January 26, 2023

Soft

I used to drive myself crazy (literally!) trying to synthesize the world, to have the pieces fit together, to have it all make sense. I wanted to frame things to make the not-okay seem okay, somehow, like it fit into the scheme of things which, as I’ve learned in therapy, is a particular problem I’ve had for a very long time, this notion too that I have to hold it all. But I don’t have to—what a thing! Instead, I have to let it be, which in some ways is harder than trying to hold it all, but in other ways, so much easier.

I wrote the above with several random incidents of violence in my city in mind, such upsetting events which, it occurs to me, have same effect that terrorism does, the terror part. A sinister cabal really couldn’t have planned it any better than the perpetrators of these acts of violence. (I think about too the anti-social nature of protest against public health restrictions last winter, how these more violent actions are born of the same vibe. Sowing mistrust, uncertainty, and fear, and suspicion of our fellow human beings.)

I used to think that the bad thing would end and then there would be a period of calm. Perhaps this what a person is trained to think who came of age in the 1990s, didn’t read the newspaper very closely, and never imagined that anything that happened outside of a five mile radius have anything to do with them.

A thing I’ve said lately to a few people, in regards to parenting both toddler and teenagers, is this: It’s hard. And it’s hard because it’s hard, not because you’re doing it wrong. There are no hacks.

And I’m starting to realize that this is true about life itself, actually. It’s hard. And it’s hard because it’s hard, not because you’re doing it wrong. There are no hacks.

All of which is another way of saying (I’m sorry!) that “It is what it is.”

But it is!

I have become more cognizant of how I meet the moment, greeting hardness and anger with the same. Greeting violence with fury. And fearfulness, stoking division. No, I want to be constructive. I want to be brave.

“If you look back at history or you look at any place in the world where religious groups or ethnic groups or racial groups or political groups are killing each other, or families have been feuding for years and years, you can see…that there will never be peace until somebody softens what is rigid in their heart. So it’s necessary to take a big perspective on your righteousness and your own fundamentalism when it begins to kick in and you think your own aggression and prejudice are reasonable.” —Pema Chodran

I want to soften. I want to keep being soft.

July 7, 2021

Grinding Sharpening

For years, the knife sharpening van has existed on the margins of my experience, an uncanny ringing in the distance, slowly moving up and down the streets of our neighbourhood, slightly sinister. The idea of waving him down with a handful of knives always seemed awkward to me, and so I never have, and so all of our knives are dull dull dull.

The knife sharpening van makes a cameo appearance in my first novel, Mitzi Bytes, underlining the danger inherent in ordinary lives.

We were having a conversation about the knife sharpening van, its elusiveness, and our dull kitchen knives as recently as yesterday.

And then tonight we heard the tell tale clang clang clang, and ran out the door, knife wielding maniacs. “Stop, stop!” And he did!!

WE CAUGHT THE KNIFE SHARPENING VAN.

And it did not even open up a portal to another dimension.

It did, however, generate considerable sparks.

And someone is likely to slice open their hand in our kitchen within the next few days.

It was really and truly magic.

July 8, 2008

Fits and starts

It’s been a strange day, and I’ve got stitches in my mouth. I’m also a bit doped up, and all of it has been sort of fascinating, however awful. That I’ve been bored, all afternoon. And I am never bored. I firmly believe that boredom is the jurisdiction of the lazy (or of those who forget to carry at book at all times). But this afternoon I’ve not been able to concentrate on very much, save the daring feats of squirrels outside my window, crossing and crisscrossing the street via tightrope power lines. That I’ve been unable to read very much at all, can you believe it. I was reading Marilynne Robinson before, but she requires more attention and care from her readers than I have energy to offer her now. I did listen to the podcast of Lorrie Moore reading her story “Paper Losses”, which is sort of wonderful, actually, as I can’t think of any other day in which I would have cleared the space. In fits and starts, I’ve been rereading Justine Picardie’s If the Spirit Moves You, which is just the ticket, I think, for my current state of mind. I also read another story today, which I hated– the danger of linking books and experience– mainly because I was taking out upon it my “mild discomfort”. But I’m also sure it sort of sucked. And the story will therefore remind me of excruciating pain as I long as I shall live.

I am turning my evening over to the benevolent force of the DVD.