Wednesday, Nov 16, 2016 | Big Thoughts, Meditation, Spirit, Yoga |
I am standing in warrior one pose in kundalini class, in Kasia’s sunny studio, my hands held in the air like fists, and at her command I am kicking my back leg up and through like a ninja or judo expert, neither of which I am. The music is guttural shouting — har har har har har in the throat, finishing with a strong shout: har! Our fists punch down and our legs kick forward.
Eyes open.
The tree in Kasia’s backyard is bright orange and red and I am loving the shouting and kicking and punching, not because I’m angry, not because I have any fury to kick or punch through, but because it feels good to shout and kick and make known my presence on this earth. I don’t know what this kriya is for, that she’s chosen for this morning’s class, but I decide it is a kriya to rip out the walls of fear and hesitation and doubt — self-doubt — and cause a great wellspring of courage to flow forth into the universe, into the flamingly beautiful dying leaves, the crisp blue sky, the chilly wind, the room full of privileged white middle-aged women (and one man) chanting and kicking and rendering themselves vulnerable to mockery.
I see that. I see that, too.
I kick. I punch. I shout. The guts feel good on the shout. The foot plants after each kick with steadiness and purpose.
After this we will sit for awhile and meditate and the word awaken will fight with the word dream, and I won’t know which I crave more.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Nov 15, 2016 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Spirit, Teaching |
Soon, I will teach my last class for another term. Because I am a sessional lecturer, there is no guarantee I will teach again. But I would like to; I would like, in addition to the introductory creative writing course I’m teaching now, to teach an advanced course that combines writing and drawing and collaboration, and demands serious commitment, a heavy workload; at the end of the course, everyone would have made a book (illustrated, but for adults).
Here are the questions this course would address, and engage with:
“What is creativity and where can I find it?”
“How can I get into the creative flow?”
“How can I stop procrastinating and do what I want?”
“Is creativity something I can practice? Can anyone?”
(In the above exercise, captions are paired with random illustrations; this is an example of an exercise one might do in my imaginary course.)
Last month, I spoke to a writer’s group about time management, and the question that arose most urgently was: How do I stop procrastinating? How do I get started? Which led into an even more complicated question: How do I get into the creative flow? Is this something you can learn and practice?
Yes, I said. You can practice getting into the creative flow. You can learn.
I believe this to be true. But in answering the question, last month, I got stuck on the how. And so I’ve been thinking about it, or my unconscious mind has been thinking about it, ever since. It isn’t just about discipline. (It is somewhat about discipline.) It’s about trusting that you can access something, fall into something, step into something that is unseen and unknown, without knowing or seeing it in advance. Can this be taught? I would like to try.
xo, Carrie
P.S. The course would be based around Lynda Barry’s Syllabus. It would be an unabashedly Lynda-Barry-styled course, even though I am a low-key Canadian who possesses not even a tenth of Lynda Barry’s charisma, and even though I am a writer not an artist; I believe the material would rise above my personal limitations.
Friday, Nov 11, 2016 | Art, Big Thoughts, Death, Politics |
Last night, I read the news that Leonard Cohen had died. Immediately, I wanted to call my college roommate, who introduced me to his music and poetry. She was the one person on earth who I wanted to talk to, to say, have you heard the news? I feel so sad. When Carol Shields died many years ago, it was my mom who I wanted to call. It is as if relationships are embedded with art, or art is embedded with relationships, intense, personal relationships. A song is more than a soundtrack to an experience, or some songs are. Some songs are experiences.
I learned to play piano by ear by playing Suzanne and Bird on a Wire.
That’s an experience.
I’m writing this while listening to CBC Radio Two’s special on Leonard Cohen. So my thoughts are scattered. I’m listening to Leonard Cohen sing Suzanne, in fact.
Yesterday, I went to two movies at a feminist film festival playing town. Both movies were labours of love, the filmmakers following their subjects for years. The first movie, called Driving with Selvi, was about an Indian woman who became a taxi driver; but it was also about child marriage, and forced prostitution, and the precarious existence as a young woman unprotected by her family or the law. Through it all, Selvi’s radiant personality shone like a beacon of joy and gratitude, for all that she had. The second movie, called The Apology, told the story of three women, known now as the grandmothers, who had been forced into sexual slavery in World War Two by the Japanese military; all were teenagers when they were kidnapped, two were 13 or 14. I watched this movie with my mom and my almost-14-year-old daughter, and we wept. A lot. The grandmothers carried so much pain, decades of hiding and shame, and yet here at the end of their lives, as they protested to publicize this hidden chapter of history and supported each other, it was their dignity that shone through. They were tired. But they had a vision for peace and healing.
Both were Canadian-made films, by female directors.
Both were an antidote to the despondence I’ve been feeling. These were not perfect stories about perfect people with perfect endings. These were stories of perseverance and injustice and work and hope and love. These women, in both movies, were so loved.
I went for a run this morning, a pathetic wheezing run into the chilly wind, and I went with a friend, because I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. My friend told me that she wished her work involved making things; to which I replied that I wished my work involved doing things. We laughed. We wondered if we were on the right track, in that general way that people wonder; is it too late, am I locked in, now, now that I’ve devoted myself to a single pursuit?
I think, way back when, that I wanted to be an artist, the way the Leonard Cohen was an artist; I think this is what I imagined, along with my college roommate, when we listened to his songs and read his poems. We imagined ourselves immersed in ideas and emotion and symbolism and significance, which sounds abstract, but felt, in the moment, intensely real, like we would be swimmers in a great universal ocean, like we would be poets.
Wherever I was going with this post, it’s gone. I’ve lost the thread.
I think we have much to struggle against now and going forward. Art is where I’m turning for comfort. Art is what I’ve got, and so far it’s the only answer I can give.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Nov 9, 2016 | Big Thoughts, Politics |
All is not well in my mind. I am uneasy, restless, despondent, flat. I woke at 4AM and could not sleep. I feel aimless and free-falling despite the structures that surround me, including this solid house.
Yesterday, I read an article from The New Yorker, on the multitudinous self, which is at odds with the idea of the holistic self we seem to admire and aspire to. Yet we are not the same across time or within our different relationships; we are not as consistent as we imagine we should be, or perhaps we imagine we are. The essay tried to put the divisiveness of this election into context, by discussing the difference between neighbourly relationship, which are governed by decency and revolve around the particular, and politics, which is ideological and abstract; a single human being may present one way in one sphere and another, seemingly contradictory way, in another sphere (not to mention the further spheres in which the self must operate — family, job, religion, soul, etc.).
And in essence, the essay was an argument for accepting the multitudinous self rather than striving for a holistic impossibility. It pointed out that the characteristics that make a great leader in the corporate world may not make a great parent in a family; but that doesn’t mean one person can’t do both, or be both, only that we behave differently in different contexts, within our different roles. That is why politically at-odds neighbours can meet in the park and talk about their dogs. Because those are two separate spheres.
But social media challenges us, the spheres cross and so we are behaving politically in our neighbourly spaces; and that complicates and divides us in ways that make us deeply uncomfortable. The argument being, I think, that it is not a character flaw to behave differently in different situations; it is the basis for community survival.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Nov 8, 2016 | Uncategorized |
Took dogs for long, early morning walk.
Fried eggs. Made lunches.
Played Bach on the piano. Slowly. From the Preludes.
Journal.
Kundalini yoga.
Class prep. I teach tonight.
Laundry.
Toast.
Listened to the news; turned off the news.
Dressed in a white blouse.
Voted. (But I took care of that last month, early.)
You?
xo, Carrie
