It’s always such a joy finding something rare and wonderful. There is so much in our world to sift through, to appraise. In short, there is so much junk, and so little of real value. So it’s with the greatest delight that we stumble upon the small gems.

Gems are hard to find. Diamonds even harder. And it’s not as though other people are not trying to shove all sorts of gems and diamonds in our face all the time. ‘Read this!’ or, ‘You’ve gotta watch this!’ are frequent catch cries from friends, colleagues, and even the person you share a fleeting few minutes with when you’re loading groceries into the car at the supermarket. It’s not unusual to be given recommendations, tips, references, testimonials, and all sorts of glowing reports on just about anything under the sun. So it’s not as though we don’t have something to go on. The problem is that everyone’s brains and hearts are pointing in a different direction. The thing that turns me on does not necessarily ring other people’s bells. I guess that is the foundation of true love: finding someone who shares all the things you love, someone who ‘gets’ all your favourite things. Then you can spend the next twenty years or more congratulating each other on what excellent taste and judgement you share.

The moments of finding something with which you instantly connect are far and few between. I just had one of these moments. I had a recommendation to read Helene Cixous. I’ve had recommendations from this person before. Some of them are great. Others are dense as London fog. So I wasn’t jumping out of my skin to look up this tip.

When I did, I knew in an instant I had connected. The first few words rang so true and faithful it was almost as though the door to my soul swung right open, and in they jumped. They felt at home there. Helen Cixous’ voice sang to me. It touched me. Her words were of such truth, beauty and infinite wisdom that I let them dance around my head and my heart, caressing my bruised inner-depths, gently licking my wounds.

You see, Helen Cixous (what a beautiful, lyrical name!) writes about women, and about writing. She extols the virtues, the right of women writing for themselves and about women. So the next thing I do is to Google her. I hit ‘Images’, and the screen fills with Helene’s gentle face, the somewhat severe hairstyle, the painted, cat-eyes, and in more images than not, her freckled, ageing complexion. I look into her large, dark, almond-shaped eyes, and I see gentleness, fragility, goodness. I flick through more images, and see that – like me – she struggles with her hair colour, flitting between dye and natural grey. It doesn’t matter, I want to tell her, you are beautiful either way. Another point of connection is that in many of the images, she holds a cat, or there is a cat in the background. How I’d like to meet her, this wise woman, kindred spirit, this incredible talent and ambassador for women everywhere. In one image, she is in the kitchen making tea. In the foreground, a tray sits on the table, laden with at least ten cups. The photo is of such domestic ordinariness that Helene is at once familiar and accessible. I feel as though I already know her, and sharing a cup of tea would be the most natural thing to do.

I turn back to Helene’s words in ‘The laugh of the Medusa’. They shake me up. They jolt me, prodding at my discomfort. I am awake. Why have I been asleep so long?

And why don’t you write? Write! Writing is for you, you are for you; your body is yours, take it. I know why you haven’t written. (And why I didn’t write before the age of twenty-seven.) Because writing is at once too high, too great for you, it’s reserved for the great – that is, for “great men”; and it’s “silly.” Besides, you’ve written a little, but in secret. And it wasn’t good, because it was in secret, and because you punished yourself for writing, because you didn’t go all the way; or because you wrote, irresistibly, as when we would masturbate in secret, not to go further, but to attenuate the tension a bit, just enough to take the edge off. (Cixous 1976, p.876-877)

Wow, such powerful, true words. It takes someone else to articulate what you feel to make you wake up to something you’ve always known, always felt. The message is so universal, it stuns me to think it’s been around for the greater part of my life. How were people like Cixous thinking and writing these things when I was a mere child, long before I’d consciously thought these thoughts, or dared to articulate them with any confidence?

Why are women always apologetic about themselves, about putting their stuff out there, be it personal, or professional. Why is it that we are so afraid to hear others’ opinions, to step forward? To be.

And so thank you, dear friend, for pointing me in the direction of Helene (I shall call her by her first name now, for we are sisters). I will read on, thanks to you, I will read on.

And I will continue to write.

Cixous, H Cohen, K & Cohen, P 1976, ‘The laugh of the Medusa’, Signs, Vol1, No.4, pp. 875-893.