February 22, 2023
Gleanings
- I loved this book because it acknowledges the unfairness of the world and the privilege of those who fall back on a shallow understanding of faith. But where I can get mired in despair over these truths, Vanessa is out there beating a path through these weeds for all of us.
- The story was titled Wankus Interruptus, and when I first read those words, centred at the top of the page, I paused. (Do you know this feeling? A fleeting fuzz of nostalgia. A whiff of emotion. In this case, the top note was humour.) The phrase was familiar. Why? And in the next second I recalled.
- If you pay attention to the world, you will love it more than you realized was possible. This love will break you down and build you up.
- When we walked the route to church or our cousins’ house, we passed by the slum where our ayah lived. There was a big gate that separated the area where the servants lived in cramped poverty. Sometimes the gate was open and I would glance in as we walked by, curious about the squalor that lay beyond, where there were children like me but not like me. We were worlds apart.
- Like maybe, even if we aren’t friends (yet!), we are neighbours in a spiritual suburb full of women trying to parent and work and be full human beings and sleep through the night. It’s not a bad place to live.
- That there’s still a piece of me (oh how it works so hard to keep me safe) … that thinks that there is a right and wrong way to get to that place, that there’s a right and wrong way for me to be, to feel, to act, to travel, look, to parent, to human, to live.
- And by the time I’ve done all these things to my outer self, my inner being is nodding and rolling their eyes and going: Yeah, yeah, ok. We’re not such a dirt grub. We clean up nicely, we make cool things, we’re strong, we really do like ourselves and others. Sure. Whatever. Let’s do this.
- I sewed and John healed and then I wrote about how the two processes were intimately connected, the threads overlapping and entwined. (In an older time, his incisions would have been sewn up after the surgery but now most surgeons use staples!)
- You’d think a cylinder would be easy but it’s often the simplest forms that are most unforgiving. As I am not a thrower, I know that my forms will never be as tight as they would be on a wheel, and nor do I want them to be. But cracks won’t do. ‘Practice makes good,’ is my new motto.
