March 28, 2007
The Republic of Spring
As a symptom of springtime, I’ve been oddly compulsive lately. I’m not sure if that’s the word I mean, but I saw a picture of a horse recently and now I’m determined to ride one this summer. I’ve never ridden (rode?) a horse in my life. A similar obsession has taken me over regarding Carol Shields. Now I’ve always loved Carol Shields’s work and she wrote the one book I could classify as a definitive favourite, and her short story collection Various Miracles is a masterpiece, I think. I could go on and on here. I intend to reread The Republic of Love soon. And I’m currently reading Carol Shields: The Arts of a Writing Life, which is inspiring, interesting and wonderful. The quote below from Anne Giardini came from her essay (she is Shields’s daughter, and her beautiful piece is about sharing a love of reading with her mother). I think that as a woman who writes, and as a woman in general, there is so much to be learned from the life and work of Carol Shields. Like Laurie Colwin, I think, Shields was a writer who could capture joy.
Further signs of springtime, last night I could be found drinking too much wine on my front porch. We had to go in once the sun was gone because it was too cold then, but before that the world beyond the porch had been swarming with joggers, dog walkers, a skanky couple making out against a fence, neighbours, strangers, cats, cyclists, cars with the windows down, hipsters, nerds, babies and the elderly. It seems like everyone else was just as eager to get outside as we were.
My husband is on holidays this week, and we’re going out for a sushi lunch. Sugoi.
