March 16, 2021
Gleanings
- Not loss, not yet, not while the daffodil leaves gleam in sunlight…
- I finished Cold Earth at lunchtime yesterday, a day where the sun was shining through my living room windows, warming my hair, and causing me to shed my ever-present (since the pandemic started, really) hoodie. And yet, I shivered as I read the final pages.
- Each place is evoked with such lucent, homey detail that it could make you homesick, even for a place that you’ve never been.
- What the room needed was somewhere to sit. Chairs. Just the right size of chairs.
- And Harry in particular became a feminist killjoy. He didn’t remain silent at the dinner table. He spoke up and spoke out.
- Have you noticed more radio-silence than normal amongst friends and family – unanswered texts, calls and emails? I sure have – and I don’t think I’m alone in this…
- I just finished reading Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, and I have emerged from its pages feeling sunburned.
- He said to me that morning, How can I ever thank you for everything you’ve done for me? And I answered, A greenhouse.
- There are scenes where I wanted to scream get out, or they’re only trying to help you, or you don’t need him. But I’m glad no one was listening.
- Have I said this before? I love this guy. He didn’t comment on me being alone. He dealt with the fact that I was alone.
- If hope is the light at the end of the tunnel, what happens when it flickers and dies? You either curl up or you cope. I curled up.
- One thing I have learned about myself this past year is that I’m much more of an introvert than I ever thought I was.
- So I’m curating. Fewer “hot takes” (which I suspect is no longer what they’re called) and more considered opinions.
- Can asking questions be a kind of spiritual practice? What happens when we consider the opposite?
- I want my novels to be hybrids. I want to pack them with questions, and I want them to work on the surface as unified and compelling stories, and then work beyond their surface as metafictional, cross-genre, and cross-cultural conversations.
- The pressure to appear just as normal has taken its toll. I find myself reminding people in meetings that “We are still in a pandemic, so maybe don’t knock yourself out?” And sometimes people laugh at that but I also remind them that I’m serious.
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March 9, 2021
Gleanings
- Never let it be said that book design doesn’t matter.
- Disagreement is a way of thinking, perhaps the best one we have… We can use it to turn vague notions into actionable ideas, blind spots into insights, distrust into empathy. Instead of putting our differences aside, we need to put them to work.
- Every story confirms that Doug has always been Doug.
- This is a book about discovery. Birds, yes. But passion mostly. It’s uplifting in a down to earth way; there are no promises that following your passion will lead you to what you expect, in yourself or otherwise, but, as Zarankin shows by her own example, there’s a very good chance it will lead you to the surprise of your own heart.
- I urge everyone to read this collection, and without delay! Audre Lorde’s intellect, insight, and wisdom were vast, but so was her heart. I can’t imagine anyone reading it and not wanting to try harder, to do better, to look at themselves and ask the tough questions.
- Two nights ago there were so many stars that I stood for a time just taking in the silvery shimmer across the vault of sky over the Douglas firs just beyond my house, the beauty settling in my whole body like a promise. This is here, I thought, despite everything else.
- It’s all about being ready. For the miracles.
- It’s like following a recipe for a Waldorf Salad, and then improvising with pecans and pears.
- Partially renovated bathrooms are more the rule than the exception. In the best cases, there’s a mismatched toilet or a handful of replaced tiles in a different shade of pink (or yellow, or blue).
- I like to listen to people talk. When radio became podcasts I was delighted.
- I concluded with “So, we have cake to celebrate being alive.”
- Of course this is an analogy for novel writing. It’s equally tedious and frustrating and even when you know you have all the pieces, that somehow they do all fit together to form a coherent whole, there are moments of doubt.
Read my article on comfort reads in The Toronto Star!
Do you like reading good things online and want to make sure you don’t miss a “Gleanings” post? Then sign up to receive “Gleanings” delivered to your inbox each week(ish). And if you’ve read something excellent that you think we ought to check out, share the link in a comment below.
March 2, 2021
Gleanings
- When I start to freak out a bit that I’m wasting too much time, I remember that good collaboration takes however long it takes. And you can’t collaborate if you’re not listening.
- I applied the same guidelines to painting that I do to writing: get it down, fix it later. And it worked. In some ways.
- The mail that arrives in the Opeongo Road is magical & promises to take me to other worlds.
- I don’t have a singular focus for this blog (or my life), I may never have one (for either) -and I’m finally OK with that. <<EXHALE>>. It feels so good to say that out loud!
- The dandelions are coming, dear friend, they really are.
- Such deliciousness – in books & baking. Now, more than ever, we need both.
- Being able to feel so deeply happy for friends’ good news and hopeful futures is something I’m relishing.
- Upon a bit of reflection I realized that one of the biggest things I loved about this class has been the ability to start my writing on the computer.
- Can we talk about the beauty of this bok choy bouquet? Something lovely that suggested itself before I swept the pieces into the green bin?
- Best of all, after wanting to do this for so long, and after three false starts, here I am with a blog! (Imagine that shouted from a mountaintop.) I didn’t know it would be so fulfilling. Once I press the “Publish” button, I feel a great release, and I’m happy and excited to work on the next post. To actually finish a piece of writing and send it into the world – that’s huge, for me.
- My current unrelenting monologue (like most people’s these days, I expect) is not a particularly sustaining one: I need reading to give me other stories to think about. I need blogging for the same reason, I find: it is still the only writing I do that feels genuinely my own.
- Of all the things to send me over the edge, you might not suspect that the greasy waxed paper around a crumb-covered knob of butter would be the thing.
- The thing about blogs is: 1. There’s no fake news; 2. There are no ridiculous memes; 3. People don’t just scroll, click a ‘like’ button, and move on; 4. There’s no self-righteous indignation 5. They don’t have people behind them making them addictive; 6. They are worthy of your attention; 7. and, if there are haters, we aren’t subjected to them (unless of course, we follow a haters blog).
Do you like reading good things online and want to make sure you don’t miss a “Gleanings” post? Then sign up to receive “Gleanings” delivered to your inbox each week(ish). And if you’ve read something excellent that you think we ought to check out, share the link in a comment below.
February 23, 2021
Gleanings
Very happy to share another round-up of GLEANINGS this week, including a whole bunch of new voices from writers who’ve taken part in my MAKE THE LEAP course this month. I hope you’ll be as excited about their work as I am.
- As a woman who has been put into surgical menopause, I don’t get a lot of sleep.
- Cappuccinos, Pineapple Upside Down Cake. I love Union Square & Gramercy Park in NYC. The Bowery Poetry Club.
- So I guess you could say that although I lean on Darwin I secretly wish there were fairies and Magic.
- But the stakes are high anyway, because I want so much do this, to be a writer again, to let words go and have some of them land.
- I am fascinated by power.
- Strange times call for fancy shoes.
- But what about the drive to paint? Or to hand-felt wool, and then sew black and gold threads, and glass beads, and pyrite onto it? Survival? Well, maybe not in the traditional sense.
- I love glass because it is fixed, but holds a memory of fluidity.
- It’s true what they say that the smell of lemons de-stresses a person. That goes for limes, oranges, and grapefruit too.
- I am so in love with curbside living.
- She repeated herself, saw that I was still puzzled, then said, but he’s a gravedigger, right?
- There are smiles out there./ They’re under snow. / Made with stones.
- Sometimes a teapot is not just a teapot.
- I’ve read articles and listened to talks on finding the courage to have nuanced conversations in these difficult times and in all honesty I’m so down with that from an academic stance. But in reality, I’m exhausted.
- There’s a lightness to trying. There’s acceptance that trying doesn’t always lead to success. There’s room for surprise. Experiment. Consider. Be blessed. Leap.
- Happy Birthday (Birthday Blues)
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February 17, 2021
Gleanings
- Where I live, people wake up and start burning things.
- So by the time I’m through reading Maxine, I’m ugly crying and I’ve woken up Gilles and read to him and said but I like just asked for a sign and he’s like, well you got one, that’s a good letter so don’t cry, go to sleep now and I said they are happy tears and he said it’s still a crying baby beside me and so I simmered down and slept.
- Think of a hug. Think of fancy fabric you want to touch and shiny jewelry you want to wear. Think of a vacation. Think of ice cream and pizza. Think of romance, a date, meeting someone who will love you. It’s heroic.
- This is the problem with patriarchy, where the lens and experiences of men are viewed as the penultimate. Everyone else disappears.
- I don’t own this apartment, I steward it.
- If I was an ancient, ineffable being (and who says I’m not), you might be able to summon me with some well-whispered devotions and offerings.
- It’s pretentious to start a blog post off with a quotation, but then it’s probably a bit precious sounding to write about fountain pens in the first place.
- I’ve been picking up old recipe books from the op shops in my travels and those $1 and $2 scores have been inspiring my cooking and helping me to feel more grounded.
- My new favourite pastime is noticing the ways of kindness, what it is, how it becomes, the way people find or make their own versions of it, the sheer, sweet miracle of how the pandemic has inspired so much goodness and despite how tired everyone is there seems to be no wearying of being kind in extraordinary ways.
- I tell myself that everything I have experienced, everything I have learned, has contributed, in some way, to my ability to be a caregiver.
- But what I would have given last night to hear a knock at the door, to open it to see the faces of my children as they were 30 years ago, or longer, looking up in the porch light, wanting in.
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February 9, 2021
Gleanings
- The International Tempest Over the World’s Most Famous Teapot
- i want to explore for a moment how important it feels to claim what is good in this time.
- The thing about still life is that even with it’s defined parameters, it’s such a huge field. The possibilities are endless.
- snowed under in a state of emergency.
- If you want to really revel in some winter reading, Tove Jansson is the author to seek out.
- When we danced to I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) we managed to transform his room into a cèilidh, if only for a moment. But it was a moment, a happy moment.
- The world lost a hero this week, with the death of Captain Sir Tom Moore.
- My first approach to literature in the education system was through the grand novels, plays, essays and poetry of men.
- There are days when I live in the moment, as most of us do, and there are days when everything I do is in service to memory…
- I raise a glass to this part of me. This part of you. It’s play and curiosity stitched together with resilience.
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February 2, 2021
Gleanings
- And of everything I’ve watched, Minari might be the best thing I’ve seen all pandemic.
- Such criticisms are reminiscent of the kind Wheatley was subjected to and more recently, takedowns of other Black women poets blocked from the mainstream literary canon, too numerous to list.
- Who knew that eggs in cakes were sometimes a …hindrance? Definitely not me.
- I didn’t intend to read two books back to back where women, politics, and arrogant men figure prominently but then I think if you have the first two ingredients, the last one is often a given.
- This is a game about moving and being while trans, and this is the aforementioned sentence I gnaw on, wrestling with it with ink, with fingers, but never with a voice.
- With all this pondering, I’ve also come to the realization that I simply trust myself to photograph whatever pleases me while not allowing myself to worry about how an image may appeal, or not, to someone else. There is a freedom in that ‘frame’ of mind.
- Criminal Minds had its share of missteps as far as writing was concerned…but if there’s one thing those writers could do, it was get people on planes.
- So you know how it’s possible to be that (possibly annoying) person — (aka me) who goes on about their mental sturdiness, their overall equilibrium, and who doles out calm advice for months and months on end, and then who basically totally utterly loses their sh*t. Yah. That’s where I’ve been the last couple of weeks.
- These handles might not be the touch-free tap handle of every germaphobe’s dreams and they’re certainly not the stuff of state of the art kitchen design, but they are a very simple hardware store fix that just generally makes kitchening more pleasant, whether you’re in a rental kitchen or otherwise
- I have been impressed with how Kamala Harris seems to really wear those Chuck Taylors quite often, not just for photo ops to look (comparatively) young, because even in the ‘80s the lack of arch support would leave me nearly crippled after walking my paper route.* So I can’t really imagine being 56 and wearing them for a punishing campaign day. BRAVA.
- Some days I feel like I’m living on the very edge of the earth, and in some ways I am.
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January 26, 2021
Gleanings
- And then of course there are art’s perennial twin questions: is this any good and who gets to decide? For too long a homogeneous cabal have been the arbiters of taste. But now the times, they are a changing. The house of poetry has built new wings. And some of the old guard are….well old and scared, it seems like.
- So, I wonder. I do not know. But as I wonder, in all my unknowingness, I know there is so much wonder.
- I’m holding 42 jujubes in my hand, my past and future, and I’m asking myself, I mean truly asking myself, “what are you going to do with them”
- The thing is, though… maintenance takes time and work. Attention takes time and work. Everything worth doing or having takes time and work.
- Fermentation brings me joy — and delicious food. My kitchen is like a laboratory.
- Patricia Highsmith is most often categorized as a genre crime writer, thanks in large part to the well-known film adaptations of her novels Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. But while this classification is fine as far as it goes, it doesn’t go nearly far enough
- So, should you write for the market? My first answer might surprise you…
- Scrolling through Twitter one morning, as one does, I saw that someone posted a video with the caption, “turn up your sound” but I mis-read it as turn up your soul. We see what we need to see sometimes.
- How many is 400,000? How many is 20,000?
- The book manages to dance with all of these weighty themes and still maintain a light touch, and a wicked sense of humour.
- By the summer of 2018 I started asking myself if it would it be more helpful for us if I read one more book, or if we sat on our deck in the sunshine, feeding the ducks, just being together in the moment?
- Pain is a side-effect, not the goal, and it is most certainly not a reward.
- What I appreciate about Sarah Graham‘s flower paintings, is that they aren’t pretty. We have enough of those in the world.
- On a recent walk in the forest, carrying my camera to record the silent beauty, I was particularly interested in all the mosses.
My new blog course MAKE THE LEAP runs through February. Sign up today!
January 19, 2021
Gleanings
- Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
- I was looking for something in Livesey’s book that would be an “aha” moment for me about creative writing as something that can be taught.
- I have learned to forgive my mom. I’m learning to forgive myself as well. It’s a layered process. I get the sense that mom learned to forgive me too.
- Truly, I did walk into his circle of friends, and he into mine, and those friendships have been one of the greatest gifts in our life.
- I grew up with Savoury Toast and it’s a life-long favourite to be turned to when things are tiring or overwhelming or a bit chilly out.
- the other source of inspiration was buying two new pencils. Yes, buying pencils actually inspired me.
- I don’t want you to wait. I want you to find a way to build writing into your weekly routine so that it provides sustenance and sanctuary for you in hard times, as well as in easier times.
- This morning the light is subdued by mist but I think it might be clear up the mountain.
- In the meantime, Roethke also said that if you can’t think, sing. And though I can’t sing, (not being modest) maybe you can.
- It’s a lot to ask, that stories drop into my hands from their perfect mutability in my mind.
- I suppose it’s a bit weird and somewhat selfish to think “Yay, you’re blogging again because life is shit!” but reading the blog was a true comfort and rediscovering it has felt a bit like reconnecting with an old friend.
My new blog course MAKE THE LEAP runs through February. Sign up today!
January 13, 2021
Gleanings
- But this year, the ritual of school drop-off has evolved into the most important social space in my life.
- If last year proved anything, it is that readers are devoted to the printed word and that booksellers, publishers, festivals, and other stakeholders are resilient and flexible in their desire and ability to continue getting books into the hands of those who want them.
- Does that tell you something? I just decided to do it. I was feeling desperate. I thought, Why have I done all these things for others, all these other things? I’ve written a chunk of this thing, but it’s not enough. So there was the chocolate bar bribe. There was the writing jar hack. And the desperation.
- Let’s not forget the surging river as the ice melts in spring.
- But whatever superpowers of fortune telling or planning that I lack, I’ve decided I make up for with the superpower of optimism.
- And while I didn’t plan out the book that would usher in a new year of reading for me, it turns out that I could not have chosen a better one to set the tone for 2021.
- 2020 was also the year in which I learned about mending, tending, and extending.
- I like post-apocalyptic literature as much as the next guy. Just not… now.
- Today I awoke with a happy sense of anticipation, resolved to live through 2021 bravely, gallantly; as an adventure.
- Yesterday a cousin sends pictures of alpine snow heavy on branches, mountains, rooftops, and me here in the rain feeling snow envy…
- I was always glad to see people out walking, moving, striding along, whether with a friend or alone.
- Once you’ve drunk tea from a handmade mug, no ordinary, mass made one will do.
- I once took apart an essay and put it together in a much better way, all while doing the backstroke
- We are here, I say to myself, what can we do with what we have?
- It’s not how many you read that counts. It’s that you read that counts – and it counts so very much.
- Anyway, I’d like to start a New-New Year’s tradition. Let’s not look forward, let’s fucking look BACK. Every year, on December 31st, let’s count our damn blessings.
- “2020 will begin on a high note,” I wrote at the end of 2019’s “Year in Reading” post. As far as reading goes, at least, I wasn’t wrong.
- It’s funny that they’re called English muffins because the only place we ever ate them was in Florida and Bermuda when we visited our grandparents.It’s funny that they’re called English muffins because the only place we ever ate them was in Florida and Bermuda when we visited our grandparents.
