Category: Peace
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
Wednesday, Jun 3, 2026 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Conflict Management, Mediation, Meditation, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Writing |
Questions for the table
Where are we now?
Who are we now?
What if you just accept what is happening?
What does it mean to be tenacious , ambitious, to use your natural born skills?
How do you know if it matters?
Does it matter if what you make is good? (How would you know? Who would tell you? On what grounds would this judgement be made?)
What instinct shall you follow?
What are your priorities, and how are they expressed, through what means?
(Why do you write?) Why do you do what you do?
What do you hope for?
Are there things you want to learn?
Are you done here?
What are you carrying?
Are you well enough to continue?
What would it be about instead?
Where does it hurt? When? How?
What gives you relief?
xo, Carrie
PS This is one of my circle poems, but I will also use each question as a prompt for a future journal entry, to get beyond “what’s on your mind?” A few of the questions are yes/no, but even those can work as prompts, urging an explanation, depending on the tone you’re hearing the questioner speak in.
Can you imagine a dinner party where you’d go around the table asking everyone to respond to one of these questions? Which one would you choose to ask? (Today, I’d like to know, What are you carrying?)
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
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Fire, Lists, Meditation, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Today is the first day that I’m not going into an elementary school (a library or a school office) in about three years. It’s wild to be out here and not in there. I’ll miss the kids in the library. I’ll miss them coming in and basking in the light of my attention. To thrive out here, I need to be sure that my attention pours onto someone else, something else, every day.
Why give yourself away? Because it returns to you, tenfold. What you give returns. So know what you’re giving, give with honesty, give what is true to your experience, and what you’d hope to receive.
Dear school library, thank you for re-tuning my focus. Thank you for healing my heart and mind.
At the library: I’ve learned better boundaries, I’ve learned the value of structure in trust-building, I’ve learned the importance of recognizing what’s holding me back (so often a blockage in my own mind), I’ve learned how to seek what I want. How to ask—wait, is this what I want? Or—how can I improve on this process? what’s not serving us? how can I set us all up for success? I know that I am part of a community, I am part of the larger world.
There are things that I don’t want to return to from my life and routines before this job.
Looking back, I see my own self-pity. I recognize a tendency toward self-inflicted martyrdom. If I could change anything about my past self, I would excise the self-pity. Tell yourself the truth! That’s what I say to myself often, when I hear myself tipping toward self-pity. I could pretend that it’s other people stopping me from speaking my mind; I could pretend that I have to work a “real” job because of financial concerns rather than it being a choice I’m making; I could pretend that I don’t have the time to write; I could pretend that an artist can’t be a “good person” and that’s why I don’t want to be an artist.
But I am an artist. Many people are, possibly even most people. (And why this obsession with being “good”? Still trying to figure that out.)
An artist is someone who seeks beauty and wants in some way to interpret it and preserve it and share it.
I’ve learned that it works just as well, if not better, to share my art with kids, to pin it to a bulletin board, to ask questions, to witness others who have found a voice in small part due to my being there to listen.
I’ve learned that it’s okay to want to publish—it’s one way a writer finds connection with the larger world, but it’s a way, not the only way, and that’s often confusing and the experience of publishing can feel really disconnected from the effort and play and experimentation that went into a project. So I like to think of projects differently.
I learned that every day there is the possibility that I will be connecting with someone else, in some way that feels meaningful to both of us. I hope for that, out here too.
Unconditional positive regard. I hope to walk with this into the world, into relationships, to the best of my ability, and when I can’t or when I struggle: box breathing, 5 breaths; a walk in the wind; music and watercolours; notebook, 5 minutes, what’s on your mind?; go to the gym; find a repetitive menial task; or cook a homemade meal and hope for lots of takers around the table.
xo, Carrie
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Drawing, Fall, Fire, Friends, Fun, Job, Library, Lists, Peace, Sleep, Source, Spirit, Work, Writing, Yoga |
This is a not going to be a polished post. I’ve been creating an inventory of my interests, needs, weak spots, strengths, etc., in order to articulate, or even just grasp or glimpse what I want to be doing with my days and hours — at this particular stage in my life, this time of aging and flux. So here is a list of goals, the aspirations that I am able to articulate and maybe, with hope and support and gentleness and time, move toward. I’m going to name this list as being things that I want, even though it makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable.
I want …
… a fine life
… relaxation and contentment
… ample rest, a quick and nourished mind
… sweat, adrenalin, endorphins, breath, balance, physical exertion, core strength
… treatment of pain, and ongoing healing for mind and body
… to model and recognize other’s choices that honour: presence, generative actions, creative play, fun and humour, healthy practices and routines
… strong rooted lasting friendships, to be a good friend (by listening, walking with, caring for, giving space to, allowing to be); to let my friends help me too, be honest with them, share my fears sometimes
… strong healthy bonds with my children and other family members, no matter my role (as mother, daughter, spouse, sister, etc.)
… to live with creative bursts without floating into self-indulgence and disconnection, without being self-serving
… to be someone people feel comfortable and happy spending time with; to put others at ease
… to inhabit and build inviting spaces where people get to be themselves, feel welcome to be relaxed, to come and go, rest, laugh, talk, eat good food (as at the cottage); cry, laugh; feel so held and loved—this is aspirational, but I’d love to be that person for others
… to conceive of, surrender to, and finish ambitious projects (like novels) – for the joy of discovery day by day, and for the sense of accomplishment when all the threads have been woven together; for therapeutic reasons, and to explore what’s underneath and otherwise invisible and unknown and mysterious within my soul and body and the collective life force, because it feels necessary and relieving and cleansing and satisfying and good, and because writing is my way in, the practice that I’ve practiced more than any other
… to not behave like a martyr or fixate on sacrifice; surrender is a different beast
xo, Carrie
PS The watercolour is my version of characters from The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten, written by Maureen Fergus with illustrations by Mike Lowery, which I read to classrooms in September. Most every week, I add a new character to the library’s story-time bulletin board – from a book we’ve read the previous week. (See below.) This is a practice I’ll miss and be seeking to replace when I move on from the library job.
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