Category: Kids
Wednesday, Sep 4, 2019 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Death, Dream, Family, Holidays, Kids, Meditation, Peace, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year, Writing |
My word of the year is SPACE. What I didn’t expect to find within this word is its companion, SILENCE. Silence can be a challenging state to sit within. I don’t always want to hear my own thoughts so clearly, or recognize the distracted and tumbling, tangled nature of my own interior life.
We spent last week, the last week before school started, at the cottage that belonged to my stepmom, and still feels like hers, even though she’s been gone for more than a year now. We love going there, love being there. It’s been a gift to have this place in our lives, and the kids have memories that go back, now, 11 summers. It’s the kind of place that has become a touchstone, and returning is a kind of pilgrimage. Returning is a measure of time passing. While we’re there, though only for a week at most, it feels like we’ve always been there and will always be there.
You can only get there (easily, practically) by boat. About five years ago, Kevin developed an inner ear disturbance that’s triggered by boat rides, and each year the after-effects would last longer and longer (months, even), so for the past two summers, he’s hiked in on a path that literally no one else uses. It’s overgrown. It takes him about an hour and a half. And this year, it was occupied by swarms of insects. He arrived at the cottage looking like a wild man. He wasn’t sure he could manage the hike out, but on Monday, he and Rose trekked the path again, to save his brain.
The corollary to his necessary hike is that I’ve had to learn how to drive a boat (not high on my list of things I wanted to learn how to do). We do what needs doing to get us to this place.
There is plenty of space at the cottage. Space for the kids to play. A big lake for kayaking and adventuring, alone or together. Star-gazing at night. Shelves of books. Late, lazy mornings. Late-night all-family card games. We never seem to need anything more than what we’ve got. Even when meals get creative, by necessity.
Space, silence. Quiet.
I tuned out from the news, from podcasts, from the internet almost altogether. But I did listen to one podcast, On Being, on Sunday. The title was: Silence and the Presence of Everything.
Isn’t that something? How the themes of our lives get tied together by invisible thread? I’d been worrying about space and silence. Silence as a negative. Silence as too much space for my mind to listen, anxiously, to itself.
Silence. Presence. Everything.
“Silence and the Presence of Everything” was about listening. Not active listening for a particular thing you expect to hear, or have been told to listen for, or pay attention to. Listening to what’s there to be heard. Listening without judgement.
An interesting thing happened at the cottage. I managed to write a bit every afternoon, when no one was paying attention; no one even really noticed. What was strange and thrilling was how I would fall into the writing (fiction), almost as if by drifting toward an idea. An image would surface. I would let it drift. I would be resting or sitting by the water. And some small fragment would drift toward me. And then I would get up and write. The writing felt similar to listening.
It didn’t feel active. It didn’t feel forced. It felt like I’d tipped sideways into another time and place and body, and I was just there.
Now I’m here, home again. Dreading a root canal tomorrow morning, but otherwise glad for a day, today, in which I’ve done exactly what I want to do with all my new-found, new-made space: I wrote. I’d gotten up early to exercise with friends and by 10AM when everyone had left the house and the laundry was underway, I felt tired. So I meditated/napped for 10 minutes. And then I got up and wrote. I told myself: Remember to meditate/listen/nap before writing. Drift into what you’re about to do. Listen. It’s okay if listening turns into dreaming. Let yourself drift.
Space = silence. Silence = listening. Listening = drifting. Drifting = door opening to fictional world. Step inside. Space = writing.
Also, space = rest.
I’ll write another blog post (maybe) about what it feels like to let go of the need to pay attention to a particular something, and just be. It’s almost the opposite of striving. I’m such a striver. To be without purpose, listen without demand; it eliminates the task of waiting. It makes silence okay. Drifting toward mystery. Because mystery is okay too.
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Aug 10, 2019 | Family, Fun, Kids, Mothering, Parenting, Spirit, Summer |
I just want to say: she’s home, after a month away (and no communication flowing in this direction, although I made sure to write her a letter once a week, not to try to guilt her into replying, but because I got a kick out of crafting updates on lined paper in black pen, and having them hand-delivered by friends who were driving to pick up/drop off their own kids at the same camp). (Side note 1: Writing letters should be revived as a far superior, more personal, funnier means of communicating than email or text, but realistically, it only happened because she didn’t take her cellphone. Side note 2: Imagine a month without your cellphone … would that be paradise or hell?).
Anyway, I missed her. I realize this is but a taste of the stage that is coming, of greater separation from my children and their lives; but I really missed her. The house never got around to feeling quite right. Even when her absence wasn’t front of mind, it always felt like something was missing, or lost, or misplaced. (Side note 3: Do parents get used to this? Side note 4: I don’t really want to get used to it …)
So having her home is a tiny piece of bliss.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Jun 25, 2019 | Big Thoughts, Family, Good News, Kids, Spirit, Success |
On Thursday, our youngest went to his first track meet and won a ribbon with his school’s tug of war team. Both Kevin and I went to cheer in recognition of our son’s excitement and pride about participating in the event.
On Saturday, my dad and I went to Toronto to see my little sister graduate from a college program in digital visual special effects (hope I got that right!). Afterward, we celebrated by eating some of the best Chinese food we’d ever had, randomly discovered by googling “restaurants near me”: I think it was called Halal Chinese Restaurant (near Finch and the 404).
On Sunday, our eldest was honoured at church, as a new high school graduate. He was presented with a quilt, and in return he had to prepare and deliver some words of response, which was a heart-filling moment for his mother. We made a day of it by riding the brand-new LRT, eating bagels at the City Cafe afterward, and then crowding onto a bus on the way home when the LRT was temporarily out of service. It was an adventure, in other words.
And finally, yesterday, on Monday, our younger daughter attended her grade eight graduation. Much planning and thought had gone into her preparations for the big event. She had two siblings in attendance, one of whom wondered out loud what the point of these ceremonies is, exactly?
And to be honest, I’m not entirely sure I could answer that question. They probably mean different things to different people.
For myself, a ceremony is an opportunity to mark a moment, publicly. Often ceremonies seem to skim the surface, as they follow a certain logic and ruthless purpose: get hundreds of kids their diplomas! My mind tends to wander, imagining back stories from tiny clues, enjoying the flashes of individuality.
A ceremony suggests continuity, repetition, a set of prescribed rituals that draw on historical precedent, which makes them a bit staid and unbending. And yet, and yet … we need these containers for our moments, especially our big collective passages from one thing to the next, our transitions. Ceremonies are human-made, imperfect, but they force us to sit idly in attendance, and perhaps to be a bit bored, which may be a state that induces reflection, maybe not, but it definitely slows us down.
Time slows, briefly. Crawls. Drags.
And then we clap for our beloved, photograph them, and wonder at how old we’re all getting; how is it possible? how has it happened?
And life flows on, again.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Jul 7, 2017 | Chores, Exercise, Family, Feminism, Holidays, Kevin, Kids, Lists, Mothering, Organizing, Parenting, Summer, Writing |
Hey, happy summer, everyone!
School ended a week ago, and I would like to report on our free-range plan for the summer of 2017, but I keep being interrupted by the free-range children. Kevin has been working from home in his new “office,” on the upper deck of the front porch, but this morning he had to go to his office-office, so it’s just me and the kids and dogs, with no buffer in between. Since sitting down, I’ve fielded the following questions/observations: a) how do you turn the hose off in the back yard? b) where is my swim suit? c) do we have the third book of Amulet? I already looked on the upstairs shelf. d) hey, the NDP is having a leadership race [from the child reading the newspaper at the dining-room table behind me].
Could be worse. And I’m just blogging. If I were trying to write, my response would be ARGHH!!!
In fact, Kevin has been home because I have been trying to write this week, trying to shape my months of handwritten, circling narrative into novel-form, and I’m at the point in the project where, frankly, it all falls apart. My current philosophy (and by current, I mean, as of yesterday afternoon), can be summed up thusly: just finish it, including all of your bad (wild, implausible) ideas, and see what happens. As I counselled a student yesterday in my office: the perfect story you’re holding in your head has to get out of your head in order for others to read and experience it—and in order for that to happen, you have to accept that your perfect story will be wrecked in the process, at least to some degree. You can’t take that perfect story out of your head and place it on the page intact. No one can. But there isn’t another way to be a writer. Let your perfect imaginary story become an imperfect real story.
I’m trying to take my own advice.
Here. I present to you something that brings me joy every time I see it. [insert little arrow pointing up] You could call it a chore board, but that’s a rather pedestrian title given the magic it has created in our house this past week. Every morning, I write down chores that need doing, and the children sign up for them; the later you sleep, the less appealing your chore. Today, the last one out of bed got: “clean upstairs bathroom.” We’ve also banned video games or shows between the hours of 9am – 4pm. (Exception: older kids use their cellphones; I’m not great at monitoring this.) It’s still early days, but the chores are getting done with minimal fuss, perhaps because the assignment comes from the board, not from a nagging parent.
Other summer observations: I’m not waking up very early. This is the natural consequence of staying up too late! In addition to the kids running riot over regular bedtime hours, and soccer practices lasting (unofficially) till sundown, I’ve also been staying up late to watch feminist movies. Must explain. I’ve gotten myself, somewhat unofficially (?), onto the board of a locally run feminist film festival and my inbox is now full of films to view and consider. (Anyone out there with ideas for must-see recent feminist films, give me a shout!) But the only time I have to spare for movie-watching is rather late at night, post-soccer practice. Ergo, not waking up early. Ergo, early morning exercise-rate, somewhat reduced.
Oh, I want to mention one more lovely addition to the routine: a shared journal with my eldest daughter. We write back and forth to each other, or draw back and forth, or quote poetry back and forth. I’ve devised a quick summarizing list that is easy to complete, if we’re writing late at night, when we’re too tired for originality. Filling out the list has become something I look forward to, every day. My answers are sometimes long and rambling, sometimes brief. (Want to try answering the list in the comments, below? I would love that.)
- Something that surprised you today.
- Something you’re proud of today.
- Something silly.
- Something happy.
- Something sad.
- Something you’re thankful for today.
I will return with deeper thoughts (or not) as the free-range summer permits.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Jan 17, 2017 | Art, Big Thoughts, Creativity course, Kids |
If you’re following along at home, week two of my experimental creativity course is underway. I’m titling this week’s theme “Brain/Play,” because we will be learning about the brain and doing exercises that call on us to be playful and let go of expectations.
A paradox I’ve noticed, as I design this course, is that I am attempting to teach two different art forms at the same time. The first is Lynda Barry’s speciality: cartooning. The second reflects my own developing interest: drawing from life, or realistic drawing.
(None of these cats were drawn from real life.)
Cartooning relies on symbolic representations: what is the essential form (there will be variations, of course) that says CAT or CAR or CASTLE? What says TREE? It always surprised me how easily my children, from a very young age, could identify a representation of a tree—any representation of any tree—in their picture books. Tree, sun, boy, girl. They could point out any of these forms, and it amazed me, because every tree in real life is a unique tree, every boy a unique boy, every girl a unique girl; and all real things are constantly changing. Not to mention that the real sun in the real sky looks nothing like its symbolic representation.
I finally understand: these symbols, and our ability to recognize them from infancy, are evidence of our brain at work, busily categorizing and simplifying, so as to make the world and all of its unique things comprehensible to us.
So that is cartooning. Learning to cartoon is learning how to make use of the symbols that represent things, in ways that are creative and yet easily grasped by the observer/reader.
Drawing from real life is a totally different undertaking: here, we are representing a figure that looks real and three-dimensional despite being nothing more than scratches on a flat page. In order to draw realistically, you have to see the uniqueness of the form you are attempting to recreate. Instead of drawing an eye, you draw the unique lines and shadows that will make an eye seem to appear on the page. In fact, in order to make an eye appear on the page, you can’t think about it being an eye that you are drawing at all. Instead, you have to look past the symbol of EYE and let yourself see purely in shapes and lines. Further, the eye you reproduce will be a very particular eye, a recognizably individual eye. It is a mind-boggling and mind-blowing experience to discover one’s capacity to see (and reproduce) shapes and lines rather than symbols. (If you already know how to draw from real life, this will come as no big revelation at all; but to those of us who believed we couldn’t draw, it is a positively exhilarating discovery.)
Now, the question is: will learning two paradoxically different art forms at the same time help or hinder our exploration of creativity? (An irrelevant question at present, as the experiment is in motion.)
Ultimately, the coursework is aimed toward creating a short book that combines text and illustration, and my sense is that some of us will choose cartooning for our final project, while others may choose more realistic drawing: our individual styles will emerge. That’s the hope.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Sep 27, 2016 | Kids, Parenting, Writing |
Subject: Writing as an outsider. My chosen venue: a basketball game in a high school on the west side of the city.
When I first arrive, I sit on the wrong side in the wrong set of stands, then notice a dad I vaguely recognize heading in the other direction, and try to discreetly switch ends. It is hard to focus and write because I want to watch and things happen so quickly, end to end and back again. Coach whacking her clipboard on the sidelines, shouting, “Whoo!”, the team scores. My daughter is on the bench looking small in the red and black jersey. The coach wears red too. The other team is white and blue. Girl misses her free throws.
Shoes squeak. Ball pounds on the wooden floor. The sounds are particular to this space. Close your eyes and you would know what you are hearing. Echoing.
Girls are up 4-0 when the teams take an inexplicable break. They have been playing for mere minutes. I don’t understand. The team huddles up with a tall assistant coach who is not wearing red (blue, instead), and the head coach, who is also tall, animated and vocal. I recognize one of the refs from soccer.
The teams play for another minute and take another time out. The refs stand together at the far end, side by side, like identical twins in their black and white striped shirts, long black pants, black shoes, and round heads, one bald, one with short white hair. I know the bald one. They run up and down the court with whistles in their mouths. I don’t know much, but I can see that the coach plays the same five players most of the time. Nine girls sit on the bench and wait.
Bright lights. Echoing chamber. Blue plastic benches, terminally uncomfortable. “Home of the Highlanders.”
I should watch instead of writing.
At half-time, the ref who I recognize from soccer comes over to chat. “You don’t watch while your own daughter is on?” “Oh no! When was she on?” “She was on for the last minute.” “Oh man, I totally missed that.” “This is a good team.” “Yes.” “She’s in grade nine, your daughter?” “Yes.” He tells me about how he used to coach basketball and why he quit (a long story).
The buzzer counts down and the next half starts and now I watch with great duty and attention. My daughter does not play again. I don’t know much about basketball, but the same nine players sit on the bench and don’t move for the final quarter. My attention drifts to the clutch of slender teenage boys watching and horsing around with their phones on the lower benches. I recognize one from soccer.
I understand soccer, but not basketball. The team wins by more than 10 points. That seems sufficient.
Afterward, walking across the parking lot, my daughter, who is glowing, says, “Have I converted you to basketball yet?” “I’m really sorry,” I say earnestly, even though I’d intended to keep this opinion to myself, “but I have to admit that I’d rather be watching you run cross country.” “Oh Mom,” she says in a fond tone, “but I want to play basketball.” “I know,” I say, “and that’s what counts. You’re the one who’s doing it! I’m just here to watch.” (And today, I didn’t even do a good job of that.)
xo, Carrie
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