June 15, 2021
Gleanings
- A damp day, too wet to work outside, and my writing stalled for a couple of reasons: why not gather petals and make some jelly?
- I’ve been thinking about the Greyhound bus a lot lately.
- Very often, I wake in the night. I’m not sure if it’s because of my age, my brain, my hormones or a heady mix of all of the above, but wake in the night I do.
- The syntax and vocabulary of racism bleeds into Canadian Media and conversation from American politicians, law enforcement officials and activists yet far too many of us engage with morbid curiosity rather than acknowledgement, commitment and action out of a very real fear and loathing for what is happening in our own country.
- With their inherent contradictions, 10-year-olds are a fascinating bunch.
- I’ve taken oodles of photos in my yard this spring. I can’t seem to help myself and I don’t apologize.
- But there it is. I am just old enough to feel the satisfaction of one less dead branch hanging over my tent.
- At one point I had a hefty, three-ring binder type thing with pages and pages of CDs. Remember those?
- Dogs are often labelled as “aggressive” or “anxious”, when in truth they’re actually fearful, responding to a threat the only way they know how.
- Summer books are almost too easy. This is one season that abounds with books.
- You do your work. You show your work. And you stay true to your vision. No apologies. No regrets. Okay, you can have regrets, and you can make art out of them. Onward.
- But it is not our actual townhouse that is home. Instead, it is the breeze that blows the trees outside our bedroom window, snuggling in bed with my husband enjoying our morning coffee, chatting with our neighbours over the backyard fence, and greeting our children with hugs when they come to visit.
- It’s the act of the storytelling itself, the bravery, the light, the humour, the small beautiful truths. It’s as Richard Van Camp says, a soul sigh.
- There’s so much more to the day than laundry and chickens.
- I hope someone knows what your favourite sandwich is. I hope you smile when you open it up. I hope you also get chips or a pickle to go with. I hope your sandwich is a deep comfort to you.
- What I want to do now to move away from the ugly mechanisms that are at play in the world. I don’t mean I will turn my back entirely. I won’t. But right now I want to think about my own work and the solace it provides me when I wake, sleepless, and come down to my little study at the edge of the forest.
- I’m just four chapters into The Old Wives’ Tale and I already feel that I owe Arnold Bennett an apology. I never should have taken someone else’s word about him—not even (maybe, especially not) Virginia Woolf’s.
- I laughed out loud when I heard that Donald Trump quit his blog because no one was reading it.
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