Monday, Mar 9, 2026 | Big Thoughts, Books, Library, Lists, Reading, School, Space, Teaching, Work, Writing |
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It is a room full of books, tangible resources whose information can indeed feel out of date almost instantly in a digitally connected world; but whose resources nevertheless belong to a technology that has persisted across centuries.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.
Wednesday, Jan 21, 2026 | Art, Big Thoughts, Drawing, Laundry, Meditation, Morning, Peace, Source, Spirit, Winter, Writing |
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
Monday, Jan 19, 2026 | Art, Confessions, Current events, Family, Meditation, Morning, Source, Spirit, Word of the Year |
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.
Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 | Art, Exercise, Family, Friends, Laundry, Meditation, Peace, Siblings, Sick, Sleep, Source, Space, Spirit, Writing |
I’ve been drawing with my left hand. It feels like I’m asking an oracle to give insight into the hidden parts of myself, but really, it’s just my left hand, moving the pen with greater concentration and focus, and less pressure to make something “good.”
Renewal—of curiosity, of interest, of discipline—this is the working-at-home challenge. How to remove the self-induced barriers and step into liminality, slow time, enter the flow.
I think that entering into liminal space relies on a combination of factors, and it’s helpful to have different tools and tricks and modes of operation on hand, for when one method of entry loses its freshness. One habit that’s stuck for me: I sit for ten minutes, eyes closed, doing a body scan meditation, checking in with the state of my energy.
This is not a waste of time. More likely, I’ll waste my own time if I skip it.
My ability to sit in stillness and focus (aka writing) is directly related to my body’s capacity, and its connection with my mind. What’s the rush? I ask myself a lot. Usually, my restlessness is unrelated to an actual need to get somewhere else, let alone in a hurry; my restlessness is causing the sensation of needing to rush, not my reality.
I like to draw and paint after this meditation, because it’s really fun and freeing; after drawing, I write by hand in my notebook. And then I open my laptop and move onto whatever fiction-writing tasks / goals / priorities I’ve set for today. The writing itself is methodical—or my approach is; not that different from glueing spines and taping torn pages, except the landscape I’m exploring is more varied, and I’m more skilled at using the tools of grammar and structure and form than of tape and glue.
Outside the warm walls of my writing space, Life is bearing down on me and my siblings, and my own family and our extended family. It’s a familiar story to those of us in the middle of our lives—those of us who still have parents are seeing our roles flip into caregivers; and some of us have already said goodbye, and no longer have parents to care for. I’m still learning balance, if there is such a thing to learn. I go to the gym as often as possible to burn off the sadness (sometimes it’s rage).
I try to eat sensibly, get at least seven hours of sleep at night, and drink alcohol next to never. When do I let down my hair and kick up my feet and have fun? I haven’t cracked that code. Or maybe I find my release at spin class, and my friendships one-on-one. Spiritual care matters to me too, whether I’m involved in planning worship services at church, or seeking connection for my own spirit with the light that shines in and through all beings.
When in doubt, I do laundry. It’s soothing to work through the simple steps of that process.
Renewal comes in many forms. All ideas welcome.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Nov 23, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Library, Manifest, Meditation, Work, Writing |
What if you cherished yourself, I asked my reflection in the bathroom mirror at school, one day last month. It knocked me out.
I’ve been doing art therapy this fall with a new therapist. During our first session, I drew myself as two distinct bodies, each on one side of a river that flows between them, separates them. The one self sits in peaceful meditation, untroubled, calm, gently smiling, eyes closed, inward-looking but attuned, while the other self gazes at her, lying on her stomach on the river bank, also looking somewhat relaxed, dangling one hand in the river, but she’s frowning, her mind full of muddled thoughts, trying to let them go by placing them onto leaves that are floating by.
What I could express to the therapist was that I longed to be the peaceful self on the other side of the river. She could think clearly. She was untroubled by change. She represented an ever-ness.
The therapist wondered: What if you were the woman on the other side of the river? What would that be like?
I laughed. I couldn’t imagine it. If it tiptoed toward imagining it, I sensed that the muddled self would spoil the peace of that other self simply by attempting to unite them together. It was almost like whatever was contained over there, in that self, would be spoilt by exposure to the rest of me.
It reminded me of a habit I’ve had since childhood. I withhold whatever is most desired from myself. It’s difficult to convince myself to use something that will get used up. A favourite tea, for example, will stay in the box and I’ll brew a different flavour instead. I save things, hoard them. Others eat or consume them instead. Or I tuck away something that I want to enjoy, and never get it out again. I enjoy it by hiding it away. For example, as a child I would hide my Easter candy in my drawer, not sharing it with my brothers, yet never ultimately eating it myself. I could never find an occasion worthy of eating that special candy. Because if I’d eat it, it would be gone. Better to keep it till melted together and spoiled than enjoy it? Strange, right? Interesting. Curious.
Immediately after that vision in the bathroom mirror at school, I went back to the library and scribbled down these words in my notebook:
What if you were the woman on the other side of the river? What would you be like?
How would you treat yourself? What if you treated yourself like a previous vessel? A sacred vessel? An honoured presence?
What if I honoured my presence fully? What if I trusted myself? What if I could just write like it was normal life and not an existential crisis?
Okay, friends. That’s a big what if, but I’m going there. All week I’ve written like it was normal life. It’s been so enjoyable.
xo, Carrie
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