November 30, 2021
Gleanings
- Change is literally baked into plot, just like change is baked into each of our lives.
- If you stop and take a moment to let them in, you’ll see that joys abound.
- Friendship has been on my mind a lot lately. We tend to overlook its importance in our lives. But when you’re single and live alone, contact with friends is important, especially in a pandemic world.
- And how does one move and live and experience joy and laugh and dance amidst all of it?
- There is more delight than I could have foreseen in these teenaged years. Sometimes its just the tiniest moment between the tumults, but man, they are an entire world of glow. a secret look into the snowglobe of the world.
- I wish Jo Baker had not written Longbourn: if I hadn’t assumed that she was just one more unimaginative barnacle on the unstoppable ship Austen Always Sells, I might have read her other books sooner.
- And maybe swimming is just that too: swimming. But it feels like such a potent time, a meditation that isn’t always peaceful (those waves), pushing my body forward and back in the water, eyes open but not seeing anything outer.
- Most days, I am happy to drift aimlessly on a gentle breeze. Increasingly, I welcome the wind swirling around me, giving me that extra push needed as I set my course.
- She told me she’d be with me always, I know she is and maybe it’s in these sparrows on my deck, at my feeders full of spicy seeds.
- Just as each day is different, so too each walk is different. Each walk is like a story with different scenes, characters, and storylines.
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November 24, 2021
Gleanings
- Right now, we’re making do. Sitting on it. Doing nothing.
- In the years since, I’ve put characters in a novel on that road, just so I could travel it again over and over, as I wrote…
- This week I am numb. I think our brains can only take in so much suffering and heartache and I am maxed out.
- I’ve been looking forward to this novel by the very funny and sharp Saskatchewan writer, Dawn Dumont. I read it as soon as it was released, and loved it.
- It’s never the same, some days I walk alone, some days with others, some days with awe, some days it’s a head down get it done kind of walk.
- I think we all need a little more cake these days.
- Do we need to know our forefathers? And by knowing the details of their lives (but not their personalities, their struggles, their stories) – will it change who we are today?
- What I recognized through this work was that my inner light has the capacity to shine brightly in many situations; but there is payment afterward (or before) when that energy burns.
- Three books that are really hitting the spot for me of late…
- For decades, we have been telling ourselves that we need to be perfect if we want to satisfy our audiences. But AUDIENCES DON’T WANT PERFECTION. They want to see themselves reflected on stage. They want humanity.
- Writing essays is easier for me and often more fun, but writing novels feels like what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. I may be wrong about this. I often wonder why I don’t just stick with the thing that’s fun.
- “Whenever someone writes a memoir about death and dying or grief, it’s always like this: ‘My house burned down, I lost my husband in a car accident, and now I’m CEO of this company,’ ” Hitchins says. “You have that story, or the self-help version, which is, ‘Ten years later, here’s my post-traumatic wisdom.’ What is it like when your only achievement is you started showering again?”
November 17, 2021
Gleanings
- Thank you for tolerating white board markers that never have enough ink, hours that never have enough minutes, and parents that never have enough empathy for what you deal with in a given day.
- This is NOT what I thought I was signing up for that summer when I decided I wanted to do this for a living.
- And tweeting small observations about the world around me, as well as lifting up others’ voices, is enough to keep me checking in.
- Can I hope we will meet in person someday, coffee cake or no coffee cake, to continue the conversation? GAH. Sometimes I miss people. In person. A lot. And I’m an introvert who loves being at home in her comfy pants!
- Women are like that, putty in their stylist’s hands. Hoping the blonde will darken in a few months, I will return to him, because I still believe in his skills. And yes, I want to look good, even while going grey.
- It’s as if that one remark moved us into something different, from strangers to fellow travellers, from small talk, into conversation.
- Our walks were how we connected with a city in lockdown and how we stayed close to nature, to ourselves and to each other.
- Why don’t you try something you haven’t done and why don’t you see where it takes you? Why don’t you.
- It’s funny how you can set your life up to be the way you want it to be, and then forget to appreciate it.
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November 10, 2021
Gleanings
- Baked in a disposable foil cake pan for easy door dropping and classic Deep n’ Delicious aesthetic, with frosting piped on with a star tip to complete the effect, I’ve baked this several times and it has been devoured each time – it’s wonderful, vegan or not.
- And then it gets weird. The Hong Kong avian flu introduced H5N1 to the world, a new and dangerous virus, transmitted from birds to people, causing fears of a worldwide influenza pandemic. The European Union experienced major floods, while a massive tornado stormed through Texas killing 27 people. Meanwhile, world leaders from 150 countries met in Kyoto to sign an agreement to address climate change.
- I am about halfway through You Look Good for Your Age: An Anthology, edited by Rona Altrows, and so the theme of aging—body and mind and soul—is clearly on my mind.
- A deliberate act of stopping, noticing, looking up, breathing deep, all in stillness – a necessity I am becoming more comfortable with, in this hunt for awe, whose closest companion, may just be gratefulness.
- I’ve got a lot of houseplants, dude. Each time a mood strikes me, I find myself holding a potted plant.
- Books have been a comfort to me since early childhood as I learned to navigate life in a world that expected much more from me socially than I would ever be able to give.
- I’ve had less flattering juxtapositions of “Taylor Swift” against other aspects of my identity, most noticeably in university when a Black friend pondered why a Black man would be listening to a “basic white woman”. The false description aside, my reason is simple: her themes embody the kind of writing I seek to create—emotive and universal, yet highly specific.
- I suppose what gets to me is this belief that we need to take classes to learn, to become perfect at something. What happened to just plain practicing? Why not sing, dance, paint, or write for the pure joy of it, rather than feeling like we need to be experts?
- It feels like the epitome of late fall to me, the kind of thing I can never resist on a lunch menu because isn’t it wonderful when someone else has already gone through the trouble of roasting squash?
- The power went out at 5:30 this morning, the small lights we are accustomed to at night–the shell nightlight in the bathroom, the glow of the modem in John’s study beyond our bedroom– extinguished
- What is a character without place? Even if it’s a place as small as a room or a country where the character does not feel she belongs.
- I’m miserable when I’m not writing in some form — so if I don’t write for too long, something starts to feel deeply off and so I keep coming back to this complex relationship.
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November 3, 2021
Gleanings
- Unvaccinated people didn’t just arrive in Toronto from Mars. They are products of a culture that over the last few generations has become increasingly individualistic, distrusting and focused on personal welfare over the larger community.
- It’s a very bizarre thing to find yourself squeeing in the middle of a gut-wrenching and upsettingly graphic story about the bubonic plague. And yet. Here we are.
- Last week we held a celebration of life for my mother and yesterday we hosted a baby shower for my oldest daughter.
- But somehow the days accumulated until yet another summer had passed, and I didn’t swim to the island.
- But why the maniacal drive for completeness? And what is completeness, anyway?
- So yes, I was today years old when I realised I was happy – definitely the best birthday present I could ask for.
- No bluegrass song has ever been written about freaking THROAT COAT TEA
- I think Beautiful World also offers a more affirmative response, though: that there is value in both love and art, that they are what can make the world beautiful, that they are worth believing in and standing up for, and that the novel (including this novel) is one way of doing that.
- (for the life of me i will never ever be able to keep a secret about myself. for others? til death. but myself? never ever. Is this a flaw? a strength? a quirk? idgaf. yes, that.)
- I think part of me thought it was too typical that a woman would write about food, and that I wanted to make my voice known on other topics. But somehow, I’m still hungry.
- But the history of kitchen cabinets and the appliances tucked in snugly between them is not pretty or seamless. It’s brimming with attempted liberation, deliberate oppression, Cold War marketing and feminist utopias founded on white supremacy. And it’s still stewing.
- Afterwards, when the street was quiet and the night was black, we blew out the candles in the pumpkin and brought him inside. I thought about how some things that we avoid actually turn out to be good.
- In his book, Williams uses the word whiplash to describe the sensation of going about one’s daily life until, without warning, one is confronted by a reminder of race and its implications
- So yes, I do aspire to be kinder, more generous. I aspire to give you what you want before you ever ask. But most deeply I aspire to be eccentric
- The coconut word triggered a few memories of instances when I felt misjudged or slightly vulnerable because of my skin colour.
- Asked what her first principle for detecting a good story was, Schoemperlen speaks in terms that echo Kennedy, albeit with fewer lethal connotations. “The stories to which I felt an immediate connection were the ones that just made me say, ‘Wow!’”
October 26, 2021
Gleanings
- But you know, the beautiful thing about a blog is that I’m not forcing anybody to read these posts, should I choose to write every day- and every so often, something I write that makes me feel good might just make someone else feel good.
- I believe that, to truly experience the world, you need to be out in it.
- Was there a Wanda? Maybe. Doesn’t matter. This is fiction. In fiction everything and nothing is possible and everything and nothing is real.
- The next day the trees had disappeared. Were they stolen in the night? Had the city reconsidered planting trees? Did whoever delivered the trees put them on the wrong street? In Montreal there are always many possibilities. The workings of the city and its employees are not transparent.
- I’m so grateful for friends like this, the shared meals, the stories, the laughter, the complete letting down of hair and being ourselves.
- But in the room yesterday, surrounded by photographs of Barbara, hearing from friends and family who knew her as a girl, then a young bride, a young mother, I thought that our lives are somehow liminal. Between.
- It’s here that I am full of hope and possibility. The kiln hasn’t had its wicked way yet. No cracking, blistering or warping. I can see the finished piece exactly as I want it to look. I
- What fascinates me most is family narratives and the intergenerational impact on women. Are we more resilient when we know our stories? Do we learn to break the cycle of generational patterns? Do our generational stories create bridges or chasms? Those are only some of the questions I want to explore.
- Oh, didn’t that quotation find me at just the perfect moment? I responded on Twitter that the “distanced intimacy” of reading takes many forms.
- After all, Amelia Earhart, with whom Grace becomes obsessed, is not a straightforward symbol of escape or liberation: sure, she broke barriers and flew away, but eventually she also, tragically and mysteriously, never came back.
- Together we were living out the narrative of this time together as it unfolded, it just too bad there weren’t any guitars or fiddles.
- It may not be quite the same as sitting at a table on a sidewalk in Europe, but a little bit of butter, a little flaky morsel, goes a long way.
- We need to make a point to fill ourselves up. I need to, as JGO says below, let the bitterness sink to the bottom of my life. Allow myself to take the joy to go. And this is found, often, in the company of good people, good friends, and yes, often in the company of women.
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October 19, 2021
Gleanings
- My family journey is an affirmation of the beauty and worthiness in life and relationships which are salvaged and repurposed.
- When I pointed out that a recipe book on her kitchen counter was mine, she said, Oh, we’re having sex, I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t mind about the sex. I did mind about my recipe books and cake tins.
- We can all connect to scenes of swimming in the local pool, waiting for the bus or sharing a meal with friends. No doubt, Monet, Morisot et. al. would be fans.
- Does an axis wish for a particular season?
- I’ve been thinking a lot about the words we use to describe ourselves as I step into retirement and cope with the death of my mother.
- I became very adept and meeting people and communicating online, and now this has become the primary way I engage the world.
- So it’s a good time of year to be looking in puddles–what’s real, what’s reflection, where’s your focus?
- I Will Follow Claire-Louise Bennett Anywhere
- Horror means something to me. It gets me through shit. Horror movies have literally saved my life. Maybe not life, exactly, but more like, just … saved me.
- I’m caught up in the details of organizing this ritual. Somehow, I have to free my thoughts of the minutia and write a eulogy. Sometimes there is a tendency to focus only on glorious achievements, while ignoring more down-to-earth, even negative aspects. I want to write about all of it, but from a place of love and understanding.
- My eight year old is obsessed. Can’t stop trying to spend her money on little bits of plastic that squish, or pop or spin. It is making me nuts, causing my inner panic buttons to be pressed about waste and the future and poverty and sea turtles.
- Our long walks up the mountain aren’t quite what they were. Rough ground presents difficulties so we try to find places to walk where the terrain is even. But I have to say that otherwise, things go on as they always did.
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October 13, 2021
Gleanings
- And so, I find myself squarely in the land of paradox. Learning to live and co-exist in the both/and. The contradictions and complexity. That we are both but one in the universe, and the universe itself. Both the inconsequentiality and significance of it all.
- I’m sure some people wonder why the heck I do this blog for little fanfare or acclaim or cash damn dollars. I always come back to this answer, that I love it and so I am constantly paying myself. Don’t get me wrong I also love dollars, but I can’t think about them, I just have to think about what I love.
- So I kept on doing the work that was before me, despite being consumed with self-doubt.
- The older I get, the more intentionally I think about who I am and build my work around that.
- Soup is the great solace of autumn, pots of turkey noodle, roasted squash, comforting borscht, potato and kale, Greek lentil.
- And, it turns out, I don’t have too many clothes. What I had was a wardrobe overstuffed with dreams and sadness. And now I don’t. And my mood, my mental health, everything, is better for it.
- For the frog in the tomato bed, the ladybug in the shower, for the person I saw swimming in the ocean and mistook for a seal until they emerged and I realized they are not a seal but a selkie and who has since become an almost friend. Who would not want a selkie as a friend?
- I would argue that it’s art too, because it shows me the world in a new way.
- When I contemplate why the fresh eggs brought such delight, I realize the mind needs to be serene to see the beauty in the ordinary.
October 5, 2021
Gleanings
- As I awake in the mornings, the fall sun late to arise, pulling the covers up to my chin attempting to avoid the nippy air around me, my brain and body are beg for just five more minutes. But as my feet hit the ground, and I head out the door, my experience so far, hasn’t been anything miraculous, but more of a quiet, contentment of just being.
- here’s hoping that the tough-talking swaggering braggarty chick that i always wanted to be still lives inside me…i think she does.
- Writers have been describing residential schools for decades. So have the elders. But, we have not seen what we were seeing.
- So I was thinking all this and wasn’t falling asleep. Suddenly I wanted to hear Charley Pride once again.
- I feel like there are bubbles of the past around my house that I walk into by accident, and am transported.
- More music: listening to Prince “Gett Off” and the line about 23 positions in a one-night stand just seems improbable, or maybe even indicative of trouble, like something wasn’t working.
- If I knew the story, I don’t think I’d bother writing it.
- the way orange sneaks up on you
- That morning light, the shadows. Light fades into shadow — it always attracts me.
- I’m only now, in this late stage in life, this third act, really seeing the beauty in art, although it has hovered on the perimeter of my consciousness for years.
- If I were a millennial, I would get a tattoo of a bassoon on a part of my body I wouldn’t mind showing to strangers, such as the back of my hand or my bicep muscle.
- The constancy of the histrionics of these angry people is utterly exhausting to decent folk who are finding their patience and tolerance stretched to the max. This cannot go on.
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September 29, 2021
Gleanings
- The process shows me that diversions and detours are as important in writing as they are in travel. And as in climbing, there are no shortcuts.
- This year I’ve been feeding my creative side, hoping that it will grow stronger.
- With uncertainty, (and a dash of contempt), I decide instead to just be in the moment, watching and noticing the whales, no recording or pictures, and risk the fleetingness of the moment of simply seeing the white bodies of the magnificent belugas swim by.
- In the end I feel I am hardwired to be this way — it’s how I respond to and live in the world. But still the question what is it trying to tell me? is a good one.
- If you thought SSJ was largely made of Love-To-Do-Lists, you were right.
- If I ever need a reminder of what it truly means to ‘live in the moment’ I only have to watch Doug. I am so thankful that he appears to be content, and that so many of his moments appear to be filled with joy.
- Really. Keep the faith. Anything is possible.
- I wonder, was I too close to see her as a woman? Or did I have so few stories from her life outside of these roles that I couldn’t see her as anything else?
- You know there are times I have thought it would be okay to send out some good vibes, a kind of secular prayer of sorts, to the unvaxed, at least to those sitting on the fence, a little unsure. And maybe the above would suffice.
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