lucky enough to write in the London Library in central London, where I am right now, looking at a London Plane tree through the window. The first time I came here to write it was straight after maternity leave and it was probably one of the only full days I’d had by myself since Taryn was born and I was sitting looking out of the same window I am now, and it started snowing and I felt just extreme relief and gratefulness for the whole situation.
Preferred stationary/tools of the trade? Essential work items?
Laptop. I always have a notebook which used to be essential and I do still use a lot to work things out by hand but I think if I had to now I could do without it. I used to write everything by hand in notebooks and type up later which now seems incredibly labor intensive, though probably (?) a good thing craft-wise.
What are your work hours like? Do you try to create a routine for yourself or is that impossible given the nature of your work?
On a writing day used to be very ‘business hours only’ - I did not do early mornings or late nights. I was very strict about writing days, keeping them regular and not doing anything else when I had planned to work, but with a child as well as another job, that’s no longer possible. So now, like most authors, it’s a lot more about fitting things in when I can. I am very lucky to have school holidays to write in. A lot of my writer friends have struggled to fit their writing practice into hours before work or after childrens’ bedtime and, while that is really admirable I also think it’s incredibly taxing and the dedication it takes to keep producing creative work in those quite ordinary circumstances should not be underestimated.
What’s your favourite thing about your job?
The time to imagine, to read, to study and to be alone.
In the school library, talking to pupils, not just about books but about all sorts of things that are what interesting and concerning them day to day, is really brilliant.
Least favourite?
With writing I don’t think I have a least favourite, although finding out that someone didn’t think your stuff is any good isn’t a great feeling. Maybe that is my least favourite. With being a librarian, how busy it is at a school. I enjoy the work but I wish there was more time for all of us, adults and children, to just chill out. That’s not really how the curriculum is set up, as far as I can tell.
What do you do to get through days when you just don’t feel like it?
I’m quite nice to myself about stuff like that. Sometimes it has to be enough to just turn up. I know this is a cliché that people print on mugs but I am genuinely quite reliant on coffee. When I worked in bookshops and the day was really busy and tiring I sometimes used to go into the poetry section and try and read one poem. This was less about how art can set you free (although obviously I do believe that to some degree) and more about staking out some time for yourself, even in a retail job where you literally cannot leave the space.
Do you have a go-to treat to get you out of a slump?
I enjoy a Peanut Butter Cup or (seasonally) a Creme Egg.
What’s your favourite part of the day?
Near the beginning when you’ve got everything set up and everything (including lunch and dinner) is ahead of you.
Least favourite?
When it’s about 1.5 hours from the end of the writing day and I realise I’ve done fuck all. This can be quite galvanising though and then I sometimes manage to get something done.
What’s been your favourite failure? One that you learnt a lot from, or one that you can look back and say ‘well I got through THAT, I’m unstoppable!’
It’s hard (honestly) to point to an individual failure. My writing has received a lot of rejection and indifference (often justified) over the years and I do think that has toughened me up a bit. I am OK at taking constructive criticism and can bounce back from not getting the response I’ve hoped for. It’s nice to get a gold star and it can be awful when someone hates or doesn’t even register something you’ve put your heart and soul into, but it is helpful, I think, to have a bit of inner resilience to the opinions of others.
A recent failure at my library job was that I spent ages devising an exercise that the kids all hated and which in retrospect I agree with them was a waste of everybody’s time. I felt quite defeated that day but I do think I learned something, and I’m sure it won’t be the last such lesson.
What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone who wants to do what you do?
On writing: definitely do it, and respect your desire to do it and give it space and time and practice. Writing is a craft that you can improve and imagination is a muscle that gets stronger with use. I think writing is something that needs to be done alone but then refining and improving and getting the support to continue requires others: writing friends and groups or classes, informal or otherwise.
I’d say the same things, broadly, about reading, which I find it hard to make time for. I now think a lot about how to get children reading too, and one big thing I want to advocate for is to read TO children, not just when they’re very little but as older kids and teenagers. Maybe adults should read to each other more too. Being read to can be such a pleasure.
What are you evangelical about recommending to people?
The audiobook of Down the Drain by Julia Fox.
What’s your top tip for getting shit done?
Sort of trick yourself, be like ‘I’m just going to look on the website and see how you log in,’ or ‘I’ll just write a couple of bullet points,’ and then keep going for as long as you can face it.
Also if like me you have an insane inbox (21,797 emails, nearly all of them spam) ‘star’ the emails you need to respond to, then when you get a chance to sit down just go to your starred or flagged ones power through as many as you can.
Which three songs should I listen to this week?
I’m suspicious of my own taste in music and would NEVER share my Spotify wrapped so this is quite vulnerable for me:
Not a specific song but - Whale Sounds: Whales (Taryn requests this regularly.)
A Line You Have Traced is out now, and available in all good bookshops.
Well actually, I say that, but at the book launch there was such a rush for copies that the shop simply ran out!!!! (And I had two in my bag, hehe)
So, learn from those chumps, and get your copy as soon as today!
A Poem
from North of the Cities, Will o’ the Wisp Books, 2007.
Some Music — and a question!
A recent playlist request: “for the mornings when I’m wrestling my alarm, or making coffee with my eyes half-closed.”
Here’s a morning playlist for you — with love, and duvet-longing solidarity. We can shake our fists, together, at the beautiful nectarine sky.
I’m experimenting with making the big shift away from Spotify. We’re talking CDs and LPs at home1, Bandcamp in the car. But, because you can pry my playlists from my cold dead hands, we’re also talking Tidal, in the hopes that it offers musicians a better deal.2
I’d love to know your thoughts on this. How are you listening to music these days?
And that’s it!
Love,
Katya
You can find all my previous letters here.
Well, we WILL be talking LPs once I get a new needle for my record player. It’s such a simple task, and yet! I seemingly cannot bring myself to do it!
They pay artists more per stream, and from what I’ve read, seem to have a fairer distribution system. And that, my friends, is not nothing! (The bar is in the earth’s core, etc.)