July 6, 2021
Gleanings
- Some mornings I sit at my desk and open A Writer’s Diary as a kind of divination. What was Virginia Woolf thinking nearly a hundred years ago, or eighty?
- This wasn’t the first time I’ve eaten in a restaurant alone, and I’ve never been self-conscious about it, but this time I was, and I think it’s because in fact, I now mostly eat alone.
- It was the best kind of rejection—personal, encouraging. It was handwritten for Pete’s sake. I was so mad at myself. I should have framed it. Instead, I lost years. It took me until my 30’s to unravel all of those toxic stereotypes about artistic genius and understand that what matters is doing the work and being willing to put it out there.
- I’ve gathered some stardust into a novel, flawed and imperfect though it is, and I hope to be able to share it with you someday.
- I need to make a list of things that I’m not going to do. And feel contentment seep in, with the release of the niggling feeling that I should be doing these things.
- Something opened up in me as I began swimming, and I remembered what I’ve always known—that I am most myself when I’m swimming. I started being able to think again.
- I thought Whereabouts really beautifully captured the paradox that isolation is not, or at least not only, about being alone.
- Think of a letter as a tack on a chair. You might pick one off, and ignore it. But next time, you’ll look twice before you sit down.
- Like many teens, summer was (is) a time to earn some money during the day and hang out with my friends on the weekends and evenings, spending our earnings on trips to the mall, bottles of Clearly Canadian, and coke slurpees. But my first summer job, ended up including a course of antibiotics.
- One evening last week the most awe-inspiring and spectacular sunset occurred.
- WHAT is this life if, full of care/ We have no time to stand and stare?—
- Sweat peas are one of my most favourite flowers. They’re so delicate. This is the season to stuff a jam jar full of them. Pinks! Lilacs! Scarlets!
- The point is, sometimes what was working fine doesn’t work so well anymore. Maybe it will again, someday, and maybe it won’t. The thing is, I want to be open to other options.
(Gleanings is going in summer holidays! Will be back at regular speed in September and maybe sooner here and there…)
