People

Cécile Mactaggart

Today, I am going to tell you about The February Effect. Don't go away.

Eminent Chancellor, Madam President, Mr Chairman, Distinguished Faculty, Honoured Guests and especially Graduates, their friends, their family. Thank you all. Dean Woolf, that you honour me today, in such a totally unexpected way, makes me faint with joy, and I am not one for fainting.

Will a China Institute really exist as a result of our Collections? When a so-generous Alberta Government matches our gift with an endowment of equal value, who will be more humbly grateful than us Mactaggarts? No one.

And now, Dear Graduates, shall we ponder the goal of a University education? To attempt it is a feat of courage. To end that attempt with a degree is a key milestone of life. Were any of you the slow ones who burnt endless hours of midnight oil; the fast ones, juggling three jobs at once; the temporary drop-outs, wanting to earn a little extra money for their next year's return? I have met you all. I admire you all.

And I, who until today had no degree at all, am compelled to shout "Bravo!" from the housetops to each and every one of you sitting here today. You conquered. You never gave up. You won. You are my kind of person.

However, what about all the rest of us, here so happily, celebrating your graduation day? After careful consideration during my past 67 years, I have come to the sad conclusion that 70 percent of us do what we do not want to do 70 percent of every day. Except for vacations. And each moment, we feel a little dream, only a nuance, just a whisper of what we really want to do.

We stamp on it. Hard. We suffocate it to death with grimness. We keep marching. Our secret dreams? We yield those to the shackles of every day. We settle for second best.

Maybe because of love.

Perhaps because of supporting our families.

For sure, because of honour. Duty. Obligation and have to.

We are our own victims. Enduring this terrible state of affairs means that on some days, we cannot find a single second of time for doing what we love best. We cannot make the space. We need two jobs just to support us. We can't make our lover, our friend, our wife, our husband listen to all that screaming inside our hearts. We cannot.

Have any of you ever visited Edinburgh, Scotland in winter? Now, think of a cold-water flat. No hot water. Imagine a lady with a little girl. That lady wanted to write. How could she write? Her apartment was so cold, she could not hold her pen. She had no money, so every day, she visited some little coffee shop. There, she would buy a cup of coffee — often only one cup — and she wrote. Does that make you cry? Do you wonder at hearts of owners who never once said:

"Excuse me. Excuse me, Miss. This is a coffee shop. You have been here for four hours already, you know. You have only had ONE cup of coffee. Do you think you could kindly pay your bill and leave?"

I hope that lady bought all of those shops for all of those owners who never threw her out. It is what I hope most. Her name was J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. To summarize:

In 1994, she was dead broke, unemployed, divorced, a single mother — striving to write just one book she could publish.

In 2001 — seven years later — she had sold 150 million books in over 200 countries. She had captured the imagination of the whole world. And her income? That year, her income was $40 million.

And now let me tell you about the February Effect.

In my own life, which is when I learned the difference between second best and purely passion.

Twelve years ago, when I was 55, my husband (he is that man over there in those pale blue robes with a beard), woke up early one morning. He dressed himself in his nicest clothes for breakfast. There he made an amazing announcement:

"Cécile, for 25 years, you have wanted to be a writer. But you are NEVER going to succeed if you continue trying to do everything at once. Never. I'm afraid I must be stern. From now on in, during every single February, of every single year, you are going to disappear from Mactaggart family life. You are going to be a writer. I am going to vanish. This is my gift to you. Happy Februaries to come! Happy Anniversary, Darling."

What?

Was I delirious?

This last February was my best. On January 31st, I packed six months of important backlog — sadly and firmly — into empty cardboard boxes. Then I left them behind. I fled. The sand was pink. The waves were crashing. The reefs were huge. I swam every day for an hour, even in the pouring rain. And I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote.

In the beginning, as usual, the hornets of dread, the grinning ghouls of insanity forbade me my magic kingdom.

"Oh, sure. A first-time novelist is going to be a world-class bestseller in both the United States and China. Oh, sure. How old are you, lady? Did you say?"

"Oh, sure. World-famous movie directors are going to come clamouring to your door, desiring to make a world-class movie like Forest Gump, premiering on the same day in both China and the United States. Get a life, lady."

But this year, in about two days, I did not care. I was on the inside. Inside: a singing, laughing, skipping, dancing place. Inside: so happy I felt like bursting. It is hard writing a novel only in February you know. It is true, 12 Februaries make one year. So you could say that for one year, I have been writing my novel.

But, by the time the next February comes around, I have forgotten it. So how can I tell if it is good or if it is bad? I have to ask myself. And I only have one way of telling. When I fall down on the floor laughing because I cannot believe I really wrote that then it is good. If I have to get into my bathtub, looking out at trees full of mockingbirds and cry for a whole hour because in my novel somebody died and it was so tragic and so sad, then it is good.

My Februaries have rules.

Huge, ironclad rules.

I never, ever, at any time, do anything, on any day, I do not want to do. Never. That is my Rule #1.

And for my Rule #2?

Always, I study in the morning something hard, and almost incomprehensible to one of my intellect. For instance, this year, it was Spinoza’s Ethics. And at night, I always finish my day reading in bed the most elevating book I can find. This year it was Will in the World.

If any of you want to learn about William Shakespeare, you will never regret reading this book. He was not much, you know. Not in the beginning, although he did resist his father's attempts to lure him into the family glove making business. However, when finally he succeeded in abandoning his wife and his children, running away to London, England, he was not nearly as famous as Christopher Marlowe. Not nearly.

Until he made a breakthrough.

After that breakthrough he wrote Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and Hamlet.

Each of those plays during four successive years. And what was his breakthrough? This was his breakthrough: less is more.

Do not tell your audience everything.

Keep them on the edge of their seats trying to figure it out all by themselves.

Instantly, I ditched half of my novel. See? That was God. God and The February Effect made me read that Shakespeare book.

So dear Graduating Class, please do not be like me. I implore you. Do not live your life longing for Februaries. Start now. Make your own freedom rules. Just for you. Be smarter than me. Be tougher. Catch that wave. Make your life all Februaries.

It is you who has to decide. What rivets your attention? To what are you attracted? Where can you work when it does not feel like working?

Sports. Medicine. Teaching. Art. Wilderness. Computers. Airplanes. Cars. Books. Music. Science. Business. Architecture. Outdoors. Indoors. City.

What elevates you? What is your magic kingdom? And, when finally caught by your wave, feel its liftoff, its power, its surge. Notice how huge it really is. Ride it to shore because once you are moving in the direction of your goals, nothing can stop you.

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