February 7, 2013
A Big Week
It has been a very big week in the life of Harriet, who successfully underwent her first trip to the dentist (without a cavity to show for it!) on Tuesday and who this afternoon was registered for kindergarten in September. Initially, she was nervous about all the big kids and stuck close to me, until she was whisked away by a group of grade 6 “school ambassadors” who played with her while I filled out the paperwork. And then Harriet was presented with a brand new book, her own copy of Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, which we’ve had out of the library many, many times. It was a wonderful introduction to the kindergarten life, and Harriet is looking forward to it. I only cried a little bit.
February 6, 2013
Pennies Saved
I hate change of all sorts, except the monetary kind, and so I naturally am very unhappy about the demise of the penny. And so, in my efforts to render the penny eternal, I’ve decided to keep a glass jar full of them until the end of time (or at least until we decide to move, and I wonder if it’s really necessary to preserve a jar of pennies). I’ll display the jar high on a shelf, and one day I’ll show it to my grandchildren who will barely be able to fathom that there was ever such a thing as a one cent coin.
But while all that is still in the future, my little daughter and I sat down this afternoon to sort through the coins in our family’s change jar and take the pennies out. And really, there is no better companion than a three-year-old for such a project. We had a very good time picking out the pennies and guessing if they were old or new based upon their shininess or tarnish. 2009 pennies we decided were Harriet pennies, “from the year you were born!” and pennies from the years after amazing because Harriet was older than they were. We were quite excited to find 1979 pennies too, as old as Dad and Mom. Lots of 1984, and 1992, commemorating Canada’s 125th. And then we found a 1969, which was exciting, and a 1967, which was the most exciting year of all. The oldest penny we found was from 1958, when the Queen looked remarkably young.
Our little jar isn’t filled yet, which means we’ll have to be keeping an eye out for pennies even as they become increasingly rare. In their rarity too, I think, they’re only going to become a little more magic, and really, haven’t they ever been?
February 6, 2013
Blogging Like No One is Reading
Blogging stats are important*, and I pay attention to mine, so I was a bit dismayed last summer when my traffic levels plummeted. Part of the problem of course was that it was summertime, when traffic always falls down a bit, but that didn’t fully explain what had happened. But then these things (particularly online things) are always about ebb and flow, popularity is fleeting, and I’ve found that whenever I get too confident about anything I’m up to, life itself has an amazing ability of administering a kick in the ass–which is always useful, I think, in healthy doses.
So what does a blogger do when her traffic falls off? I, of course, turned to my number one piece of blogging advice, which is Blog like no one is reading. It’s advice that is always useful, and never more so than during those times when no one is, in fact, reading. Blogging like no one is reading runs counter to traditional advice, which is to write for your audience, which is to jump through hoops and perform virtual naked tapdances in order to garner online attention, but I find such advice is always delivered by folks without a clue of what blogging is all about, with no real sense of the tradition it was born from.
To do the opposite of blogging like no one is reading is terrible advice for a variety of reasons. First, because most of the time, no one is going to be reading, and so there has to be something more than feedback from the outside world to push a novice blogger on. Second, because you’re never going to be able to predict what readers will respond to and what they won’t. It’s the strangest serendipity, and attempts to orchestrate this will absolutely drive you crazy. It will also result in the naked tap-dancing that just looks ridiculous, and never more so than when it doesn’t work and still, no one is reading. And there you are in your feather boa and your silly top hat, when dancing wasn’t even what you planned to be doing in the first place.
People to come for blogging for a variety of reasons. For many writers, a blog offers a way to keep a website up-to-date and active. An effective blog can be as simple as a news and events page updated monthly or so. Others come to blogging because they were advised to, because it would help their online cachet, though they don’t fully believe in the spirit of the thing. They believe that the blog is to bring forth results (ie traffic, ie book sales, ie fame and fortune) when the fact of the matter is that a blog, at its most bloggish, is its own final product. So many of us blog for the sake of the blog itself, a work of art, a creation, as eternal as a thing can be in ephemeral world of the internet. The blog is the point, the one thing you have control over anyway, rather than what anyone else happens to do with it.
The thing about blogging like no one is reading is that you really can’t go wrong. And you’ll find that this is precisely what the most amazing and popular bloggers out there have been doing all along anyway–creating something original and personal with their own interests in mind. That reams of followers were interested too was really just happenstance. (There are exceptions to this, but these are so often marketing tools rather than blogs proper. And if you don’t see the distinction between the two, then you and I were never really on the same page in the first place. And you don’t know what a blog is. But I digress…)
The thing about blogging like no one is looking is that it gives you some perspective, allows you to take a real good look at what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, and change and develop accordingly. It is easy to get caught up in a run for readers, but when winning traffic becomes your sole preoccupation, then you’re doing blogging wrong. You’re probably not having fun either.
Anyway, of course, these are all the things you tell yourself during the summer that your blog’s traffic plummets. These are the things that offer consolation. And then when you discover that the reason behind the plummet was that your blog has been hacked and is now (unknown to you) packed full of invisible ads for Viagra and therefore search engines have seen fit to abandon you and so too has all your organic search traffic, well, you get your hack fixed of course. And the numbers come back. But you just keep on doing what you’ve been doing, blogging like they haven’t, which is what you should have always been doing in the first place.
*Note: Blogging like no one is reading and paying attention to blogging stats are not necessarily contradictory. Each has its uses.
February 4, 2013
A Question of Identity by Susan Hill
I can’t believe that A Question of Identity is only my third Simon Serrailler mystery. It feels like my connection to these books goes deeper, like these are characters I’ve known for a long long time. Which is a testament to the depth of the books in this series, though I wonder if Susan Hill has finally crossed a line, if the Simon Serrailler novels are now incapable of standing alone. I can imagine that a reader who picks up this one looking for a good whodunnit might be confused by all the attention on Simon Serrailler’s sister, Dr. Cat Deerbon, her work in a hospice, trouble amongst her adolescent children. Would they know what to make of Simon’s stepmother who is hiding some kind of terrible secret about her marriage? And what of Simon’s relationship with Rachel, whose husband is in the final stages of Parkinson’s Disease? Who dun what anyway, that isn’t contained in some rich and wonderful back-story?
For those of us well-versed in the back-story, A Question of Identity is a kind of homecoming. Susan Hill is a wonderful writer whose crime novels are as rich as any literary novel in terms of character, writing, and depth. And what I most appreciate about them are how much they are of this world. In A Question of Identity, a group of readers get together to form a book club to support their local independent bookshop, which is struggling in these tough economic times…
And yes, I admire Hill’s novels’ unabashed bookishness too. Right before a character is killed off, Hill has her compiling a list of books for a lending library she’s thinking of starting at the seniors’ complex she’s just moved to. “She was well into her stride, remembering books she’d loved, wondering if this or that novel was out of print, adding ‘Miss Read’ hastiliy, then ‘Nancy Mitford’ and “Denis Lehane’–one of her own favourites, but possibly a bit too raw for some…. She was enjoying herself, and had just jotted down Daphne du Maurier when she heard a sound…”
So yes, onto the murders. At a (poorly constructed–typical) newly-built seniors’ housing complex in Lafferton, two women have been killed in the dead of night in a bizarre ritual, with no signs of forced entry. Simon Serrailler and his team find a break when they link the crimes to a few committed in Yorkshire years before, except the accused in those cases was shockingly acquitted and fixed with a new identity for his own protection afterwards. Which means that he is now untraceable, and authorities are refusing to disclose any information to police in Lafferton. Simon is faced with having to track down a suspect whose existence has been wiped off the face of the earth.
Somewhat disappointingly, I guessed the murderer quite early on in the book, which says something because I’m normally quite a rubbish sleuth. There just weren’t enough other suspects, and Hill has the suspect finally caught in a sting that felt somewhat artificial. So perhaps as a crime novel this one comes up short, but then I still read it with utter pleasure, and I’m not sure that a good crime plot was ever what I came to these novels looking for anyway.
February 3, 2013
How (at least I am hoping…) having a baby is just like getting a tattoo.
Last summer, there was this two week period during which I was completely occupied by the question of whether or not have have another child. Mostly because we were coming down the wire of “now or never”. It was something we’d been meaning to get around to, but had had good reasons to put off for over a year by that point. We had been having a very good time with our one child, with a life arranged very much the way we liked it. It was easy, most of the time. We were comfortable. I suddenly understood those people who decided not to have children because of how their lifestyle would be affected. I had never thought about it first time around, because I wanted a baby, no question, but now I understood the stakes of having a baby, how much upheaval it would really mean. I also knew that my mothering self had limits I hadn’t known about when a baby was just something I dreamed about.
Anyway, because I am me, I spent that two week period of complete occupation talking about my quandary with everyone I came into contact with. Friends with newborns, pregnant friends, new friends, old friends, my book club, total strangers–I cringe now to think about it, but I kept putting the word out into the world hoping to get back some kind of answer, a confirmation.
“The problem,” I remember telling one friend, “is that another baby would push our limits. I mean, financially, and in terms of space, and how much I am willing or able to give of myself.” In practical terms, having one child only would make the most sense for us.
“So, why don’t you do that?” she said.
But I knew that I couldn’t. It wasn’t that simple for me. And not because of anything that society says, or pressure from outside camps, or even because of how much Harriet wanted to have a sibling. Just as I’d always known that I wanted to have a child, I also knew that I would want another. It’s not a logical thing; it’s more compulsive, actually. It doesn’t make any sense. A smart woman would know her limits, and heed them, but I know I would not be satisfied. It wasn’t a question of “choice” (and really, not much is, reproductive-wise). If I made the choice not to have another baby, I’d spent the rest of my fertile years longing for one. Happy in my “lifestyle”, well-rested, but it wouldn’t be enough. Perhaps if the decision had been made for me, it would have been different, but it could not be a decision I’d be content to make for myself. (And don’t think I don’t know how fortunate I am to be in this situation at all, how much more choice I have than so many other women.)
A problem that many women have, I think, is too much empathy. We meet one another and assume that here is a like-creature.We feel secure enough in that to make judgements. We assume that what we feel is usually the norm, in what is general. (Or maybe that’s just me…) I have always wanted children, and I really cannot imagine what it would be to feel otherwise. And so when I hear about a woman who feels this way, I assume that there has been some kind of misunderstanding, hers or mine. Or I’ll equate her feelings with my own fears or uneasiness before getting pregnant myself, feelings that were so easily brushed aside, completely dismissing the specificity of her experience. Also, that same woman will hear me talking my non-choice/compulsion to have another baby, and write me off as a complete idiot.
Or I’ll see a headline like “Opting Out of Parenthood, With Finances in Mind” and it will raise my hackles–kids don’t have to be expensive. But then when I read the article carefully, I encounter the line, “Some people have a profound emotional desire to have children. But I don’t. Young as we are, it would take a pretty big financial, practical and emotional shift for that to change.” And clearly, this writer and I are operating from beginning points that are so far apart. What makes sense of the matter for me isn’t applicable for her, and vice versa. As with most human communication, much of the time none of us really have any idea what others are talking about ever.
Here’s what I’m hoping for though: I am hoping for is that for me having another baby turns out to be a lot like getting a tattoo. I got my first tattoo when I was 20, and immediately started planning another. And it concerned me, that I might never want to stop and would eventually turn into Lydia the tattooed lady. But when I got my second tattoo, when I was 24, right away, I knew I was done. It was enough.
I just hope in terms of babies that I’ll continue to know my self so well, and most of all that my “self” will continue to make demands on my body and my life that are fairly unridiculous, relatively speaking.
