Category: Music
Thursday, Dec 18, 2014 | Confessions, Dream, Exercise, Friends, Mothering, Music, Sleep |
This post is illustrated exclusively by cellphone-created photographs. Bear with me.
I’m presenting as dazed and confused this morning. No special reason for it. Could be the season. So many plans to keep in my head. I should be making good use of the quiet house, which will transform into a temporarily endangered species, seen rarely to never, come Friday around 3:10PM. Instead, I’m enjoying it. I just had a nap by the fire with the dogs. This is like stepping into a confessional. Shhhh. It was so so lovely. Forgive me.
I dreamed that I’d accidentally downloaded a virus onto my computer that rendered it useless; it kept running a program that showed a creepy GPS map of where I was at all times, with dire messages directed at me. That was not so lovely. But it does point to a certain subconscious anxiety underlying the lovely nap time, which is that I have work to do!
Good work, work I’ve been enjoying, but work nevertheless.
This morning, I got up early and went for a walk with my Thursday running partner. Tuesday’s running partner did the same. I feel immensely lucky to have running partners willing to walk with me during injury. Do you know how hard it is to get up early and go for a walk? It’s about a billion times harder than getting up early to go for a run. No zap of endorphins to reward your efforts. Hats off to all early morning walkers.
Tis the season of the festive school concert, and that’s where Fooey and I were yesterday evening, at AppleApple’s. Here, Fooey is reading patiently before the concert begins; ie. that is not a scowl of irritation. The scowl of irritation arrived when the concert was over and we had to wait around in the crowded gymnasium for AppleApple to come and find us (she thought we’d come and find her in the band room, until she realized we didn’t know where the band room was…). Anyway. Concert. Strangely glorious, I must say, and I don’t mean the parts involving my daughter specifically, I mean the whole thing. I should not be allowed out without a package of tissues. Because in the moment, there seemed nothing more moving than these groups of 12 & 13 year kids singing, dancing, and playing instruments together. (Maybe I’m going through something hormonal?) The squeaking of reeded instruments, the tuning (lack thereof), the confidence, self-consciousness, talent, and bravery–the participation. I would do all it over again.
Wait, I’m going to. Albus’s festive school concert is on tonight. Wish me luck, though. The turning. The tuning.
Have I shown you this picture yet? It’s a scene from My Perfect Family, you know, the family that is mostly fantasy, but occasionally surfaces into reality, in one’s living-room–the family you dreamed of creating back when you thought you were in control of such things.
Children reading by the fire. Perfect Children reading Christmas books lovingly collected over many years and brought out every December by The Perfect Mom. I have photographic proof that this actually happened. Once. Last week. For a few minutes.
Okay, thanks for walking along with me this morning. The confusion and daze is lifting, I think. Time for work.
xo, Carrie
PS I won a prize! This blog was judged First in the category of Writing & Literature and Third in the category of Life at the 2014 Canadian Weblog Awards. I get this button. I’m not sure what to do with it, so I’m pinning it here.
Monday, Nov 3, 2014 | Adventure, Exercise, Fun, Laundry, Music, Publishing, Travel |
The gilt mirror makes this room, I think.
I’ve moved north and west, just a bit, walking distance from the previous hotel. This hotel wins at bathrooms. The last hotel won at laundry prevention. Let me explain. This morning I set my alarm and got up and ran on the treadmill before checking out. I did this almost entirely to take advantage of the hotel’s offer to provide guests with athletic gear, so you don’t have to schlep your sweaty mouldering running clothes home in a plastic bag, after several days of increasingly disgusting re-use. Nice touch, anonymous hotel. Plus, the offer goaded me to exercise.
Anything to shame me into the semblance of a routine, I tell you.
I did something fun today (aside from take selfies in yet another hotel room). I popped in on my brother and sister recording a video for their new song. Yes, Kidstreet fans, the band is alive and well! I think it’s still fairly hush-hush, so consider yourselves in on the ground floor with this intel. When I walked into the theatre space they’re using for the video shoot, I didn’t even recognize them. Rock stars! Also it was dark. (And I might be almost old enough to need glasses, suddenly.)
I can’t wait to share this video when it’s done. They’ll be there for many hours more, so I didn’t stay. In fact, I’m not typing this from my anonymous hotel room at all. I’m typing this from my lovely Canadian publisher’s office at Adelaide and Spadina: thank you for the company, the coffee, and the wifi, House of Anansi!
We’re going to the Writers Trust dinner soon; this is not where the winner is revealed, but the celebration the night beforehand, when we’re all still winners. I may change into a dress. Or I may show up in the identical nice black sweater I’ve worn all weekend (refer to previous post). It’s nice. Presentable. Rather like me. Or so I hope.
xo, Carrie
PS I have to tell you that I’m itching to get home to conquer the laundry. It’s mundane. But the thought of all those clothes in the hallway hamper waiting to be sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away into their respective drawers makes me almost giddy with excitement. As I type that, it sounds weird. But it’s true.
Wednesday, Oct 22, 2014 | Adventure, Big Thoughts, Kids, Music, Politics, Travel, Work |
Hi there.
I’m in Vancouver.
The Weather Network tells me it’s 14 degrees, feels like 13, with 20-30 mm of rain expected to begin at 5:50PM, which coincidentally is around the time I’ll be taxiing to tonight’s event, a fundraiser at Vancouver House with Joseph Boyden.
Today may go down in my memory as one of the more surreal; if, that is, I can remember any of it. I’ve been having trouble sleeping on this trip. It was well after 1AM when my body finally shut down, and my alarm went off at 4:15AM. I roused myself, finished stuffing things into my bag (didn’t think it was all going to fit for a moment there), and caught a shuttle from the Banff Centre to the Calgary airport. It was too dark to say a proper goodbye to the mountains.
I slept on the shuttle, like someone who had been drugged rather than like a normal dozing human being. Off the shuttle, I felt delusional from exhaustion, wandering the airport, trying to behave like a responsible adult who understood self-check-in machines and how to attach luggage stickers and where to stand in line. I was randomly selected for the full-body pat-down, which, frankly, bothered me not at all. On the plane I slept that drugged sleep again, surfacing to see on the TV screen in the seat-back next to mine, live footage from Ottawa, where shots had been fired inside the Parliament buildings. A reservist killed at the war memorial for the unknown soldier. A gunman killed too. Baffled Canadians taking cellphone footage. Streets shut down.
There is nothing to be said about this that I feel qualified to say.
I can’t really connect with my emotions on the subject. It sounds trite to express sadness. But I am sad.
When we landed in Vancouver, I realized it was only 9AM here. The hotel generously found me a room. I slept the drugged sleep, roused myself, ate a burger for lunch and watched soccer in a sports bar. I texted with my family while eating, which made me feel less lonely. And then I went for a run on the seawall. Running is hard, it’s always hard, but it works. I feel better.
Kevin is sending me texts and photos from home: right now, my kids are playing music together in our living-room. My brother Karl is recording them. CJ is singing into a mic. The girls are playing ukuleles. And Albus is tapping out chords on the piano. It’s like my dream family come to life. Only I wish I were there to see it.
But I have seen Karl Ove Knausgaard–twice. First when checking in, and then when getting off the elevator in my running gear. Neither time did I fangirl him. It took some restraint.
I feel like I’ve been awake for days.
I need a short nap before putting my Little Black Dress and heading out to a party. Nothing about this day feels concrete, feels like I can dig my fingers into it and find the pulse. I’m oddly removed. I was running on the seawall an hour ago. I flew over the mountains this morning. I’m here now. I’m here, now.
xo, Carrie
PS This is the photo Kevin sent me of the kids, playing music together. Sorry. It’s very very tiny. It seems fitting: this is as close as I can get. Home feels far away, right now.
Monday, Oct 13, 2014 | Cooking, Dogs, Fall, Family, Holidays, Music |
Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. We ate our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, a feast that always gives me enormous pleasure to prepare. A day of cooking is a really good day, especially when it ends with pie. But with all the cooking and eating and pie, I never got out my camera. Family visiting, cousins playing, dogs underfoot and whining at the door, a table loaded with bounty, an impromptu evening concert, babies and grandmas and wine and dishes being washed up in the kitchen by hand.
Photographs never taken.
It’s a bit ironic that I’ve gotten this fancy new blog location, on which to display my photographs, just when I find myself taking fewer and fewer. Less time to process them. More in the moment moments, forgetting to pull myself out and act as official recorder. This fall is passing in a blur. I may keep little of it, only fragments, perhaps jotted down here.
Today, our chalkboard became a mess of scheduling, as Kevin and I planned for the coming weeks month. I’m leaving on Thursday for Calgary, Banff, and Vancouver. When I get home, I’ll be off to Burlington, Toronto (several times), Hamilton, Uxbridge, zooming and darting like a bird searching for a landing spot, an anxious flitting creature unable to settle, quite.
When I’m out west, and missing my family like crazy, I’m going to think of last night, after the dishes were done and the pie eaten, and some of us were singing old songs while strumming on ukuleles, sunk into soft cushions, reclining, unwilling to say goodnight, not quite, not yet, as our eyes grew heavy. We were sleepy, tired out from a day lived fully, but we didn’t want to stop playing and singing. Not yet. Not yet. Not quite yet.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2014 | Good News, Kids, Music, School, Swimming, Teaching |
New things are happening around our house.
The kids started school. Yeah, that was a few weeks ago already. I’ve been a touch distracted.
this was as happy as I could get them to look, and oh how we tried!
New instruments are being played. CJ has started the piano. Fooey has retired from piano and taken up the violin. AppleApple has the opportunity to play both the French horn and the cello through her school, and on Tuesday evening practiced that horn for an hour and twenty minutes. I kid you not. Then she went outside and practiced some more. The neighbours kid you not. “It doesn’t sound quite so much like an elephant’s butt,” her helpful father told her. And Albus joined the school orchestra (he plays the viola), because, he told me, participants will be rewarded with a trip to Canada’s Wonderland at the end of the year. Hey, whatever works.
I’ve newly begun teaching, again. It’s much easier the second time around. So much easier. It helps not to be suffering the effects of concussion, too. (How did I manage that last fall??)
Also new: swim kid is no longer swim kid. She’s just going to be soccer kid, field hockey kid, cross country kid, music kid, theatre kid, hanging-out-with-friends kid. This was no small decision. But I think I’m mourning it more than she is, which means it’s absolutely the right decision (she had tears, but moved on). Truth be told, we couldn’t fit the extra commitment into our lives. It’s hard to stop doing something you’ve enjoyed, and that has brought you success. But success doesn’t always mean you should keep doing it. When you’re good at lots of things, you’ve gotta choose what you absolutely love. (I mean, this is a kid who will obsessively focus on whatever is before her. She’s playing the damn horn again as I type. I mean, the melodious completely non-elephant-butt-like horn. She’s trained herself, with literally hour upon consecutive hour of practice over the summer to juggle—with her feet—a soccer ball 379 times without dropping it, when she could barely manage 2 back in June. Discipline is not her issue.)
Here is the reward: she would have been swimming for two hours last night. Instead, when I walked through the front door, home from teaching, I was greeted by this sight:
Sweeping toward me, decked out in feathered mask and cape, she burst forth in low dramatic tones. Shakespeare? Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy, to be precise. “She’s in a mood,” said her father, fondly.
One more reward: eating supper together as a family.
See? We tried. We really did. It’s what we do around here.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Mar 24, 2014 | Exercise, Kids, Music, Photos, Play, Weather, Work, Yoga |
Dear Monday,
What were we planning to accomplish together? Do you recall? Because I seem to be lost in a bit of a haze. It could be all the yoga. Or the early morning spin and weights class, at which I felt fantastic, only to crash upon returning home, following a breakfast of poached eggs on toast.
I don’t blame you for the weather; it could happen to the best of days at this time of year. If it wants to be -20 with the windchill, what can anyone say about it? “Whoever is in charge of the weather needs to know that it’s SPRING!” hollered Fooey, but she was cheered by the long-term forecast, which promises a balmy +7 with rain for Friday.
I didn’t take many photos this weekend, and they’re still on my cellphone. Maybe this is a good day to use one’s imagination. Imagine sunshine startling me just now through my office window, clouds moving across a sky that is actually blue.
On Friday night I meant to get a photo of me and Kevin playing uke and guitar (respectively) in front of the fire, with the two oldest children sitting on the couch behind us, side by side, playing Minecraft and making the occasional clever comment on the song choices. It was as close as we’ve come to a family-music evening, and I thought, optimistically, that at least the kids were getting to hear some favourite old tunes and see what fun we were having. Except Kevin got very grumpy because he couldn’t see the music (we were playing off of single printed sheets, some of them crumpled, and all with very small print); not long after that got resolved, I rapped the whole of “Rapture” by Blondie. Awkward pause, no applause. “Is that a song about eating cars?” “Why, yes, children, it’s a very serious song about eating cars, bars, and guitars. Anything that ends in -ars, really.” “Deep.” “At least it’s not about sex, like all songs nowadays.” (Note: do not say things like this to your adolescent children unless you welcome mockery.) (Also note: I say things like this all the time. Because I welcome mockery.)
Then I sang “True Colours” by Cyndi Lauper about a billion times, trying to get the chord changes right. It’s such a beautiful song, Monday. I really wanted my children to love it. Maybe I played it too many times. “Eternal Flame” by The Bangles received similar treatment, but even I started to question the lyrics after a few times through: “This used to be my favourite song!” “Really??” “When I was 13. I thought it was so romantic!” “It sounds kind of, like, creepy. ‘I watch you when you’re sleeping’? Creepy.” So, yeah, kids these days. I’m not sure I converted anyone to my favourite 80s songs, but there you have it: family music night at our house, regretfully not photographed for posterity.
I’ll end it here, Monday. You’re a busy day and I shouldn’t keep you, rambling away here like this. Things to do! Places to go! Etc.
Signing off (or is that singing off?), Carrie
Page 4 of 14« First«...23456...10...»Last » 