Friday, Nov 27, 2009 | Feminism, Kids, Mothering, Writing |
I have not been a good blogger this week and there’s a reason. The reason is that I have started writing a parenting column twice a week for a new website that will launch in December. I’ll invite you there, when it goes live. Meantime, though there’s no direct poaching of subject matter (well, not in the columns I worked on this week), there is a general overlap between the genres. The columns are polished, obviously, and much more topically focused. But are blog-like in that I’m talking about real things that are really happening.
But I need to continue this blog, and push to find a few minutes here and there (like right now–while CJ “washes” every plastic dish in the house in our kitchen sink while standing precariously under-supervised upon a stool with a revolving seat while juggling lit matches … um, just kidding about that last thing. Please stay calm. And, yes, aren’t I eminently qualified to write a Parenting Column? I find myself muttering that on occasion since landing the gig. Hey, this is a great Parenting Column moment. Parenting Expert over here! Please, nobody look!).
Because I haven’t blogged most of the week, I’ve got an overload of topics on the brain. Such as, how has this return-to-school experiment gone? I’ll tell you. I’m not a student anymore. It’s not part of my identity. It would suck to go back to school for real. It would take some humbling. And a genuine desire to acquire the skills contained within the degree–and to get to the end. That’s the only reason I’d go back. If it felt imperative. I’ve enjoyed stretching my brain, and it’s awfully pleasant to spend a couple of hours away from home every Thursday evening, but, hey, I could accomplish that by going for a walk with a girlfriend, and get some exercise to boot. Also, though he hasn’t explicitly expressed this, I’m pretty sure Kevin is terrified that I might go back to school. This experiment (ONE CLASS THIS TERM!) has proven how hard it would be on the whole family to launch this mother into a new career. It would be a full-family project, and I wouldn’t be the only one making sacrifices. Interesting. Trot over to my Moms Are Feminists Too blog which is where I really should be venting about this subject and discovering creative solutions.
If only I weren’t so tired. Topic four. So Tired. I felt so tired this afternoon it was like being extremely hungry, except insert sleep for hunger. And CJ declined to nap. This took me way back, when, after a night spent up with two kids under two, I’d be so exhausted by mid-morning that I’d try for a brief nap on the living-room floor with Apple-Apple crawling on my head and Albus pulling open my eyelids. Good times.
Well. I have managed to rouse myself in order to cook up a delicious-smelling hamburger curry which simmers on the stove behind me now while light-as-air rice is steaming inside a clay pot in the oven while CJ tries out surfing in a giant wok on the kitchen floor (having safely descended). Some of the things mentioned in the last over-long sentence feel like achievements. Actually, they all do, even the surfing undersupervised (and entirely content) toddler. No one’s going to grade me on these accomplishments, or, likely, even say thanks, but nevertheless … the best moment yesterday was walking onto campus and remembering the warmth of the scene I’d left behind: bean/sausage/endive soup and fresh-baked bread upon the table, which one of the children had set without (major) complaint, my family sitting down to eat. (Though apparently both soup and bread struck out with the two youngest, who dined on cereal instead). Nevertheless. It’s a scene that takes constant vigilance and effort to conjure, day after day; my life. Ours.
Friday, Nov 6, 2009 | Writing |
Yesterday evening, I went to class and participated in a faux consciousness raising group, while Kevin fed the kids the shepherd’s pie I’d made for supper (a big bust; never add leftover squash assuming it will blend in with the gravy under the mashed potatoes), and took them to a photography exhibit at Kitchener’s Rotunda Gallery. He promised them ice cream, and ice cream was found. Albus went with a cut on his eye due to post-supper horsing about. The exhibit is by a friend, Karl Kessler, and the photos are of people who work in vanishing trades, and are accompanied by short interviews.
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Spent this morning working. I’m in the early stages of a new project, and the whole search at present is for tone. What baffles me is that the tone for this blog comes so naturally … why can’t that translate to absolutely everything I write? For the current project, I’m seeking a casual and entertaining tone, like a chat with a good girl friend. Not sure whether or not that summarizes this blog’s tone. No, I think this is more stream-of-consciousness. Whether or not it’s consciousness-raising is up for debate, or more likely beside the point.
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PD day … upcoming afternoon projects include: naptime; walking around the neighbourhood to hand out birthday invitations; and a trip uptown to buy a few essentials. I’ve heard that there’s an Uptown Treasure Hunt or somesuch on right now. Anyone know anything about that?
Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009 | Books, Writing |
Before and after. I’m surprised every time I see her with that gap. She looks so different, and it reminds me that she’s growing up. Once again, I pulled the tooth. She is crazy brave; or else has superior pain tolerance; or both. Because, seriously, she made not a peep during the removal, except when piping up to offer suggestions and advice.
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I’m working on some writing news, but it’s not quite ready to unveil yet. Don’t get too excited. It’s nothing to do with the Nica stories, or any fiction or poetry or literary writing at all, actually. Not my usual writing news, she says, and thusly leaves her reader in suspense …
Meantime, I’m looking forward to a couple of writing mornings this week, and wondering where they will take me. And I actually managed to finish chapter one of Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean, which would hardly be considered a feat (it’s an amazing book, so far), except that I succeeded in reading it while babysitting this morning (parents of said babysat child: please don’t dock my pay). My usually cheerful threesome of Tuesday children went all Tuesday-ish on me last week, and there was much grumpiness and butting of heads, so I decided to stay right on top of the situation today. But soon discovered that just sitting quietly on the couch or rocking chair in the same room, being available to jump in when the tone changed from convivial to bossy, was enough supervision. So I added the book to the mix. It turned out to be a good morning. Read this book, too! Then we can chat about it, perhaps over coffee, while our children boss each other around. Just a thought.
Tuesday, Oct 27, 2009 | Play, Writing |
Okay. So, the reading. It was such a gift to speak those words out loud, to share them. It made me want to finish the Juliet Stories, and share the rest, too, collected altogether into something coherent and complete. The more I’ve reflected on memoir versus fiction, the less it seems that one needs to eclipse the other. Both can exist. Each would be a different creation, and there’s enough material to go around. I’ll barely touch it in one, or the other. Because the stories are so near completion, my plan is to return there first, and finish those. Any publishers out there short on beautiful story collections? Call me. Heh. Pretty sure I know the answer to that. But, the reading reminded me that these are strong stories, worthy of being published.
Open. That’s my state of being these days. Open, not closed. Look at those kids playing in our backyard. They ran outside after school yesterday, despite the chill, and imagined themselves a thousand different places and things. You couldn’t be more open than that.
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Oh, and a late edit addition: just discovered this post on the reading by the musician who played for us that evening. His name is Alex James, and he played us an evening’s worth of sweet homegrown tunes. When we clapped, he said, no, please, I’m just the background music! Well, background or foreground … he gave us the perfect soundtrack to a really fine evening.
Friday, Oct 23, 2009 | Reading, Writing |
An update seems in order.
Yes, my midterm went well. Apparently my mama-brain still retains and regurgitates factual information upon request. I realized it had been a really really really impressively long time since I’d written an exam; in grad school, we had to endure nerve-wracking seminar presentations instead. All said, it was doable. Best of all, my cold vapours seemed to lift as I entered the classroom, and by the time Kevin had picked me up and driven us across town to the Art Bar, I felt very nearly in the pink of health. It had been a really really really long time since I’d read, too. Though initially nervous, and somewhat dry of mouth, I reminded myself (as ever) to enjoy the moment, and take confidence in the words. The words will lead you home. Or something like that. Tough crowd, reading to a roomful of friends.
I never remember to have photos taken at readings, which is why CJ appears above, not me. He loves to climb a stool and hack away at the computer keyboard, which is probably ill-advised for its long-term health. Apple-Apple has also been spending great swathes of time at the upstairs computer, working on a Quidditch story. She has amazing focus and patience, and reminds me of myself, the way she can hole up inside her imaginary worlds and vanish. I perform vanishing acts regularly, much to the dismay of my family. It is maddening, I can see that. But there’s no other way to write something out. Writing takes me out of life; but it takes me deeper inside of it, too.
Alice Munro said a few things that struck me to the core: one, was that she doesn’t consider herself a very brave person, and though she might be a brave writer, it was very difficult to come back from that writing world and have to deal with the consequences of what she’d written. She admitted that she’d caused pain, not purposely, of course; and one could infer that it pained her greatly to have caused pain. That’s a part of the writing life people don’t much talk about. It’s damned true. She also said that outside of her daily chores, she really just writes. It’s all she does, all she wants to do. That gave me pause. Because it’s not all that I want to do. I have such a variety of interests, my energies run in different directions, and I love that part of myself that is physically engaged with the world; maybe I will not be a writer-writer after all. I’ll just be a happy dabbler in the great sea of literature. Just let it be that what I write is true. Both Alice Munro and Diana Athill spoke at some length about how the only thing that really matters, when writing, is to get at the heart of the matter, that in holding back, hesitating, being afraid, unwilling to go to the core, being anything other than totally honest … well, what you write will ring false. Which returns me to Alice Munro’s comment that she’s not a brave person: yes, she is. She’s been brave enough to write truthfully and unselfconsciously, and brave enough to publish it, no matter the consequences. I salute her. (And I can’t wait to read Diana Athill’s memoirs. I’m certain she’s a brave writer, too).
Thursday, Oct 22, 2009 | Reading, Writing |
Here’s where Kevin and I were last night: in Toronto, listening to Alice Munro and Diana Athill talk about their writing lives. Amazing! Once-in-a-lifetime. Anansi Press has posted a link to the podcast (click on the link above to find it all).
And here’s where I’ll be tonight: in Kitchener, reading from a new story at the Art Bar for the launch of this fall’s New Quarterly (still haven’t held the finished product in my hands; looking forward to that).
Where I’ll be immediately before that doesn’t get a link. Suffice it to say, I’m just required to show up with a brainful of knowledge and a working pen.
And, finally, here’s where I am right now: in bed, clad in pjs and bathrobe, sipping garlic-lemon-ginger tea (apologies to anyone who will be in my vicinity at any point in the near future), fighting a cold. Thankfully, my mother-in-law is visiting and has been wrangling children all morning. We’re all happy it’s finally naptime. (And if you’ve never seen me clad in pjs and bathrobe, be grateful. Be very very grateful. No illustrations needed.)
I have not been a good blogger this week and there’s a reason. The reason is that I have started writing a parenting column twice a week for a new website that will launch in December. I’ll invite you there, when it goes live. Meantime, though there’s no direct poaching of subject matter (well, not in the columns I worked on this week), there is a general overlap between the genres. The columns are polished, obviously, and much more topically focused. But are blog-like in that I’m talking about real things that are really happening.
