September 12, 2023
Gleanings
- Eyes to see what’s right in front of me. Eyes that don’t turn away. Eyes that are connected to the heart, not the stories of the mind. Eyes that see the sacred, the holy, the reverent in all of it. Eyes that dance with wonder and curiosity. Eyes that meet what’s here, now. Eyes adjusted to the bigger story, the mystery.
- I often wonder at the origins of a person’s bookish habits, The What and How of what we keep and Why. And, our love of books to begin with, is it a nurture or nature thing, the fact of growing up with many books or almost none, of being read to daily or never being read to, that makes a difference or is there some other mystery involved?
- It’s actually amazing, how people are surviving, shining, in amidst all the trauma. And yah, sometimes we’re just trying our best, too, trying not to end up buried and gone. Trying to use our souls as best we can, remembering the good qualities of those around us. Doing what we can with what we have, remembering to give what grace we can.
- For years, I mocked this love for sameness. Until I woke up to discover myself with a daily egg on toast, just one element of a tightly choreographed morning ballet that is best not interfered with. The walls of my small comfort zone (CZ, I’ll call it) sit on a foundation of DNA.
- The marginality of women and women’s words in the OED is another illustration of Jenni Nuttall’s point that advances in knowledge don’t always represent progress for women. As lexicography became more “scientific”–more systematic, more fact-oriented, more rigorous–it also became more male-dominated, and more masculinist in its assumptions about what did or didn’t belong in dictionaries.
- Back in June, I set a few goals that pointed toward a changing horizon. Softer, maybe, and calmer and gentler and as beautiful as the view across the lake from the sunset deck at my stepsisters’ cottage. The sky at sunset is always different but familiar, different but known, different if you take time to sit and savour it each evening. Otherwise, you might believe you’d see the same sunset and sky over and over again, and you might be bored by what you think of as repetition. But it’s not repetition, it’s texture and nuance and depth. It’s a groove, not a rut, as my friend Lisa says.
- To age wisely is to be willing to unlearn as well as learn. September can be a month not only for learning new things, but unlearning what no longer serves us. Or others.
- You might say that in attempting to solve the mystery of my own family through fiction, I blurred the line between reality and family legend even further. I do hope my ancestors will forgive me.
- Maybe it’s just one of the gifts fiction can offer us—a temporary respite, a refuge. It’s not that there isn’t trouble and heartache in the story Lara tells her daughters, but while they listen they are safe and loved. There’s definitely room for novels like that in my reading life.
- We’re still the very same people we were in Northumberland, but now we’re looking forward to having many more new experiences and passing many more milestones here in Essex County. Turns out, no matter how many miles we move, nor how much time passes, nothing changes, really. And that’s a good thing!
- The first time I read Beatrice and Barb was when I was going through the submissions pile on my desk. It’s a mystery to me how it landed there — but am I ever grateful that it did! I knew right away that I wanted to sink my teeth into the story. I always try to listen to that voice — that eagerness to start working on a manuscript. I sent you an email to say that I loved your story, and we met for coffee to talk about my editorial notes … and the rest is history!
- After the hurricane I promised myself I would never again take for granted the joy of turning on a tap to fill a glass with drinking water. I am promising myself now that I will never again miss the opportunity to smile at people – loved ones and strangers – or to kiss someone I love.
- Poignant, funny, horrifying, moving, smart, enraging, absurd: these are all adjectives that came to mind when I sat down to write this review of Alicia Elliott’s brilliant debut novel And Then She Fell. It’s a quick and intense read, with incredible, chatty, and hilarious chapter titles and a thoroughly amazing prolonged climax that I absolutely will not spoil for you, even though I am dying to write about it.
- I love writing. And I needed to take a break from it this summer so I could remind myself who I am writing for.
- When you spend 18 hours on a train with the small group of people with whom you were waiting for it arrive, you get to hear their stories.
