Category: Fire
Wednesday, Sep 30, 2020 | Art, Big Thoughts, Blogging, Books, Current events, Death, Drawing, Exercise, Fall, Feminism, Fire, Friends, Lists, Manifest, Meditation, Organizing, Peace, Politics, Reading, Running, Space, Spirit, Work, Writing, Yoga |
Drawing a flower with CJ.
September Reflections
- What felt good this month? At the beginning of the month, it felt wonderful to be on holiday (we spent two weeks away at an isolated cottage). As always, I hoped to bring that holiday-feeling home; but inevitably it has slipped. I can’t drink a caesar while cooking supper every day! It isn’t even possible to keep up the habit of twice-daily yoga. But it is possible to get up early every week day morning for a walk or run, followed by yoga. It’s also been blissful to take charge of my studio space, to clean and organize and purge and paint, and to set new goals. And we have kept the holiday-feeling going in small ways: Kevin bought a fake fire pit (propane-powered) and we’ve been sitting outside some nights, watching the flames, listening to tunes.
- What did you struggle with? After rejigging my studio, I panicked—as if I didn’t deserve the space, full of fear and doubt about my work and worth as a writer. But then I journaled, meditated, and went for a dog walk with Kevin, and I came out the other side. It helped to reframe my work through the window of books. Books are my life’s work. If I feel unmoored, I can ground myself by reading, writing, or connecting with others who read and write. I am so thankful for this blog as a place to come to, to share ideas, and experiment, too. I am so thankful for each one of you who reads. Thank you.
- Where are you now compared to the beginning of the month? Unexpectedly calm. When my mind spirals away, caught in fear or doubt or shame, I notice, and find a safe branch on which to land. I breathe. I think: Is this true? What’s really happening right now? Are you okay? Is there anything you need to do? I’ve noticed, too, that projects are so very satisfying to work on and complete: my mind is soothed, no matter the task. Cleaning out the bathroom cupboards. Cooking a meal from scratch. Painting a door. Writing a grant application. Revising a story to send to my writing group. In this way, small accomplishments accrue, and the days flow peacefully, but don’t feel dull. And in the evenings, I reward myself with some stretching, watching a show, reading, eating popcorn, letting my mind and body relax. (Note: this is so much easier to achieve now that I’m not coaching! I do not take my easy evenings for granted!)
- How did you take care of yourself? All of the above. Plus, remembering to reach out to friends. Working on my posture, and core strength. Sticking with established healthy routines. Putting away the pairs of jeans that don’t fit anymore. Thanking my body for carrying me through this life. I ask a lot of my body! I am in total awe that my chronic running injury has healed through physio, and that I’m able to run fast again, without pain, at least for now. Every morning run through the park is a full-body expression of thanks.
- What would you most like to remember? It’s okay if I don’t remember very much from this time. Sometimes the best days aren’t super memorable—I don’t remember much when inside the flow, but if I’m fortunate, from the flow will emerge some work of substance, or a strengthened relationship, or deepening insight and capacity for approaching conflict, suffering and pain. I will remember where I was when Ruth Bader Ginsberg died; and my own sadness and immediate despair. But I’ll remember just as much that her passing sparked a renewed connection with one of my beloved American cousins. I’ll remember, too, what she worked toward: equality for all, a far-seeing, long road of commitment that developed from her own experiences, that was encouraged to develop through the support of her husband and family, and that extended till her death. Like John Lewis, she is a true role model of character and vision, beyond the self.
- What do you need to let go of? I deactivated my Twitter account a week ago, after watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix. I also turned off most of the app notifications on my phone. It’s been good, and I hope it lasts. What I’ve noticed: I’m freed to work with more focus throughout the day. But I’m also not filling my mind with fury and outrage, the primary emotions sparked by “doom-scrolling.” True, there’s less to distract me from my own restlessness and boredom, but here’s the strangest part: I’ve felt less restless, less bored, since signing off. There are more productive and meaningful ways to connect with others in this world. I commit to choosing those instead.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Sep 15, 2020 | Art, Confessions, Current events, Fire, Friends, Manifest, Meditation, Peace, Poetry, Spirit, Word of the Year |
The Sunflowers, by Mary Oliver
Come with me
into the field of sunflowers.
Their faces are burnished disks,
their dry spines
creak like ship masts,
their green leaves,
so heavy and many,
fill all day with the sticky
sugars of the sun.
Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young —
the important weather,
the wandering crows.
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds —
each one a new life!
hope for a deeper acquaintance;
each of them, though it stands
in a crowd of many,
like a separate universe,
is lonely, the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come
and let us talk with those modest faces,
the simple garments of leaves,
the coarse roots in the earth
so uprightly burning.
Say you were invited to hold a sunflower, and examine it, while reading and thinking about these words in Mary Oliver’s poem. Say you were invited to respond by asking questions of the sunflower, or listening to the sunflower ask you questions. What would come into your mind, and onto the page? On Friday evening, outside around a fire pit, my friend Jen led a small group of us in this meditation. It was already, newly dark, and we used cellphones to illuminate the page and look at our sunflowers. which another friend had cut down and brought from her yard. Several of us found bees nestled into the flowers.
This is what I wrote.
“… the long work / of turning their lives / into a celebration / is not easy. / Come //”
Some solutions seem so simple
I will paint my office door the bright yellow
of this sunflower’s petals
I will spend the whole day reading a book
I will stretch and breathe
But when restlessness turns inside me
what should I do then, Sunflower, tell me?
When I am afraid
that my service is too meagre
and I can’t think what to do to be a
better person — what should I do, Sunflower?
The restlessness, the sense of longing
of energy unused or squandered
The list of all the harms I’ve caused
shuffling round and round inside me —
Tell me, what should I do
to fix these feelings, Sunflower?
It is true I hear you humming
Too tall, cut down, a living
bee nested in your blossom that has not
bloomed, tucked beneath the brighter face of you
You are humming not an answer
but a blessing with a sting:
Get on with living
You are not between two points
like a traveller on a train stalled between
destinations, you are in the only place
in which you are as you are — alive
and very you
Do you remember when you saw a whole
field of us, sunflowers, calling you
and you drove on, you said, It’s not
my field, I would be a trespasser?
You were right enough
But we’ve found you anyway, again
as you are. Come
Tomorrow, I would like to write a post about the new colour of my office door, and the books I’ve been reading, and the ways I’m seeking to connect, and to learn and listen, and find antidotes to fear and despair, but for today, I invite you to find your own sunflower and ask it some questions. Whimsical, fanciful? Yup. Uncomfortable, weird? Maybe. Silly, frivolous? Try it and see for yourself.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Jul 16, 2020 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Current events, Family, Fire, Friends, Manifest, Meditation, Peace, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
When I think about the word balance, a word I’ve considered maybe somewhat irrelevant or inapplicable to my life, what I’m beginning to sense or feel, as much as understand, is that I am always in transition. I almost never arrive anywhere, and certainly don’t stay. I exist in flux even while viewing myself as being a creature reaching toward, aiming toward, permanence.
Yet I am human, mortal, entirely impermanent.
Rituals exist to pin down significant moments; because the moments in my life run together like water. But what I’m glimpsing in the word balance is a peace in accepting this state. I’m seeing the fluidity in my being in all of existence, in the way time moves, and that I move in time. I’m seeing that I am of my time, immovable from the history that surrounds me even if this history will not remember or know me, especially.
During the lockdown, my work was not deemed essential. Because it isn’t. I am not planting vegetables or stocking shelves or administering tests or researching cures or triaging patients or caring for those who need special care. My work has been on the page, and in the home.
I’ve had time. And I’ve noticed that, given the time, I can write and imagine in a bigger way than I had before. I’ve noticed, too, that I continue to feel anxious, to experience existential dread, to float in the brine of my own small shames, to wish often to be better than I am. That has always been with me, will always be with me. Feelings come and go and come again. I’ll always have feelings, mixed up and catching me off-guard and demanding my attention. It’s my response to the feelings that is changing.
Can I live with discomfort? The answer is yes.
Disappoint myself or disappoint others? Sometimes the choice is pretty stark. Sometimes you can’t square the circle. Sometimes — often, really — you cannot please everyone, and by trying to do so, you please no one, least of all yourself. What is your inner voice whispering? Does it hurt to hear it?
I’m trying out an experiment. I’ve come to believe that I don’t have time to do most things, let alone all things. Just write. Cook. Read, research a bit. Yoga, run. That’s it. A little bit of housework. Parent, pay attention to my kids. Be a good friend. That’s it.
Whether it brings me anything, doesn’t matter. It’s the ego wants things brought to it. This is my river. Is it service enough to just write? I don’t know. But I’d like to find out. Or try.
Time to unfold, unfurl, spread out. What’s the rush?
What am I hurrying to discover? It all comes to light in time.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2020 | Art, Big Thoughts, Coaching, Confessions, Current events, Dream, Fire, Green Dreams, Lists, Manifest, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Lately, I’ve been writing more in my own private journal, circular interior debates questioning my work here on earth (you know, basic existential navel-gazing). I’ve also been recording minor daily interactions that have become normal, but would have seemed strange pre-pandemic. Neither of these genres are blog-friendly, mainly because the posts are lengthy and, as mentioned before, circular. I go round and round, wondering and questioning and hopelessly meandering toward discerning … discerning what, exactly?
There’s the rub.
Lately, I’ve been:
Watching: Never Have I Ever (teen drama/comedy, Nexflix); Slings & Arrows (90s Canadian nostalgia, CBC Gem)
Reading: Untamed, by Glennon Doyle; Such a Fun Age, by Kylie Turner
Eating: greens greens and more greens from two different local CSA farmers
Doing: a 30-day fitness challenge with my soccer girls, which include planks and burpees; ergo, making myself get up by 7 every morning, making myself stretch, do planks and burpees, and ride the spin bike while watching Murdoch Mysteries (almost excessively Canadian, Netflix)
Now is the season of my case-by-case risk-assessment examination of each and every interaction proposed by a family member. It was always going to be easier to shut everything down than to open up again. We knew that. In practice, it feels brutal. What is the emotional cost of weighing the risks versus the reward each time a family member wants to get his hair cut, go to the mall, play outside with a friend? But truly, what it boils down to is: how do I decide, based on guidelines from politicians and public health and my own grasp of available data, whether I’m keeping my family safe or being over-protective? If you think it’s uncomplicated, well, that’s an opinion, one of many gradations of opinions on this subject, because we all have different thresholds, different information, different values, different interior emotional lives, different family dynamics, different pressures, different people we’re protecting, different fears, different experiences, different needs, different imperatives.
So, I revisit my friend Katie’s guidelines: STOMP. Space: more is better; Time: less is better; Outside: better than inside; Masks: important; People: fewer is better. (Maybe it could be SHTOMP, with the H for Hand-washing: often and well.)
Recent thought: What if, as I get older, I’m actually getting worse, not better?
Lately, I have no sense of myself in the wider world, or even in the small world of my own house. Lately, I feel no direction pulling me. I feel no peace, either. I am not content. I am dissatisfied with the state of the world, and with my own response to the needs crying out to be addressed. I am overwhelmed and muddled. I keep thinking that a major plot line will present itself to me, a direction. If I could join the revolution, where is that happening, and how, and can I enlist? What slogan would I write on my scrap of cardboard, to lift over my head, as I march down the street?
Black Lives Matter
No Justice, No Peace
Migrant Labourers Deserve Dignity and Rights (too long; writing slogans clearly takes talent)
Don’t Bring Guns to Wellness Checks!
Defund the Police
Universal Basic Income
Art is for Everyone
Pay All Essential Workers Like They’re Essential, Because They Are
Fuck the Gig Economy
Ban the Stock Market
Indigenous Lives Matter
Canada: We’ve Got Some Serious Work To Do
Cruel systems surround us. Unless we’re cut by them, we can stay blissfully unaware. If we’re the beneficiaries, maybe we’d rather not know, for when we do know, we don’t know how to untangle ourselves either. Systems are entrenched, heavy, crushing. I’m suspicious of any solution that puts the onus on the individual. But I can’t do nothing with all the everything I’m seeing!
For example: What would make it possible for people to work with dignity at jobs that we know are essential? What if, for example, people who love farming could afford to be farmers? What would that look like? Why do we accept profit as the most important goal? Who benefits from the push for corporate-style agriculture with heavy equipment, ruinous pesticides, antibiotics, fertilizers, and a low-paid migrant labour force? Where is the dignity in that? What if human dignity (and, by extension, environmental dignity) were the focus for all systems instead? I imagine this every day, and I haven’t got a clue what work to do to get us any closer.
One precious life, one precious life, one precious life, and what am I going to do with it; what am I doing with it? What I want to make manifest boils down to this: Dignity for All.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, May 5, 2020 | Art, Current events, Fire, Good News, Manifest, Money, Organizing, Politics, Publishing, Spirit, Stand, The X Page |
Starting today, new stories from the 2020 X Page Workshop are being published daily by The New Quarterly. Below, is our theatre director’s introduction to the online series.
Today’s story, which would have been the opening performance onstage, is called “Pant Rant.” I remember hearing the first draft of “Pant Rant” being read during a small-group workshop and being totally blown away; afterward, we all sat in silence, rocked by the rhythm and depth of the raw words. “Pant Rant” is a gritty, rich and poetical examination of mental toughness in defiance of persistent indignities endured for the sake of survival. At least, that’s how I read it. I wish you could hear Xiao tell her story in her own voice; instead, it’s her gift to us on the page. I find this story especially resonant as I think about the people who are working in dangerous conditions, physically and emotionally, in places like meat-packing plants and long-term care homes, performing difficult tasks that the rest of us prefer not to think much about.
You can read “Pant Rant” here.
I look forward to highlighting more stories in the days and weeks to come.
Thank you for reading, and for your support of The X Page project.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Apr 15, 2020 | Art, Baking, Big Thoughts, Chores, Fire, Manifest, Peace, Spirit, Writing |
This, I promise myself, shall be a quick post, written in haste while the bread for our supper bakes.
Yes, I’m onto the sourdough trend, like everyone else on Instagram; and I’m rather chuffed to say I developed my starter from scratch during the early days of this lockdown when it seemed like there was almost nothing to do except huddle-on-sofa-scrolling-the-news and make-your-own-sourdough-from-scratch, and so I did both.
But anyway. We’re past that point at our house, now. I think it’s week 5? We’re into the rhythm of being with each other all the time; and hardly with anyone else. The kids, by some strange miracle, recently started a running club, plus they cleaned the basement, like really cleaned it, like three days’ worth of organizing, purging, rearranging, and decision-making, in order to make a rec room haven. Impressive!
And, at last (and so far!), this has been a good writing week for me, which is more than I can say for all the other weeks. Today, for example, I spent an hour and a half drawing ideas for my 16th century novel. It was an odd way to start my writing day, and not in the least what I’d planned or intended, but it helped. It lit a flame. After lunch, I worked on a chapter from another project. And that’s been the day. What more do I need? It was ever so satisfying. Tangible, calm, simple.
Sit down, do it.
Hey, just realized my recipe for a writing day is kind of like my recipe for sourdough! You mix up a starter. It spend days on the counter. You feed it: flour and water. It ferments and bubbles. When it’s ready, you fold part of it into a bowl with more flour and water. You bake it. You serve it. And you feed the part you didn’t use, so you can use it tomorrow. You do this over and over again. Every day. It’s repetitive. It requires only a few ingredients. Every loaf is a bit different. But every loaf draws on the same bubbling, fermenting starter, and so it’s also of the original source — like every story I write draws on the same bubbling fermenting starter of my mind, and I have to keep feeding it, and I have to keep using it, and it’s exactly that simple. (Oh, and during those times when you can’t use it, you can put your starter in the fridge for awhile and it will wait till you’re ready again.)
Feed it, use it. Feed it, use it. Feed it, use it.
Recipe for a writing life.
xo, Carrie
PS Here’s today’s loaf, fresh out of the oven! And my post just done! Did you know that if you put your ear close to the bread when it’s fresh out of the oven, you can hear it “singing”? It pops and crackles.
