Category: Peace
Sunday, Jun 15, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Books, Confessions, Current events, Dream, Family, Friends, Fun, Good News, Job, Library, Lynda Barry, Peace, Play, Publishing, Reading, Sleep, Source, Space, Spirit, Summer, The X Page, Word of the Year, Writing |
When and how to begin with BEGIN?
BEGIN is the title of my next novel. I can’t even write that sentence without attempting to delete or amend it. BEGIN is the title of the novel I’m writing. But even that sentence requires amendment. It is the title of the novel I was writing (last touched in March), and will be writing again—though I haven’t dared open the manuscript for months. I can’t let myself visit the pleasure of it in the tiny jags of time available, just right now.
I will begin writing BEGIN again this summer. Soon.
My library job ends in two weeks.
As does my time-limited stint as “producer” (hapless producer, one feels at times) of the X Page Storytelling Workshop, season 6. Season 6???! Tickets for the performance are available here—it’s called “The truth is …” and it’s playing one night only at the Registry theatre in downtown Kitchener, Wed, June 25th, 7PM. Please come for stories, for the stories are life-giving.
Look for me when school’s out in two weeks. I’ll be running out the doors with the kids, slipping off my sandals, standing in the grass, and maybe then, maybe then, my writing of BEGIN will begin again.
How will I parcel out my time? What do I need to write this book?
I have a publisher—Simon & Schuster Canada. (Yes, it’s official.)
More importantly, I have an editor—the brilliant poet and novelist, Katherena Vermette.
I have a pub date—fall 2027 (though those are always tentative).
I need a few intangibles, if I’m honest.
Health, sleep, sweat, rest. Dedicated time. Ear plugs?
Relaxation, intensity, hunger, delight.
Belief. Trust. Confidence—that too, especially that. You know this, don’t you, fellow writing friends? Maybe to that, I need, too, companionship that’s quiet and reassuring, and that would like to join in collective writing and drawing exercises after breakfast, before the work of the day begins …
I imagine for myself a near-hermit’s devotion to the hours, immersion in the subject, the playful giddiness that takes over when I’m making something that feels new or powerful or unexpected, that surprises me with some unearthed truth.
I can’t wait to begin.
Because I hope, I hope to finish what I’ve started. I hope to make good on what I find in the digging.
xo, Carrie
PS If you know of places to rent/borrow/sneak into that would make for good writing intensive spaces, please let me know!
PPS The image at the top was spotted in Chicago, which I visited a few weeks ago with one of my kids, who was presenting at their first academic conference.
Monday, May 26, 2025 | Big Thoughts, Birthdays, Confessions, Family, Friends, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit |
A few months ago, I took a four-day “circle training” workshop. Rather than writing about it immediately, I let the experience just be. I wondered whether it would change me, and how. What happens when you sit quietly and listen, as a talking stick makes its way around a circle of strangers? What happens when it’s your turn to speak?
Time slows down.
Attention shifts.
The stories that came out of my mouth seemed to rise from some quiet place that was longing to be told: this is precious material too.
I miss writing here as often as I once did.
I miss the instant reflection on the happenings in my life.
And to be truthful, I’m less at ease sharing these fractured, fragmented, intangible impressions publicly. It’s not exactly about being right or wrong; but the impression given of a moment in time, a moment of experiential data, is by its nature unstable. It will change. Change is our constant.
It’s interesting to observe what changes, from week to week, month to month, year to year; but probably also impossible to pin down. There’s a tendency to assume change is for the better; and to compare with past versions of self in ways that inflate the present version. Yet, so much of who I am, especially in those tendencies that limit my potential or cause harm (to self and others), seem to have changed far less than one might hope.
For example … (confession time)
I have a tendency to …
… fill every minute with doing, even better if it’s hard task, or menial, or can be framed as helping someone else or improving upon myself
A story from the circle. One of the participants shared about being the friend who their friends could call in a crisis. Needing to be that friend. And not knowing how to stop, or even pause, to catch a breath, or listen to their own inner voice and emotions.
I felt as if a mirror were being held up to my own need to do, do, do. Act, act, act. Carry, carry, carry. Make, make, make. Hold, hold, hold.
I can’t seem to let myself write down what I understood in that moment…. I saw that being needed gives me worth. No. More than that. Gives me permission to feel worthy, permission to believe that my life is worthwhile. And without that, without the dependency created by being needed, I feared, no, I fear, abandonment.
Who would want the un-needed, the unnecessary version of me?
Who would want to spend time with the version of me that I can’t even articulate into being, the version that is … that is shimmering forth, I feel it, like a butterfly, like a tree, like a calm shady summer afternoon … the version that does nothing and is fully present, achieves nothing and is fully present, raises nothing and is fully present.
The mirror in which another person, anyone, stranger or friend, can see themself in full flourishing. And then the world will be too beautiful to hold, or even to grasp. And I will be able to let go, and let go, and let go of needing to do, act, carry, make, hold, hold, hold.
xo, Carrie
Friday, May 9, 2025 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Job, Meditation, Peace, Source, Space, Spirit, Spring, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
I am in another world, other reality, a different place in my mind, life, body. But where? I’ve disconnected from the version of writer I believe I was — before — before
— before I’d released my idea of what I’d need from writing, what I’d expect, what I’d value, what I’d receive from writing.
In truth, I need little from my writing; or — nothing? None of the things I thought I’d wanted.
This is my third spring working my job-job. I’ve approached it as a practice, as training, and as an antidote to my writing career’s boundary-less culture of under-compensated demands, spoken and unspoken, external and internalized. Before — I strived to meet those demands, spoken and unspoken; before — I tried to make a home for myself in a writing-adjacent career; bitterness ensued. And the bitter taste was justified, painful though that is to acknowledge; a person should not be required to work without security or for free just because she loves what she does. That’s not service, that’s exploitation.
I’ll still publish, and I still participate; but on terms that feel sustainable for me, and that grow rather than shrink my heart and capacity.
The job-job grows my heart, and my capacity.
The job-job offers me a clear role, agreed-upon terms and responsibilities, expected hours, and fair compensation. Also: security (as long as our school board doesn’t eliminate library staff … but that’s another story and in any case, it’s not the specifics that matters; the job-job is a practice, not an identity).
The job-job has trained me, continues to train me, for this mid-life, squashed and squeezed time that I’m occupying — this time of devotion. Devotion to tasks, to responsibilities, to community well-being, to small gestures of kindness. Devotion to the practice of gentleness. To the practice of seeing others, recognizing, easing the way for others to move more freely and joyfully and openly, appreciated and known. Devotion to the practice of invisible labour. It is this training that teaches me: I have enough, I am enough.
I tape and glue and clean and relabel. This is my training. I stand at the counter and listen, I respond with kind regard. All life deserves respect and dignity. This is my training.
I am the least interesting part of my writing life. The writing itself, whatever gift there is in it, flows through me. I am a channel.
I am content to be — A mirror — A kind ear — Invisible, or partially seen, or seen only in reflection.
I am content to write what I want to write and share stories and ask questions and to sit in silence. I am more than content, I am fulfilled beyond words to accept this mission of kind regard. What do I train for, if not this? This sense of being present. Able. Having the capacity to serve. Not to be in servitude to, but to serve.
Practicing. To be kind, secure; flowing, humming, through.
xo, Carrie
Sunday, Mar 16, 2025 | Adventure, Art, Big Thoughts, Good News, Holidays, Peace, Reading, Source, Space, Spirit, Spring, Writing, Yoga |
Note: This post was written several days ago. I kept my laptop off wifi in order to avoid distraction, so I’m posting it only now that I’m home again.
I’ve spent almost seven full days at the farm (my brother and sister-in-law’s, with all thanks to them for their generosity). These seven days have been a true retreat, for mind and body and spirit and emotions. I was close to breaking that last week of work before March break, ground down by responsibilities and duties and commitments, all of which I love and have chosen freely (nearly all!); but which require a volume of attention that even great discipline and desire cannot meet.
I came to the farm to write.
I came with a bit of a plan: a novel manuscript to revise, with, most blessedly, the support of a new editor and publisher (the deal has not been inked, so I will touch wood and wait to share more news till it’s official).
I also came to the farm depleted. Knowing I was depleted and exhausted and strained.
I came to the farm wanting to play. I didn’t come to “work” on my book, I came to play with the material. And this book—my 16th century book, as I often call it—has so much material to play with. The language, the weather, the rhyming, the smells, the herbs, the meat, the smoke, the streets running with raw sewage, the animals, the screw press, the tenements, the lanes and alleyways, the river, the relationships, the sacred and the profane, art and authorship and anonymity.
A person can’t play if she’s depleted, exhausted, strained.
Such weariness bleeds through the body, and numbs the senses. There’s a flatness, tears leak through, but feel obscure or obscuring, a disconnected release. In the week or so before coming to the farm, I’d noticed myself withdrawing, even from friends, as I put my head down and completed the basics (which include routines I consider to be healthy and caring, like starting the day with exercise and meditation, preparing good lunches to eat at work, and spending time with my family).
I gave myself permission, when I arrived at the farm on Saturday, early afternoon, to slow down.
And that has been at the crux of my reflections, here at the farm.
I noticed that it was difficult to slow down. I noticed that I wanted to fill the quiet with noise: podcasts, radio, YouTube. More than that, I wanted to be entertained. In stillness, in quiet, alone, I felt starved for some interruption that would distract me.
I noticed these needs and desires. I questioned them. There were times when I let myself be distracted. But I also encouraged myself to try going without the noise, even just for a few minutes. The minutes inevitably stretched. Gently, forgiving myself when I reached for my cellphone, I eased myself over the threshold into the quiet, again and again.
This morning, my last morning here at the farm for awhile, I did yoga (my cellphone open, Yoga with Adriene guiding me through day 4 of her recent Prana series). As I do every morning, I followed my breath. I paired breath to movement. I noticed how much attention I could give to different parts of myself—my feet, my shoulders, my pelvis. Deep in this attention, my mind accepted the quiet. It always does.
For my meditation, I read a long chapter in Braiding Sweetgrass (the young adult version). It was like this chapter had heard me praying to slow down. The chapter is called “Allegiance to Gratitude,” and Robin Wall Kimmerer (and Monique Gray Smith, who adapted this version), and the illustrations of Nicole Neidhardt come together to illuminate the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. The author(s) ask us to consider what it means to start each morning with gratitude—with a ritual of thanksgiving for the land, each other, and all of creation. The ritual is slow. It takes the time that it takes. It is also punctuated with the refrain, Now our minds are one. “Imagine,” the author(s) write, “being raised in a culture in which gratitude is the first priority.”
Imagine.
Let me begin and end with gratitude.
I am thankful for my brother and sister-in-law who open this farmhouse to me, and who restored it with such care, and who continue to care for this peaceful, cozy, calming, healing place. I am thankful for a family-sized lasagna that fed me almost the entire week. I am thankful for this table at which I’ve sat to eat and to read and to write. My eating and reading chair is to my right. I’m sitting now in the writing chair. Both face the same window, with plants on the sill, and flies buzzing in the sunshine. I am thankful for fresh air and a gravel road on which to walk, to clear my mind. I am thankful for winding down time in the warm living-room, with a puzzle and a deliciously silly Canadian TV show (Pretty Hard Cases; CBC, season 3 available on YouTube). I am grateful for sleep and rest.
I played a lot this week. I accomplished what I’d set out to do. The novel will take more time, more play, more squishing and shaping of its materials.
I’m preparing to pack up and return home, where I’ll again have too much to do—so much of which I love and cherish and don’t want to set down. Can I stretch time? Or slow it? Can I slow time for others, with whom I share space? What allows me to slow my mind, to listen deeply, to attend with love, and to resist distraction?
Begin with gratitude. Return to gratitude. Cherish and take responsibility for my gifts. Ask: I am grateful for____? Is ___ grateful for me in return? And if not, how can I balance that relationship, so that it becomes mutual?
When I love my writing, and bring to it my attention, with appreciation for its delights, I sense it loving me in return, and filling me with joy. And that is what I want to share—deep abiding thanks for imagination, story, the healing properties of narrative and image, and the visceral sensual pleasure of language itself.
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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