Category: Organizing
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2026 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Family, Library, Mothering, Organizing, Parenting, Peace, Poetry, Publishing, Spirit, Success, Work, Writing |
During the earlier years of my writing career, all life experiences were filed under “material” for future writing projects. This mindset helped me endure difficult times, and even the drudgery of caring for small children (which goes hand-in-hand with the joy) could be made to feel useful, as if I were collecting scraps that could one day be turned into a delicious writer’s stew.
A few years ago, during the pandemic, I recognized that all of my writing was therapeutic, including the literary writing I’d been calling my career and vocation. I did not like this idea at all. I rebelled and revolted against it, maybe because it felt exploitative, even of my own experiences (let alone everyone else with whom I am in relationship).
Lately, I’ve been feeling at peace with this discovery—that my writing is therapeutic, that I’ve practiced it with devotion out of necessity, as much as discipline. My writing has kept my head above water, while also giving me a sense of purpose and hope during dull or aimless or desperate periods of my life. Writing soothes and comforts me. Writing fiction has deepened my capacity for empathy, sharpened my curiosity to learn how others see and frame the world. Writing is a magnetic force that pulls me in its direction; yet writing has never quite become the organizing principle around which I can structure, to satisfaction, my energies and priorities. Is writing my reason for being? My purpose and calling? Or is it the practice that sustains my purpose and calling?
My life is structured around relationships. Connection is my organizing principle. I am a quiet interior person, yet I thrive on sharing experiences with others.
I recently did a time audit, tracking the minutiae of my activities throughout a week (valuable, because so much of my time is “unstructured,” at present). First, I noticed that I spend a lot of time being with others, focusing on the needs of others (and that this brings meaning to my days). The flip-side is that I spend a lot of time in self-oriented activities—going to the gym, writing and journaling, quiet time alone, walks with friends. Focus on self; focus on others. Fill the cup; pour it out. Experience; process the experience. Action; reflection. Sometimes there is overlap between these circles—for example, biking on an errand feeds my spirit while the errand may benefit someone else; a walk with a friend can be both an experience and a processing of experiences.
One more observation: I spend very little time “working,” when work is defined as as an exchange of one’s time and skills for commensurate financial gain in the form of salary or paycheque, benefits, pension, etc. When someone asks “What do you do?” they generally mean “What do you do for a living?” And for this, my time audit showed very clearly, I have no good answer. I’ve been writing poems all spring; does that count? I also spend a lot of time looking after my dad right now, trying to understand his needs as they change, keeping my siblings and wider family in the loop, connected, feeling togetherness, mutually supported. Is this work? It’s just life, isn’t it?
When my kids were little, I stayed home to look after them for close to a decade (while trying to find time to write). This was a hard time, in many ways, for many of the same reasons that now is a hard time, in my life. “What do you do?” I’m a writer, I would have said then; or not, depending on how confident I felt in that identity on a given day or hour.
Twenty years ago, I was writing poems too.
They’re in a stack of books and projects beside me now—a manuscript titled “Famous Love Story,” which was never published in full, and did not earn me a living, though it probably kept me sane and grounded. Reading those poems now returns me to the tones and textures and chaotic/serene inner life of early motherhood. (As in the photos above and below, when I was the mother of a six-month-old infant.)
Maybe poems belong to this strange between-time, when my identity feels threadbare outside of my relationships—mother, daughter, sister, spouse, friend. Thank heavens for friendships, the landing spot for safe ranting and commisseration and truth-telling and kindness. (Not that there isn’t respite and kindness and ranting inside those other relationships too, but friends are a different category of caring and reciprocity; side note, just finished reading The Weekend, by Charlotte Wood, and now I want to write a book about friends—maybe in twenty years or so!)
So. Poems. Self/Other. Making meaning, meaning-making.
Is my CV an incoherent tangle of part-time, contract, volunteer, temporary job-jobs? Or is it a fascinating but partial record of a person who has been a steady, creative, connective presence in the life of her family, for which there is no job title, no description shorter than a novel, and for now at least, no particular beginning or end? Probably both. That’s life.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Apr 27, 2026 | Art, Big Thoughts, Family, Manifest, Organizing, Spirit, Spring |
What have I have up to? There’s been some waiting, there’s been some doing, there’s been some not-doing, there’s been enough disciplined activity to justify small treats given to myself (take-out coffee, meeting friends for breakfast).
BEGIN is temporarily quiet. I am planning to read the manuscript out loud in June, as my editor has recommend, to listen for clashes, awkwardnesses, redundancies, overuse of favourite words, etc.
Meanwhile, I am writing essays and poems, personal essays paired with poems, a project that came and found me, not the other way around, so I’m honouring this unexpected discovery with my attention. I visited a writing group earlier this month week, and on Saturday I’m visiting a book club. In May, I plan to travel to Chicago with one of my children who is presenting an academic paper and speaking on a panel (at a Medieval Studies conference). Also in May, I plan to complete certification in Conflict Management and Mediation. What will I do with this certification, how might it be applied? Good question. Are you looking for a coach in your creative life? Maybe something like that. In other news, though it feels tentative, like it could be taken away by impossible-to-square circumstances, I’m starting an MA in Theology, Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy this fall. (My second attempt to do this degree; when I tried in 2018, life got the better of me, and I dropped out before classes had even begun.)
Meanwhile, I am thinking about being this age, and being this person who genuinely enjoys looking after other people. The caregiver role has at times subsumed my identify. During early motherhood, it was (almost) all I wanted to do. (The ambition and discipline to write was threaded in there too.) Now my care turns in the other direction, toward my elders, and again, I recognize that my identity could be subsumed. In recent months, it has felt like I’m sleepwalking, accumulating responsibilities without noticing, till suddenly I’m so tired and sad it feels impossible to continue. This is true. Not all the time, but at least some of the time. I recognize the warning signs. I don’t want to discover myself having sleep-walked into numbness, or resentment, drained of my spark, estranged from my self.
So I’m trying to make a few changes, make decisions that are choices rather than things that just happen, as if I were a passive observer in my own life. Which I’m not. Isn’t it funny, though, how our minds can set traps for us? My own traps usually relate to control, to wanting to be in charge or in the know, when I could just … just … let go, let be. Am I doing this because I want to, or because I believe I should? That’s a good question to ask when I’m stuck in a trap of my own making. What’s this feeling? I sometimes ask too. Where are you feeling it? What’s happened recently that might have knocked up against a tender spot, a fear, a pain that wants to be noticed?
Am I doing this because I want to?
How do you know what you want, really? This question is a challenge, I hardly know how to reply. I like making others happy. I value and prioritize relationships. I know this requires thought and planning, attention, time, energy, and also enough self-awareness to respect my own needs. I need solitary time, rest, intense physical exertion. (But is a need the same as a want?) I could, I can, set aside my own needs for someone else’s. That could, that can, be what I actually really want. How am I to know for sure? It pains me to see people I love struggling or suffering, it cheers me to ease their burdens, if I can.
There are too many layers here to sort into a coherent blog post. Ergo, essays and poems.
Here’s today’s “circle poem.”
Steal your own wealth
Sunshine here across the page
The shadow does not look the same
What put that shame into you, where did it come from?
We lived there.
It passed down through us like light
but poisoned, saying, you are bad
Child in the world
Obvious wound, evidence
Hide or pretend, cover yourself
All these coverings
When everyone, most everyone, yearns
Imagine turning
What would that say?
Shine this quiet light on it.
Heal.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Mar 23, 2026 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Manifest, Morning, Organizing, Source, Spirit, Word of the Year, Writing |
Day 80 – Prompt – Lament and Confidence paired with Erase Poem
Excellent sermon at church yesterday, so absorbing that I didn’t even get my notebook out to entertain myself. We had a guest speaker, a woman who co-owns a local cafe (and is also a pastor), and I felt what it would feel like to see myself more often reflected at the pulpit. Also, she fully owned how much she loves preaching, speaking, having a microphone — so refreshing. And her sermon, on lament paired with statements of confidence in the Psalms, was thought-provoking yet spacious. I had time to reflect on my own choices, tendencies, hopes, struggles to communicate.
I thought about how often people are just waiting to be asked about themselves — how good it feels to get to tell your story. I have to believe it’s that power that fuels the X Page Workshop, and will translate in my absence (I’ve bowed out for this season, as I’ve taken on a heavy caregiving role in another part of my life).
It’s hard to confess to my own limitations; how easily I become overwhelmed; how much I don’t do right now, or seem incapable of doing; how very often I go to the gym to escape, by which I mean to glimpse my ability to endure, because my mind, my emotional capacity feels exhausted. It ain’t pretty. This is my lament.
What is my statement of confidence that sits alongside my lament? Truthfully, since “retiring’ in November, I’ve been hyper-disciplined and focused and I’ve finished this next draft of Begin and I think the novel is special, magical, and writing it has brought me so much delight. Talk about escape. Somehow, sharing the joy of reading and books with children these past few years restored my own faith in reading and books. I’d become cynical and bitter, I’d lost my sense of purpose. The library work gave me a path forward. In my statement of confidence, I declare: I’ve thrown myself headlong into writing because stories matter.
I declare gratitude for the gift of creative energy, the gift of another version of escape. And I pray for more belief, more trust that purpose and meaningful expression can be found through writing. I pray for courage. That my steps are guided by what matters. So that my inner life and hopes can meet my outer actions with love and confidence.
Erase Poem (my version = Circle Poem)
I felt it would feel reflected, owned, spacious
I had time, tendencies, struggles, your story
I have to believe in my absence, confess
I didn’t simply shut the door
This is my lament —
Roles anoint themselves
Bad feelings, self-destructive ways
Disappointment at not being wanted
Confidence sits with sharing delight
A prayer for more belief! For courage!
Hopes meet actions
Hope for life ongoing.
Stay.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jul 2, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Fire, Friends, Lynda Barry, Manifest, Organizing, Peace, Play, Politics, Source, Space, Spirit, Stand, Success, The X Page, Writing |
Last Friday, I sat down and tried to write about the season’s X Page workshop. Our 6th season.
It is hard to pin down the value of this project, this PROCESS. You almost have to live it. It’s the truth of collaboration. It is not a solo journey. We are stronger together. Cliches!!! And yet — have I ever been hugged so fiercely? Have I ever shared such wordless pride? Leaning into Maha as we watched this season’s performers join hands and bow at the end, some faces beaming, others streaming with tears. I was weeping, almost sobbing, like a witness to a holy act.
I know. It sounds like an extreme response. But let me not back away from the ecstasy. Let me not minimize it when it reveals itself.
In that discrete moment, I could see — or glimpse — at last, what I’d hoped to make, something much deeper than I could ever have imagined. It didn’t feel like I’d burdened anyone with a madwoman’s vision (which at times I’ve wondered about!); instead I understood the project’s POTENTIAL for profound meaningfulness in the lives of those who take the leap of faith and join the adventure.
The X Page Storytelling Workshop is a true ART project, truly multidisciplinary, truly ambitious, truly visionary, truly risky, demanding and hard. And. It has a pull, a light. It magnetizes its participants. And we are all participants — that’s the truth of it, and the magic.
What we experience, as participants, is COLLABORATION—messy, risky, inefficient, complicated by conflict, conflicting ideas, competing visions, different ideas about what this all means or what it’s meant to represent and be. And yet somehow collaboration, through the vehicle of this project, also proves itself to have coherence, to be cohesive, durable, bound together by a shared goal and deadline—the performance!
Don’t get me wrong. The PERFORMANCE is not the whole of the project, but it is necessary. It gives purpose to our trials; energizes our efforts; lifts what we’ve tried to achieve into the light. Art wants this. It craves an outlet. It longs to be seen.
As a vision, the X Page workshop has a wholeness to it, a logic that is forceful. Yet its component parts are flexible.
It’s like seeing my self, my freed artist self, embodied in a process or EXPERIENCE that is translatable, intended for others to enter into. It’s not remote, or special, or precious; it’s invitational. Witnessing its phases and stages, its preparatory and planning periods, its hesitance, its fundraising efforts, its nervous energy, its excitement, its delight at welcoming each new cohort, its surprises, its endurance, its changes, its learning … it feels as though it’s given my life coherence. Or that its collective nature expresses a coherence that I can only glimpse with my solo work.
We have to go to extremes to do this thing together—that is the truth of making art. Art-making has its disciplined middle ground where much of the work gets accomplished, but that balanced “healthy” working state is fed by highs and lows (in moderation; too much of either poisons the ground). The middle wouldn’t be tolerable without a dose of both extremities to modulate the flow, and help us to change course as needed, to keep us present to the present moment, the context of the larger environment in which this is all happening. To wake us from being lulled, attune us to the needs of those around us: our collaborators, our witnesses, our fellow artists, our co-creators, our questioners, our allies.
The middle ground is where the work gets done, and the extremes are where we change and grow. Cliches!!! Again, I know!
Upon reflection, I don’t want to live a completely balanced life. I want the challenge of SURPRISE, I want to be off-balance on occasion, so I can strengthen those muscles that keep me grounded; and I want also to feel so much joy and gratitude that I overflow in tears; to feel is a great gift.
Summer holidays are here. I’m sick (again). I’m worn out. In need of replenishment. This summer, I want to dabble with a schedule that invites all the sensations and states, including rest. Focused reflection. Creation. I want the whole of my self, all my parts, integrated, as witnessed through the X Page. I want my life to make sense way down deep, the way that the X Page made sense on Wednesday night—Playfulness. DELIGHT. The power of mingling together grief and joy, friendship and frailty, generosity and autonomy, need and giving.
There are layers of deep structural muscle built and maintained over time that create a framework of strength, patient knowledge, and experience from which to build relationships of abiding trust.
That word! TRUST! Trust the process, we repeated, and in the end, we believed it because it was true.
How can I trust the ground under my feet if on some deep level I do not trust myself?
In abiding trust is love. Judgement falls away. AMBITION becomes collective—ambition for mutual thriving, ambition for forums in which one’s strengths can be used, one’s gifts may shine. Ambition that is not for the self but for the healing of communal wounds, ambition that trusts in the power of story to repair. And story needs its tellers, story needs its voice; and it needs its listeners, its audience; story needs attention and care.
A STORY exists in words. But also in the body, way down deep, and that’s where we’re going when we step into the X Page—underneath, to pause and sense the hum that is crying for attention, and quite possibly inflecting our interactions / lives / relationships with hurt and grief and pain. To repair is to relieve ourselves of suffering by aligning story with its container. Stories can be used for profit, to manipulate and harm, I know, I know; but so can every sacred thing be exploited and abused. So this workshop is a risky undertaking. I know, I know. It can’t be exactly all that I’ve claimed here, not all the time, nor to all.
Like all spiritual undertakings it eludes description. It could go sideways in so many different directions; when I lose trust, others step in because this is not a lonely undertaking.
Trust the process.
I believe. Story heals like nothing else on planet earth. Handled with attention and care, story is holy. I believe that.
xo, Carrie
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 the 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 relish 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.
Friday, Dec 6, 2024 | Art, Drawing, Organizing, Peace, Play, Spirit, Winter |
Day 6 Prompt
Draw & write. What’s in your pocket and why?
Notes: Items are from the pockets of my pink ski jacket. Materials used: black pen, crayon, watercolours. Songs included “Landslide” by the Chicks, “Quiet – Stripped” by MILCK, and “Battlefields” by Twin Flames. I’ve been spending way more time, proportionally, on the drawing piece of each “pause”; drawing and colouring is such a peaceful activity. I wrote the answer to why these items might have been in my pockets on the following page (approximately 5 minutes; no music while writing).
xo, Carrie
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