Category: Travel
Sunday, Nov 2, 2014 | Adventure, Girl Runner, Organizing, Readings, Travel |
This is my IFOA weekend look. I wore the same outfit both days. One can only do so much with one’s limited “dress-up” clothes.
Yes, another anonymous hotel room. It looks very much like the last.
I arrived yesterday morning on the train, trundled my (borrowed) tiny wheeled suitcase along the sidewalk, through construction, stopping to buy two newspapers (to gorge despite my better judgement on the happenings surrounding ‘he who shall not be named’), returning to the same hotel room I’d been in earlier in the week. Different room. Different view. I can see the island airport from my window. And, more distressing to me for some reason, I can see into the windows of a nearby condo, and have detected humans, who may in turn be seeing me. And so I draw the blinds after dark.
Both the reading and the panel have gone well this weekend. A panel is a tricky event to run, and its success relies heavily on the moderator and on the chemistry of the assembled writers; this afternoon’s was a pure pleasure to participate in: moderated by Brian Francis (of Caker Cooking fame), I got to talk about history, memory, place, and our place in all of this with Michael Winter, Joseph Kertes, and Dionne Brand (whose poetry I studied in university!!).
Now to return to coursework responsibilities, the hunt for supper, and perhaps a drink later on this evening with several siblings who happen to be in town (well, my sister Edna does live here, so that’s not exactly happenstance).
I have quite the to-do list written on a loose sheet of note paper, resting beside my elbow on this anonymous desk. I’ve yet to check anything off completely. Let me share it with you, actually. It’s awfully aspirational.
to do:
Kim J essay
LEARN & check UW email
Walrus
read students’ drafts
prep for class
start novel
or write in memoir
pictures for Jammie Day
send babysitting message for AA
(Actually, that last one I did check off. The neighbourhood has been officially informed that my elder daughter, now in grade seven, would like to babysit your children; I can recommend her as creative, energetic, thoughtful, kind, and capable of cooking eggs in any style.)
xo, Carrie
PS “Start novel.” Yes. Just put it on the list.
Wednesday, Oct 29, 2014 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Family, Publicity, Travel, Work |
Hi there.
I’m in Toronto.
The Weather Network informs me that it is 12 degrees, feels like 10, with a mix of sun and cloud expected today. When I turn my head and look out the window, I can see highway and cars travelling past in an endless stream; and the Redpath sugar factory. I had a reading last night in Burlington, with the other finalists for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Award, and we’re reading together again tonight here in Toronto at Harbourfront. I’ll be back for more readings/panels on Saturday and Sunday.
This morning, I had breakfast with my French editor, a graceful and down-to-earth woman, which is an unusual combination, I think. I myself am down-to-earth but not so graceful; or else, I aim for grace and perhaps lose the down-to-earthyness. Who knows, this may be a completely inaccurate look in the mirror. I am looking in an actual mirror right now and a woman with tired eyes looks back at me, smile lines around her currently unsmiling mouth, hair unkempt.
I feel in the process of a transition (isn’t one always, though?). I feel that what is happening right now, on this fall tour, is that I am finding a way to say goodbye not only to my character, Aganetha, and to Girl Runner, but to the sound of my own voice talking on and on about my character and my book. What a pleasure it will be to escape into a new fictional world, to hear from new fictional characters, to listen to voices other than my own. I’m talking myself back into the desire — the need — for quiet, for the life inside the mind.
This is all very out here, this time of publicity. Publicity = Public. I put myself out into public on this blog, of course, but that feels different (although perhaps it shouldn’t). It feels under my control (though, again, perhaps it shouldn’t). When I write these posts, I imagine that no one is reading them. Which is how I write fiction too: privately. But neither is meant to stay private; I don’t write to keep it to myself. And then what was private becomes public. And then, well, what does the private person do with herself, out in public, the person accustomed to living so entirely inside her head?
Sometimes, during my travels this fall, I’ve heard myself speaking out loud to myself; not always kindly. Critiquing a performance. Critiquing, even, a passing exchange, as stupid or graceless or aloof or too familiar; there is no balance to my judgement.
Here is the truth about being a writer. There are seemingly infinite opportunities for humiliation. These are cut with nano-second bursts of awesomeness, when the stars align and all possibilities seem to hover within reach. The awesomeness will promptly be extinguished by a new opportunity for humiliation, or, less dramatically, another awkward encounter into which one wanders, or perhaps causes. This can make a person feel delusional. But being a writer is about sustaining delusions, I think; or put more kindly, it’s about having faith in the imaginary. It’s about believing in something that does not yet exist, and willing it into existence. It’s believing in one’s capacity to do the work, and sustaining that belief even at the darkest moments. It’s that breath that keeps the flame alive.
So I’m trying to remind myself to be kind. To speak kindly when speaking out loud to myself in airport bathrooms and fast-falling elevators. The tone of the inner voice makes a difference to one’s inner life, the life going on behind the tired eyes in the mirror. It’s not delusional to be kind. It’s important. Also, it’s grounding, and I need grounding when I’m away from home, away from all of the things that keep me rooted: the routines, the children, the laundry, the carefully constructed and thoroughly loved mess of my whole life.
Friday, Oct 24, 2014 | Adventure, Girl Runner, Readings, Travel, Work |
Seen, on walk to Granville market this morning.
Hi there.
I’m still in Vancouver.
Today is it 14 degrees, feels like 13, and there was sun, briefly, though it looks overcast again. That’s okay. I brought red rain boots, which are squashable and therefore transportable across the country in a very small carry-on bag. I wore them to a party on Wednesday night, because my other red shoes, the ones I’d worn to a fundraising event hosted by Joseph Boyden earlier in the evening, the fancy retro heels, had rendered my toes completely numb. Plus, they’re a bit big and I had to stuff them with tissues in order not to fall over whilst walking in them. (Sounds glamorous, I know. Busted.)
The rain boots felt so good. It was like wearing slippers to a party.
Party, party, party. It’s not all I’m doing. What am I doing? I’m living in another world, a parallel universe, one which feels like a rather long performance piece being written on the fly, with a wheeling cast of characters, and the utter absence of a working interior clock. The moderator on my panel this morning, Timothy Taylor, kept saying “tonight,” in his introductions, as in “Tonight, we welcome Carrie Snyder, Russell Wangersky, Ian Weir, and Herman Koch ….” And while I could have sworn it was mid-morning when we left the hotel to walk to the theatre, I almost started to believe that it had somehow, during our passage there, become tonight.
But it is not tonight, not yet. It is late afternoon in Vancouver and I haven’t gone for a walk, as intended, let alone a run. I have eaten a giant honey crisp apple bought at the Granville market this morning. That may be the single most healthy choice I’ve made all day.
I skyped with my children yesterday afternoon, but it only made me feel further away.
I’m living in a bubble. It’s a brief span of time, and I will look back on it fondly, but it’s a bubble nevertheless, an unreality, a fantasy, even, of hotel rooms and little shampoos and hospitality suites and rain boots paired with Little Black Dresses. There’s a haggard glamour to it all. I’ve got more grey hairs today than I did a week ago, I’m quite certain. I myself am a bubble, I think, too. Afloat. Not adrift, but afloat.
Home on Sunday.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Oct 22, 2014 | Adventure, Big Thoughts, Kids, Music, Politics, Travel, Work |
Hi there.
I’m in Vancouver.
The Weather Network tells me it’s 14 degrees, feels like 13, with 20-30 mm of rain expected to begin at 5:50PM, which coincidentally is around the time I’ll be taxiing to tonight’s event, a fundraiser at Vancouver House with Joseph Boyden.
Today may go down in my memory as one of the more surreal; if, that is, I can remember any of it. I’ve been having trouble sleeping on this trip. It was well after 1AM when my body finally shut down, and my alarm went off at 4:15AM. I roused myself, finished stuffing things into my bag (didn’t think it was all going to fit for a moment there), and caught a shuttle from the Banff Centre to the Calgary airport. It was too dark to say a proper goodbye to the mountains.
I slept on the shuttle, like someone who had been drugged rather than like a normal dozing human being. Off the shuttle, I felt delusional from exhaustion, wandering the airport, trying to behave like a responsible adult who understood self-check-in machines and how to attach luggage stickers and where to stand in line. I was randomly selected for the full-body pat-down, which, frankly, bothered me not at all. On the plane I slept that drugged sleep again, surfacing to see on the TV screen in the seat-back next to mine, live footage from Ottawa, where shots had been fired inside the Parliament buildings. A reservist killed at the war memorial for the unknown soldier. A gunman killed too. Baffled Canadians taking cellphone footage. Streets shut down.
There is nothing to be said about this that I feel qualified to say.
I can’t really connect with my emotions on the subject. It sounds trite to express sadness. But I am sad.
When we landed in Vancouver, I realized it was only 9AM here. The hotel generously found me a room. I slept the drugged sleep, roused myself, ate a burger for lunch and watched soccer in a sports bar. I texted with my family while eating, which made me feel less lonely. And then I went for a run on the seawall. Running is hard, it’s always hard, but it works. I feel better.
Kevin is sending me texts and photos from home: right now, my kids are playing music together in our living-room. My brother Karl is recording them. CJ is singing into a mic. The girls are playing ukuleles. And Albus is tapping out chords on the piano. It’s like my dream family come to life. Only I wish I were there to see it.
But I have seen Karl Ove Knausgaard–twice. First when checking in, and then when getting off the elevator in my running gear. Neither time did I fangirl him. It took some restraint.
I feel like I’ve been awake for days.
I need a short nap before putting my Little Black Dress and heading out to a party. Nothing about this day feels concrete, feels like I can dig my fingers into it and find the pulse. I’m oddly removed. I was running on the seawall an hour ago. I flew over the mountains this morning. I’m here now. I’m here, now.
xo, Carrie
PS This is the photo Kevin sent me of the kids, playing music together. Sorry. It’s very very tiny. It seems fitting: this is as close as I can get. Home feels far away, right now.
Monday, Oct 20, 2014 | Adventure, Big Thoughts, Travel |
Hi there.
I’m in Banff.
The Weather Networks says it’s 17, feels like 16, which could also be described as “perfect.” I’ve been here since Saturday, late afternoon. I probably should have mentioned it sooner. But I’ve been stunned into silence by the mountains. There are mountains everywhere. It would be no exaggeration to claim that the first evening I was here, I was pulling out my phone to take photos of mountains every few steps.
It was like, hey, wow, holy crap that’s an awesome mountain right there!
Awesome mountain! Right there!
Take photo. Text to husband.
Turn head an inch and begin walking. Stop. Holy crap, another freaking mountain! Like, right there!
I mean, seriously! Look at that mountain!
Take photo. Text to husband.
When it seemed my husband had received enough mountain photos, I widened my range of recipients. If you haven’t gotten one yet, don’t worry, it’s on its way.
Morning mountain outside bedroom window.
For example, I texted the mountain that’s out my bedroom window to my 13-year-old. Let me rephrase that. I texted a mere photo of said mountain, not mountain itself.
“You should climb that, Mom,” he texts back.
It’s steeper than you think, I reply.
I mean, it’s sheer bloody rock, so far as I can tell. And I have a wobbly kneed fear of heights issue. I also read, with over-much attention and avidity, the section in my Banff Centre guide, provided for me in my room, on local wildlife. It’s a long section with many useful details that set my imagination into overdrive. Walking between buildings after dark, I find myself on the lookout for cougars. I know it’s irrational. But cougars. Mountain lions. What’s not to fear? I’ve noted, too, the signs posted around campus reminding us to keep “three bus lengths” between ourselves and any elk we might see. “Do not approach.” “Was not planning to, thanks.” Apparently there was a grizzly on the other side of Tunnel Mountain, blocking the path today. A grizzly. Tunnel Mountain? The one recommended as a nice stroll with a great view at the top? I might have to pass. Who knew I was such a wimp? Well, now we all do.
The thing is, I don’t need to trespass on Grizzly land to get a great view. Let me text you a photo of the great view I get just by turning my head.
In fact, it’s a bit unnerving, all the great views. I ate lunch with the writer Kim Thuy today, and she was saying there’s such as thing as suffering from too much beauty, and your head explodes; metaphorically, I presume. I tried looking up the syndrome back in my room. The search led me to a Tumblr site called “Too Much Beauty,” which mainly featured young male actors I didn’t recognize because I’m not a young female teenager. So that seems a dead end.
I wonder, could there be such a thing? Could one suffer from too much beauty, staggered by the immensity, the vast non-human scale of these complex rock creations towering over us, former seabeds embedded with ancient tropical coral reefs? How to write anything of consequence while looking at something so old, so immense, so austerely implacably beautiful?
I am therefore typing this in my room, facing a blank wall. It’s peaceful. I’m working well in here. I’m sipping a healthful beet/carrot/ginger concoction that I pray will dislodge my nasty cough so I can sleep through the night, once again. Truth be told, the free drinks, which seem to abound wherever writers crop up, have not been helping, either with the cough or the sleep.
But the beauty. It’s out there, waiting for me, whenever I’m ready to face it.
xo, Carrie
P.S. Never take a selfie with a mountain. There is no point. Mountain wins.
Friday, Oct 17, 2014 | Girl Runner, Travel, Work |
Hi there.
I’m in Calgary.
The Weather Network tells me it is 6 degrees, feels like 3. Thankfully, I brought along fall jacket, hat, and scarf. And four pairs of shoes, though I find myself wishing for a fifth. Do you know how hard it is to bring shoes for all occasions!? All stuffed into the tiniest carry-on bag you can imagine. It might be that the four pairs of shoes have replaced essential clothing, and I’ll be wearing this same shirt/jeans combo for the next ten days.
Reading on the plane: an advance copy of Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s thriller, The Devil You Know, due out in January, which also kept me up late last night. You’ll want to read this.
Have been rehydrating from airplane trip all morning. Went for a run on the treadmill. Meeting a friend for lunch. Workshop this afternoon, Literary Death Match this evening, panel discussion tomorrow morning, then on to Banff.
Photos while travelling will be cellphone-produced.
I’m calling the one above Woman In Anonymous Hotel Room. Actually, it looks like Very Short Woman with Unnatural Half-Smile and Flat Wet Hair in Anonymous Hotel Room.
Wish me luck. And send sociable, friendly vibes. Please, and thank you.
xo, Carrie
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