Category: Laundry
Wednesday, Jan 21, 2026 | Art, Big Thoughts, Drawing, Laundry, Meditation, Morning, Peace, Source, Spirit, Winter, Writing |
Another day, another prompt. Day 21 — “Is there a moment when your mind’s chatter quiets? What do you notice then?” This prompt is about quieting the thinking mind. I wrote while visiting my mom’s apartment this morning.
How do I turn off my thinking mind? Actually, I’m an expert — I’ve learned all kinds of strategies by necessity, because writing doesn’t thrive when thinking, if thinking is equated with panic or rumination. Thinking seems like the opposite of trusting, of going with the flow. Thinking spirals. To turn off the thinking mind, you need to get what’s inside, out — by drawing, sketching, making music. Even talking is not the same as thinking.
When I’m quiet and listening, there’s tone, there’s atmosphere, sensation, a lot of valuable communication expressed beyond words. Am I thinking, then? “Lost in thought” — that phrase expresses wandering in interiority. How different it is from being “absorbed” — when I am absorbed in a task, in an experience, the world is there/here and my attention and awareness is heightened.
As practices for quieting the thinking mind, I like meditation that focuses on sensation. And I like my friend Emily’s observational meditation, too, that breaks down what’s seen into descriptors that don’t name the thing itself. So that tree outside Mom’s window becomes a spiky set of fractals growing from an inner stem, tiny spikes on larger spikes, dark green prickles, cones in some of the crevices where the branches part like arms held up or legs spread, and the spears are topped with crusted white gatherings, hardened flecks come together to form lopsided bolls, dollops, all different shapes and sizes, clinging fast to any outspread surface, and in smaller tighter balls collecting on inner protected crevices.
Maybe? Was I thinking when I wrote that? Yes, of course, but I wasn’t spinning. I wasn’t entirely “I” either. I was observing closely, without weighing the value of what I was seeing, and that’s a state that feels unselfconscious, and self-sustaining, satisfying. I am sustained and occupied in this observational state, and being alive and in my body is so easy. The task is easy too. It is very relaxing. It happens quite often to me, that I enter into this state, or find myself in this state of relaxed attention, maybe because of all the practice. This is the state in which I write — anything. Including this.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 | Art, Exercise, Family, Friends, Laundry, Meditation, Peace, Siblings, Sick, Sleep, Source, Space, Spirit, Writing |
I’ve been drawing with my left hand. It feels like I’m asking an oracle to give insight into the hidden parts of myself, but really, it’s just my left hand, moving the pen with greater concentration and focus, and less pressure to make something “good.”
Renewal—of curiosity, of interest, of discipline—this is the working-at-home challenge. How to remove the self-induced barriers and step into liminality, slow time, enter the flow.
I think that entering into liminal space relies on a combination of factors, and it’s helpful to have different tools and tricks and modes of operation on hand, for when one method of entry loses its freshness. One habit that’s stuck for me: I sit for ten minutes, eyes closed, doing a body scan meditation, checking in with the state of my energy.
This is not a waste of time. More likely, I’ll waste my own time if I skip it.
My ability to sit in stillness and focus (aka writing) is directly related to my body’s capacity, and its connection with my mind. What’s the rush? I ask myself a lot. Usually, my restlessness is unrelated to an actual need to get somewhere else, let alone in a hurry; my restlessness is causing the sensation of needing to rush, not my reality.
I like to draw and paint after this meditation, because it’s really fun and freeing; after drawing, I write by hand in my notebook. And then I open my laptop and move onto whatever fiction-writing tasks / goals / priorities I’ve set for today. The writing itself is methodical—or my approach is; not that different from glueing spines and taping torn pages, except the landscape I’m exploring is more varied, and I’m more skilled at using the tools of grammar and structure and form than of tape and glue.
Outside the warm walls of my writing space, Life is bearing down on me and my siblings, and my own family and our extended family. It’s a familiar story to those of us in the middle of our lives—those of us who still have parents are seeing our roles flip into caregivers; and some of us have already said goodbye, and no longer have parents to care for. I’m still learning balance, if there is such a thing to learn. I go to the gym as often as possible to burn off the sadness (sometimes it’s rage).
I try to eat sensibly, get at least seven hours of sleep at night, and drink alcohol next to never. When do I let down my hair and kick up my feet and have fun? I haven’t cracked that code. Or maybe I find my release at spin class, and my friendships one-on-one. Spiritual care matters to me too, whether I’m involved in planning worship services at church, or seeking connection for my own spirit with the light that shines in and through all beings.
When in doubt, I do laundry. It’s soothing to work through the simple steps of that process.
Renewal comes in many forms. All ideas welcome.
xo, Carrie
Monday, May 16, 2022 | Art, Confessions, Feminism, Fire, Laundry, Party, Space, The X Page, Writing |
This tangential post is brought to you by an x page exercise, written during last week’s workshop (week 2 of 12), in the company of other women, in response to the prompt word: PARTY. It must have tapped some essential emotion, because I came home and kept writing till it felt done. I’d like to call this fiction, but maybe more accurately it’s a version of poetry, instead. (Where were you at age 20, and what were you doing, and hoping, and dreaming of?)
Phil’s $1.50 drinks
I am at Phil’s, an underground bar where the pipes overhead are wrapped in asbestos and the drinks are $1.50 on Wednesdays, but they must really water them down because I need to drink at least four to feel anywhere near tipsy. I’ve invited everyone I can think of, I’ve telephoned, left messages all over town. Friends are here, some have come, but no one is happy. The bar is too empty, the friends have no money either. Wet salt patches melt from our boots on the floor.
I had forgotten, or wanted to forget, why I used to love this place—because I’d come here during the day when I was a first year student, with a friend, Rich. (Now I’m in third year.) I had a car and he did not, even though I was no more than 17 or 18, and he was 21 or so. I would pick him up in my red Honda Civic, and I’d do my laundry (maybe he would too, but I don’t remember that now), and we’d sit by the pool tables and play cards in the middle of the day, drinking coffee. Gin rummy was our favourite game. It felt like we were the only people there and maybe we were. The good feeling I had on those afternoons seems irreplaceable, now. A feeling of possibility, excitement, tenderness, desire, amiable companionship. Rich was funny and he made me laugh, he never made me feel like I was wrong to be a goofy silly earnest person.
I’d forgotten all of this till exactly now, and now the friends I’m with don’t satisfy me—we’re too much the same in our longings and dissatisfaction—I want different, other, more, but Rich doesn’t live here anymore, and anyway, he never loved me like I loved him, if obsession counts as love, which I seem to think it does. What do I know about it? About love? I’ve mixed it all up with other things. Obsession feels like I think love should—dangerous, exciting.
I’m 20 now and feel so old when I look in the mirror. I finish my diluted drink and go to the gross damp women’s washroom, where one time I saw the lead singer of the Cowboy Junkies washing her hands, and I stand in front of the mirror and check my own eyes—not drunk enough, not interesting enough (as if these were the same thing). I see fine wrinkles around my eyes—could it be? “I’m getting so old!” I go back out and shout to my friends over the music. But they are too. We are so old! And we maybe hardly know each other really at all, we’re just proximate to each other, accidentally revolving around each other. We are so lost. Lonely. Alone.
In this mood, I take my misery to the little raised dance floor, even though no one is dancing, and I dance holding onto a fresh drink, gin and tonic in a flimsy plastic cup with a slice of lime floating in the bubbly mixture. I’ll promise anyone anything to get them to join me at this party that is not a real party. I’ll promise, but I won’t follow through. I can’t drink enough to get myself drunk, so I throw it down on the dance floor, metaphorically, to make myself feel something, anything, in my lungs. I’m smoking, at that time. You can smoke, at that time, indoors. Soon, this will end too, like everything else. I can see all of us dispersing, shot wide into the rest of our lives, fanning out in different directions, toward the parts of our other selves that are drawing us like magnets, while we, we, we, a mere two decades into inhabiting our bodies, prepare to part from whatever this era is, a time of loss, and exploration, poverty, and unrecognized riches.
My coat is ugly and it slips to the floor and gets stepped on, spilled on, but I’ll have to wear it home at the end of the night. I’ve spent my money on drinks, tomorrow I will eat a packet of Mr Noodles and lie on my mattress on the floor of the basement apartment I share with my brother (it will flood come spring), and I’ll read all of Pride and Prejudice, cover to cover, just for fun, laughing and crying and yearning and dreaming. I haven’t met the man who will become my husband yet. I don’t have an email account. I can’t imagine a cellphone and we have no tv. I have my books, a telephone with an answering machine, and enough money in savings to get myself partway to drunk on Wednesdays at Phil’s (I’ll buy cigarettes but can’t afford cheese; I have these priorities).
But every night, even on this night, after brushing my teeth and before going to bed, I sit at my desk and write poetry. I write about the things that happen to me, and the things that I wish would happen to me, and the language, words, images entrance me, as if they were magical forms, and I were a witch casting spells on myself, I were a person from another time come to bring myself back to earth, inside my body, filling all of it with the silly goofy earnestness that is actually my version of joy (though I don’t know it yet), whispering you are enough, you are sufficient, you are alive, you are not alone.
You are a whole person, or you will be; no—you are, you already are.
xo, Carrie
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 | Art, Big Thoughts, Cartoons, Chores, Confessions, Dogs, Drawing, Dream, Francie's Got A Gun, Laundry, Manifest, Money, Peace, Play, Publishing, Sleep, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
The secret to writing books is to give yourself a ridiculous expanse of luxurious empty time and space to dream, play, and not do anything that taxes the mind with external cares.
Is this true? Well, I’ve found it to be true.
It means you might not do much else with your day, your hours. You might cook dinner. You might go for a walk, or a run. You might see a friend. You might do a puzzle. You might scroll through Netflix watching the intros to thirty shows as entertainment before bed.
I struggle justifying how much time is spent on staring out the window. Or writing things that don’t turn out, writing draft after draft after draft. So many words assembled tenderly, hopefully, excitedly, only to be discarded.
If this is what it takes to write books, is it worth it? Who am I serving? Just myself?
Well, what if the answer is yes? Yes, I’m serving my writing, at the expense of many other things I could be doing with this one precious life.
What makes you feel purposeful, as you go about your day? What tells you, gut-deep: you are worthy? I don’t know. I’m asking.
It’s a funny thing to be a human, to want to be purposeful, to want to make decisions independently, freely, but to be inextricably embedded in a culture, context, generation, family structure, biology, language(s), place.
I notice that I easily accept the value of tasks or actions that measurably help someone else, like donating blood; concrete chores also have value, and doing them feels valuable, like laundry and cooking; it’s also easy to measure worth by monetary reward, doing X and receiving Y in return. In my experience, writing is generally untethered from any of these logical measurements. But I don’t believe anyone’s worth rests on external evaluation; or on evaluation, period.
You are worthy because you are fighting it out here on planet earth.
You are worthy because you are worthy.
I drew that cartoon a few days ago. I keep returning to look at it. There’s something there that’s whispering to me: peace, and calm, and acceptance, and worthiness. I’ve been drawing daily cartoons again, as a way of journaling. I draw a moment I want to remember, and on this particular day, the moment I wanted to remember was being asleep and dreaming about my new book, which has a tree on its cover — the dream vibe was contentment.
xo, Carrie
Monday, May 31, 2021 | Art, Backyard, Big Thoughts, Chores, Confessions, Current events, Family, Feminism, Fire, Good News, Green Dreams, Laundry, Manifest, Meditation, Peace, Politics, Source, Space, Spirit, Spring, The X Page, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
This is a photo of a squirrel eating tinfoil on our fence; there was also a cardinal, but he took off and is the streak of motion in front of one of the blue chairs.
The days have begun to whirl again. After such stillness and waiting, I can’t quite wrap my head around it. I’m trying to declare the weekends sacred, and Sundays for meditation, reflection; a worthy aspiration, at the very least.
The truth is that I feel energized after a long quietness. So I’m not resenting an upsurge in activity even as this new stage unfolds and unfurls. But I must be cautious, awake: I don’t want to drift back into the non-stop tumble in which we found ourselves, pre-pandemic.
But, listen. It’s good. I’ll have news to share soon on a couple of creative projects. I’ve got work that feeds my heart and mind, and wonderful people around me and radiating out in expanding circles in whose company I delight, and from whom I am continually learning. I’ve been hanging laundry on the line. My children make music in the living-room. The gardens are bursting and blooming. What more do I need?
(Well, it would be nice if everyone in this house each had a chore they really loved … the way that I love doing laundry… and if that chore could be complementary, say, if someone just loved cleaning bathrooms, and someone loved vacuuming, and someone loved clearing the counters … now that would be heaven.)
But listen, too: our community, our country, our land, the whole world, it is shook up and reeling and in pain and in need, and we can’t fall asleep or wander half-dazed into how it was before, we need to be AWAKE and AWARE and CURIOUS and HUMBLE. I want this place I live in to be a little bit better because I’ve tried, in whatever ways, no matter how small … and that means stumbling, and being quiet, and apologizing a lot of the time too. There is so much to learn, and so much pain that cascades through generations. Every ceremony, every ritual, every practice, every meal I cook food for someone else, every time I stop and listen, pause, listen, pause, reflect, sit, still, breathe, laugh, hug, cry … no action is neutral. This past week in Canada, 215 children were found buried in a secret grave on the grounds of a former residential school, and this is our present. This is not history. This is our now. So much cannot be fixed, must not be forgotten; bad governments, bad systems, hierarchies built to maintain power, no matter the costs. And here we are, human beings, whirling and bumping into each other, trying, trying, trying to figure this out. Individuals trying to look each other in the eyes, to listen, to say, You matter. I’m sorry. I want to help. Help me?
Slow down, sit, listen. Someone is trying to tell you something (not me).
That’s my present, right now. That’s my goal. Slow down, sit, listen. Breathe. Pay attention. Burn something, that too. A candle, a stick of incense. Ego.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Feb 13, 2019 | Adventure, Art, Cartoons, Creativity course, Dream, Exercise, Family, Fire, Friends, Fun, Laundry, Lynda Barry, Spirit, Work |
Context: A student introduced me to the Hourlies project, wherein you draw a cartoon marking each waking hour over the course of a 24-hour day. I’m going to assign this as our class’s Reading Week homework. Fortuitously, I decided to test it yesterday/today, on what would become a snow day, and therefore essentially useless to me for other purposes.
Observations: I couldn’t do this project while doing any other project requiring sustained attention. But I’m playing around with ideas for how to do it again — perhaps once a month, or perhaps, when I’ve got time to spare, doing a marathon version over a week; and I’m brainstorming about how to do it as its own standalone project. I really really really did not want to stop today, and in fact made an extra panel (there are two 4:00PMs). I learned a massive amount, which you can see for yourself by comparing the first panel to the last.
Feedback: Welcome, please.
xo, Carrie
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