September 19, 2009

Some things on Saturday

Oh, I wish I could tell you what I’m now reading, but you’ll have to wait for the December issue of Quill & Quire to find out. Alas, but I’m enjoying myself. Birds of America is on its way to me in the post. For the last few days, I’ve been composing a love letter to the Spadina Road branch of the Toronto Public Library (which I’ll put down on paper soon, and copy here). We’ve been listening to Elizabeth Mitchell at our house, and we’re totally obsessed– everyday I have a new favourite, but I like her version of “Three Little Birds” and also The Tremelos’ “Here Comes My Baby”. I’ve been playing guitar myself these days, and Harriet is entranced by the shiny tuning pegs. She also likes strumming the strings. We’re going to England in less than a month, which is exciting, but seemed like a much better idea when the baby was still hypothetical. Now, I am a bit terrified, but pleased that her brilliant sleep patterns are wrecked already so that I don’t have to worry about the time change doing so. (In terms of baby sleep, how about this: ask moxie hypothosizes that sleep is this generation of parents’ “thing” [whereas, it once was potty training] because babies sleep on their backs now, where they do not sleep as well as they did on their fronts. This is also why our parents have little sympathy for the sleeping plight). I continue to be exhausted, much the same way I was when Harriet was born, except I have a life now and do not spend my waking hours sitting in a chair sobbing, and therefore the tiredness feels worse (and yet, I would not, could not, go back there, no). I’ve also quit Facebook, sort of. You see, I was totally addicted, checking it whenever I was feeding the baby and often when I wasn’t, and there are better things I could do with my time. And yet, there are many things I love about Facebook– friends’ photos, event invitations, cool links, finding out about friends’ achievements, that many of my FB friends’ aren’t friends otherwise, and I’d miss them if I went. But there are only so many strangers’ photo albums you can peruse without feeling your life is slipping away, so, I had my husband change my Facebook password, and now I have to be logged in by him. And I really hope this doesn’t happen all that often. So this should free up some time for me to finally read through my stack of London Review of Books that has been accumulating since Harriet was born. And I mean that. I am also going to knit Harriet a sweater from the Debbie Bliss Baby and Toddler Knits book I got from the library today, but I’ll use the 12-24 month sizing, because I’m realistic about how long it takes to get anything done. Today, we had the most wonderful brunch at the Annex Live. And the baby is awake, so I must go lay out the newspaper on the floor so I can read it while I feed her.

August 26, 2009

So lucky

Harriet is three months today, which means I’ve got every right to post baby pictures. And we’ve got some gorgeous ones, taken this weekend by our friend Erin who makes everything beautiful, as well as another one displaying the ever-elusive, always precious Harriet smile. This third month has been a very fine one, real life returned to us. Harriet sleeps in her crib now, and for such long periods of time that I’m a very spoiled mom. During the past week we’ve gotten so that I get to come back downstairs after putting her to bed, rather than just collapsing into bed exhausted.

I kept a journal of letters to the baby throughout my pregnancy, and my plan was to write it throughout the postpartum too, but I didn’t write a word until Harriet was nearly two months old. Which is interesting– I’ve thought so much about how there is so little record of what that period is actually like for anybody, but I know that for me, I had no desire to write it all down so in essence to live it twice. Once was most certainly enough. It is, like much of motherhood, I am learning, better just to get on with it.

But part of the struggle, for me, was that my feelings weren’t at all what I’d expected them to be. Not only did I not know how to articulate them properly, but I was uncomfortable even trying. I’d wondered if I’d see my baby and recognize her from the start, but I didn’t. Getting to know her has been a slow and involved project, and of course I have to say that of course I’ve always loved her, but it’s much more complicated than that, really. I’ve had to grow into this love, or perhaps it’s that my love for her is so entrenched within me that I barely recognize it. It’s way below the surface, is what I mean, so that I find myself staring at this tiny stranger and wondering who she is, and yet when we’re apart, she is the string of thoughts in my head. Meeting her needs is such a primal urge I’m scarcely conscious of it, and yet it’s overwhelming. When she’s sleeping, I want her to never ever change, and at the same time I’m so eager to mark her progress, to meet this person she’s slowly becoming. I can’t remember what I ever did before, who I was then, but I also don’t feel substantially changed. In that I’ve been Harriet’s mother forever and ever, is what I mean by that. Or something quite different at the very same time.

I’ve heard tell of complaints that Toronto’s had a very rotten summer, but I’ve missed the rotten, playing with my baby under shady trees, taking long walks, taking her to yoga, to the library, to the museum to sit on a bench and watch the fish swim. We’ve cut down on our evening walks now that the baby goes to bed early, but they were what got me through June and July when Harriet screeched on schedule, and I will remember the fresh air of those nights with fondness forever. Too many trips leading to ice cream, but it kept us happy and sane(ish). And now lately, we’ve had weekend trips away, a jaunt over to Toronto Island, and we’re going away this weekend too for a tiny getaway, just for fun, just for summer. The summer that I thought would be lost to me, because certainly I do not remember June, but it all comes back, slowly, it does. And we’re happy, if not always, and so lucky, always, always.

August 10, 2009

T is for Toronto books

Oh, no one tagged me, but I want to play too. To join Rebecca and Kate in compiling their top Toronto books. I’m not sure I can come up with fifteen, but this is the best I can do off the top of my head. (Update: Fourteen. I’ll do my best to think of another. Update Update as inspired by Rebecca: YES! BOOKY! Update 3 see below).

1) A Big City ABC by Alan Moak: I have the original edition of this book, with Exhibition Stadium instead of the SkyDome under “B is for baseball”. And I is for island ferry indeed. The illustrations are beautiful, and I remember spending considerable time examining them closely when I was small. (This book was re-released in 2002, and will be coming out in paperback in October).

2) The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood: I love the depictions of Ward’s Island (I is for island ferry, see above) especially, but the entire book captures the city’s neighbourhoods brilliantly. I was also quite fond of the university setting when I was getting ready to become a student in Toronto myself.

3) Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood: Shows the fringes of the city back when the fringes were newly constructed bungalows in a sea of mud up around St. Clair Avenue. And the ravines! And then revisits to find the city changed by the 1980s, with grey skyscrapers that were like tombstones.

4) Headhunter by Timothy Findley: For a course I took called “Reading Toronto” in university, I read works including some Morley Callaghan, Fugitive Pieces, Alias Grace, The Swing in the Garden by Hugh Hood, and this book. I’m not cheating by stocking this list with my course syllabus, but Headhunter has to be included as it’s stayed with me ever since I read it, particularly the scenes in the Toronto Reference Library.

5) Stunt by Claudia Dey: I is once again for island ferry, and P is for Parkdale. Eugenia Ledoux’s narrative is Toronto as an underwater dream.

6) Muriella Pent by Russell Smith: The reason I ever took a walk to Wychwood Park, Smith’s most recent novel is Russell Smith the novelist coming into his own. Also notable for Brian Sillwell’s basement apartment.

7) Helpless by Barbara Gowdy: Once again, the neighbourhoods. Here is Cabbagetown, the dodgy end, portrayed as a place where people live and where community happens.

8) Girls Fall Down by Maggie Helwig: Toronto underground, in the deepest ravines and down in the subway’s depths. Helwig creates an unfamiliar city out of Toronto in the grip of panic.

9) When I Was Young and In My Prime by Alayna Munce: P is still for Parkdale, and for poetry too, Munce’s poem/fiction hybrid an extraordinarily rendered feat. Toronto stands for onward and away as the narrator grapples with her grandparents’ decline.

10) The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper: Terrifying! And you could plot it on a map, which is Terrifying! doubly.

11) How Happy to Be by Katrina Onstad: Here is great urban fiction, undeniably set in its place. Which is Toronto ’round the turn of this century as lived in by a media/culture/cool savvy journalist who’s less savvy about where her life is headed.

12) Minus Time by Catherine Bush: I found this to be an imperfect novel with so many perfect components, one of which is its depiction of Toronto. Particularly a Toronto not-too-long-ago already lost, the Robert Street tennis courts/ice rink which had been the home of the narrator’s now-demolished childhood home. And not just because it’s around the corner from my house.

13) In The Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje: I know it’s cliched, we’re supposed to hate this book, and though I’ve loved it less with each reread, it still makes the Bloor Street Viaduct magical to me, as well as the majestic RC Harris Water Treatment Plant (which I despair they no longer offer tours of).

14) Unless by Carol Shields: Much of it takes place in a fictional small town north of the city, but the heart of it is set on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst, just across from Honest Ed’s.

15) The Booky Trilogy by Bernice Thurman Hunter

15.5) Jonathan Cleaned Up and Then He Heard a Sound (or blackberry subway jam) by Robert Munsch

July 21, 2009

Links

New (to me) blogs on the horizon! Such as The Literary Type, the official blog of The New Quarterly. TNQ is always good, and I’m sure we’ll see the same quality of work online. Check out the first post, “On Joining the Conversation”, about how online is where literary people are talking these days. I’m also obsessed with the blog Making It Lovely, which is sort of strange because it’s about interior design, but also about design on a broader scale and its creator is brilliant. And join our Facebook group, [re]use your mug. As some of you can’t help but know, our city is in the midst of a garbage strike, and trash has piled up in the streets. We’ve posted pictures of the mess in our gallery— note how much of it is cups, yes? A grand opportunity (in disguise) for us to realize how much less garbage we’d produce if we cut the disposible cups out of our lives. I, for one, had taken the pledge.

July 13, 2009

Bits and pieces

I am so excited to read the final volume of the Anne books— I wasn’t aware such a volume existed, and wonder if it’s actually finished, as its form sounds quite fragmentary. But no less, my favourite Anne books were the last bunch (House of Dreams, Rainbow Valley, Anne of Ingleside and Rilla of Ingleside), precisely for their dealings with “serious” and “darker” themes this book supposedly contends with– I couldn’t help but think about Anne’s stillborn baby in light of Montgomery’s own experiences, Leslie Moore’s marriage, WW1, the pied piper and Walter’s death, when Anne fears Gilbert has ceased to love her, etc. Guardian blogger discusses the “dark side” of Green Gables. Bits of A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book called Rainbow Valley and Rilla of Ingleside to mind, actually, and Dovegreyreader interviews Byatt here. Speaking of interviews, Rebecca Rosenblum answers 12 or 20 questions. And speaking of nothing at all, 30 Rock ripped off the Muppet Show, why our federal tax dollars should not fund jazz, and Russell Smith on baby slings (he says do avoid the polyester).

July 7, 2009

The Wedding

Harriet is in the midst of her six weeks’ growth spurt, which means that she’s permanently attached to me, who’s attached to the couch or bed most of the time, and so it goes. Luckily temporary. We’re actually doing very well here, enjoying support from lactation consultants in particular! And things are not as dire as my previous post suggested– that was early days, and week by week, life has been exponentially better. This weekend was a particularly large milestone, as we attended my best friend Jennie’s wedding. It was just a modest do, with a 500+ guest list. We’d been a wee bit terrified at the prospect with such a little baby, but baby behaved better than she ever had in her whole life (and since), spending most of the weekend eating, sleeping and being adorable. With her daddy’s support, I was able to pull off most of my bridesmaidly duties, and moreover had an enormous amount of fun. It was great to be away from home, to drive again, to stay in a hotel and feed baby in odd places– makes everything else seem so much more possible. And the wedding was really a spectacular event. As I’m between computers at the mo, I can’t upload my own photos, but I stole this one from my friend Britt’s Facebook– in spite of our outfits, we Bridesmaids did stand out a bit at this Sikh wedding, but really, check out the bride. She was so incredibly beautiful, gracious, and radiant, and she had her new husband absolutely belong together. I’m thrilled for them, and for me who got to be there.

New computer should arrive this week or next, and I expect regularish posting will resume then.

June 12, 2009

A Novel Gift

Stuart and I both like the song “Daughter”, but the lyric “everything she owns, I bought her” doesn’t really apply to our situation. It’s more like, “That’s our daughter in the water, everything she owns was a gift from our extraordinarily generous friends and family.” She gets packages in the post near daily, always full of delightful things. We feel so lucky and appreciative of these gifts, and all the thoughts and good wishes we’ve received. Harriet lacks for nothing, no thanks to us really. Our freezer is also similarly stocked.

But one gift does stand out a bit. In addition to adorable summer outfits, Harriet’s Auntie Jennie also gave us a novel. Or, gave me a novel. It was Catherine O’Flynn’s novel What Was Lost, which I’ve wanted to read for ages. And this novel gift really was particularly novel, because nobody ever gives me books. Oh, as I’ve said, people give me lots of things, but I’ve read so many books already and my tastes are quite defined that friends are more inclined to give me other things. So that rarely do I ever receive a book as a surprise, let alone a book I’ve been dying to read anyway. I imagine I’m not the only bookish sort who suffers from this plight. Oh, the tortured problems of the middle class…

May 21, 2009

Visit JessicaWesthead.com

I’m pretty excited about Jessica Westhead’s fabulous new website, not just because it showcases her work, but also because of my amazing husband Stuart Lawler’s part in its making (through his great venture Create Me This). And it’s a gorgeous site. Yay, Jessica! Yay, Stu!

May 12, 2009

Magazine as Muse

My friend Rebecca Rosenblum (you know her, with a book just nominated for the Danuta Gleed Award, and she’s off to Japan this very day) has a wonderful piece in the current issue of The New Quarterly. “Stuff They Wrote” is part of TNQ’s “Magazine as Muse” feature, in which writers credit magazines that inspired them to start writing down words, and even sharing them. Rebecca has written an ode to edgy teen magazine Sassy, and its “staffers” in particular. She writes, “Sassy was like a novel in a fundamental way. It had characters. Sassy brought that always-lurking I-perspective of journalism to the centre. The writers didn’t take over the stories (usually) but they didn’t elide themselves, either.”

Sassy was a world in which Rebecca could imagine herself, the writers bridging that gap between her life and theirs, suggesting limitless possibilities for the kind of woman girls could grow up to be. And when Sassy became swallowed up by a corporate behemoth, and a strange zombie Sassy emerged, Rebecca knew enough to know the difference, and had confidence enough to put pen to letter-to-editor to say so. It wasn’t too long after that Rebecca had her first story published, and she wouldn’t dismiss the idea of some connection there.

Confession: I didn’t like Sassy. Sassy scared me. Their rules were too loose, they went too far, they used questionable language, and were touting something I found close to anarchy (ie SEX!). As a young teenager, I thought the wide world was generally terrifying, and was convinced that drugs, drinks and dyed hair were signs of slips towards hell. Beware of scruffy boys with cigarettes who might dare to sport an earring. (And tuck your shirt in, young man). Mine was a puritanism born of fear of the unknown, as most puritanisms usually are.

So I had a subscription to Seventeen. Writes Rebecca, “Seventeen was imperative-voiced: columns and service pieces about how often you should brush your hair and how you might get into a bad crowd if you didn’t listen to your real feelings. Seventeen wasn’t like a story; it was like a textbook, only there were Eye Makeup and French-Kissing classes instead of Math and Geography.”

Oh, but some of us were in dire need of schooling. In a world so incredibly chaotic (with dances, and lockers, and gym class– oh my!), a textbook offered some assurance, and I followed mine quite dutifully. Back to School must-haves, awesome locker organizers, lipstick colours, and the best kind of Caboodle. I learned that it was okay to like Evan Dando (which was something upon which Sassy and Seventeen concurred). Sassy preached that you could be whoever you wanted, but I didn’t know who that was yet. I preferred the message of Seventeen instead– play the game right, and I just might fit in.

Not that I did fit in. I had oily hair and pulled my pants up to my armpits, but one issue of Seventeen in particular suggested that I might have half a chance. It was the issue from April 1993, whose date I only remember because I had it with me on a family vacation to Florida when I was in grade eight. It was the one single issue that I even remember, as not so much a muse as a re-framing of my world view, or at least of my place in it.

This was a new re-formatted Seventeen. A significant departure– I’ve found a record of old covers on line, and March 1993 was neon-hued, Andrew Shue playing volleyball. And then came April, with its muted-toned Earth Day theme. Shouting, Save the Earth, Girl! Which was cool. I don’t remember noticing the model’s hideous eyebrows then, but I liked her funky rings and hat. Inside, I remember a feature on slam-poetry (though it might well have been slam-poetry-inspired Bohemian fashions, but alas…) headlined, “Poetry/ is such a thing now.” Groovy, man. I wanted a beret. Someone wrote a piece about how amazing were the Beatles lyrics (citing, “She’s the kind of girl you want so much she makes you sorry…”) in comparison with whatever hit of the day was out then, and it was the first time I’d ever seen The Beatles (to whom I was obsessively devoted, so much that I was forbidden to speak of them at the dinner table because I was so incredibly boring) noted in contemporary pop culture. Poetry too, which I fancied myself a writer of. Book recommendations included one called Mrs. Dalloway— something like “the cool story of a single day in the life of a woman getting ready for a party!” I tried to read it, didn’t get it, but began to have it fixed in my mind that one day I would.

I probably just should have read Sassy, but I wasn’t ready to leave my shelter. The granola-y “reuse, recycle, renew, respect” Seventeen, however, provided a glimpse of an alternative culture that might provide me some space within it. Books were cool, The Beatles were cool, and poetry was cool, all of which I’d known already, but now somebody else knew it too. It was 1993, and I was inspired. En route to Florida I bought a flannel shirt at a Kentucky outlet mall– this was counter-culture. Naturally, I tucked it into my tapered jeans that were still pulled up to my armpits, but it was something, nonetheless. I was on my way.

May 4, 2009

There has never been a cuter cake

This cake from my baby shower this afternoon was about as delicious as it was adorable. And even home-decorated by one of the wonderful shower attendees, no less. Pretty much typical of the afternoon too– the shower itself was deserving of a cake this good, with amazing food and some of my very favourite company. Family and friends who were patient enough to sit around watching me open presents all afternoon. For such patience, I’m grateful, as well as for the presents themselves, which were so thoughtful, perfect, and as adorable as the cake. This is going to be one very blessed baby, and I’m so lucky already.