Ten Steps to Nanette

by Hannah Gadsby

Politics is one of those things that I find blood-boiling and bloody boring in equal measure, and the only other topics that have that kind of effect on me are the men’s rights movement and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Suffice it to say, Mum had plenty of her own painful demons to deal with, and I truly believe she did the best she could. That’s not to say that her best was always enough, but it was still her best and that is all you can ask.

That it can still so reliably wound her is all the proof you need that she really did do her best, and that she knows all too well that it wasn’t always enough. Which in and of itself, is enough.

Then I noticed that both men were wearing socks embellished with cartoon characters—which I decided meant that they had children who hated them. Novelty socks are the gift you get adult men who have everything except a personality.

So, I will just share it here, because I truly believe that the only universal “body” is our breath, because breath is the only thing that all human bodies experience and as such, it is something we all must share, not just with each other, but, in one way or another, with all living things on earth. To this day, I still can’t think of a better way of truly breaking us free from the visual rut that the canon of Western art has left us languishing in, than the breath of an Indigenous Australian woman.

“When I was growing up, all the women in my house were using needles. I’ve always had a fascination with the needle. The magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair damage. It’s a claim to forgiveness. It is never aggressive, it’s not a pin.”