Category: Spirit
Tuesday, Sep 4, 2018 | Family, Peace, Spirit, Summer |
This summer was busy, but it was productive. I wrote a bunch of new stories, including one for the Globe and Mail; followed my intuition and got into an MA program; gave a talk at church; walked the dog a lot; coached some soccer tournaments and (strangely enough as the season went on) lots of winning games; rode my bike all over town; started a big workshop project; made new connections in the local arts community; organized my office; had lots of interesting meetings; had the whole house painted (inside); swam in lakes and went to the beach; went camping; travelled; read books with my youngest; relaxed on occasion, let my hair down on occasion.
It was busy, but we had many fun times as a family. I wish summer could last so much longer. I wish the kids could stay home, relaxing and hanging out together. I wish I’d slowed down even more. But I’m glad for those evenings on the front porch, cards games around the table, pull-ups in the back yard, walks with friends, company, late night dog walks, mornings sleeping in, bike rides with kids, chats on car rides short and long, and big dreaming sessions with Kevin and the kids.
It was busy, and we went to Kincardine and camp and Niagara Falls and Kingston and Indiana, but we ended it at the cottage. Where the air is sweet through the trees, and the water is ever-changing.
It was busy, and nothing lasts forever, but it was sweet, as only summer can be.
xo, Carrie
PS The song I can’t stop listening to right now: Feels Like Summer, by Childish Gambino. Slow down.
Sunday, Aug 19, 2018 | Art, Big Thoughts, Coaching, Confessions, Creativity course, Fire, Lists, Organizing, School, Spirit, Work, Writing |
At least an hour ago, I sat down in my newly cleaned and organized office with the intention of writing a blog post. The post has been writing itself in my head for the past few days, while I vacuumed, organized, biked on errands, walked the dog — at any time when I had a few uninterrupted moments to myself. But when I sat down, at least an hour ago, instead of writing this post I answered emails, created a rough outline for the new course I’ll be teaching this winter (Creativity Unplugged), scrolled news headlines, and even watched a short video on “Coach Burnout.”
In other words, I’ve done everything except write the blog post I’d been meaning to write.
My new office is brilliantly organized (if I do say so myself). It feels peaceful. It’s amazing the difference this makes in my mind, opening space both literally and figuratively. A critical organizational piece is a filing unit discarded from one of my daughter’s rooms: in it, I’ve labelled a set of accessible folders to collect material that has been piling up, related to projects of immediate importance. Maybe a photo of this would be the easiest way to share the news I seem to be avoiding — it isn’t bad news, not at all, just a shift in my energies, and that feels … well, a recurring theme in my dreams is our house being torn apart, or moving into a new house, or not recognizing rooms that should be familiar.
Change. Risk. The potential for failure.
Change. Adventure. The potential for … success? That seems too limited in its definition, too vague. The potential for … hiking new trails, seeing the landscape from new perspectives, learning new things about myself, my limitations but also my gifts. They’re one and the same, in some fundamental way.
The labels read as follows (not weighted in any particular order): ENGL 332, The Shoe Project, Soccer Coaching, MA Theology, ENGL 335.
Let me break it down, by category.
ENGL 332 is the new course I’ve been contracted to teach this winter. It will be based on Lynda Barry’s workshops, and on her books What It Is and Syllabus. The exercises and projects will be a combination of text and drawings, largely hand-drawn, and the outline is taking shape in my mind (and on paper, as mentioned above) even now.
The Shoe Project is a *big* project I’ve been working on all summer, since reading an article about it in the Globe and Mail in June, and contacting The Shoe Project’s executive and artistic directors about starting a local version of the project here in KW. It’s a writing & performance workshop that connects local artists with women who are immigrants, to write, shape, and tell their stories. This project is currently being fuelled on energy, connection, and collaboration, and the next step is funding, which is a high bar indeed, but not, I believe, impossible.
Soccer coaching continues even as our season winds down. We played our last league game on Tuesday, but still have practices and a final tournament that will take us into September. Whether or not I coach again next season has yet to be determined, but remains a strong possibility.
MA Theology is the wild-card, about which I’ve offered no hints, in part because I applied only recently on something of a whim when a spot opened up, and in part because, well, I must be feeling some hesitance about it, some desire to explain why, even to myself. The full title of the program is MA (Theology): Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy. I *think* my interest was sparked last fall when a student discussed the idea of leading writing workshops in different settings and for different purposes — therapeutic purposes. But I think, too, that as I continue to coach and to teach, I’ve been craving more tools and knowledge with which to approach conflict, as well as a way to frame my beliefs around the value of creativity in nourishing and healing the spirit. I will be attending part-time. As my sister said, “Well, you know your limits!” to which I replied, “Or I know how to test my limits!!” “Haha yes, that’s more accurate.”
ENGL 335 is the final file, and that’s my usual creative writing course, which I continue to update and revamp in an attempt to simplify the marking scheme, and ease the workload, which I think has become too heavy and rigid over the years. I’ve been asked to teach this course in both the fall and winter terms, which means I’ll be teaching two courses this winter, plus going to school part-time. I’ll confess this thought woke me at 4AM two mornings ago. (Knowing my limits v testing my limits?)
My writing is not, you may observe, in those files. Instead, my current project, a collection of stories, is much closer, piled at my left elbow, very much a presence on my desk, and in my mind, and a very pleasurable presence indeed. It feels peaceful to work on these stories as they call out to me; I work on them with contentment and patience, not as if they are a crisis or emergency (which is how other writing work has felt, sometimes).
What I think is this: I’ve got too much energy to pour it all into my writing. Whenever I’ve tried to do so, tried to live the fantasy of “being a writer,” I’ve been mostly unhappy, plagued by self-doubt, banging my head against immovable plot points, overcome by inertia, thinking thinking thinking — and that’s no way to solve a problem or write a book or help the people around you. You need patience for all of these pursuits, patience and clarity, not anxiety. You need to clear your mind, and weirdly, my mind is clearer, my purpose stronger, my focus keener and energy smoother, when I’m occupied on a variety of fronts. I am a woman who requires a certain amount of extremity to thrive. The calm comes from being within the whirl; when all is calm and little is required of me, my mind becomes the whirl.
Did I already know this?
But it feels like a brand-new revelation: to stop fighting who I am, and get on with living the life that’s pulling on me.
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Jul 21, 2018 | Backyard, Big Thoughts, Fire, Good News, Meditation, Peace, Play, Publishing, Spirit, Stand, Summer, Word of the Year, Work, Writing |
FIRE is my word of the year, and its many meanings are very present with me at present. On my run this morning, I thought about how a fire can be an emergency, how it can burn down a house, or raze a forest. Going through fire is a metaphor for suffering and surviving, for being tempered by a painful experience. But after a fire, the soil is enriched by ash and carbon, and new life begins to grow.
Like fire that is an emergency, loss changes the landscape. Losing Marg was like going through fire. Of course, it was also like many other things, too, because Marg was extremely generous in her dying, and did everything possible to show her love and care for us, despite how sick she was. She had clarity about what was happening, and her wisdom gave us clarity, too. The fire tempered her, and it tempered us, too.
After loss comes grief. Sometimes grief comes even before loss — as we see loss coming toward us on the horizon. Grief isn’t predictable. It doesn’t follow a set timeline. At different points this spring, I recognized that grief was my companion, and that it was helping me to set my course.
Immediately after Marg’s death, I felt like a sleepwalker, numb, too tired to think, but slowly and steadily I drifted toward a different phase of being in the world — of being in the world. I began to meditate outside in our back yard. I let myself rest. I let myself not do next to nothing; listen, pay attention, breathe. Instinctively, I gave myself space. And with space, with breath, with oxygen to feed it, my interior fire began to flicker to life again. It was in that burnt out quiet space, in the aftermath and ash, that new shoots of green began to grow. I thought about (think about) Marg all the time. She was and is present in my mind, in my decision-making. Her clarity guides me, and her willingness in life to step forward, to be responsible, to take charge and to lead.
Because fire has another meaning, too — fire as passion, as heat and light and desire. There are times when I live without noticing how I’m feeling, numbed by routine and responsibility and the relentless obligations of being a mother to four children, a teacher, a writer, a volunteer. These are times when I’m dull, ticking boxes, struggling to keep my weak flame lit. And then there are times when I’m on fire! I’m paying attention — my attentiveness becomes acute, and I can see clearly what matters and what doesn’t matter.
From a place of quiet attention, comes clarity.
I have been tempered by fire, and my sense of purpose is strengthened. This I know: to feed my spirit, to remain grounded and whole, I must live creatively. Living creatively means improvising, sometimes; it means pursuing work that may not have a financial value; it means making space for others to play too. Since Marg’s death, I’ve found myself making choices from a place that feels powerful and certain. I ask: what matters to me, and am I acting on what matters to me? Next Sunday, I’ll be speaking at church because when I saw the call for volunteers, instead of questioning the impulse, wondering whether I had the authority to speak, or the time to prepare, or the courage to stand up, I just said yes: this matters to me, and I will do it.
Another example: This spring, as I heard about protests in Nicaragua, as the situation became ever more troubling and desperate, as protestors were being killed, I wondered: Why isn’t this news being covered in the Canadian media? What can our government do to help the situation? And then I asked: Is there anything I can do? Yes! I could use my resources, skills, and contacts to write an opinion piece appealing to the Canadian government and getting this news before the public, at least to a small degree — I pitched the idea to an editor at the Globe and Mail, and wrote the piece while sitting in a tent on a rainy afternoon last weekend. I consulted with Nicaraguan contacts to ensure my facts were accurate. I sought feedback. And the piece was published in today’s Opinion section of the Globe. It’s a small act, but it’s something.
I’ve discovered something powerful about acting on what matters to me: It gives me fuel for the fire, energy to do more.
There are so many small ways to be whole, to feel whole. I don’t seek a work-life balance, because my work and life are utterly intertwined. I’m not interested in the concept of balance. I’m interested in recognizing which fires need to be fed, and which should be smothered. That’s a different kind of balance. It means asking: what do I have control over and what do I need to let go of?
A fire can burn out of control. Some emergencies cannot be prevented or stopped, can only be endured, withstood, survived, contained. But there are many smaller fires: a candle, a campfire, the flame inside a wood stove. These fires draw us, warm us, soothe us, invite community. The constantly changing shape of the flame is meditative and centring. We gather with others around the light and heat.
I hope to have more news to share in the weeks to come. More irons in the fire. More heat, more light. Meanwhile, more summer.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jul 4, 2018 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Spirit |
I am someone who keeps an eye on my neighbourhood. I know the comings and goings of many of its residents, in part because I work from home with a window that faces the street, in part because our house is at a transitional section in the neighbourhood, through which much traffic travels on foot, bicycle, and by car, into and out of the uptown core. Across the street, several houses were knocked down last fall to make space for a park, which does not yet exist; it’s a plot of sandy land whose purpose, as yet, seems unclear.
I see, and I remember.
One morning, last week, I saw a woman in the middle of the street pushing a shopping cart. I heard her first, her screams could have been the shouts of girls teasing each other, but I quickly understood this was something else. I went to the front door and saw her in the street, pushing a shopping cart half-filled with what looked like clothing, screaming at a minivan that had stopped so as not to hit her. The van tried to pass, and she took a swing at it, a lit cigarette in her free hand. Then she came into our driveway, pushing the cart, and veered in behind the neighbouring apartment building. At this point, I called the police, my heart racing. I lost sight of her when she went behind the building, but my eldest, whose bedroom window overlooks our backyard, said he’d seen her squeeze through the fence at the back of the apartment building, and run through our neighbour’s yard. She’d abandoned the shopping cart and was carrying several bundles of belongings, shrieking at the world like her brain was fire.
On the phone, the dispatcher asked for a description. Perhaps I should not write down a detailed description here. I’d never seen her in our neighbourhood before. Her thighs were exposed, no pants, though I think she was wearing underwear. A dark blue long-sleeved sweater. Shoes? Flip-flops, I think.
The police did not arrive on my watch. I heard later from other neighbours, who had also called the police, that she was eventually found. A police officer called me later that afternoon to ask follow-up questions on what I’d seen. I could only describe what was on the surface, visible, a rough chronology of a brief series of events. He promised me, when I asked, that the woman had been found and that she would be okay.
What was happening inside her mind to turn her so violent and probably—it’s only occurred to me now—afraid? What happens to a person that they become this untethered to reality? She was out in public without pants. Cursing at anyone who came near. Screaming, slamming her shopping cart into the side of the apartment building, swinging at cars, seemingly in her own version of reality, trapped in a world that must look very different to her than it does to me.
I don’t know what to do with this scene, this snippet of a story that is not a complete story. It only has a beginning, no middle, no end.
I see it happening through the window, and my instinct is to hide. I wonder what people with training in such situations would say or do, what their approach would be, as they’d attempt to intervene. Would they try to bring her back into this world? How would they assess the danger she represents—to herself and/or to others. I wonder how a person can get so lost. What trauma is she expressing, what has she experienced?
I felt afraid of her. Afraid for her.
I keep wondering what my responsibility is as a human being in this situation. As a bystander. A witness. What is the appropriate action to take? And maybe I’m wondering something more, too: what if my responsibility goes deeper? What training or education would I need in order to become more than a bystander or a witness? What if I wanted to get involved, to help, not just to “help” — what would I need to learn?
xo, Carrie
Monday, Jun 18, 2018 | Big Thoughts, Politics, Spirit, Work, Writing |
This is a confusing time to be a writer, but maybe it’s just a confusing time to be a human being.
Everything is political. But I don’t think of myself as a political writer. Ideology is deadly to good writing, in my opinion and experience. As a writer, I value the ability to see many sides and perspectives. But now? Now? Is what I value as a writer valuable now?
My life is very pleasant. I live in Canada, which remains a safe country, especially for people like me, born with white skin of European background. I’ve received a solid education. I’m a home owner. My family and I have access to good health care. The public schools in our neighbourhood are awesome. My kids walk to and from their schools every day in relative safety (distracted/aggressive drivers being the main threat I fear). I have work that satisfies my spirit (often), leisure time to play in the back yard with my kids and ride my bike around the city, and time to volunteer many hours a week in order to satisfy my spirit even more. We drink clean water that comes from our taps. I have a washing machine in the basement. We eat really good food, most of it prepared at home. I share household chores with my husband, who has a flexible job that allows him to spend lots of time with our children, too. He supports my work, much of which doesn’t earn much money, recognizing it as a vocation.
I am living in privilege, a fortunate life. But at what cost? What does my security cost, what does my prosperity cost?
I live my life inside a bubble. I want everyone on earth to get to live inside a bubble of safety and security and prosperity and freedom. But that is not what is happening, nor does it seem to be the direction in which the world, and the balance of power, is turning. The leader of the United States, aka “the leader of the free world,” has little interest in freedom, aside from his own to increase his personal wealth and power by any means available. Trump is a president for oligarchs and oligarchs aren’t interested in democracy, because democratic states and institutions can’t pay bribes (or not very easily).
Few images occupy my mind, right now, more than children being separated from parents along America’s southern border. Does any other country on earth hold this policy toward asylum seekers? In Bangladesh, are Rohingya mothers separated from their children? In Lebanon, are Syrian refugees separated from their children? In Italy? In Germany? In Canada?
Take a moment to consider the chaos and terror these specific asylum seekers are fleeing. You may know that I have a personal connection to Nicaragua, which, though a dangerous country during the post-revolutionary 1980s, has for many years been considered safe, despite its extreme poverty. Neighbouring countries, including Honduras and El Salvador are wracked by gang violence and lawlessness, but Nicaragua seemed largely immune to these issues. No more. In the past two months, Nicaragua has slipped toward violence and repression, too; perhaps it’s been a long-time coming given that Daniel Ortega, the president during the 1980s, returned to power in the 2000s and changed the constitution to ensure he’d never have to leave. During his time in office, he’s amassed a personal fortune, never a good sign. Corruption inevitably leads to instability. And those who cling to their power illegitimately understand instinctively that their survival depends on repression, at all costs. So when protests began in April, the government cracked down. Hard. (This is the situation as I understand it, gleaned from the articles and reports I’ve read, although there could be other actors involved and the issues far more tangled and complex.) For those whose daily lives are caught up in the nightmare of random violence, it doesn’t really matter who’s to blame. Nicaragua, right now, is a scary place to be — random shootings by police and paramilitary groups, protestors arrested without due process, extra-judicial killings, a journalist shot while live-streaming a report, neighbourhood blockades, arson, fear all around.
How easily the world tips into chaos.
And people flee chaos, when they can. They leave their lives behind, maybe in hope, definitely out of desperation. These are asylum seekers, refugees.
How easily social norms are broken, replaced by new norms. We can get used to anything, we humans. There are people right now, hired to process and separate children from parents on the southern border of the United States. These people are doing a job. Somehow, they’ve told themselves that what they’re doing is normal and acceptable, perhaps even desirable, perhaps even the right thing to do.
Human beings throughout history have done this — normalized evil acts, told themselves they were doing the right thing, dehumanized the people they traumatized, abused, even killed. In Canada, somehow many people found it acceptable to separate First Nations children from their parents, to house them far away from home in residential schools, to punish them for speaking their language, to make this traumatic cruelty the law. And doesn’t it continue, in some form or another, even now?
All of this. Too much.
What world do I live in? I’m in a bubble.
But as witness to what’s happening outside of my bubble, my hands are not clean. The tools for our manipulation grow ever more powerful and many find it difficult to know what to believe or who to trust. The further our trust erodes, in our communities and leaders, the easier we are to manipulate. How to stay wise and informed in this era? How to express outrage, how to dig in my heels and refuse to accept what’s happening? How to be a useful bystander? Or not a bystander at all? How to be brave? How to make the world safer, kinder, more open?
Does the arc of the moral universe bend toward justice?
What about the arc of my own tiny slice of history — does it bend toward justice? Forward and back, forward and back, we progress, we slip, we progress, we slip. Our life spans are brief and our memories flawed. We are distractible, confused, contradictory. We react. We comfort ourselves with lies and half-truths. We embrace denial. We focus on what’s before us. We cling to what we’ve got. The road to hell is paved with good intentions — that’s true too. Even when we’re trying to help, we get so much wrong.
Small, kind, hopeful acts. All I’ve got. The vital potential of art. All I’ve got. My own two hands. All I’ve got. My imagination. All I’ve got. The ability to listen. All I’ve got. To change. All I’ve got. To remember. To care. To witness. To record. All I’ve got.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Jun 11, 2018 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Creativity course, Fire, Meditation, Spirit, Work, Writing |
Monday.
The hardest day of the week to get oriented. There seem to be an infinite number of tasks that could be tackled — a few that should be tackled, and many that are just pleasant possibilities awaiting attention. But to be done properly these tasks require full attention. There are many ways to begin, but here is one that’s been working for me: I put on Marg’s green scarf and sit in the back yard and meditate.
On my general to-do list:
- Fall creative writing course at U of Waterloo: revamp reading list; tweak structure of peer review workshops; tweak participation rubric.
- Winter creative writing course at St. Jerome’s (new course!!!!): solidify curriculum, leaving room for student input within broader units.
- Write/edit/submit short stories: I’m working on editing a short story collection. I keep picking away at the stories, one by one; highly satisfying. I’m also setting the goal of submitting these polished stories, one by one, to literary magazines.
- Edit/submit poems: Same as # 3, only in poetry form.
- Expand/explore career options: Here is where I begin to drift off, untethered. I’m feeling a significant pull to further my education. I’ve narrowed my field(s) of interest to the following: spiritual work, counselling/therapy/coaching, writing/art therapy, conflict resolution, public speaking.
On Twitter, today, I retweeted an opinion from a thread on CanLit by Amanda Leduc, who wrote: “Literature is a special thing only insofar as it helps us to navigate the world & connect with one another.” Someone else replied: “I hear what you’re saying, but I have also talked to people who are alive today because literature literally saved their lives.”
And I wonder what I believe?
My experience as a teacher leads me to believe that writing can be powerful medicine, that telling our stories and being heard, no matter the medium, can be powerfully validating. Reading or seeing or hearing a story or image that strikes a chord within us can also be powerful. It can heal, or create an opening for healing. Who knows why something moves us? It may have nothing to do with the technical prowess of its creator.
I’m not saying that technical skill doesn’t matter or is immaterial. My God, when I read a book by someone who’s mastered the craft, I’m utterly transported. Most recently, that would be Ali Smith’s Autumn. I wanted to linger — am lingering, in memory — inside the richness and simultaneous spareness of her style. Yet I flew through the book and couldn’t put it down. That’s magic. There’s magic in deciding to pick up a book and read it, and discovering in it exactly what you need.
There is magic in the process, in all parts of the process, that’s what I’m saying. There’s work and then there’s magic. And magic doesn’t come in a form that’s graspable; magic, spiritual depth, grace — however you term it — does not arrive because you demand its arrival. A writer is not someone with special powers. A writer is someone who, with luck, occasionally finds a way to share an idea or an image with the the world, or whatever tiny piece of the world picks up our book and reads it and finds something within those pages. But there are lots of other ways to connect, even for writers. I come back to connection, to navigating the world. The world is what interests me. Relationships interest me. And, yes, spiritual life in particular interests me, even though or maybe because it’s almost impossible to put that life into words. (This is why we need images.)
Long story short. I’m happy to keep writing and practicing the craft of writing (see items #3 and #4 on above list). But I think I’m being called out beyond the borders of the page. I think there are other ways and means of connecting to the world using what I’ve learned (and continue to learn) about writing and shaping narrative, but also using what I’ve learned (and continue to learn) about being human, being mortal, being fallible, being forgiven, and loving and being loved.
xo, Carrie
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