Notes to Self by the remarkably gifted Emilie Pine, Trinity alum and UCD professor of modern drama, was a reading experience like no other. Expecting a quiet, reflective memoir, I was instead struck by her raw honesty and ability to articulate the ineffable. Pine forgoes the desire to present a flawless image in lieu of deconstructing painful topics, including alcohol abuse in family dynamics, infertility, silence in relationships, and the complex ties between the female body, shame, self-destruction and rebirth. I sat down with Pine to discuss the themes of her trailblazing debut memoir.
AM: Alice Matty (Interviewer), Emilie Pine (Interviewee)
AM: Notes to Self is incredibly intimate and unflinchingly honest. What inspired you to write with such vulnerability, and how has it impacted your relationships?
EP: Simply put, as I approached 40, keeping thoughts trapped within became worse than letting them out. Writing is an outlet to let things out of our bodies, as a form of visceral and mental catharsis. Part of the pun in the title is that I started writing for myself. It was hardest for the people who are close to me to process — because I got to write my perspective, but they didn’t get to put their side across. So I think it’s changed all of us.
AM: Why do you think writing openly about personal experience can feel so difficult, especially for women?
“There are two types of silences: the kind we choose – when in grief – and the kind enforced upon us”
EP: As we still process an experience, there is an emotional and personal need for space to work out our own reactions. I often think that there are two types of silences: the kind we choose when in grief and the kind enforced upon us, like the expectation that women should not talk publicly about their bodies or the projection that women’s voices are less important than male voices. The latter are silences which are important to break, but this can be difficult, as girls are trained into certain ways of behaviour and expectations. For me, the payoff has been that, in stepping outside of these expectations, people have told me “oh, this is true for me, too,” and realising that those boundaries are there to keep us all separated from each other instead of allowing us to share the things that we all share.
AM: Sitting in your own silence makes the world feel so much bigger. In your first essay, Notes on Temperance, you explore caregiving, grief, and the emotional toll of watching a loved one self-destruct, with a particular focus on your father’s alcoholism. How has this experience shaped your understanding of boundaries and relationships?
EP: Boundaries, to me, feels like a recent word. I remember being 20, in college at Trinity, and having fights with my dad. Loving him but also not being able to cope with the emotional stress of it. I tried to set boundaries but then realised that that wasn’t addressing the underlying problem. Because it wasn’t that I didn’t want him in my life, I just didn’t want his chaos in my life. It’s easy to set boundaries — it’s difficult to find boundaries that you can maintain. So, it’s been an evolving process, and I’m lucky to have a close sister. Trauma is very isolating, and everyone needs a backup. Someone else to help you maintain boundaries is a game changer. So, having help helps, effectively.
AM: I loved watching your relationship with your sister play a big part. In your second essay, you explore infertility and societal pressure to equate womanhood with motherhood. How did this experience shape your identity?
EP: I wanted children, but in hindsight, it’s hard for me to disentangle my wanting of children from the compulsory pressure to be a mother that heterosexual women in a couple often feel. Perhaps the biggest sense of grief was mourning a life that I didn’t get to have. I wondered, ‘‘Who am I supposed to be now? What am I supposed to do?’’ Which was when my job became really important to me, though it took time to deconstruct that. But I love my life. I can grieve what didn’t happen while feeling joy for what it is. It’s important to talk about the life we live, not just the one we don’t.
AM: Two things can be true – grief and joy can coexist. Did you navigate this alone or with your partner?
“We’re storing up social problems for ourselves by having this idea that motherhood has only to do with women.”
EP: Trauma can be isolating, and we’re storing up social problems for ourselves by having this idea that motherhood has only to do with women. I explored this in my novel (Ruth & Pen) through a male character who lacks the language or social space to express this loss – whereas, for women, a small space exists. The word mourning was crucial. Naming it as grief gave me a framework I hadn’t before.
AM: Do you think that silence always inhibits relationships, or is it sometimes necessary for resolution?
EP: Chosen silence creates space to process emotions. Often, we lack that space and feel rushed into decisions. I’m impatient with others and myself, but slowing down helps. I prefer the word quiet over silence because too much of either can be overwhelming.
AM: That’s a powerful distinction between quietness and silence. In your fourth essay, Notes on Bleeding & Other Crimes, you discuss body image and self-loathing, stating that you associate ‘‘having a female body with suffering’’. Do you think that this belief impacts how women experience pleasure and relationships?
EP: Yes, I do. I think that’s some of the most difficult messaging to deprogram ourselves from. I’m speaking as someone in her very late forties, growing up in the 80s and 90s in Ireland when these topics were impossible to talk about. When I was in my twenties, the idea of gender or sexuality as a spectrum just didn’t exist in the public domain. The phrase “What do you want?” was the most scary thing ever. We have become more open to discussing gender at work and in society, but there’s still, at times, a veil of silence around it. I hope that work has filtered down so younger generations have a different experience. I find it empowering where we are now, thank you to the twenty-year-olds for having these conversations openly. Owning and taking responsibility for our desires is vulnerable. But it can also be fun, empowering and transformative. Words are crucial for our comfort in defining our bodies, feelings, and experiences – which I feel deeply as a professor of English.
AM: It truly is a fortunate and liberating experience. Do you think that shame still governs women’s lives and their relationships with their bodies?
“Sara Ahmed talks about sticky emotions, and shame is one of those. It’s like super glue. And you just have to pull it off bit by bit.”
EP: I think of shame as a projected emotion. I don’t think anyone is ever born with shame — it is socially created and put upon us, and then we internalise that and put it upon ourselves. Sometimes, the shame we feel is because we fear we will be shamed by other people. So, the secret about shame is to talk about it. And because it’s not about changing the underlying thing, we’re not going to change shame by changing our bodies. We’re going to change shame by refusing the projection and that also involves us not judging and shaming other people. Sara Ahmed talks about sticky emotions, and shame is one of those. It’s like super glue. And you just have to pull it off bit by bit.
AM: I have never considered shame as an external imposition — it’s an interesting power dynamic. In your fifth essay, Something About Me, you discuss self-destruction, identity and the struggle for self-acceptance. You declare that “A body of years should not be judged on the distillation of its most extreme moments.” How can we apply this idea in relationships, particularly when partners carry past traumas?
EP: We all carry past traumas. One thing I try to remind myself of, while still carrying aspects of the past, is to allow myself to also remember the joy. While it’s important to acknowledge the suffering caused by gender roles for women, men, and others, we shouldn’t forget the possibility of neutrality and positive expression. The focus on trauma can overshadow the fact that women can also be joyful, empowered, and happy — not just defined by suffering.
AM: In your final essay, This Is Not On The Exam, you contemplate gender and power in academia, focusing on the pressure for women to be likeable and competent in male-dominated fields. Do you see parallels between this professional expectation and how women are conditioned in personal relationships?
EP: Yes. Absolutely. In fact, in that essay, I discuss naturally not having empathy, and the main thing people said to me about that essay, in particular after Notes to Self, was: “Oh no, Emilie, you do have empathy!” And I thought: “Why is it so disturbing to you that a woman has said she’s not ‘likeable’ in that way?” Empathy is a very specific thing where you experience other people’s emotions. I don’t have that. That doesn’t mean that I’m not a sympathetic or compassionate person. The definition of niceness was often likened to being a doormat. So I’m happy to be an example of someone without empathy to try and change that narrow definition of ‘‘likeable’’.
AM: Exactly. Women are often linked with empathy, but not everyone is conditioned to feel other people’s feelings. Ultimately, you end the book with “I’m afraid, but I’m doing it anyways”. What does that phrase mean to you now, particularly in the context of love and relationships?
EP: You’ve heard the phrase “giving zero fucks”, right? I realise, as I get older, it’s not about giving zero fucks. It’s about deciding what we give the fucks about and giving zero fucks about anything else outside of that definition. Writing for myself has helped me understand who and what I would risk vulnerability for. I’m not going to risk it for my job but for the important people in my life. There’s almost always a risk involved in anything that we care about, but it is about taking that risk where it matters. In terms of how I approach personal relationships now, I think it’s tied up with ageing and gained experiences. Friends are losing parents and going through other kinds of life events. I think I’m now much more likely to say the thing I truly feel because I don’t think there’s anything more important than that kind of connection. I had a post-it note on the wall above my desk as I was writing Notes to Self. It just said: “What is it you’re really trying to say?” And I think that’s not a bad mantra.
