Category: Art
Thursday, Feb 13, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Library, Lists, Manifest, Meditation, Source, Space, Spirit, Winter, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
The creative life — what is it? Where does it live? How is it fed? These are my ever-questions, or, more accurately, fodder for ever-explorations and experiments. How does creativity squeeze itself into the gaps and cracks of every day existence; or is it so interwoven with every day existence as to be indistinguishable from it? Or are these formulations simply part of a greater whole? Creativity burrowing in gaps and cracks and spreading like moss or mold or weeds to inhabit the all of things.
There is no separation between my expressions of every day self and creative self. To exist in the world is to risk exposure, transformation. The risk of exposure is that it may harden me — the defended me — to rigidity or certainty, through fear. But the alternative seems riskier: without exposure to contradictory paths and ideas and ways of being, I become the most boring and limited version of myself, gazing into a self-reflecting mirror, defending what I see at the cost of real connection. To risk transformation is to risk becoming someone I won’t/don’t entirely recognize. But to try to stay the same is death, or zombie-hood, or cynicism, isn’t it?
I’m sorry, this is oddly theoretical. I wanted to write about practical steps, tasks, routines, choices. The actions that make possible the pursuit of beauty.
What if the purpose of life is to seek beauty?
Where do I find beauty? In order to seek it? And what do I do with it when I find it?
Beauty appears to me in so many forms, and in so many interactions. I know it by the delight it brings; or the tears. I know it by the way it changes time, softens and broadens it. Beauty is always available, and that is why every day existence is indistinguishable from the creative life, in my own experience. There are only a few rules (or considerations) to follow. Beauty happens in the living of it. It is naturally occurring and always present, but not always visible. It is easy to miss. Easiest to miss when distracted. Busy. Cut off from the world. The cellphone (standing in for our digital lives) has made it easier to miss altogether, or to confuse with a simulacrum. Beauty happens, too, in the mind that inhabits the body (not the mind that lives inside a screen). I’m not convinced that beauty happens here, on my blog, as I type these words, but this space allows me to reflect on its existence. I don’t know why I need to do this thing: this turning of one thing into another, this keeping of ideas and emotions inside the hard form of words.
But words — they’re not hard, not to me. They’re malleable and slippery and musical. They are the material of play — or one of the materials, and one of my most reliable. We dance together. Words dart under the surface and burst through it, carrying an image, a roar, a need.
To seek beauty, I …
practice moving my body in concert with my breath (yoga, meditation, gym-time)
invite play and spontaneity in every possible forum (bulletin board artwork, notebook scribbles, singing in the car)
surrender to the task at hand, no matter how menial (fixing books, cleaning the bathroom)
practice listening, tuck my phone out of sight and out of mind (coffee with my mom, walks with friends)
slow down, allow for space to open (speaking in front of a group, leading meetings)
practice humility by staying attuned to the needs of others (asking questions, looking into a child’s eyes)
fill my spaces with living beings (plants, children & their friends, dog, strangers, family, friends)
care for my body, challenge my mind, trust my heart, honour spirit (seeking a balance: to stretch & rest, write & read, socialize & connect, worship & reflect)
xo, Carrie
Friday, Jan 24, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Books, Confessions, Exercise, Friends, Fun, Girl Runner, Good News, Lists, Music, Organizing, Peace, Prizes, Publishing, Spirit, Success, The Candy Conspiracy, Weather, Winter, Word of the Year, Writing |
My to-do list for the next hour—
roast a pumpkin
write a blog post
Soooooo… the Canada Reads adventure is over for Girl Runner. It was truly lovely while it lasted. Here are the books that were chosen for the 2025 shortlist. Check them out!
I had advance warning that I wasn’t on the shortlist (call it reading the tea leaves; nobody reached out to inform me otherwise, but there were logical signs).
Ergo, my plan for “surviving” yesterday’s announcement (and I do say that tongue-in-cheek!), was to throw myself with gusto into my usual Thursday routine. I walk with a friend at 6AM, head to a pilates class at 7AM, spend the day at work in the library, come home for a bit of a nap and some laundry, then return to the gym for the evening with my daughter who is also a gym rat. We do weights, spin, and blissful slow flow yoga to finish it off, then come home to eat a late supper and completely unwind. I love this routine. It’s the only evening I spend at the gym, and the physical exertion helps me grind out my emotions about the week, empties my mind, and takes me deeper into my body, which connects me to the world. I feel very alive and purposeful on Thursdays. So I wasn’t worried about the residual effects of announcement, in all honesty.
And then. My day took a turn. Literally.
Midway through our walk, my friend and I dashed across a busy street to beat the traffic, and I stepped in a pothole, turned my ankle, and heard a series of snaps and pops. Having turned my ankle before (playing soccer), I knew exactly what was going down. The walk home was painful and longer than we would have liked, but my friend entertained me with conversation and it felt okay to keep moving and putting some weight on that foot. At home, in the front hall, I briefly debated continuing to pilates class, as planned, and then a voice of reason spoke (strangely enough, it was my own voice, out loud), and I said, “What would I tell a good friend in this situation?” And I replied, “Do not go to pilates. Take off your boots and take care of yourself.”
So that’s what I did.
To summarize, that is how I spent yesterday. I took care of myself.
I booked off work, made an appointment to get the ankle checked, dressed in comfortable clothing, elevated the leg, iced the ankle, surrounded myself with reading material, snuggled with the dog, drank tea, did not do a scrap of laundry, and rested. A day on which I’d strategized to distract myself from potentially painful feelings became a day of reflection. And it was good. It was needed, I think.
For years, when I “failed” to achieve some goal, particularly related to writing, I’d be overwhelmed with shame, expressed like this: I’ve disappointed everyone. I’ve disappointed my publisher, my editor, my agent, my family, my friends, basically everyone who cares about me. Yesterday, this thought rose up, in ghostly form. You’re a disappointment. You’ve disappointed people [in this instance, by not making the shortlist of Canada Reads].
“That’s interesting,” I replied (out loud! As if talking to a friend!). “Tell me, assuming that’s true, what could you have done to avoid disappointing them?”
After a pause, during which I scrolled backward in time through all the choices that were mine to make regarding this particular “failure,” I said, “Not write the book?”
How funny that sounded.
“Maybe,” my wise interlocutor self said, “maybe you’re the one who is disappointed, not everyone else?”
Hmmm… And in that moment, I gave myself permission to feel disappointed.
Ahh. That’s what it feels like. It feels different from shame. It’s sadness, a big sigh, letting go of what could have been (the imagined version, of course, which is never the same as what is).
“What are you disappointed about?” my wise questioner asked.
And out poured my feelings of loss: I thought it would have been really fun … to get to experience new things, meet new people, have some interesting conversations, make new connections … add a little zing of adventure and the unknown into my comfortable routine.
“Yes. That sounds disappointing. It’s okay to be disappointed …. Did you know that?”
Maybe, in fact, I didn’t know that. Maybe this has been a valuable revelation.
It’s disappointing, but it’s not the end of the world, or the end of my career as a writer, of the end of anything, except this potential experience.
Relief and ease poured through me. I read the opening chapters of On Freedom by Timothy Snyder, learning about the German words for body: Leib and Körper, and feeling seen and known. (As I understand it, in Snyder’s reading, a Leib is a body that is alive, limited by mortality, yet free to choose; a Körper is a body that is dead, or seen and treated as an object by others or even by the self; there’s so much more to these ideas and as soon as Kevin got home from work, I peppered him with observations, which I tend to call “revelations!” As in, “I’m having a revelation!” Which happens far too often for them to qualify as such, see above; but that’s how I reslish seeing things—as constantly changeable and unfolding and re-forming and illuminating.) Anyway… I also napped for awhile. My ankle ached and turned purple.
By evening, I was restless.
Today, I woke wanting my ankle fully healed. Revelation: healing doesn’t happen overnight.
Slow down, dear friend. Take it one step at a time. Literally.
xo, Carrie
PS If all goes as planned, the roasted pumpkin will be turned into a peanut stew by suppertime.
Friday, Jan 3, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Chores, Confessions, Friends, Library, Lists, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
Happy new year!
January 1, 2025 to do list
Yoga + meditation
journaling prompt + word of the year
walk with Nina
set up new laptop
I’ve been in a reflective, searching, yet celebratory mood. Starting on New Year’s Day, I’ve been doing Yoga with Adriene’s brand-new 7-day Prana series with Kevin before breakfast, after which we’re sitting in meditation for 10 minutes, focused on a short reading from Richard Wagamese’s Embers. After breakfast, I’ve been doing the Isolation Journals’ writing prompt (that one requires signing up and paying for Suleika Jaoud’s Substack newsletter, which I’ve been dipping in and out of for several years now). Such is the luxury of a full two weeks off!
I’ve been seeing friends, going to easier classes at the gym (yoga, pilates, and something called “total tone.”). For my 50th birthday, I gave myself a new laptop, which will make writing blog posts easier again (my old laptop, which I love dearly and have used for over a decade, has been struggling with updates, freezing, balking, lying down and refusing to get up again; it was time to stop asking her to climb mountains, or even to carry me on a flat path into town. I will put her out to pasture, with gratitude for all the books and art we made together).
I think that I’m struggling with writer’s block — that is my diagnosis. Oof. It makes me almost breathless to admit it out loud. It is a profound blockage and it is painful, manifesting in nausea, dread, anxiety that paralyzes my mind. I’ve tried shifting this block through a variety of means (including therapy). I’ve tried turning away from writing, declaring my writing-self toxic, comparing my relationship with writing to a dysfunctional or even an abusive relationship — all compelling and maybe necessary stories I’ve told myself. But not necessarily true or accurate. I’ve tried to bash my way through these blocks (they’re in the shape of books, by the way, unpublished manuscripts). I’ve tried ignoring them. I’ve tried re-envisioning my life without writing playing any part in it. None of this has shifted the dread. If anything, it seems to be intensifying, and my solution has been avoidance, an almost violent turning away.
Avoidance doesn’t work, you know it, I know it. If anything, it has amplifies, as the thing / sensation avoided seeps through the cracks into other parts of one’s life, or bubbles up in unpredictable and harmful ways.
So … and this is where all the reflecting and seeking comes in, I’d like to try something completely different. Something hopeful that does not ignore the problem, but names it — writer’s block — and also names the need to sit in the not-knowing. To sit in circle with what’s here, much of it beyond words.
In response to one of the Isolation Journals prompts, I wrote that I am afraid of becoming content, too content to want to create and make things; and that I want to be content. A circle that can’t be squared. On the first day of the new year, I chose my new word of the year, not long before my walk with Nina. I wrote down a few ideas — settle, free, ground … and then the word HUM arrived, without bidding or prior notice. HUM? I surrounded the word with associations, including “music” and “playful” and “hummingbird” and “energy around and within”. Nina gave me an association that popped into her mind: hum-drum. I found that ho-hum was there too. My initial response was, oh dear, not that! But I’ve been playing with hum-drum and ho-hum atop HUM, and I’m strangely, unexpectedly, contented by those words. Soothed.
Ho-hum is average, basic, dull; in my understanding of the state, so is contentment. Is that true?
When the kids were little, they would complain about being bored, and I’d wax on about “inner resources.” Find your inner resources, I’d tell them! I’ve been thinking about “glueing books back together,” which I often find myself despairing over, when bent to the task (it’s quite endless in the library — the glueing and taping and cleaning and shelving); a voice in my head says, this is my life? “Woe is me” thoughts. In these moments, I long for a bigger stage, for more authority, a bigger platform for my voice. And yet — what happens when I’m glueing books back together? My hands are busy and my mind is free to wander, daydream; the best kind of idleness. Off-line. Undistracted. Just me and my thoughts.
What if this work, menial and impossible ever to finish, is a gift? What if “glueing books back together” gives entry into a state that brings me into alignment with my inner life — nurturing and strengthening my inner resource through the practice of discipline, resistance to distraction, and attention to my own whirling, humming feelings and thoughts, sometimes uncomfortable, difficult to face.
Thoughts will come and thoughts will go. Flickers of dissatisfaction, of envy, and jealousy, yearning for a big stage and recognition; those thoughts grow in the garden of my mind, but in stillness and quiet, I know they aren’t me. My thoughts are not my reality. I don’t have to pick them up and carry them, or look through them at the world around me. I can observe their comings and goings as my hands do their tasks. And maybe in this ho-hum-ness, this hum-drum-ness, I’ll find a path back to peace with the not-knowing, again. Writing and revising require a person to exist in the not-knowing, to thrive there! Writer’s block is a state of intolerance for the not-knowing; a real terror arises. If I can practice being at peace with the not-knowing, maybe these books that I’ve written, that I love very much, won’t look like stones in my path, but like something else. Something I haven’t imagined or discovered yet.
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Dec 21, 2024 | Art |
Day 21 Prompt
Draw and write. Give yourself a super power.
Notes: Well this was fun! My cape is my to-do lists, slung over my arm, and my super power is my imagination — my deliciously hopeful and optimistic imagination, more precisely. I also have giant feet that keep me grounded (in real life, my feet are a very average size 7.5).
xo, Carrie
Monday, Dec 9, 2024 | Art |
Day 9 Prompt
Draw & write. Subject: your nose.
Notes: Well this was a weird one! I knew it would be coming at some point, but I’d kinda forgotten about it. I’m smelling lentil stew simmering as I write this. I have a very sensitive nose, which is often a curse, but sometimes a joy. I took an unflattering selfie super-close-up so I could see my nose to draw it. And then I drew it in pen and daubed it with water colour. And that’s about as grand as it got. Not every day can be a winner.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Dec 8, 2024 | Art, Confessions, Drawing, Friends, Manifest, Reading, Source, Space, Writing |
Day 8 Prompt
Draw an object from nature. Describe what it’s telling you?
Notes: This plant in my office, a succulent, reminds me of a plant at my brother and sister-in-law’s farmhouse, where I’ve gotten to go and write sometimes with my writing group. This plant reminds me of friendship and mutual support, and laughter, and how meaningful it feels to pause and breathe and listen to each other’s stories. Meaningful, too, to feel cared for and cherished and seen. I judge myself harshly and crave recognition (not all the time, but these temptations slip into my mind, these habits and patterns of thinking are hard to break). I long to be loved for my imperfect self and I long to be my best self as often as possible. Some days, this feels harder than others. But here is this plant. I’ve over-watered it and let it dry out way too much, and nevertheless it rewards my imperfect attention by continuing to exist. I am reassured by its presence on my desk.
xo, Carrie
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