Category: Big Thoughts
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 I’ve tried to bash my way through these blocks (they’re in the shape of books, by the way, unpublished manuscripts).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
Tuesday, Dec 31, 2024 | Big Thoughts, Good News, Kids, Source, Space, Spirit, Success, Word of the Year |
At the end of this year, I’ve been reflecting on what brings me pride, and somehow (though I can’t claim to know exactly how), this links up in my mind with the mantras or words of advice that have stuck with me. There’s “be here now,” a constant refrain that helps bring me into the moment when I’m floating away. But the most prominent is a new one, a mantra I’ve been telling myself for the better part of this year: buy bigger pants. Yup. That’s it. Those are my words of wisdom to share with you at the end of this particular year. Buy bigger pants.
What I mean by this is: accept yourself, wherever you’re at in this life. Don’t keep squeezing into the slightly too small pants just because they used to fit, or because you think they should fit, or because you keep telling yourself to fit into them again already! Perimenopause has changed my body, and at first this was quite alarming, but gradually, I’ve altered my inner dialogue to cherish and accept my body’s many strengths, not least of which is carrying me through this life.
This year, I bought bigger pants. And guess what—no one noticed. (At least as far as I know!) And I felt super comfortable in my bigger pants. Being comfortable in my body is a gift. It is the foundation of confidence, but also of enjoyment and pleasure. I did start going to the gym again, and I’ve done lots of weights and cardio in addition to pilates and yoga, and I’ve enjoyed doing this regular routine as a way to lift my spirits, or metabolize stale energy, or to change the channel in my mind, empty my mind through sweat and effort. But it has nothing to do with fitting back into my former pants. I would like to be a hearty older woman. Sturdy. I might not be able to accomplish that goal, but buying bigger pants has helped me visualize the possibility.
On this note, and another point of pride: one of my children recently told me that till they’d started living with roommates and cooking together, they’d had no idea that so many people worried about their weight, or wanted to lose weight, or had food habits that were dysfunctional or overly strict. That’s because this was not a conversation in our household. Dieting was not a thing. Fear of food, or having to sneak food, or being denied food, or having access to food controlled in any way—this was not a thing. We also have never had a scale in our bathroom. This was deliberate on my part. I wanted and hoped very much to break the generational cycle, which was specifically gendered—girls and women only—and hinged on weight loss. At a family reunion, in my own childhood / teenage-hood, to be told that you looked great was code for you look skinny. I spent my teen years and early twenties struggling with an eating disorder, tracking every calorie that went into my mouth, and, often, in a fit of terrible hunger, binging and purging. I would not wish this waste of time and energy on anyone. Especially my own children.
So there it is: my year in one proud phrase. Buy bigger pants.
Love yourself, love your body, inhabit it fully, care for your body, cherish how you show up in this world, and know that others respond not to the size of your pants, but to the energy and confidence and humour and presence that you radiate.
I do have a second mantra / refrain of the year: I love being with people. Why is this a revelation? I have four children! And yet it delights me to say it, as if reminding myself of a brand new discovery. Other people bring me to life, revive me to my better instincts, draw forth a sense of joy and calm and collaboration. I love that I can’t guess what someone else will ask of me, or need from me; I love the liminality of time spent in conversation or doing an activity together. I love the exchange of energy and mood, and the shifting tones of emotional colour and light, and the way that when you are with other people you are moving through space and through time together, finding your way together, whether this is acknowledged or submerged.
And that, my friends, is my year in “things I’m proud of.”
xo, Carrie
Monday, Dec 23, 2024 | Big Thoughts |
Day 23 Prompt
Draw and write. Something you want to give away / forego.
Notes: All fall, we have been in the process of cleaning out the attic, giving away many things, or paring them down, even throwing things out. The emotions experienced when trying to make decisions about this stuff have occasionally felt excruciating, if I’m being honest. Painful. I want to give away my attachment to things, but I also want to have compassion for my flawed human self, which sometimes mistakes things for people, or believes things to hold memories that would otherwise vanish.
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Nov 2, 2024 | Big Thoughts, Blogging, Job, Library, Lists, Manifest, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit |
The problem with not having a ton of time to write is that my mind is like an over-stuffed inbox, and when I turn to this blog, I could race off in any one of a number of directions. But it’s important to pick one. That’s the essence of writing a post like this—or a story, a nicely fitted piece of business. Pick one thing to write about, Carrie, just one.
Okay, then. I want to write about children and dogs, and how both are so incredibly attuned to the world before them, and the living creatures in it, including the humans approaching and passing. Have you noticed? How a toddler in a stroller or infant strapped to a parent’s chest will meet your eye and take you in, while their rushing parent is too distracted to do the same? And likewise, a dog on a leash will veer toward the human coming toward it. I like this—I don’t mind a dog jumping on me and greeting me. But the human holding the leash usually pulls the dog away—onward they go.
Children and dogs possess a superpower—they are present. They are exactly where they are.
I see this in the library, especially with the younger students who notice every tiny detail that has changed. When I read to them, they are alert to repetition in illustrations and in language, they notice the character who says nothing but appears on every page. More generally, they soak up the atmosphere, the air of the place they are in. If something sad is happening, they know. If the energy is fraught and wonky, they respond to that.
I love this quality almost more than any other human quality—the ability to be present and tuned in. I cherish it. When I’m with children (and dogs!), I can enter into their state of being too, at least for that while. And it’s okay that I can’t stay there—I accept the imperative of being a mature responsible adult who has her lists of tasks and duties, her memories of what went wrong, and her plans to set things right. We grow up, and our minds fill up. Like our inboxes.
It is a relief to set everything down, to tap the keys and say, here I am, this is where I am. I choose this one thing. And that is why I love to write here, when a seam of time opens in the day, and I feel called to remember who I am. Or record who I am, more accurately.
And who I am, just now, is a woman most grateful to be in the presence of children regularly, and therefore to be present herself regularly. It’s salve for the soul. It’s healing. It reminds me that connection is our most powerful need, as human beings, and that when we connect in person, face to face, when our eyes meet, we see differently. We know differently. (Or, I do. I shouldn’t assume and speak so generally.) When I am in the presence of others, I understand the power of connection to bridge vast divides and sew up wounds and heal and care.
I have other thoughts on other subjects, but today, I choose children and dogs, and our eyes meeting in passing. Hello, living beings. You are wonderful and I love you.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Sep 5, 2024 | Art, Big Thoughts, Current events, Death, Family, Library, Play, Source, Space, Spirit, Summer, Work, Writing |
There is so little to say, and so much.
I want to express the ways in which I’m changing, the shifts occurring in my mind, and in my outlook—but it’s not entirely clear … I’m floating along a deep wide river. The way I understand my own identity is changing, changing, changing. For most of my life, I was focused on being a writer. And it became my defended self, a self that required defending because I had no sustained confidence in its heft or even its existence—prove yourself, said the voice in my head, over and over.
That voice has grown so gentle.
Now that voice in my head says, there’s more and more and more—more life, more love, more space, more time than you’d ever imagined. Soak it in. Float. Spread out of your arms. Watch the sky, the leaves and branches moving on the trees, listen to the wealth of stories pouring in. This generous world.
And how I wish and hope to be a generous being while I’m here.
Spaciousness.
I feel it within me, surrounding me, available at all times. So much spaciousness. A lack of pressure (not a lack of challenge).
How can I explain what is impossible to describe? It is not that I have more time, but that time itself expands to accommodate so many threads and layers and textures of experiences. When I am restless with my environment, the voice in my head says, be where you are right now.
And I breathe differently.
It is not always easy to be where you are right now. It might involve challenges like boredom or pain or discomfort. Yes. And when I am here right now those challenges shift and become otherwise—boredom may be a conduit to concentrated observation; pain may invite breath; discomfort illuminates emotion; love and patience and depth of understanding weave into the experience of being.
I have been learning this my whole life, with my whole body, which offers its sensations and movements and feelings to the interpretation of my mind, and which acts as a container for my spirit, that droplet of essence that connects me to all beings.
I arrived here on earth to learn, to soak in beauty in its rawest forms—taste, smell, touch, light and shadow, sound, rhythm, anchors to my place of being. I arrived with the desire to push my body to its limits (not always in healthy ways, but that’s part of learning). I wanted to feel everything. I wanted to experience everything.
The impulse to make things, to respond to and to express all of this wonder at the beauty of it all—that has also been in me since the beginning. I arrived here on earth with the desire to make things (and make things up). I learned to nurture that part of myself—I practiced observation, through writing, playing with language and grammar and imagery. And I learned that to record requires of me a bifurcated attention, attention that must split itself between observing and recording (and interpreting). And I continue to learn that sometimes, sometimes, yes, I do not want to record or interpret what is happening, I want simply to be in the happening. I want to be in it and learn from being in it.
This summer has been a summer of being, not so much doing, and very little recording or interpreting of the doing and being. Hence, very little blog writing. But not never. Why lean on never, ever? There is time, there is time.
I arrived here on earth to learn.
When I notice all the spaciousness around me, through which I move and breathe and live, I learn in ways that resist expression. I settle myself in deeper. Everything shimmers. Time expands. I am, you are, we are. Learning together.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Jun 21, 2024 | Art, Big Thoughts, Dream, Feminism, Fire, Friends, Fun, Good News, Job, Lynda Barry, Manifest, Organizing, Source, Space, Spirit, Stand, Success, Work, Writing |
The X Page performance, season 5, was this past Sunday: “We Belong.” Season 5 proved to be the luxury version of the workshop, with excellent snacks and food, great sound, professional lighting, and a real stage. It was also a delight to behold—the stories came into focus, and the performers were, each one, spotlit and magical as they offered their generous gifts to the audience (a full house!).
For me, this project is about the process. At times, it’s messy, it’s a big commitment, it’s demanding and occasionally frustrating, not to mention that it’s also an over-the-top ask: to write an original story, memorize it, take it into your being, and perform it on stage in front of a live audience. Many of the women complete this remarkable task in their second or even third language.
As with any intense project, the end, when it comes, feels abrupt. All this effort and excitement, nerves and energy, ramping up considerably as the date of the performance comes closer and closer—and suddenly, arrives. And then time flies. The production is over almost as soon as it’s begun.
One of the women said, as she was leaving the theatre, “No one told me about this part—the part where it ends.”
It’s true. It does end. There will be a cast picnic, and of course, everyone is welcome to join our online writing club that meets monthly to do a Lynda Barry exercise and read our freshly discovered stories to each other.
But yes, the process, this specific process, meeting this specific goal, with this specific team, and these specific individuals—that does end. A chapter closes.
Just like my peonies have bloomed and are now wilting in the heat. I bend down to breathe in their scent every time I pass by, but they are going, going, nearly gone.
What I wonder is—how will each of us be changed by our experience? (Not by the peony sniffing, although I’m sure that has an effect too! I mean by being part of the X Page workshop.)
I believe that I am changed in ways both subtle and profound.
In the hours after the performance, I became aware of an unfamiliar feeling in my body—fulfillment. I felt fulfilled. The feeling lingered, and it remains. I felt, I feel, like I’d done what I was called to do, done it well and to the best of my abilities, forgiving myself along the way for missteps, open to learning from everyone I met, and committed fully to the process and these people, individually and as a whole. I did not (do not?) feel anxious about what might come next. I felt, instead, sufficient. Fed, serene, blessed, grateful.
I was (am?) affirmed as a communicator—verbally and emotionally, as much as through the written word. I was (am!) proud to have been a part of such a special and unique project. It helped (helps) me to see that while writing has been a large piece of my identity, it is not my whole self, nor need it be. It may, instead, be a pathway or a door opening into a different way of being in the world, rich with overlapping communities, strong relationships, communal experiences, and my own personal values lived out in full.
What a gift. What generosity pouring from all to all. What enormous goodwill and care. Imagine a world where all would be encouraged and rewarded and admired for approaching each other with grace, with understanding. Imagine a world where we’d have the support and time and energy and emotional bandwidth to care for each other’s voices and stories as much as we do inside this welcoming x page space—I do. I imagine it. I want to practice living in that space, of grace, as often as I can.
I wonder what will unfold for everyone involved in this project. I wonder what threads they will take with them, what emotions and sensations will remain in their bodies long afterward, and what they’ll want, how they’ll be changed, as they step back into their lives, seeing themselves just a little bit differently, now.
xo, Carrie
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