July 9, 2021

The Fourth Child, by Jessica Winter

I could not love the cover of this book more, at first glance one of those abstract artful prints that have been splashing over literary novels in recent years but, upon rotation, the picture becomes a landscape, a suburban streetscape complete with a picket fence, and the whole novel is a little bit like that, art and realism, something different every way you look depending on your point of view.

Jessica Winter’s The Fourth Child is a novel about abortion and motherhood, but to say such a thing is far too reductive, because this is a book far richer than merely what it’s “about.” Instead of about, it’s a world conjured, decades of history, layers upon layers of meaning, and it begins with Jane, a fervent Catholic schoolgirl who becomes pregnant and marries her boyfriend. Going on to have three more children, and a less than satisfying marriage, and when her eldest daughter Lauren comes of age, she takes on a share of the narrative, consumed with high school social dynamics, Jane existing on her periphery, consumed with her local right-to-life group. But then this arrangement is shattered with Jane brings home an orphan from Romania, a disruptive toddler who’s somehow Lauren’s sister now, and the extent of her attachment trouble sends each member of this already fragile family to the end of their tether.

But also Lauren is not a satellite, her story the effect of Jane’s cause, because she’s on her own collision course, and that a daughter can be a part of you and also her own separate universe at once is the confounding paradox of parenthood. Which only makes each character’s story richer and more complicated, of course—that our mothers and daughters don’t exist for our own purposes, and here they come along, messing up. And I think it’s the seeming randomness of the novel’s many elements that underlined its artfulness to me, enhancing the texture, the way that all the pieces don’t just lock into place, because they don’t in the world. The years passing by with culture happening in the background—Buffalo makes a curiously compelling setting here, a player called O.J. Simpson playing for the local sports team, and it’s like we can see the 1990s coming. (The Fourth Child reminded me a lot of Ben Lerner’s Topeka, the way it traces so many of our current cultural divisions back to the 1990s, when all the players were stepping into formation.)

I adored the way that The Fourth Child complicated binaries, sat comfortably with paradox, and not only dared to show the many “sides” of the abortion debate, but to suggest it’s not a debate, but life itself, in all its painful, messy splendour.

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 6, 2021

Gleanings

• Some mornings I sit at my desk and open A Writer’s Diary as a kind of divination. What was Virginia Woolf thinking nearly a hundred years ago, or eighty?
• This wasn’t the first time I’ve eaten in a restaurant alone, and I’ve never been self-conscious about it, but this time I was, and I think it’s because in fact, I now mostly eat alone.
• It was the best kind of rejection—personal, encouraging. It was handwritten for Pete’s sake. I was so mad at myself. I should have framed it. Instead, I lost years. It took me until my 30’s to unravel all of those toxic stereotypes about artistic genius and understand that what matters is doing the work and being willing to put it out there.
• I’ve gathered some stardust into a novel, flawed and imperfect though it is, and I hope to be able to share it with you someday.
• I need to make a list of things that I’m not going to do. And feel contentment seep in, with the release of the niggling feeling that I should be doing these things.
• Something opened up in me as I began swimming, and I remembered what I’ve always known—that I am most myself when I’m swimming. I started being able to think again.
• I thought Whereabouts really beautifully captured the paradox that isolation is not, or at least not only, about being alone.
• Think of a letter as a tack on a chair. You might pick one off, and ignore it. But next time, you’ll look twice before you sit down.
• Like many teens, summer was (is) a time to earn some money during the day and hang out with my friends on the weekends and evenings, spending our earnings on trips to the mall, bottles of Clearly Canadian, and coke slurpees. But my first summer job, ended up including a course of antibiotics.
• One evening last week the most awe-inspiring and spectacular sunset occurred.
• WHAT is this life if, full of care/ We have no time to stand and stare?—
• Sweat peas are one of my most favourite flowers. They’re so delicate. This is the season to stuff a jam jar full of them. Pinks! Lilacs! Scarlets!
• The point is, sometimes what was working fine doesn’t work so well anymore. Maybe it will again, someday, and maybe it won’t. The thing is, I want to be open to other options.

(Gleanings is going in summer holidays! Will be back at regular speed in September and maybe sooner here and there…)

July 5, 2021

Habits

In February, with infection rates rising, along with new variants whose increased transmission rates were still not understood, plus cold temperatures that made potentially infectious droplets hang in the atmosphere longer (and made face coverings very practical due to facts of chill), I got in the habit of wearing a mask every time I left my house.

This was especially important since I live in a densely populated area, and every trip down the sidewalk necessitated close encounters with my neighbours, because distance wasn’t always possible. And the shift to wearing a mask all the time was a deliberate and considered one. I’d been wearing a mask every time I took my kids to school and picked them up since September, but that was because I wanted to model this behaviour and take responsibility as the parent of children with the privilege of attending school in-person. I had resisted masking as a reflex, however, because it didn’t make sense from an infection control standpoint and also I don’t like being told what to do. I was going to wear my mask when it made sense to wear a mask—indoors and/or when I was in close proximity to others.

But in February, masking outdoors made some sense, and so I shifted my habits, and so it’s been ever since, but I’m trying to quit now. With infection rates falling in Ontario (170 cases today! There were more than 4000 daily cases in April…) and vaccine rates climbing (I am two-weeks past my second shot on Thursday!), masking to walk down the street seems less necessary, especially if I am keeping to less busy routes.

It’s too easy to become entrenched in one’s habits, which makes little sense in such a dynamic situation. But one’s habits become a comfort, of course, and can stand for security, and so it takes a bit of courage and thoughtfulness to keep evolving as everything else does, but I am determined to do so, so I don’t become that nutty woman yammering on at the Farmer’s Market about what Dr. Fauci was saying about masks in March 2020, if you know what I am saying.

June 29, 2021

Gleanings

• And then, every so often, I discover another way of looking at things which seems to make the process of reframing a titch less difficult.
• It’s the first Sunday of my two week vacation and I had to make a list. Vacation time should mean No Lists Required but we are where we are and I am who I am.
• Difficult to say. I’ve never had much of a poker face and my days of tolerating the senseless monologues of idiotic men are over.
• I figured that just because something can’t be used for its intended purpose, doesn’t mean it can’t be used.
• Meditation takes many forms and for me, it was a peaceful interlude in Jobe’s Woods, observing, contemplating, puzzling, desperately trying to conform the order of my life, to figure out my creative next steps. 
• For the time being, one very small way I take advantage of the heat outside the window is by brewing large jars of sun tea.
• I realize we all get different things out of poetry. What I get from this one is how it pairs the banal of the everyday with the nearly sublime of being alive with a peaceful heart.
• But I’ve seen the waving hands of those who will: other writers, who know the value of company in tough seasons. And I’ve grabbed hold.
• The sands are always shifting, right? And sometimes, they’ll bring you right to the oasis. Sometimes. They can. And why not?
• Cornbread means many things to many people.
• Often these days, I discover older women in books who I would like to get to know.
• I was lucky to be born in a family where writing and literature was celebrated, so I had no shortage of support and encouragement from my family.

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.

June 25, 2021

3 Things for 42

Yesterday was my birthday, and there were three things that I wanted to do.

I went to see my book in a real indie bookstore! I was lucky to see it in Indigo before the province shut down in November, but seeing it at Book City was definitely a dream come true. Even better: I got to buy books, after I’d signed mine.

I went to get my second vaccination! Stuart had his the day before. Harriet gets hers tomorrow. What a thing to have this all done before the beginning of summer. We are so profoundly grateful—for our opportunity, and also for everybody else who’s doing their part to get us to the end of all this.

And then after dinner, we went swimming! After no city pools at all in 2020 (they were open, but required lining up, and I am not big on line ups if I’m not guaranteed something at the end of one), it feels extraordinary to be back again. I’d tell you that I’ve learned not to take these ordinary things for granted…but I really never ever did.

June 23, 2021

Returning

Something that is surprising me about my feelings about the world reopening again after a very long and difficult time is that I AM SO READY FOR IT. Like ridiculously ready. There is no trepidation, or anxiety, or complicated feelings (though of course there are. But far fewer than you’d think). None of it is complicated in the slightest: I want to do all the things. Bring on the Roaring Twenties, Motherfuckers! Basically, if I’m not dead in Jay Gatsby’s pool by the end of August, what have I even done with my summer?

I have erred on the side of caution over the last year and a half. We did visit the museum and art gallery when permitted, and my children returned to school in person in September, but we haven’t socialized with other families since last summer when we’d picnic in the park. My mom came to see us at Christmas, but we sat apart with the windows wide open (and you can imagine how pleasant that was in the depths of winter). I’ve not been inside anybody else’s home, or eaten in a restaurant. We at dinner on a patio once in October, but only because we couldn’t find anywhere to get takeout from, and it definitely wouldn’t have been our first choice…

But now we’ve thrown all caution to the wind. (WITHIN REASON! I am still only gathering outdoors for the summer, keeping distance, wearing masks when I can’t. Tomorrow I receive my second vaccination shot.) I WANT TO DO ALL THE THINGS. Last Friday, Stuart and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary with a dinner on a patio. It felt like a dream. Sharing space with other people! Drinking beer out of a proper glass! Choosing to order dessert! I sat down and thought, “Delta variant!” but then put that bad thought out of my head, because I am finished with this pandemic. You know that thing that people kept saying all winter, something like, “The pandemic is not over just because you’re over it.” But you know what? It is. I am. BYE BYE BYE.

On Sunday evening, a dream came true. After a year and a half of (mostly) patient waiting, our family returned to our sacred swimming ground, the Alex Duff Pool at Christie Pits Park. Which seems much closer to our house than it did before everyone in our family became a cyclist, but now it’s just the most pleasant, swiftest journey away, up Brunswick and across on Barton. I didn’t dare to really hope that it would happen—the possibility of thunder clouds, or a pool fouling. I’ve learned over the past year and more not to think too far into the future, just to take things as they come instead, but it came. Six o clock, and we were let into the pool area (45 swim sessions reserved online, no use of change areas, but still) and there it was, the place I’d been dreaming of since Labour Day 2019, which was the last time we’d swam there. Even better? As the other swimmers began to arrive (attendance was capped) we discovered we had friends among them, and I jumped into the deep pool without testing the water, and it was like no time had passed at all.

June 22, 2021

Gleanings

• I’m always afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, of offending inadvertently, and it’s easier to stay quiet. But although words can hurt, the right ones can help, and I suppose that’s one reason why I feel compelled to speak up now, in spite of howling Hakken-Kraks and MS speech and “cog probs.”
• For the past fifteen months, I haven’t thought much about the past or future. I haven’t often allowed myself to reminisce, no “gee, remember restaurants?” or “oh I can’t wait to”s. 
• And to this day I don’t know why. I don’t know what that triggered for her to stop talking to me and I just knew that I couldn’t be the one to call first and all these years later (my kid will be eleven this fall) I still regret not getting over myself and just calling her the next week to say I’m sorry or what happened or why did that upset you so much that you simply ghosted me.
• If we want to move towards a better world, it behooves us to take a moment to consider our words.
• There will be spots that wear and spots that don’t and that’s the beauty of denim isn’t it? We’re not even supposed to wash our jeans.
• I like renting rooms, even though I have a lot of bad hotel/motel/B&B/Airbnb memories. Faulty plumbing, drunken patrons, saggy bed, thin walls, all-night traffic, NO BEDSIDE LAMP FOR READING.
• You are worthy of your creative dreams and the time you need to pursue them.
• Now, don’t get me wrong: when you tell me I have spinach in my teeth, I will nearly faint from shame.
• Fifteen years later I’m taller (whoops, no), have more time on my hands (yikes, no), smarter (not always), and a much better cook (ding ding ding!), and over the last few months of making friends and family suffer through rounds and rounds of ice cream sandwiches, I have finally created the last classic ice cream sandwich recipe I hope we will ever want or need.
• Since those days on LiveJournal and then MySpace and then the early days of Facebook when you had to be a university student to have an account, I’ve been sending feelers out trying to find ways to claim space, to stretch a little and find myself in the world around me.
• Now it’s 3:24 and I can’t sleep, filled with hope that maybe life is not returning to normal exactly but that it’s taking a new form that just might be lovely. Sea breezes, fish tacos, conversation with old friends, and the sun coming out at exactly the right moment.
• oh boy. its here. they all arrive home in the next three hours and they won’t leave again until august.
• In my job as a mediator, not only I attempt to embody the teachings of my ancestors but also rely upon the poetry of giants whose words instilled the importance of kindness in me.
• I feel a pang deep in my stomach. Father’s Day will always suck for Filip.
• Well, Sufferance is a different kind of book. It is a strange mix of corporate thriller, small town politics, Indigenous history, and a hit of the Dead Dog Café. But it works. 
• And in these early morning sessions, the 1000 words just flowed out of me and onto the page.
• Returning to Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a sort of revelation for Thompson, who had acquired a PhD in the interim and was, by her own reckoning, much more informed about literature and history than she had been in her early twenties. “I realized that the book was actually a political book,” she says. “It was making a political statement.”

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.

June 16, 2021

How the Pandemic Has Changed Our Home

Every weekday morning for the past year and a bit, I’ve woken up in the morning and moved the furniture around in order to transform our living room in a yoga studio. Enough space for two mats, though not enough that a supine twist can be performed properly. I’d love to extend my arm, but there’s the matter of the sofa, and what can you do?

The home gym doesn’t stop there though—upstairs in our bedroom we have a stationary bike that I bought about five years ago, and used joylessly until I discovered that swimming was my ideal physical activity, and put away in the closet. I really supposed I’d gotten rid of it altogether, but it’s a good thing I didn’t, because it’s been our pandemic saving grace.

When our bedroom is not a spin studio, it’s the place where we hide for Zoom calls because it’s most out of the way. Until a few weeks ago, our “desk” was a patio table with a table cloth over it, but when spring returned, we wanted our patio table back for eating, and I was lucky enough to find a secondhand desk online. (Very lucky! Desks are hard to come by these days. I’m sure there’s not a spare desk in the city…) The desk has wheels, which means we can arrange things to ensure racks of drying laundry do not show up in the shot. I have spent the pandemic envying people who have sensible homes with offices and bookshelves, but these days I am just happy to not be sitting at a wobbly bistro table from Canadian Tire whose bolts really need to be tightened.

Last year our children were certain they wanted a beanbag chair, and bought one with their birthday money, because what else are you going to spend your birthday money on in 2020? So now there is an additional place to sit in their bedroom, even though it takes up most of the floor space. It’s been one of our favourite pandemic purchases, and makes for a comfy seat when someone’s tired of sitting at her desk for virtual school. Her sister does virtual school in the living room, which gets turned into a classroom once its done its yoga studio duties.

The children’s bedroom is also the only room in our house that has a door, and so it’s where everybody else hides when I’m doing an important online event at the desk upstairs. Alternatively, when I had to record an interview for national radio, I did it in the children’s room, although Stuart had to go outside and tell the guys with the leaf blowers to stop it. The children’s bottom bunk has also proved to be a fairly good escape from it all when there’s no one else to hide in a way that I might not have expected.

The kitchen table has always been my desk, and so my pandemic has probably been less disruptive than everybody else’s, and I have to share my desk now, but it’s with a person who regularly makes my lunch, and so its always nice to have him. He always refills my teapot when he makes a pot of coffee, and we take turns fielding queries from the children down the hall: “What do you know about phantom power?” “How do you spell luck?” (My answer to any of the spelling questions: “What do you think?”)

It doesn’t surprise me that so many people have pulled up stakes and decided to move during the pandemic. The last year and a half has highlighted so much about our lives, and opened new possibilities we might not have considered before. If you have to spend weeks locked down at home, it’s also really imperative that that home be someplace comfortable, which is just one of the many reasons we’ve considered ourselves so lucky during this time. Our apartment isn’t large, but it’s adaptable, and has different spaces so we can all have a little bit of space to do our thing. We have a backyard too, which has meant the pool that’s delivered us so much happiness while public swimming has been off the table. Even better, we love our neighbourhood, and I’ve appreciated being close to great stores and bakeries, so many restaurants close for takeout, and being here throughout these last fifteen months has been to be connected to others, even when that seemed like a scary thing. It required us to go out into the world with courage and also faith in our community, and both things have been good for the soul, I think.

June 15, 2021

Gleanings

• A damp day, too wet to work outside, and my writing stalled for a couple of reasons: why not gather petals and make some jelly?
• I’ve been thinking about the Greyhound bus a lot lately.
• Very often, I wake in the night. I’m not sure if it’s because of my age, my brain, my hormones or a heady mix of all of the above, but wake in the night I do.
• The syntax and vocabulary of racism bleeds into Canadian Media and conversation from American politicians, law enforcement officials and activists yet far too many of us engage with morbid curiosity rather than acknowledgement, commitment and action out of a very real fear and loathing for what is happening in our own country.
• With their inherent contradictions, 10-year-olds are a fascinating bunch.
• I’ve taken oodles of photos in my yard this spring. I can’t seem to help myself and I don’t apologize.
• But there it is. I am just old enough to feel the satisfaction of one less dead branch hanging over my tent.
• At one point I had a hefty, three-ring binder type thing with pages and pages of CDs. Remember those?
• Dogs are often labelled as “aggressive” or “anxious”, when in truth they’re actually fearful, responding to a threat the only way they know how.
• Summer books are almost too easy. This is one season that abounds with books.
• You do your work. You show your work. And you stay true to your vision. No apologies. No regrets. Okay, you can have regrets, and you can make art out of them. Onward.
• But it is not our actual townhouse that is home. Instead, it is the breeze that blows the trees outside our bedroom window, snuggling in bed with my husband enjoying our morning coffee, chatting with our neighbours over the backyard fence, and greeting our children with hugs when they come to visit.
• It’s the act of the storytelling itself, the bravery, the light, the humour, the small beautiful truths. It’s as Richard Van Camp says, a soul sigh.
• There’s so much more to the day than laundry and chickens. 
• I hope someone knows what your favourite sandwich is. I hope you smile when you open it up. I hope you also get chips or a pickle to go with. I hope your sandwich is a deep comfort to you.
• What I want to do now to move away from the ugly mechanisms that are at play in the world. I don’t mean I will turn my back entirely. I won’t. But right now I want to think about my own work and the solace it provides me when I wake, sleepless, and come down to my little study at the edge of the forest.
• I’m just four chapters into The Old Wives’ Tale and I already feel that I owe Arnold Bennett an apology. I never should have taken someone else’s word about him—not even (maybe, especially not) Virginia Woolf’s.
• I laughed out loud when I heard that Donald Trump quit his blog because no one was reading it.

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.