My Judy Garland Life

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Synopsis

Three years ago I was trying on some tall boots at Liberty’s.  They were an oddly luminous yellowish-brown colour, wide in the leg, slouching in curious folds around the ankle.  I couldn’t tell if they were the height of devil-may-care chic or  more reminiscent of a fisherman- just-back-from-his-trawler.

  A  stranger approached.  ‘Hello Susie’ she said. ‘I’ve just finished your last novel which was fabulous  and I love your FT columns.’

‘Thanks’, I beamed.

‘What are you up to now?’

‘I don’t know’, I said.  I was feeling a bit downcast, I suppose, hence the mad boot spree.  I literally felt I needed a boot up the- ‘What do you think of these?’ I asked.

She looked at the boots and then she looked at me. ‘I don’t think they’re quite elegant enough for you.’
I was impressed by this remark.

‘Are you working on a  new novel?’

‘Well I am, but my heart isn’t really in it.’

‘But why not!  You’re so this, you’re so that,’ she heaped gorgeous and astute compliments on top of me until I was entirely pink.  The woman explained she was a life coach who specialised in helping people meet their dreams.. I mean, what would you do if you could do absolutely anything for the next two years?'

'Anything?'

'Anything."

‘I’d like to spend it sitting around, thinking about Judy Garland’, I said.
‘Ring your agent, tell her you’ve had a fantastic idea!’ she told me as she disappeared.  And so I did

I have been thinking about Judy Garland since I was three years old when I was taken to see The Wizard of Oz by my mother. I was a highly sensitive child with feelings so strong they dwarfed me.  My heart went out to everything, food uneaten on a plate,  even lone ants. ‘You must toughen up’ everyone said, ‘learn to control your feelings, don’t expect so much from other people or you just wont have a happy life!’  I could see I needed an extra layer of skin, but where to find  one?  Nobody said.

When I sat in my cinema seat and heard Dorothy singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ I felt a colossal smash of recognition and validation from her. Here was someone who’s feelings seemed to run as high as my own and she was not hiding the fact, she was not ashamed or embarrassed about it, in any way,  she was leading with her strong feelings as though they were the very best things a person could have. This struck me as the greatest news in the world.  I loved her instantly and wanted to slip right then inside the screen.

Soon after this I began to find out as much about Judy as I could. I enrolled in tap, ballet, modern, and contemporary classes to prepare for a stage career of my own.  I loved and learned a song called Friendship where Judy makes insane pleas of devotion, such as ‘If you ever lose your teeth when you’re out to dine/Borrow mine.’ I wondered if there might one day be someone I’d do anything for. I passed through a difficult year.  My parents had parted before I was born and I missed my father so much I could not bear to hear his name. Yet my burgeoning Judy obsession seemed to suggest a path through  some of my own troubles. The more I saw of Judy’s work, the closer I felt to her, the more colourful and promising everything in my life became.

Layering biography, hero-worship and  self-help with episodes of love and loss from Judy's life and one or two from my own ,   this book will speak, I hope,  to anyone who’s been blessed (or cursed) with more feelings than they can handle,  and to those of us who, in times of trouble, reject cynicism and look instead for answers from our stars.  

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