Category: Art
Sunday, Dec 31, 2023 | Art, Big Thoughts, Blogging, Confessions, Fun, Lists, Manifest, Source, Space, Spirit, Success, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
1. Two Women – finish and send. Yes, I achieved this, sort of; Two Women is my “Grandma” project. She died this fall. It’s a project too close to my heart and spirit to be let go lightly, so I’m still holding it. Holding lightly.
2. Summer writing – unknown; clean studio/office. The summer writing project on which I landed was to finish revising the 16th century novel. But I didn’t feel like writing much, and instead had a summer of travel and adventure and caring for others and deeply wonderful restorative time in nature and with family and friends, none of which I regret. I’ve moved that summer writing project to this coming year—I plan to spend the next week working on revisions, and I have two farm writing retreats planned for this winter too. I also did clean my studio/office, and cleaned it again today (once every 6 months seems sensible!).
3. Farm writing retreat(s) – often! I “retreated” to my brother and sister-in-law’s farm three times this past year. Each time was wonderful, memorable, fun, meaningful, energizing, and productive. I was at my best last winter and spring, in terms of getting writing work done; this fall, I was in a bad space, too exhausted to do much thinking, and kind of crusty and brittle, as a person. I love my friends who come along, and I love that they come along and share this time and space and their creative energy (and kindness) with me.
4. Girl Runner film. I just received the option payment from a production company that hopes to make Girl Runner into a film. The director is a woman from Spain and we’ve met over Zoom to discuss her vision. So that happened! Contract signed, option out for the next 18 months (or so!).
5. Blog – ?? Well, I haven’t blogged much, the proof being in the posts. But I haven’t much felt like blogging, maybe because I haven’t had much that yearns to be said (in a public forum, that is) pouring forth from my brain. Is this healthy? I don’t know! But I do feel calmer and more content, generally speaking. Less agonizing, more doing. I like doing. The job-job give me a sense of purpose and usefulness, which seems to matter to me. (Side note: I have stopped trying to change what matters to me, instead recognizing and embracing it—and putting those values into action. Usefulness. Boundaries. Clarity.)
6. Marinate – all the feelings! It’s funny, but when I read this, I thought, wait, what? Marinate in my feelings? That sounds very goopy; but maybe the marinating has been softening me up! And maybe I haven’t marinated so much as acknowledged. I’ve acknowledged my feelings (emotions and/or physical sensations) in order to identify what I need to do—to help direct my actions. Instead of doing what I think I should do, I’ve been doing what I trust I should do. Trusting my gut. Trusting that my emotions are giving me valuable information. Trusting my decision-making. And giving myself permission to try something out and change as needed if it doesn’t feel right. I’ve found much more enjoyment in my emotional range through this experiment. Pride can feel pretty great. Crying in fury can be cathartic. Being loved is wonderful. Radiating care is joyful. Flatness is protective and sometimes necessary, and shouldn’t be ignored—numbness has emotional weight too. Etc.
7. WRDSB – experiment, experience, earn. This intention holds up nicely! I’m still here, on the job, learning and earning, experimenting, experiencing.
I haven’t written out “Carrie’s Projects – 2024 [insert word-of-the-year here]” … stay tuned.
Wishing you a wonderful new year of projects and feelings. Marinate!
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Dec 16, 2023 | Art, Big Thoughts, Current events, Fire, Fun, Good News, Job, Library, Organizing, Play, Reading, School, Source, Space, Spirit, Success, Winter, Word of the Year, Work, Yoga |
I have been drawing and writing again: four weeks in my new position at a school library and creative energy has returned — it isn’t all being used on the job. In fact, working in the library seems to energize and soothe me in equal measure. The space is mine to play with, building on themes, displaying books, decorating with paper crafts (bulletin boards and such, see example above — not my forte, but I’ll learn!), reading stories to classes, and finding tasks for the many many library helpers (close to 30 grade 5/6 students) who the previous library clerk had brought in. The space has a wall of windows, and when I unlock the door and walk in every morning, I feel a sense of excitement and gratitude.
I love to put things in order. A library that is being used properly will forever give me things to put in order. And I LOVE reading to children and interacting with children.
Yet I also recognize and honour that the decision to change course took courage and did not feel straightforward or easy — it was painful to leave the students and staff and those fulfilling relationships at my previous school. I miss them.
There are situations and experiences that may not be healthy for us, or suited to true needs, long-term, but may nevertheless be valuable and wonderful in the moment. To leave something is not to diminish its worth.
Last year (2022), I focused on what I was feeling, trying to understand better the underlying sensations and emotions that were fuelling my decision-making and moods and interactions (often without my awareness), and this year (2023) I’ve focused on identifying my needs—so that I am better able to meet those needs, and not expect others to meet them for me. It’s a bit counterintuitive, but when I know what I need, I become less needy.
But I don’t always know what I need. Or I think I need a particular something, when really, what would satisfy and fill me is something else quite different.
I didn’t write much this fall; my creative spark vanished. I couldn’t find it, and didn’t even want to, particularly, or care much. All my creative energy went into problem solving at work—and I liked it, in many ways, because it made me feel useful and mildly heroic, which writing and drawing never really does, to be perfectly honest; but it was a sacrifice that ultimately was making me very sad, on some fundamental level. My rational mind didn’t notice or care, but my body did, my heart did, my guts did, my intuition noticed: and Sad Carrie was not really helping anyone.
What I was missing more than anything, what I needed, was my creative spark. I didn’t consciously know this till the spark reappeared.
Every morning before going to my new library job, I have time (and energy and the desire) to draw and write—and so I do. And the pleasure it gives me is without measure. There’s no purpose to it other than joy. No use. No rational worth or monetary value.
I’ve been reunited with this joyful part of myself.
To be joyful in the world is such a gift. Joy isn’t blind or ignorant, and joy doesn’t ignore suffering; it bubbles out of ordinary encounters, it is born of gratitude and grace, and interior space, which allows a person the bandwidth to be attuned outwardly, or open somehow, sensing and knowing the sacredness of every interaction and experience — that is what I mean by joy.
Joy can’t be manufactured, but it can be quietly drained from the body and mind by overwhelm and exhaustion. You can’t meditate yourself into a place of joy when you are drowning. The collective message to people in overwhelm and exhaustion and burnout and grief, drowning under a weight of responsibilities and impossible tasks, is: save yourselves! Do some yoga, or be more mindful, or whatever “wellness” trend is being pushed at the moment. I love yoga, and I appreciate the value of mindfulness; but when drowning in overwhelm, there isn’t a person on planet earth who can meditate themselves back to joy. Maybe to temporary relief of symptoms; maybe to a hope for a different path, or a glimpse at possibilities; but when the light goes out, it’s dark.
What lights your creative spark?
What are you feeling?
What are your feelings telling you about your needs?
What do you need?
Food, shelter, health, safety. What about ease? What brings you ease, and how does your ease express itself? How do you live when life is not such a struggle? How does your joy appear? How do you know when you are joyful?
My ease bubbles out in laughter. My ease fills a page with colour and lines. My ease delights in reading a book to a group of children and listening to their comments and questions.
May you be be safe. May you be healthy. May you be happy. May you live with ease.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Nov 22, 2023 | Art, Big Thoughts, Fire, Library, Manifest, Play, School, Stand, Success, Work, Writing |
Where am I? Where do I place myself? How much say do I have in where I’m placed?
In church on Sunday, we sang a hymn titled “Longing for Light,” that has the line: “Make us your bread, broken for others, shared until all our fed.” It feels like a very Mennonite sentiment. It rings true, it compels me: this desire to use one’s energy and work for a purpose that helps others, or serves others. But, I wonder, do I need to be broken to be of service? If I’m broken like bread, turned to crumbs, what then?
It’s an old puzzle, I think, trying to figure out how to give without depletion. I’d hoped and believed that I had the tools and skills necessary to make the job in the office sustainable. But I did not. This has left me feeling like a failure. What I’ve failed to do is to work within my means, at a job that I truly loved doing; instead, I kept burning all available fuel, day after day, till it was becoming harder to be kind, especially to myself.
I’m in a school library now, as of this week. It’s quieter, but students will come and fill it with noise. It’s a different job, easier. It’s only day two, but I’m not a zombie when I walk out of the building. “I didn’t rescue anyone today!” I texted to Kevin after work on Monday. His reply: “Just yourself.”
What will I do with more energy, again? Do I have the self-control not to get myself into trouble, the patience not to sign myself up for other jobs and volunteer positions till I’ve got no space to think again? I’ve missed having the bandwidth to write. I’ve missed writing. My thoughts are clearer on the page. Contradictory impulses: I don’t want this spare energy to go to waste; I don’t want to be used up till I’m nothing but crumbs.
I want to do no harm. I want to serve others. I want to live with ease. I want to share joy.
What I learned in the office job is how to ask questions. Ask and ask till I could be sure I understood what the other person wanted or needed. What is being asked of me? It isn’t always so clear. I learned that I’m steady in a crisis—focused, calm, decisive, very present. I’m a good listener, when very present. I would like to combine these skills with training that would place me in a job or occupation that calls on them, regularly, while giving me some power to solve or resolve the problems being presented.
It’s quite possible that no job or occupation has the power to solve or resolve problems—or not to satisfaction, not the problems that are unfixable. But I’d like to try. Not to demand perfect or ideas solutions, but to move in practical ways toward wholeness, support, improved states of mind, healthier relationships.
Where will I place myself?
So much depends upon that. I feel it very strongly. Where I place myself—where I’m placed, physically, in the world—changes the possibilities that open (or close).
As a writer, it has seemed there are fewer opportunities to be placed, to find a place, especially in the company of others. My kids are growing up, and out of the house. I need to be placed with people, with strangers, with colleagues, with a crowd, children or teens or adults, young and older and old, or a mixture; friction, conflict, noise, laughter, issues raised, questions, needs to be met, time to be managed, hands held, stories heard.
My job-job has given me that—a place. Many places, in fact. Many different people to interact with. I’m currently placing myself part-time in a school library. That leaves space to be placed somewhere else, too, or to work/train toward a different kind of placement. I would like to explore working in a context that involves conflict—defusing it, specifically, and helping those caught up in conflict to move toward resolution.
Longing for light. Longing to be light—lighter in spirit, light-hearted, light on the path.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Sep 17, 2023 | Adventure, Art, Bicycles, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Exercise, Fall, Friends, Fun, Good News, Job, Kevin, Kids, Lists, Manifest, Meditation, Money, Organizing, Peace, Running, Sleep, Source, Space, Spirit, Success, Weekend, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
I’m about to start week four of my new job. It’s intense and lively and challenging for brain and body and spirit — and I love that. It is also consuming of energy and focus. And it’s what I wanted and needed, I feel that deeply. I thrive on friction and have sought it out in various ways, from kundalini yoga classes to filling my house with four children to taking on volunteer roles that threw me into situations with high learning curves and the reward of appreciation and adventure (think — soccer coaching, or co-founding and running the storytelling workshop).
Now I’ve found myself a job where I get paid to enter into a swirl of friction: activity, human interaction, conflict and attempts at resolution. Everything I’ve learned in my life leading up to this moment feeds my ability to thrive and respond with integrity and kindness (while setting firm boundaries) in a constantly changing, constantly interrupted environment of constant problem-solving. But it’s early days! I recognize that such jobs can also, over time, create calluses for protection and self-preservation, which outwardly can look like cynicism, burnout, detachment, depression.
So I’m testing out ways to build in channels for release, for rest, to make space for ongoing enjoyment.
NEED is my word of the year. Attuning to my needs has been such a helpful guide! What do I need to set myself up for success? Each one of us will need something a bit different — or a lot different. I’m relishing the opportunity to test out my needs and my ability to meet those needs, with the focus of the job as an anchoring point.
I need: healthy food and hydration; cardio; yoga and meditation; time with Kevin; balanced connection with my kids (meeting them where they’re at); the give and take of strong friendships; sleep and rest; friction and challenge; to learn new things; creative outlets; appreciation for my work; compensation for my work; a sense of adventure and discovery; to feel purposeful and useful; joy and humour; spiritual connection.
My new job meets the following needs (just by showing up, these needs are met! Amazing!): friction and challenge; to learn new things; appreciation for my work; compensation for my work; a sense of adventure and discovery; to feel purposeful and useful; joy and humour. I sense that friendships may develop through this job as well.
So what’s left out? What needs are not being met at my job and can I find ways to meet these needs in other ways?
Well, I’ve been biking to work — there’s cardio, and I’m planning to get up extra-early to fit in a 30-min run a few times a week on days when I don’t feel like biking. Packing myself good lunches and keeping a water bottle at my desk; plus cooking as therapy when I get home for work — there’s healthy food and hydration. Kevin and I do yoga and meditation together almost every day, first thing in the morning, last thing before bed, and we walk the dog most evenings — there’s time with Kevin, and yoga and meditation, and spiritual connection (at least to some degree). I reach out to friends by text (it’s a great way to stay in touch, especially from afar, and with kids too), and arrange times to meet in person, like a Friday after-work drink, or an early morning walk. Our family eats most suppers together (those living at home, that is). So a lot of the bases are being covered.
Rest and sleep — working on it! I’m aiming to leave most weekends and evenings relatively open and free. This means cutting back on almost all volunteer work. Cutting out activities that drain my energy, or that I simply don’t have time to complete.
I’m missing creative outlets.
I have two writing weekends at the farm planned for this fall — so that’s something. But what about daily creative connection? Connection to my writing self? What’s happening in that part of my self? I haven’t felt the urge to write, to start something new, or even to finish the novel project that’s underway. I’ve got a completed manuscript waiting for an editor to read it and reject or accept; touching that part of my life hurts, sometimes. Or I anticipate that it will be painful. Too hard. Unnecessary pain.
But writing and drawing bring me joy — I know that!
So I’m going to test out writing/drawing for 15 mins during my lunch break (first I have to take a lunch break, but this will be motivation!). Rest and restoration — much-needed to avoid burn-out. I’d like to make myself a list of 20 or so prompts that I can cycle through, for days when I’m not feeling inspired to get started (which is most days, these days!).
I’ll post some prompts here too (next time). Maybe you have a favourite prompt you return to? Let me know, please.
xo, Carrie
Lyrics in my head right now: “Life is a balance, you lose your grip, you can slip into an abyss…” J. Cole, “False Prophets”
Thursday, Jul 27, 2023 | Adventure, Art, Drawing, Dream, Family, Francie's Got A Gun, Friends, Fun, Holidays, Local Food, Sleep, Source, Spirit, Summer, Swimming, Yoga |
Summer Carrie is here. Summer Carrie is traveling, swimming, reading, hanging laundry on the line, doing copious amounts of yoga, walking with friends, hosting family, eating entire cucumbers, picking backyard berries, and soaking in the sunshine (and rain).
Will I finish my summer writing project? Will I learn how to watercolour flowers? Will I eat enough cherries to last me all year? When will I see the Barbie movie? Can anyone slice a watermelon better than my dad? Why are so many people from my past visiting in my dreams? Do the ones I love know that I love them, do I tell them often enough, and in languages that speak directly to their hearts? Should I aim for more sleep and rest, or more play and fun? Am I brave enough to do all the things I’ve said yes to?
Oh goodness.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Jun 25, 2023 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Fun, Peace, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Dear blog,
You’ve watched me grow and learn, seek and attempt, win and lose. You’ve listened to my rambling observations, and been patient with my scattershot insights. You’ve held everything I handed you. You’ve been a beautiful photo album of these past 15 years, and a container for comical anecdotes, especially during the years of parenting young children. You’ve given me an outlet for my creativity, and allowed me to publish during stretches when no one else did. You were my experiment. You’ve been a home, in a way, a place to come to, to mark moments in time.
I think our relationship, as it has been, is ending. I think that’s okay, the way my relationships with my babies changed as they weaned, or learned how to fall asleep on their own, as we took off the training wheels and watched them whirl away from us.
I needed you for a long time—for connection with the wider world, and I confess, for validation. Appreciation.
I’ve been finding other ways to fill those needs. So I’ve needed you less and less. You’ve probably noticed. This isn’t goodbye, but it is an acknowledgement of change. A change in direction that’s been happening subtly and meaningfully, over a long span of months, of years. I keep saying to myself: It’s okay. It’s okay.
It’s okay to grieve change, it’s okay to be excited about change, it’s okay to feel both emotions at the same time—grief and excitement.
I haven’t stopped being myself, at core.
But I am different now, deep into my forties. I don’t feel as comfortable here, in blogland, as I once did. I come to this medium and feel constrained. That’s not the way to write. Some constraint is useful of course, some structure is absolutely necessary; but a sense of self-obstruction, of caution, of carefulness, fear of judgement—that is not useful to writing and creating.
It never will be. I didn’t used to feel that here, dear blog, but now I do. It’s not you, it’s me. I mean that sincerely. I didn’t used to feel that, dear blog, because my need for affirmation, for being seen, was so great that it outweighed all caution. This is not meant as a critique on blogging or writing publicly or sharing from the heart. This is meant to mark a moment, that is all. The moment is shifting all the time and can’t really be pinned down, but I think where I find myself is gently, tenderly choosing to protect my heart.
I wrote a book once (it never got published) titled “Why Give Yourself Away?” It’s a question that’s returned and returned over many years of writing; it first appeared in a poem I wrote in my mid-teens. So let’s just say it’s been a preoccupying force. I don’t have the answer today, but the question seems both more complicated and more simple.
Why give yourself away?
Well, because you want to. Because you must. Because you feel compelled to. Because of what you’re hoping for in return (whether you know this or not).
But maybe the you that you’re giving is substantively different now, in your current itineration. Maybe what you’re giving away isn’t pieces of your life, recalibrated and reconstituted for consumption; maybe it’s experience itself rendered through the body and mind and words and actions, experience made manifest as compassion and kindness.
Why give yourself away?
What are you giving—that’s my question for myself now. What exactly are you giving away?
It’s attention. It’s presence. And I’m not giving it away, I’m giving and receiving; I’m discovering its generative properties, how attention given blooms into connection, and warmth, how listening with care is the basis for conflict resolution, how care and caring can only happen freely when no strings are attached, nothing is being asked of the other because you know you are already loved and cared for, because you honour your needs truly. You don’t need to ask for anything in return when you have known and know grace yourself. (It’s idealistic, I’ll confess, but I hope to move toward this way of being in the world.)
Where my writing fits into this, I don’t know at present.
I don’t know whether I’ll need it in the same way; nor what new or changed goals it may meet or fulfill. I don’t know. I do know that I still love to write in order to find order in the dissonance of experiences. I still love to write to untangle the muddle of my mind. I still love to write to record and reflect and come closer to understanding the world. But it’s just one way of knowing and doing and being. I’m discovering other ways now, too.
All for now.
xo, Carrie
