How come you know so much, Iris? – Smart women taught me. – How’d they teach you? – They wrote the stories they were not meant to, were published by others who broke rules to do so, they sang the songs they were not meant to sing, stole time to make paintings that left breadcrumbs for those of us who came after them, so we might follow them through the forest and try to get out the other side; they acted in films, on streets, in bars, or I just listened, cleaning loos alongside them, or sat next to a stranger who’d chat away: those are all women who taught me.
