I reach for the page like …
Prompt – Day 30 – A journaling manifesto, prompt by Suleika Jaouad
I reach for the page like I am addressing an oracle. The oracle is my own hand, tracing letter shapes in a way that demands slowness, patience, craft, that organizes electrical impulses into shapes that speak of beauty, longing, love, loss.
I reach for the page like a lifeline. Give me news from the wilds of self, news I’m missing, can’t see, for all the humming noise in between, and the layers of self-protection.
I reach for the page like a friend, an old dear familiar faithful friend, who reflects back to me facets of my own being that I am reluctant or sometimes unable to see or appreciate.
I reach for the page like I’m practicing a religious rite. I rarely think anymore with fear about its blankness, nor fear of putting down the “wrong” thing, committing an error. Practice has disciplined me to accept and admire whatever appears — because existence, life, is a miracle.
I reach for the page as a tonic, to soothe my rage, or reframe it, recast my judgement in these softening lines and curves, so that it lives somewhere apart from me, and I am not denying or accusing it, but merely giving it a place to reside where its harm — the harm that is my judgement — may rest and not be wielded. I lay down my pain here, on the page, so that I may live more fully as I hope to in the world, with humility, with kindness, and without the imposition of my needs unexpressed and otherwise unknown to me. The page accepts all of these, uncovers and grants ease, soaks the wounds — my wounds — in salt water that somehow, by some miracle, lessens the sting while healing.
xo, Carrie
How good it feels to get to tell your story
Day 80 – Prompt – Lament and Confidence paired with Erase Poem
Excellent sermon at church yesterday, so absorbing that I didn’t even get my notebook out to entertain myself. We had a guest speaker, a woman who co-owns a local cafe (and is also a pastor), and I felt what it would feel like to see myself more often reflected at the pulpit. Also, she fully owned how much she loves preaching, speaking, having a microphone — so refreshing. And her sermon, on lament paired with statements of confidence in the Psalms, was thought-provoking yet spacious. I had time to reflect on my own choices, tendencies, hopes, struggles to communicate.
I thought about how often people are just waiting to be asked about themselves — how good it feels to get to tell your story. I have to believe it’s that power that fuels the X Page Workshop, and will translate in my absence (I’ve bowed out for this season, as I’ve taken on a heavy caregiving role in another part of my life).
It’s hard to confess to my own limitations; how easily I become overwhelmed; how much I don’t do right now, or seem incapable of doing; how very often I go to the gym to escape, by which I mean to glimpse my ability to endure, because my mind, my emotional capacity feels exhausted. It ain’t pretty. This is my lament.
What is my statement of confidence that sits alongside my lament? Truthfully, since “retiring’ in November, I’ve been hyper-disciplined and focused and I’ve finished this next draft of Begin and I think the novel is special, magical, and writing it has brought me so much delight. Talk about escape. Somehow, sharing the joy of reading and books with children these past few years restored my own faith in reading and books. I’d become cynical and bitter, I’d lost my sense of purpose. The library work gave me a path forward. In my statement of confidence, I declare: I’ve thrown myself headlong into writing because stories matter.
I declare gratitude for the gift of creative energy, the gift of another version of escape. And I pray for more belief, more trust that purpose and meaningful expression can be found through writing. I pray for courage. That my steps are guided by what matters. So that my inner life and hopes can meet my outer actions with love and confidence.
Erase Poem (my version = Circle Poem)
I felt it would feel reflected, owned, spacious
I had time, tendencies, struggles, your story
I have to believe in my absence, confess
I didn’t simply shut the door
This is my lament —
Roles anoint themselves
Bad feelings, self-destructive ways
Disappointment at not being wanted
Confidence sits with sharing delight
A prayer for more belief! For courage!
Hopes meet actions
Hope for life ongoing.
Stay.
xo, Carrie
What’s a library for?
What’s a library for?
I wrote this reflection last fall, as I was preparing to “retire” from my school library job to return to writing fiction full-time. I worked in the same library for two years, at a relatively small elementary school (about 275 students), with a relatively small collection (about 8,000 resources, mostly books). The school was small enough that I learned every student’s name, and their borrowing habits, reading levels, likes and dislikes. My thoughts on how the space was used, and what a school library is for, changed and expanded during those years, as I had the privilege of observing and experiencing how students and teachers related to the space.
A library is many things.
It is a room full of books, tangible resources whose information can indeed feel out of date almost instantly in a digitally connected world; but whose resources nevertheless belong to a technology that has persisted across centuries. Of all the technology in this room, almost nothing is older and more lasting than the book.
On the fiction / picture book side of the library, there are classic texts that continue to speak across the years to readers young and old. And new and contemporary writers and illustrators have contributed to diversifying the cast of characters and variety of stories and perspectives that reflect the makeup of our school communities here in Kitchener-Waterloo. The expansion of graphic novel publishing makes rich, complex narratives accessible to older readers whose literacy levels have been impacted by the pandemic. So — the library is its books and stories.
The library is also a compact between the borrower and the institution, which represents the goodwill and goals of the wider, civic community. In my experience, this is its primary value, which underpins all the other benefits of regular library-use in schools. The library is a collective civic resource. Every student in the building may borrow books to bring home, share with family members, and then return so that someone else can read them next. This creates a circle of responsibility and care. Borrowing and caring for a book is a tangible means of expressing belonging to a larger community. Lending a book expresses the community’s trust in an individual’s capacity to learn how to take responsibility for communal goods. It’s an offering on both sides of participation — and it’s a rare example of reciprocity in practice, in our education system. The stakes are relatively low. A book is valuable, but can be replaced, though not easily (budget restraints are real). So, time is spent teaching book care, reminding students of their responsibility to look after the books in their care, and underscoring the importance of sharing resources with others — in a library, we actually get to see how that works, and practice our skills at caring for a communal good.
To be honest, reciprocity was not the element that immediately jumped out at me when I started working in the library. But I’ve come to think of it as being revolutionary and foundational. If the medium is the message, a library book says: this belongs to all of us. And what does that message mean to you as an individual? How do you relate to it?
But also — what does that message mean to the wider community? I think this is where politics have come in, and the wider community may have minority objections to the content being offered inside the books themselves; content isn’t neutral, even if the technology in some way is agnostic.
What I especially appreciated about my role as caretaker of the books was that there were many opportunities for repair, literally and figuratively. I promised the students that they could tell me anything — baby sibling ate a corner, Mom spilled coffee, I ripped a page, I think the book’s at grandma’s, etc. — and I thanked them for their honesty and explained that I would do my best to fix what was broken. I celebrated every “lost” book that was found. Learning how to care for something means making mistakes sometimes. Owning up to a mistake and learning how it can be addressed, even if not fully repaired, changes one’s mindset, at least a little bit. (Maybe this also sums up my parenting philosophy: to become/be trustworthy, you have to know/believe that you are trusted … even if you haven’t quite earned that trust yet.)
Other elements of library life that have stuck with me include
— the opportunity to share stories with students, including mirroring back experiences for students who may not see themselves and their experiences reflected in cultural material often
— the opportunity to invite deeper discussion of real-life issues, concerns and experiences (death, holidays that others celebrate, peace, war, indigenous stories and values)
— the opportunity to create a peaceful environment in which students can rest their minds and bodies
— an opportunity to connect the resources in the library to the larger world on a regular basis with displays and story-time book choices and selections for teachers
— an opportunity to provide a weekly mini-field trip within the school, a special time for students and teachers alike to get a break from the regular routine
— the opportunity to provide space for creative expression, crafts, book clubs, library helpers, etc (though that proved a challenge given the time constraints)
All for now.
xo, Carrie
PS Writing fiction full-time these past number of months has been AMAZING. And I miss the students and the library a great deal. Both/and … I am learning to accept that to do something I love requires surrendering to it fully, and that means not getting to do other things that I also love. Choice is important, necessary, sometimes painful, and I’m grateful to have the luxury to choose.
Practices for quieting the mind
Another day, another prompt. Day 21 — “Is there a moment when your mind’s chatter quiets? What do you notice then?” This prompt is about quieting the thinking mind. I wrote while visiting my mom’s apartment this morning.
How do I turn off my thinking mind? Actually, I’m an expert — I’ve learned all kinds of strategies by necessity, because writing doesn’t thrive when thinking, if thinking is equated with panic or rumination. Thinking seems like the opposite of trusting, of going with the flow. Thinking spirals. To turn off the thinking mind, you need to get what’s inside, out — by drawing, sketching, making music. Even talking is not the same as thinking.
When I’m quiet and listening, there’s tone, there’s atmosphere, sensation, a lot of valuable communication expressed beyond words. Am I thinking, then? “Lost in thought” — that phrase expresses wandering in interiority. How different it is from being “absorbed” — when I am absorbed in a task, in an experience, the world is there/here and my attention and awareness is heightened.
As practices for quieting the thinking mind, I like meditation that focuses on sensation. And I like my friend Emily’s observational meditation, too, that breaks down what’s seen into descriptors that don’t name the thing itself. So that tree outside Mom’s window becomes a spiky set of fractals growing from an inner stem, tiny spikes on larger spikes, dark green prickles, cones in some of the crevices where the branches part like arms held up or legs spread, and the spears are topped with crusted white gatherings, hardened flecks come together to form lopsided bolls, dollops, all different shapes and sizes, clinging fast to any outspread surface, and in smaller tighter balls collecting on inner protected crevices.
Maybe? Was I thinking when I wrote that? Yes, of course, but I wasn’t spinning. I wasn’t entirely “I” either. I was observing closely, without weighing the value of what I was seeing, and that’s a state that feels unselfconscious, and self-sustaining, satisfying. I am sustained and occupied in this observational state, and being alive and in my body is so easy. The task is easy too. It is very relaxing. It happens quite often to me, that I enter into this state, or find myself in this state of relaxed attention, maybe because of all the practice. This is the state in which I write — anything. Including this.
xo, Carrie
From office to studio, turning the room inside out
Day 19 prompt – listening to what the body has to say
Hello Body, I am listening.
Carrie, I need you to know exactly how tired I am — no, not exactly, that is a term you would to measure something that wafts and flows and defies the work of measurement. I am tired. I keep drifting, sliding sideways into sleep but you don’t seem to notice or read this as a warning. You think — oh, body just needs more stimulation. My God, I am so stimulated that I only relax when — no, I do not relax, I fall, I slip, I slide. And furthermore, I am not “I” the way you see seem to think of it, or us. I am we, multiple, flowing, shifting, changing.
So yes, hard to read.
But we send out signals, like falling asleep sitting upright as soon as the mind eases its grip on us. We do what we can to support you (you?), we will hone our muscles and suffer and quake and we can endure a great deal of pain in support of your causes and whims —no, that’s too harsh.
We are doing our best to please you (you?), to relieve you (you?). Can you relieve us? Feed us. You seek to control us, deny us, mete out pleasure in tiny doses lest we become overwhelmed and greedy, and sink into — what? Bliss? A morass of nothingness?
Let’s be friends. We like to breathe and sweat. We like ever so much to stretch and breathe too. But we are tired, tired, tired. Give us leave to change. Will you let us age and spread? Will you let us fail you and not call it failure? Can we be kind across all spectrums of experience and sensation?
Things change, no matter how hard you push to hold on.
I can give you (you?) pleasure and rest. Trust what’s rising. The body knows how little time it has, how precious and advancing the hours. But also how much time too — the body is not begging for accomplishment. The body will luxuriate in sensation, give us leave to show you how beautiful you are in this world of beauty and loss.
Body, I am, Body, we belong to, we know, we are made of beautiful loss.
xo, Carrie
PS I’m in the middle of a 30-day series of journaling prompts from Suleika Jaouad. This was today’s outpouring. I’m also using my reorganized studio space for a daily drawing ritual, which includes a very quick sketch capturing one moment and one phrase from the day; a word for the day (usually taken from my daily journaling); and a sketch using a photo from today’s newspaper, in pen and coloured with water colour markers. It’s been a tough start to the new year on many levels and from many angles, and this studio, completely reorganized during the final days of 2025, has been my bliss, renewal, and recovery.