Category: Winter
Sunday, Feb 28, 2021 | Big Thoughts, Confessions, Current events, Feminism, Good News, Lists, Source, Spirit, Spring, Winter, Work |
February Reflections
- What felt good this month? This month passed in a flash! I won’t say it’s been easy, but a few things that felt good involved small actions that directed my energies outside of myself. Being a fiction writer doesn’t offer many opportunities to directly serve or (even interact with!) others, which is something I struggle with, but these actions made sense for me, right now: I donated blood (first-time), and will donate again, because I can—(At the clinic, I kept thinking of that slogan “It’s in you to give”; it felt like an uncomplicated way to be helpful); I’m in the midst of helping organize season three of The X Page: applications are open now to refugee and immigrant women in Waterloo Region, who are interested in storytelling—please spread the word!; I enjoyed Tuesday morning conversations with my grandma, who lives in Indiana; I got more involved at church; and I had fun sending out daily messages for two weeks to my word of the year group, as we did a “tea cleanse” together. My days are spent mostly inside the same rooms of the same house with the same people; reaching out felt really really good.
- What did you struggle with? Apparently, I struggled to remember this question existed! Somehow, it got lost while writing the original draft for this post; I’m answering it today, March 2. I struggled to figure out how to support my children, all living under this same roof, while also offering them independence, autonomy, and the “right” amount of responsibility. Are my expectations too low, too high; do they have enough opportunities to separate from me and be with their peers? Teenagers need their peers, a lot. The pandemic has made these important years for developing independence very challenging to navigate (and it wasn’t easy in the first place). So, parenting. That’s been a struggle, and these micro-decisions, made daily, weigh on me.
- Where are you now compared to the beginning of the month? I’m okay. It feels like spring is in the air … but not quite near enough. I’ve been working steadily on a writing project, and have heard from my editor with a revised timeline for my new novel: all good! Within the waiting, I can still be productive and find focus and hope.
- How did you take care of yourself? This one’s a bit tricky, at least this past month. I’ve got solid habits and routines: I practice those daily; sometimes they bring me joy, but sometimes they’re just plain shoring me up, which is often what they felt like this month. Self-care has looked like this: Rarely drink alcohol. Exercise most days. Stretch often. Eat homemade food. Give myself permission to veg. Tell my body how awesome it is (this is more important for women raised in the 1980s and 90s than you might realize!). Play the piano: I’ve been doing this almost every day, and it’s freeing and fun.
- What would you most like to remember? That I like reading novels all in one gulp! Take a Saturday, Carrie, and just lay on the couch and read a novel from start to finish. It’s the best escape imaginable. (Just finished Lily King’s Writers and Lovers; and before that, Jess Walter’s The Cold Millions.)
- What do you need to let go of? Shame. The fear of doing things wrong and offending people. The fear of being unworthy, or embarrassing, or flaky, or foolish. It would be so lovely to give myself the gift of trust. I’d love to enter the world freely, messily, making mistakes and owning up to them, and learning from them; getting back on the horse, again and again. I need to let go of my craving for acknowledgement and permission. And just get on with doing the work.
xo, Carrie
Monday, Feb 22, 2021 | Big Thoughts, Coaching, Confessions, Current events, Dream, Exercise, Feminism, Fire, Manifest, Peace, Politics, Source, Spirit, Teaching, Winter, Word of the Year |
Yesterday afternoon, I set out solo in the sunshine. I love the people in my house and I love my house; yet the need to escape was powerful. To move.
On the busier sections of path, snippets of conversation floated past:
“The single-best way to leave a legacy, guaranteed, is to have a lot of children—” (Spoken by one young man to another, both wearing sunglasses, coming toward me on the trail.)
“Actually, I had a bit of a set-back this week. My tennis friend called and said ‘I have bad news….'” (Two women crossing my path diagonally.)
The sun was so warm, I took off my scarf and hat, unzipped my jacket.
On the quiet stretches of path, I told myself stories about who I wanted to be, who I remembered being. Who knows what a calling is anyway? I miss interacting with people. I miss working with students, I miss coaching. I said this out loud, so I could really hear it.
I listened to an On Being podcast three times yesterday, while mixing and kneading bread dough, doing laundry, searing a small roast, chopping veggies (though not while out walking): Krista Tippett’s conversation with Ariel Burger. I listened and listened and listened, trying to absorb the wisdom.
Do not let anyone be humiliated in your presence.
It sounds very basic: a recipe for being a witness, not a spectator.
I wondered what to do if the person being humiliated was yourself; what then? (The podcast does not discuss power.) I see people who are hurt and wounded by their interactions with systems designed to crush and humiliate them, hurt by people acting within those systems, and I think: what protection is there against this cruelty, injustice? We are asking too much of individuals to fight for themselves, by themselves.
Maybe that’s the power of witness? If you can, if you are able, be a witness, a true witness, and do not let anyone be humiliated in your presence.
Be a blessing.
Be a blessing? How? Alone in my studio, writing stories? With my family? Reaching out to friends?
We are also called to be as strangers to each other, to recognize and acknowledge that others can and will surprise us, if we allow them to. If we approach each other (strangers, family, friends) neither from a place of fear, nor from a place of over-familiarity, what will we learn?
To be a blessing is to push against, as well as to meet. My ideas, experiences, perspective, beliefs will not match up perfectly with yours, no matter how we might wish it. Unity is not conformity.
The divine in me sees the divine in you.
But you are not me. I am not you.
To be blessed is to be given something to carry. A blessing can be heavy. It can ask a lot of the other, the one who is seen. As a coach, as a teacher, as a parent, what I hope to communicate is the deep value in trying; not striving, necessarily, it doesn’t have to be so strenuous; trying. To say: I tried, is to acknowledge your own effort. To say: You tried, is to see someone else’s, to name it.
There’s a lightness to trying. There’s acceptance that trying doesn’t always lead to success. There’s room for surprise. Experiment. Consider. Be blessed. Leap. What if you try and you discover something different, something unexpected, something you weren’t looking for? Isn’t that wonderful too? To try is to leave room for curiosity.
xo, Carrie
Saturday, Feb 6, 2021 | Adventure, Art, Cartoons, Confessions, Drawing, Dream, Mothering, Poetry, Source, Spirit, Winter, Word of the Year, Work, Writing, Yoga |
01/30/21
Today was Kevin’s birthday. I picked up smoked salmon and bagels for a birthday brunch, and stopped by Mom’s on the way home to surprise her with a donut. She thought up the most lovely birthday surprise for Kevin — books delivered from Wordsworth. I wish my worries for her could be solved from within (myself, I mean). Looking at this drawing now, I can see exactly what I did wrong when drawing the stairs! It makes me happy to see it. Then I might see it differently when drawing stairs next time. (Chairs are another struggle …).
01/31/21
This drawing is based on the animation for Marie Howe’s poem “Singularity,”which features tea cups. I sent it to my word group for today’s moment of pause, during our tea cleanse. What if our molecules could remember when we were one? This morning, on our church’s Zoom call, my older daughter spoke movingly, and it sparked something in others, and things felt, briefly, hopeful.
02/01/21
Ugh. I hate everything about this drawing (almost everything). I spent today working on the first of two grant applications — painful writing. I’m tired, but that’s not the problem. The problem is a chronic pain issue that flares from time to time; like now. I drew a sad and ugly figure staring blankly at her cellphone, and then began to add in other tiny versions of me, trying to help the blue woman, soothe her, sit with her, check in on her. Plus there are those weird green legs lying on the floor. The whole time I was drawing, it felt like an argument with myself.
02/02/21
While waiting at the back of a long line outside a lab, I saw a woman break down when it was her turn to enter the building, and nurses from inside came out to help; I was too far to figure out what exactly was happening. The woman in front of me, who had come on her lunch break, finally gave up and left, she said she couldn’t keep waiting and waiting. I thought of her, for some reason, while doing kundalini this evening; it’s so novel to speak to anyone outside my family. I hope she’ll get in quickly when she goes tomorrow morning.
02/03/21
I took notes at an X Page meeting on Zoom this afternoon to plan for the smooth running of our spring workshop (season 3!!). I looked crusty and ancient on the screen. CJ forgot to do his piano lesson (also online) because I was in the meeting and wasn’t available to remind him. Instead, he was watching soccer highlights with Kevin in the living-room!! He was very sad when he told me he’d forgotten, just before supper. I sent a message to apologize to his piano teacher and she offered to do a lesson with him tonight. After drawing this, I was glad I hadn’t quit the project on Monday. (My plan is to review month-by-month, rather than committing to a particular length of time in advance; I think I’ll know when it’s served its purpose.)
02/04/21
I’m doing a lot of kundalini this week. I’d gotten a half-start on this drawing just before this evening’s class started, and while meditating, I kept thinking about what I wanted it to express. I spent this afternoon continuing work on grant-writing for this project I’ve started with my Grandma. In this drawing, I’m a ghost in the room, a time-traveller, observing, imagining a scene from someone else’s life — which never happened, mind you — but now feels as though it is real (to me).
02/05/21
I asked my younger daughter if I could go with her on her lunchtime dog walk. I haven’t been out during daylight much this week. There was a big snow storm last night. My older daughter went out and shovelled out walk. I worked on grant applications and X Page stuff all day. Never napped, though the hope of a nap was what got me out of bed this morning. Too much sitting. More kundalini tonight.
02/06/21
This is a visualization of my word of the year — SOURCE. It’s a mysterious word. It points to being at the origin, and to being inexhaustible, I can return again and again, drink of it, seek it, it refreshes, restores. I had a vision during kundalini last night of SOURCE as eternity, as the place from which I came and to which I will return. It was soothing. Today, I’m weighing another volunteer opportunity that’s arisen. I like being asked to serve. I feel most at home when volunteering; and I miss that from my soccer coaching, for sure. But any commitment needs weighing. I won’t commit unless I’m all in.
Last night at dinner, I asked how everyone was doing right now. Our eldest said it’s fine, but it’s boring. Every day is busy, he said, and passes quickly, but it feels the same. And I agree. And therefore, I see the usefulness of this daily cartoon project is its ability to capture, succinctly, visible to the eye, proof of tiny fluctuations within the sameness.
xo, Carrie
Wednesday, Jan 13, 2021 | Art, Big Thoughts, Birthdays, Cartoons, Confessions, Current events, Drawing, Fun, Lists, Lynda Barry, Mini-meditation, Play, Source, Spirit, Winter, Word of the Year |
12/30/20
Everyone looked after me all day. My favourite part was going around the table and hearing what everyone considered to be the thing they were most proud of in 2020. (Mine was painting my door yellow, and transforming my office into my studio.)
12/31/20
I’m glued to Murdoch Mysteries, a Canadian show on Netflix that thankfully has about a thousand episodes (give or take). When I learned there were many seasons yet to watch, I ran out of my studio hollering: “Winter is saved!”
01/01/21
Kevin’s new year’s eve bonfire kept burning out last night. “I smell like smoke,” I told Heather on our starting-the-new-year-off-right walk. We came upon a statue that was like a horror movie, a man’s face replaced with an owl and maybe a possum (?); squirrel and duck for hands. We laughed so much.
01/02/21
We drove to Claire’s farm to pick up eggs and meat, and Claire showed us the pigs in the barn. Back home, we started a new 30-day yoga cycle with Adriene, called “Breath.”
01/03/21
Strange what my pen and hand tell me—not always what I want to hear. Mostly, I walked with my family this morning, on a spontaneous walk through fresh snow. But this was how I felt, trying to reach across the barriers of self/other.
01/04/21
Welcome to my studio. I enter this small warm room, close the yellow door, and feel—welcomed in. Happy to be here, at this desk, to look out these windows, to feel excited, wondering what I’ll find today?
01/05/21
I’m trying to read a book before falling asleep, rather than scrolling the news on my phone. My theory is that my dreams will be better, more interesting. But last night, the children in this book found a dead dog and my sleep was restless; tired today. (Soundtrack on repeat: “Exile” T. Swift and B. Iver)
01/06/21
It’s a lot to ask, that stories drop into my hands from their perfect mutability in my mind. I ask for grace and energy, I ask for a stronger work ethic, I ask for magic; but it’s desire I need, to answer longing with scratches on the page.
01/07/21
Yesterday, as Trump’s followers over-ran Congress, I was doing that terrible thing where I was watching a livestream on my laptop, scrolling my phone, and texting people, as if by consuming too much information, I’d find an answer to the question—what is going to happen?
01/08/09
I promised myself I’d sit down and draw even if I felt completely empty. That would capture the day too—an empty page, some pen scratches and scribbles.
01/09/21
My drawings this week all kind of look the same, I told Kevin on our after-dinner walk with Rose. Not much is changing. We are in liminal space—waiting. Not transition, but waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
01/10/21
Today I made a list of things I want to do every day: go for a walk, the longer the better; burn and create energy with intense cardio; yoga; cartoon; play piano; afternoon tea break. I’d also like to meditate and read; and of course write. And cook. (But not clean.)
01/11/21
Good news: started my day in my studio and wrote part of a story almost immediately! Not-bad news: I can’t draw cars. This one looks like a bus, sort of. Above: me and Nina going for a walk, early Monday morning tradition.
01/12/21
Panic attack reading news of a stay-at-home order starting Thursday in Ontario. Felt like I was drowning. But what changes, I asked? Put on headphones and draw—follow pen into memory, shape, imagination. You’ve got resources. Sources.
01/13/21
Sidewalks slick with ice, we walked, skated, slipped, slid on a short dog walk after supper. Waiting for us to pass was a fox in the little park across the street. It sat perfectly still, alert, focused on our presence, till we were gone.
*
And now we’re all caught up. What do you think of my new journaling method? I’m on month two, and I’ve noticed a growing interest in attempting to draw background and setting, as well as figures. I’ve noticed, too, that this exercise slows me down and changes the flow of my attention, no matter what I’m feeling.
xo, Carrie
Friday, Jan 8, 2021 | Art, Big Thoughts, Confessions, Current events, Manifest, Spirit, Winter |
It’s a new year, and here we are. Oddly, I’ve chosen to anchor this post with a photo taken on a drive to the country, though I’m so rarely inside a car these days that it’s hardly representative. Mostly, I’m inside my studio, inside my house, looking out my window.
Today is sunny. I should really go outside for a walk, though the blue shadows are already long, even at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. We live in a northern country. The seasons tell us what to wear, how to be. January has often been a month of contemplative reflection for me. But I’m not sure I can take more contemplative reflection than I’ve already got on the go. I live too much inside my head already. Inside this house. Inside these studio walls.
Go outside, Carrie! Soak up some sunshine!
Do not go back to sleep
You must ask for what you really want
Do not go back to sleep
-Rumi
How can I ask for what I want when I don’t know what that is?
Have you ever asked yourself what you really want? I find it is an impossible question to answer. I’ve sat here looking out the window at cars and people and dogs passing by, and I just can’t think what it is that I really want. The answer could be so very small, or so very big. I might want a cup of tea, for example; or I might want moral authority. (Is that even something a person can want or aspire to?)
Or maybe I want something that I don’t even know that I want. Maybe I want to be surprised. The thought of being surprised brings forth significant anxiety, I realize, typing those words; and yet, I think I do in some way want to be surprised—preferably happily surprised. It seems to be an element lacking in this current arrangement of life under lockdown. As a creature of habit, I’m mostly quite content following my daily routines, which are healthy and nourishing, and yet, and yet—
I want a little more energy and determination. I want to laugh with a friend.
I want to go outside and partake of this brisk, bracing season.
xo, Carrie
PS There’s more to that poem, in the translation that’s on my bookshelf:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Monday, Dec 21, 2020 | Backyard, Big Thoughts, Blogging, Cartoons, Current events, Family, Fire, Friends, Holidays, Manifest, Meditation, Space, Spirit, Winter, Word of the Year |
Gratitude.
It is the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, and my hair smells like bonfire smoke. I sat outside on the frozen ground from 4:30 – 7:30AM and watched the sky turn from dark to dim to pale grey dawn. Through my head came visions of friends, and the gratitude and love I’ve felt pouring into me and out of me all through these many months of pandemic otherworldliness, a circle of holding and care that has kept me not just afloat but enriched and comforted and stronger.
There are many ways to stay in touch, even from a distance. This year, I’ve quit Twitter and don’t seem to blog quite so often (perhaps you are surprised when a post drops into your email inbox). I rarely post to Facebook, more often check in on Instagram. Then, there are texts and emails. Occasionally a phone call (usually that’s my mom or dad). Even letters, cards, postcards (such a treat to receive!) And, of course, Zoom calls: sibs night, kundalini yoga, church.
There are walks with a friend, or a kid, or a dog, or the whole family.
Dec. 16, Family walk with dog, spontaneous snow angels
We meet outside, to meet in person. We learn the weather, we greet the seasons, the changing light, we pay attention.
Dec. 20, Family drinks in the back yard shack
All month, I’ve been drawing a daily portrait and writing a short caption, to capture a scene or moment from each day. I’ve noticed that my portraits most often depict me with others, not alone. Or, if I am alone, I’m thinking of someone else when I write the caption. This year of being apart has actually been a year of coming closer together, in some ways. In others ways, no — I no longer coach a team of lively teenaged girls, and I miss those casual and funny interactions. But I’ve grown closer with my own kids. There are friendships that have deepened.
Dec. 12, kundalini class on Zoom, in my studio
I’m closer to the ground. And my spirit is closer to the sky.
Enjoy the darkness, friends. Light a candle, and send out an I love you to someone you’ve been meaning to say that to. The days are short, but won’t always be so.
xo, Carrie
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