January 3, 2024
New Year’s Gleanings!
- May we delete social media from our phones and become part of real communities that are sometimes underwhelming, because they are not full of the dopamine hits of Silicon Valley’s design, but also surprisingly beautiful. May we keep showing up, week after week, rain or shine, sparkly or dull. That’s it, just keep showing up.
- But it is OK — and good for us all — to acknowledge and celebrate the many moments of banal public cohesion that don’t make it to social media in which Torontonians display their differences, and the sky doesn’t fall.
- I think I feel that way about making a simple moral response to Gaza right now. It would be at worst, near-fetched.
- I feel like for myself, I have to get back to my absolute basics, and to rebuild my compassion and empathy all over again, not to mention so many of the other good things that have been slowly dismantled from just living the last few years.
- Part of travel is also to discover who you are when you’re not in your familiar territory. Who are you out there “in the wild”?
- I decanted onto a plate from the cupboard. It was my parents’ wedding china and for 60 years, turkey was all it held, coming out as it did just on special occasions. Now they’re my everyday plates.
- Emily’s unshakeable conviction that she is a writer is the main highlight for me, every time I reread this novel. She will write even if she doesn’t have paper, even if she is forbidden to write because her aunt believes novels are wicked, even if teachers or classmates or relatives—or friends and mentors—mock her.
- What I was missing more than anything, what I needed, was my creative spark. I didn’t consciously know this till the spark reappeared.
- Warning: I am going to type some things that will read as being critical of this yoga class, and many readers will think Where The Fuck Does She Get Off. I get off (not literally) (sometimes literally) to my own words in my own head, obviously. I have had a diary-blog for 24 years. I am leaving a review on the Yelp of my mind.
- So this year: no snow, a waxing gibbous moon, seen last night with Jupiter, apparently their final encounter of the year, and one pan of buttercrunch remaining to be made and glazed with dark Belgian chocolate. With any luck, the tin in the box waiting in Ottawa will be fresh enough to eat when it’s delivered on January 5th. I don’t miss the snow. I miss the children, who’ve grown up, and I miss my parents, who are long gone to spirit, and I miss the friends who’ve either died or ghosted themselves into other lives. But when I walk up the stairs on Christmas Eve, when I look out the window into a darkness unpunctuated by any light but our own, the memory of them will be the company I imagine as I wait for the morning.
- I cherish each of those sweet memories because I’ve learned that the Halcyon Days are fleeting and must be savoured.
- I do still really enjoy settling in to write about a book that really got me thinking (or feeling!), and blogging in general is still the writing I find most intellectually liberating and stimulating, so we’ll see what happens in 2024. People seem to be predicting a blogging renaissance, as social media communities are fragmenting and “the discourse” (which, when it’s genuinely bookish, is to be cherished) is suffering. I’m here for it if you are!
- I’m going to be fifty in June. Not really a big thing, in reality, and i’m happy to be alive and aging. But my mom is 78 and just recovering from a surgery and not feeling well and the combination is bringing mortality and life choices to a much larger screen near you.
- But then we held hands and listened to Fireside Al Maitland reading Frederick Forsyth’s The Shepherd, and for just a moment my eyes were dry and my heart was full.
- I also felt the impact of that sentence. I have wasted so many years being ashamed of my body, avoiding activities and social events because of my body, dieting, and talking about being overweight.
- I miss walking into the field and seeing your horse raise his head from the grass to look at you. I miss being recognized and the nicker. I miss that warmth in my chest.
- Somehow, in the moment when I start to slip, I must simply… let go. To understand, that contrary to my control-freak nature, the thing to do here is—nothing?!?
- And I thought to myself, of all of the houses, of all the streets, we landed here, next to you.
- “You there, so restless, where are you trying to get to? This is winter,” she said with a sparkle as the sun reflected off her back./ All is well.”
