Category: Confessions
Monday, Jul 22, 2019 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Dream, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Not every day is a good day.
There are days when you will feel lesser than your usual self. Days when you will wonder what this darkness is you’re carrying and whether you’ll have the patience and the courage to dig into it, and maybe unearth it, learn from it.
You will feel like you have nothing to offer. Yet you will go on offering, as if pulling scarves from your sleeve, rabbits from your hat.
You will wonder at the raw stupidity of your own ambition. You will be infuriated by your flurries of self-delusion. Who did you think you were?
You’ll go for a run, trying to run out your misery, like it could be wrung from you like sweat. You won’t know who to blame. You’ll be all out of scapegoats, so you’ll turn on yourself and say, You, it was you all along, you and your inflated imagination.
And you won’t know what to say in return.
You’ll forget how to be kind to yourself. The mirror will show you failure and worse — self-pity. You’ll feel sick with nerves. Worthless. Empty, vacuous.
You’ll wonder: Is this depression?
You’ll wish you’d never started down this road. If you could go back in time — ah, but you’ll know. You’ll know that even if you could go back in time, you wouldn’t be able to tell yourself not to try, not to imagine, not to do the work. You’ll know this is part of the cycle, part of the deal. You’ll know it actually doesn’t matter how good or bad you are at this thing you’ve chosen to do, and that’s the trouble, that you’re going to keep doing this, this thing, for the rest of your life, and there’s nothing else for it.
You’ll need to pick yourself up, scrape yourself off, and pull yourself together. You can’t diagnose yourself. You can only write about it. Writing is what you’ve got. Even if, today, it means nothing to you.
Even if this is one of those days, one of those anxious, splintering days.
Tomorrow it might mean something again.
And if it doesn’t, wait till the next day. And the next day. You’re imagining an enormous crater where your dreams used to be, but even at the very bottom of that crater, you’ll poke around and find something to entertain you, console you, and keep you alive.
I promise.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Jun 27, 2019 | Art, Backyard, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Meditation, Space, Spirit, Summer, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
This is an ideal day, wide open, warm. I’m wearing shorts and a t-shirt and sandals. I’ve gone for a run in the park, walked the dog, hung the laundry, and meditated in the back yard listening to the birds and the traffic.
It is possible to be quiet and still.
And yet, there is an undercurrent of anxiety. Feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame, grief, panic. When you strip away the layers of busyness, you have to look at yourself, pay attention, listen. Maybe you were busy for a reason. Maybe you didn’t want to scrutinize the uncomfortable emotions and their uncomfortable causes.
What hurts?
What a question. Oh boy. Rejection hurts. Not meeting my own expectations and hopes hurts. Feeling purposeless in my vocation hurts.
Is this true? Do you feel purposeless, directionless, or is your purpose and direction so attached to outcome that you’re standing in the way of recognizing what is before you? The here and now. Not what came before or what may come, but what is here before you in this very hour.
I come inside and draw a picture. I write this meditation.
I ask: Is my vocation, my purpose more closely related to being a writer, or to leading a life of contemplation? What connects these two points on the map inside my mind? What separates them?
A writer writes, of course, but more importantly, she publishes. Produces. Makes her ideas manifest on the page. Her work can be seen, recognized, appreciated.
What do you even call a person who leads a life of contemplation? How quiet and interior is a life of contemplation? How is such a life made manifest? Is it a life in which its purpose is entirely untethered from production, from recognition, from approval? Is it a life without notice? What would that mean?
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jun 19, 2019 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Space, Spirit, Teaching |
Do you ever feel too superstitious to mention that you’re feeling good? Like by speaking such words out loud, the universe will notice and you’ll call down your fair share of trouble and grief?
This morning, I noticed that I didn’t feel tired. In fact, I felt energized. I was looking forward the day ahead. The obstacles seemed surmountable and I wanted to go for a run just to enjoy how at easy I felt inside my own body. But I also noticed an underlying emotion — was it shame, almost? I was feeling good, even great, not tired … because I’m not that busy right now.
I’m not busy.
I’ve been busy, so I know what busy feels like, and I’m really not busy right now. I’m not struggling on the verge of complete burn-out. I don’t have to fantasize that I’m going to step out of my life and vanish, as a coping mechanism for getting through the day’s tasks. Kind of the opposite, actually, and this absence of extreme stress, even distress, triggers a certain fear in me that may be familiar to some of you, too — that my value, my worth is directly connected to my busyness.
By not being busy, I’m attempting to rewire my understanding of worth and value. Time, space, attention: what are these worth to us? Attention to tasks, to desires, to emotions, to motivations, to goals. Neutral attention. Non-judgemental attention. The attention of curiosity. The attention of immersion in a moment. The attention of presence. Contemplative attention, calm, stillness, peace — the opposite of busyness.
This is my current goal: to give myself these moments. What does it feel like to move easily through a day? What does it feel like to breathe? (Take a deep breath now, and feel what it feels like.) What does it feel like to relax into a task, to give myself a break, metaphorically and literally?
It feels good.
I feel good. I acknowledge this feeling in the present, in the now. The now is where we live, and yet our minds would carry us back in time or push us forward, with worries about what’s to come, or what could have happened differently, if only. Sometimes the ability to move forward and back in time is a wonderful magic trick and a saving grace, but often it’s a form of self-torment.
For example … yesterday, I received student evaluations in the mail, for the cartooning course I taught this winter. I stood in the kitchen in my coaching gear, minutes before we had to leave for a soccer game, for some reason choosing to take that moment to scan through the comments and ratings (anyone who receives evaluations knows this was a terrible idea!).
The positive comments far outweighed the negative, yet had zero effect on me. I can’t even remember them now, but I remember the student who didn’t think I used the readings well, and the student who said the storyboarding didn’t work for them, and the student who was disappointed that we hadn’t done more writing.
My attention was attuned to the negative.
Why? It occurred to me this morning that what I wanted was an excuse, a reason beyond myself, to justify my decision not to teach, at least for now — and a handful of negative comments did the trick. Playing the comments on a loop generated unpleasant emotions, but also made me feel justified. (side note: I wonder why I keep needing to justify this decision to myself? No one else is asking me to do so!)
Viewed from a neutral standpoint, the comments have nothing to do with my decision not to teach: a decision made months ago, not yesterday, that, viewed from a neutral standpoint, made it possible, this morning, to feel good, not tired, not stressed, not burnt-out. A decision I can feel inside my body. A decision that isn’t actually about teaching or not teaching. It’s about making space.
Contemplative space.
I love that word: contemplative. It speaks to me.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Jun 6, 2019 | Adventure, Art, Backyard, Big Thoughts, Cartoons, Confessions, Fire, Meditation, Play, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year, Writing |
I’ve entered a new phase in my life. It should have a name, but it’s a little too nascent to be properly defined, as yet. In this phase, I’m not teaching and The X Page Workshop has wrapped up, and collectively the team has yet to decide what comes next. My focus, therefore, turns not outward, but inward.
All this year, I’ve been seeking space. Last fall, when I was drowning in responsibilities, the word SPACE became my mantra, and my goal. I worked so hard to give myself this gift. It’s here now. And I’ve recognized that my new goal is to allow the space I’ve elbowed open to remain spacious, not to clutter it with new pursuits. What if I give my writing the attention I’ve given everything else? That is the question before me. It’s an experiment. I wonder: will the writing life, its necessary solitude, its self-generated energy, continue to call so loudly now that I can turn toward it?
Here is the gift of time, to explore.
Here is where I inevitably get caught up in looping guilty thoughts, ranging from, can we afford this?, to if we can afford this what have I done to deserve this?
There lives inside me a desire, an impulse, to give rather than to receive. The discomfort I feel when receiving — praise, thanks, gifts, anything good — is profound; it makes me almost ungracious. I’ve been trying to learn how to say thank you for years. To say it and to absorb it and to accept it. I don’t want to hoard my riches. But I don’t want to squander them either. If I am to accept this gift of time, I have to accept it despite not knowing whether anything good or useful will come of it. That’s hard. I know that if I put my time into teaching, into running workshops, good and useful things will come of it. So it’s hard to step away from purposeful actions toward an activity that seems indulgent, self-indulgent, even, and not obviously of use to anyone else.
You see, in this new phase, I am a writer.
I mean, I am writer whose focus is on writing. Stories, a new novel, cartoons. I’m not, in this phase, a writer whose focus is on sharing her skills with others. I’m a writer who is practicing her skills. I need the practice. The practice calls me.
I am setting new routines, in order not to squander my riches: these gifts of time and space. Exercise early. Meditate when the house has emptied out. Follow the rituals that ease me across the border into a creative state: open my notebook, listen to a song while drawing a self-portrait, write for three minutes (or more) answering the question: What’s on your mind? And then writing, or editing, or cartooning. Also, and as important, reading. Books, fiction. On Monday, I read an entire novel (Normal People, by Sally Rooney.) Today, what’s on your mind? turned into a meditation on love, a spoken-word poem, inflected by the Kendrick Lamar soundtrack I’d been listening to. I hung up a load of laundry in the sudden sunshine. I meditated while standing in the grass in the back yard. I decided to write this post before setting up at the dining-room table to work on cartoons.
It feels easy.
It feels pleasurable.
It feels good.
I’m not a hedonist by nature. I’m ashamed, maybe, to enjoy feeling good. To enjoy ease. Something whispers that I’m not deserving. What a strange barrier to fulfillment. Truth be told, I’m drained and exhausted, teetering on the edge of burn-out. I know in my bones that this phase is as necessary as the other phase. The inward feeds the body and the spirit to prepare it for the outward. It’s good to feel good. To swim with the current. To sit quietly and breathe deeply. The scent of flowering trees is especially intoxicating just now. Am I ascending or descending? It’s too early in this phase to know. Either way, it feels good.
xo, Carrie
Friday, May 17, 2019 | Art, Big Thoughts, Coaching, Confessions, Feminism, Organizing, Peace, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year, Writing |
Sometimes my skin feels too porous, and emotions pour in almost painfully. Yesterday, I started reading a personal essay in the newspaper written by the mother of a child on the autistic spectrum who was being bullied by classmates, people he thought were his friends. I had to stand up and walk away, so strong were my feelings of sickness and pain, gut-deep, a grief and horror that seemed to wash through my bloodstream.
I stood by the sink and wept.
Stories of exclusion, cruelty, judgement of others trouble me so deeply I can hardly tolerate the pain. I guess here in my mind, I live in a world in which people see each other, are kind to each other, have compassion for each other; but in the real world, there is a lot of pain inflicted even by people who are trying to be kind; pain is also inflicted by people who only want to be left alone, people who don’t want to engage, people who don’t care, who are struggling with their own troubles; and there is pain actively inflicted by people who fear and hate others for their differences, people who don’t want to understand or learn or listen, people who actively target others, weaker and more marginalized than themselves.
I can’t make sense of it.
It just doesn’t make sense in my brain.
I don’t have solutions. I can only to attempt to make spaces for that version of the world that exists in my mind to exist in real life. I’ve tried in the classroom, on the soccer field, inside my own family, and in this storytelling workshop. I know I’ve gotten things wrong. I suspect I’m sometimes the person who’s inflicted pain when trying to be kind, and acting in ignorance. But I’d rather try than hide. There is no alternative that makes sense to me.
XPagePerformance2019WEBAD
For the past 11 weeks, I’ve been privileged to be part of The X Page Workshop. It was envisioned as a creative and collaborative undertaking that would bring together women from different cultural backgrounds, all of whom are making lives for themselves and their families in Canada. Each week, a group of almost 30 of us have met to work on writing and staging stories. Together, we’ve made something that’s rich and enriching. Just with stories! Just with stories and goodwill, trust, kindness, and effort. When we’re together in the beautiful space at the Centre for Peace Advancement, as we have been every Tuesday evening since March, I feel immersed in the possibility of the world inside my mind becoming a real place. It feels like a real place, then and there.
Just thinking about being there brings me a sense of peace and ease.
It isn’t perfect. Why should it be? This world in my mind has conflict, but it also has ways of talking about conflict, because there is trust, and the trust is constantly being earned. Each small thing offered, in this world in my mind, is actually a really big thing. Our gifts to each other don’t have to be grand gestures, large acts, or come from a place of material wealth.
I think the best gift we can give to someone else is to see and acknowledge them without wanting or trying to change them in any way.
Unconditional love.
To live in this world in my mind, I have to try to live with unconditional love. And that means feeling too porous sometimes to the brokenness in the real world. That means loving what’s broken, too, unconditionally. And that hurts. But it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me at all.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Mar 25, 2019 | Confessions, House, Lists, Space, Spirit, Stand |
(Apologies in advance for an extremely boring, list-heavy post. I will not be offended if you skip this one. I just had to figure out what went wrong today.)
Things I’ve done today:
Teaching-related: Replied to one student email; marked several student projects (so many more looming); prepped classes for this coming week; made three PowerPoint presentations; scanned artwork for PowerPoint presentations; downloaded artwork from students for launch party PowerPoint presentation; emailed event planner at university to organize details for class launch party; printer stopped working so Kevin had to drive to office, bring home crappy old printer, so I could print my class plan for tomorrow; packed bag for tomorrow’s class; transferred PowerPoint onto jump drive.
Soccer-related: Booked an exhibition game; cancelled an exhibition game; arranged ref for new exhibition game; answered emails from parents; posted summer season game schedule on TeamSnap; contacted coaches from two other teams to arrange rescheduling of regular season games (+ looked up coaches’ contact info online); emailed club admin about spring field times; emailed club admin about new player; emailed different club admin about procedure for rescheduling games; multiple emails to and from team manager about related subjects.
Child-related: Oversaw daughter’s online math test; arranged carpooling for youngest to attend birthday party (did not participate in carpool); picked eldest up from work; drove two children to swim lessons; related, found swim goggles and shampoo and loaded into bag with towel; also related, gave $10 to daughter to oversee youngest as swim lessons and walk him home; drove elder daughter to band practice; talked son through reversing into parking spot; pulled stuck ring off daughter’s finger (emergency-level panic situation); washed daughter’s shoes; instructed youngest to make birthday card; instructed eldest to open can of tuna for youngest’s very late lunch; discussed eldest’s English seminar on Death of a Salesman (he talked; I listened); facilitated cheerful conversation around the supper table.
Miscellaneous tasks: Updated calendar on the chalkboard for upcoming three weeks; four loads of laundry while watching YouTube videos and absorbing depressing Trump-crowing-about-being-exonerated news; made pasta with cabbage, walnuts, tofu and sage for supper, had to improvise and use three kinds of pasta because we were apparently out of matching pasta, which required boiling two separate pots of pasta water; put gas in car; put dishes in dishwasher, cleared table, wiped table; washed part of upstairs hallway floor.
Just for me: This blog post; rode spin bike for 70 minutes, with sprints every 5 minutes (easiest part of my day); texted a friend; multiple texts to and from my mom; took photo of dog (above) and texted it to child; ranted to Kevin about this feeling I have that I’m drowning, succumbing, going under and may not come up, and also how the house is filthy and no one vacuumed this weekend (not blaming him, just ranting generally, as he was just coming home with loads of groceries).
Things I didn’t do today: Go to church; meditate; eat lunch; read a book for pleasure; meet a friend; relax; nap; rest; do something just for the fun of it; take a break; cartoon, draw, write, sing, play piano, listen to music.
Children are now calling me to come watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek with them before bed, and I think this may be the best option at this moment in time.
xo, Carrie
Page 21 of 38« First«...10...1920212223...30...»Last » 
Not every day is a good day.
