Category: Music
Friday, Jan 24, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Books, Confessions, Exercise, Friends, Fun, Girl Runner, Good News, Lists, Music, Organizing, Peace, Prizes, Publishing, Spirit, Success, The Candy Conspiracy, Weather, Winter, Word of the Year, Writing |
My to-do list for the next hour—
roast a pumpkin
write a blog post
Soooooo… the Canada Reads adventure is over for Girl Runner. It was truly lovely while it lasted. Here are the books that were chosen for the 2025 shortlist. Check them out!
I had advance warning that I wasn’t on the shortlist (call it reading the tea leaves; nobody reached out to inform me otherwise, but there were logical signs).
Ergo, my plan for “surviving” yesterday’s announcement (and I do say that tongue-in-cheek!), was to throw myself with gusto into my usual Thursday routine. I walk with a friend at 6AM, head to a pilates class at 7AM, spend the day at work in the library, come home for a bit of a nap and some laundry, then return to the gym for the evening with my daughter who is also a gym rat. We do weights, spin, and blissful slow flow yoga to finish it off, then come home to eat a late supper and completely unwind. I love this routine. It’s the only evening I spend at the gym, and the physical exertion helps me grind out my emotions about the week, empties my mind, and takes me deeper into my body, which connects me to the world. I feel very alive and purposeful on Thursdays. So I wasn’t worried about the residual effects of announcement, in all honesty.
And then. My day took a turn. Literally.
Midway through our walk, my friend and I dashed across a busy street to beat the traffic, and I stepped in a pothole, turned my ankle, and heard a series of snaps and pops. Having turned my ankle before (playing soccer), I knew exactly what was going down. The walk home was painful and longer than we would have liked, but my friend entertained me with conversation and it felt okay to keep moving and putting some weight on that foot. At home, in the front hall, I briefly debated continuing to pilates class, as planned, and then a voice of reason spoke (strangely enough, it was my own voice, out loud), and I said, “What would I tell a good friend in this situation?” And I replied, “Do not go to pilates. Take off your boots and take care of yourself.”
So that’s what I did.
To summarize, that is how I spent yesterday. I took care of myself.
I booked off work, made an appointment to get the ankle checked, dressed in comfortable clothing, elevated the leg, iced the ankle, surrounded myself with reading material, snuggled with the dog, drank tea, did not do a scrap of laundry, and rested. A day on which I’d strategized to distract myself from potentially painful feelings became a day of reflection. And it was good. It was needed, I think.
For years, when I “failed” to achieve some goal, particularly related to writing, I’d be overwhelmed with shame, expressed like this: I’ve disappointed everyone. I’ve disappointed my publisher, my editor, my agent, my family, my friends, basically everyone who cares about me. Yesterday, this thought rose up, in ghostly form. You’re a disappointment. You’ve disappointed people [in this instance, by not making the shortlist of Canada Reads].
“That’s interesting,” I replied (out loud! As if talking to a friend!). “Tell me, assuming that’s true, what could you have done to avoid disappointing them?”
After a pause, during which I scrolled backward in time through all the choices that were mine to make regarding this particular “failure,” I said, “Not write the book?”
How funny that sounded.
“Maybe,” my wise interlocutor self said, “maybe you’re the one who is disappointed, not everyone else?”
Hmmm… And in that moment, I gave myself permission to feel disappointed.
Ahh. That’s what it feels like. It feels different from shame. It’s sadness, a big sigh, letting go of what could have been (the imagined version, of course, which is never the same as what is).
“What are you disappointed about?” my wise questioner asked.
And out poured my feelings of loss: I thought it would have been really fun … to get to experience new things, meet new people, have some interesting conversations, make new connections … add a little zing of adventure and the unknown into my comfortable routine.
“Yes. That sounds disappointing. It’s okay to be disappointed …. Did you know that?”
Maybe, in fact, I didn’t know that. Maybe this has been a valuable revelation.
It’s disappointing, but it’s not the end of the world, or the end of my career as a writer, of the end of anything, except this potential experience.
Relief and ease poured through me. I read the opening chapters of On Freedom by Timothy Snyder, learning about the German words for body: Leib and Körper, and feeling seen and known. (As I understand it, in Snyder’s reading, a Leib is a body that is alive, limited by mortality, yet free to choose; a Körper is a body that is dead, or seen and treated as an object by others or even by the self; there’s so much more to these ideas and as soon as Kevin got home from work, I peppered him with observations, which I tend to call “revelations!” As in, “I’m having a revelation!” Which happens far too often for them to qualify as such, see above; but that’s how I reslish seeing things—as constantly changeable and unfolding and re-forming and illuminating.) Anyway… I also napped for awhile. My ankle ached and turned purple.
By evening, I was restless.
Today, I woke wanting my ankle fully healed. Revelation: healing doesn’t happen overnight.
Slow down, dear friend. Take it one step at a time. Literally.
xo, Carrie
PS If all goes as planned, the roasted pumpkin will be turned into a peanut stew by suppertime.
Saturday, Jan 27, 2024 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Dream, Family, Library, Manifest, Meditation, Music, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Word of the Year |
What’s on my mind?
Being able to read, being able to write; the gift and the struggle.
With my word for this year, CONTRAST, I am exploring the balance—what my life needs, what elements it contains to support my overarching goals and themes—
“Please prepare me to be a sanctuary”
“What if the purpose of life is to seek beauty?”
“Discipline feeds curiosity”
“Everyone deserves to be known, cherished, lifted up”
“You belong here”
“How can I create spaces of welcome?”
“Follow the energy”
“Listen to your body”
“Hold lightly…”
—my life itself is like a structure being built as I live it, like a story whose ending isn’t known, nor even its middle or beginning. In flux. I live like my body is an experiment, my mind a mystery to be explored, my relationships threads that weave together, fray, are repaired.
When I think of noticing CONTRAST, I think of playing with balance. I remember a set of questions that I taped to the fridge years ago, with hopes that everyone in the family might reference them—questions that asked: what have you done today?—for yourself, for someone else, for play, for friendship, for rest, for exercise, what have you learned, what have you made…? It was a way to try to consciously notice life’s balance, within the structure of a day—an arbitrary measure of time, but easiest to grasp. Big picture is impressionistic—what has this year held? Or even this month? A day has items in it. Moments that can be recalled and noted, written down, like the notes to a simple melody. What melody have I composed today? What line of song have I built from my hours, today?
I love my job at the library because on those days it is easy to do things for others. But my fridge list of hoped-for balance items is perhaps too long to be ticked every day. When I choose to do something (like work in the library), I choose implicitly not to do other things. My energy is limited. My time is limited.
The idea of a Sabbath day—day of rest. Day of nature, connecting with loved ones, reflection, salve for the soul. Every day I want to build these notes of Sabbath into my melody. I am a soul and a body. Am I living inside my soul, too? I work toward this discovery. What happens when I follow my breath, pay attention to an automatic and unnoticed function or sensation, like the ambient sounds around me, like the patterns and colours and contrasts observed on a quiet walk, or the sensations that are ever-present inside my body, on my skin? Like the breath, of course, where meditation might begin, over and over again. Paying attention brings me into a different relationship with time. I relax. I am calmer, soothed by the ever-rhythm of the universe. I can carry this “neutral” mind back into the world. I know it exists and that I have access to it, even in times of stress, or under duress. There is peace in the underlying rhythms and patterns of the world surrounding me—within me. Knowing this, I come closer to trust.
To trust that my life is a form of art or meditation, a series of creative acts, my life is expansive, it is being built and newly built within the structure of these universal patterns and rhythms—the song being sung within and beyond my self. The song that is time itself, that belongs to the patience of eternity.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Feb 25, 2022 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Blogging, Book Review, Books, Cartoons, Confessions, Cooking, Current events, Drawing, Exercise, Fire, Francie's Got A Gun, Friends, Fun, Lists, Local Food, Mothering, Music, Peace, Publicity, Publishing, Reading, Source, Spirit, Winter, Writing, Yoga |
My general rule for writing posts here is to do it for fun, or when the spirit moves me, to paraphrase something my mother said a lot when I was a kid. Today I’m breaking that rule a bit. Nothing seems to be particularly fun just now, and the spirit is moving me only insofar as it’s saying, give it a shot, Carrie. Try to write something and see what comes up.
There are many things I don’t want to write about. I don’t want to write about war, or political instability, or pain or suffering or fear or anxiety. This isn’t a politically minded blog and I’m no expert, nor pundit, nor do I aspire to be.
I was thinking that it would be funny to write a post called “Five Bad Things Right Now”; but then I decided that might not be that funny. But I don’t have “Five Good Things” to report on, particularly; or maybe those things feel a bit superficial or artificial under the circumstances. How about “Five Things Right Now” and no judgment as to their quality or worth? Here goes.
Page proofs for Francie
My editor sent me a hard copy of typeset page proofs for review. I opened the package three days ago. This should be a most wonderful thing, but I’ll confess that I’ve yet to work up the courage to begin to read through. It’s a last pass. Last chance to catch typos. What comes next? I don’t know, exactly, which is why, I think, it will take courage to put this stage to bed. Next means new projects, publicity work, and whatever that requires of me (different skills from reading proofs, that’s all I know for sure).
Reading a library copy of Moonglow, by Michael Chabon
This was super-pleasurable, a big sprawling novel loosely based on the life of the author’s grandfather (which is why I wanted to read it, to get clues about how such a project might unfold). In the end, I was convinced this was more novel than biography, and I admired the apparent ease and ruthlessness with which the author muddied the waters; but part of me resented it too. I spent most of the book trusting in the author’s voice, and felt a bit cheated at the end. I wonder what this impulse is to believe that something is true, or to want to believe it, even when the writer is reminding me over and over that he’s a novelist, for heaven’s sake. He makes shit up for a living! (Isn’t that what I do too?) Anyway … an excellent read, highly recommended.
Drawing a cartoon
I stopped doing my daily cartoon late last month. I was following the same basic principle as I do for this blog: do it as long as it’s fun, and the spirit moves you. It was feeling less fun, more of a chore. But I picked up the habit again this week because I needed a different way to express my emotions, and drawing to music, colouring with crayons, is legit a fun way to journal, to record a tiny reminder of hey, here’s what happened today. A cartoon makes all the emotions more bearable. Drawing has lightened my load this week. (not pictured because I don’t have a photo on hand, and I love this one, above, taken around sunrise on an excruciatingly cold morning, recently)
Making pancakes for dinner
I don’t even like pancakes. But my kids do! Yesterday, that’s all I wanted: to give someone else something to enjoy. The gesture didn’t need to be grand, the recipients didn’t even need to know my intentions. Recipe here; I quadrupled it. (also not pictured; above is from a less-lauded meal involving squash, beets, turnips and sweet potatoes)
Kundalini yoga
I might go so far as to say, admittedly hyperbolically, that my friend Kasia’s kundalini yoga classes have been saving me this week. They’ve definitely been lighting a fire, and making me feel alive and whole and present in my body in a positive way. Music, movement, breath work: breaks me open, sparks creativity, and openness, and belief that there are wonderful things in this world. And I need that reminder, especially right now. (photo above represents the feeling rather than the activity itself)
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Dec 9, 2021 | Family, Fun, Holidays, House, Manifest, Meditation, Music, Organizing, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Winter, Yoga |
It got cold and snowy in addition to the dark, and I haven’t run since Sunday. Instead, I’ve been spending about an hour, first thing in the morning, doing yoga.
I’m on my second Christmas puzzle of the season. This has become a bit of an evening addiction: cup of tea, podcasts, and puzzle.
My to-do list for this weekend includes making two extra-large batches of cookie dough to wrap up and store in the fridge, to be baked on demand. Ginger cookies and plain butter cut-out cookies.
Over the past week and a half, I’ve cleaned the house bit by bit in preparation for advent and hosting. How long can we keep these surfaces clean and clear? It looks dazzling to my eye.
I’m potting clippings from my plants, a small ongoing project to green our rooms. Side note: My amaryllis bulb has come to life, miraculously, after I left it outside for a few months this fall. It looked dead and I thought it was dead. Then a bit of green started to poke through, so I brought it back inside and set it on one of the few windowsills where we get good light. A red flower is beginning to burst from the very tall green stem.
I’ve been playing (and singing) Christmas songs after everyone leaves for school and work. This is best done without witnesses.
This week is the calm before the busyness. (Next week rather randomly includes a dentist appointment, a photo shoot, donating blood, and leading the x page’s last writing club meeting of 2021.)
As I prepare for the holidays, for intense family time, big cooking projects, hosting, gathering, imbibing, keeping safe and healthy, establishing and maintaining boundaries, dealing with the hormonal spin-the-wheel of perimenopause combined with teenagers and routines being rocked, I’m reflecting on ways to stay present and whole. Strategies. Reminders. A mantra. A cue to return the self to the body. Here’s what I’m thinking (beyond morning yoga and low-alcohol-consumption): focus on others. Pay attention to the needs of those around me, allow them to be, and this will allow me to be, too. Be where we are. Be who we are.
I’ll try to remember that there are many languages for love. (And my own include: spending time together, talking one-on-one, making music together, doing an activity together like going for a walk or doing a puzzle, and acts of service. I love feeding the people I love.)
The antidote to disconnection is connection. The path to connection includes: slowing down, looking at the world in its detail, taking a breath, trusting your instincts, acknowledging what the body is holding / feeling, and being kind and gentle to self and others. You can take a break when you need a break. Someone will catch you.
I’ll remind myself of that.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Sep 27, 2021 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Fall, Fire, Friends, Good News, Interviews, Lists, Manifest, Meditation, Music, Poetry, Publicity, Publishing, Soccer, Source, Spirit, Success, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
Today, this month, I turn and return to gratitude. I’ve been looking for poems about thanks and thanksgiving for a church service I’m helping to plan, and I’ve noticed the poems that draw me are tempered with grief, there are many colours woven into the fabric of the experience of thanks they describe. I’ll post one, by Jane Hirschfield, below.
Monday morning thank-you list:
1. Kasia’s yoga class this morning, and her invitation to greet the day by saying, “Good morning, I love you,” to ourselves. (Wow! That changes the wake-up script!)
2. Enough time to work on revisions. Solitude.
3. Invitations to speak. Connection.
4. New projects, old projects, ongoing projects.
On the “new projects” front, in addition to the novel, I’ve got a couple of creative non-fiction pieces being published in anthologies, this year and next. Both are very personal, and a bit raw — “In This River” has just been published in an anthology called Impact: Women Writing After Concussion. Here’s me talking about my concussion (oh, soccer!) and reading an excerpt from my piece. I also “composed” and played the music that accompanies this video (“composed” in quotation marks because it’s just pure improv). A strange after-effect of the concussion: I was able to improvise very freely on the piano; more to do with rhythm than melody, almost as if some interior barrier had been breached.
video edited by Jun Kim
(Monday morning thank-you list, cont.)
5. Stretching myself, learning new skills … like the opportunity to make the recordings, above.
As I think about my relationship to my writing life, I am aware that publishing is a piece of it, and that means a different kind of work and effort and engagement with the world: presenting, public speaking, sharing. Looked at from one perspective, publicity work terrifies me, I’ll be honest. I’m terrified of feeling exposed, of being drained, of being judged wanting, of feeling ashamed. But looked at through the perspective of thanks, everything changes. Good morning, I love you! What if THANKS were the baseline I returned to many times each day?
Thanks brings me closer to wonder and admiration. Thanks brings me closer to patience, calm, the ability to pause. Thanks brings me closer to others. It’s a lens of perspective that gives me a different relationship to time and to self.
(and one last thank-you on the Monday morning thank-you list)
6. Counselling, meditation, naps, yoga, stretching, running, walking, journalling, this blog, reading poems, writing.
I love these things because they make possible my engagement with everything else. I don’t want to live an entirely interior life — I love that part, it comes easily for me; but I want to be in the world, I want to connect, share, respond, serve, workshop, teach, coach, relate, cradle, hold, feed, nurture, offer of what I’ve been given. You know? It’s a short life. I want to live in it.
xo, Carrie
"When Your Life Looks Back," by Jane Hirshfield
When your life looks back —
As it will, at itself, at you — what will it say?
Inch of colored ribbon cut from the spool.
Flame curl, blue-consuming the log it flares from.
Bay leaf. Oak leaf. Cricket. One among many.
Your life will carry you as it did always,
With ten fingers and both palms,
With horizontal ribs and upright spine,
With its filling and emptying heart,
That wanted only your own heart, emptying, filled, in return.
You gave it. What else could you do?
Immersed in air or in water.
Immersed in hunger or anger.
Curious even when bored.
Longing even when running away.
“What will happen next?” —
the question hinged in your knees, your ankles,
in the in-breaths even of weeping.
Strongest of magnets, the future impartial drew you in.
Whatever direction you turned toward was face to face.
No back of the world existed,
No unseen corner, no test. No other earth to prepare for.
This, your life had said, its only pronoun.
Here, your life had said, its only house.
Let, your life had said, its only order.
And did you have a choice in this? You did —
Sleeping and waking,
the horses around you, the mountains around you,
The buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.
Those of your own kind around you —
A few times, you stood on your head.
A few times, you chose not to be frightened.
A few times, you held another beyond any measure.
A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.
Mortal, your life will say,
As if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.
Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving.
Wednesday, Jan 27, 2021 | Adventure, Cooking, Current events, Exercise, Family, Friends, Fun, Kids, Music, Organizing, Parenting, Play, Source, Spirit, Word of the Year |
We’re in such a trippy time warp here in continuing lockdown (with cases heading in the right direction again, so there’s hope). But there’s always hope! And I’m noticing that hope comes in the form of a small change or surprise or pleasure that can be found, really, in any day. Even the dullest of days.
For example: supper! It happens every single day, but we all look forward to it. I currently have the time to put more thought and preparation into the evening meal, and it is worth it. We gather, talk, eat good food. It’s simple, it’s satisfying.
Another example: snow falling from the sky!
And: the days getting incrementally longer. It’s 5:19PM as I type this and it’s still light out!
Also: group activities!
With my word group, I’m doing a 2-week tea-cleanse, in which we brew and sip teas throughout the day, and connect with our words and with each other via email, and maybe, too, via psychic powers.
With my family, we are doing reward charts! Who knew? It began when I offered to print up a chart for our youngest, who needed encouragement to practice more often (online school is sapping his motivation). As soon as people spotted his reward chart, it quickly spiralled. Now everyone has one (mostly with the goal of practicing a musical instrument every day, although Kevin gets a pass—he’s drawing instead). When everyone earns 10 stars, we get a pizza party! Individuals can earn a separate reward for every 25 stars. The rules and rewards were discussed and agreed upon and planned for at some length; and tonight is the night: Pizza Party! Whoo-hoo! We even had a sign-up sheet so people could bring something extra (like a fruit tray, or Scotch mints, or a cake). We’re planning to watch a movie too (“Soul”). [Update: What a wonderful movie to share as a family; laughter, music, and the exploration of big existential questions. You should watch it too!]
Finally, on the group activity front, I’m connecting virtually as much as possible through yoga classes on Zoom, texts with friends and family, Zoom calls with my Grandma, and writing time with imaginary characters (that counts too, right?). Today I tried a midday movement class out of New York city that, frankly, seemed to be inviting me nap for an hour on my heated studio floor while making fractional movements with my arms and legs. So maybe that was a one-time thing. But I tried it!
Explore: that’s what’s giving me hope, and purpose, and spark right now. Try it, sign up, reach out, say yes to something different and new, even if it’s just challenging yourself to cook a meal with the weird passed-over ingredients haunting your cupboards (my supper plan for Thursday!).
I’d love to hear what’s giving you hope, in small surprising ways, right now.
xo, Carrie
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