A list of interruptions
Oh yeah …
… it’s the last day of school!
A list of interruptions, on this, the first day of summer holidays:
– monitoring 1 disastrously neurotic dog’s behaviour while small friends are here to play all morning
– baking 2 strawberry rhubarb crisps (worth it!)
– finding the person who left wet towels all over the bathroom and reminding said person to pick up after said self
– 2 loads of laundry, washed and hung to dry
– morning snack for kids and friends, of marshmallows and graham crackers
– 1 dead bird discovered behind barbecue on back porch (+ 1 FYI text to Kevin and these timeless words: “Just don’t look at it. Dad will take care of it when he gets home.”)
– 1 teenager wondering what’s for lunch, when he can play video games, and why he has to take swim lessons this summer
– 1 box of macaroni and cheese
– the remains of lunch, all over the counters, including 1 pan in which 1 dill pickle was experimentally fried (“It basically tasted like a warm pickle.”)
– 1 lost key, needed for cat sitting purposes
– many many phone calls from friends and parents of friends
– 1 child requiring sunscreen application and opinions on swim suit choices
– 1 child requiring a thank you card which she could last-minutely turn into a birthday card, cleverly incorporating the words “thank you for your kindness”
– 1 child requiring a walk to a birthday party
– making a list in preparation for a girls’ night getaway
– fielding multiple logistical questions about scheduling, babysitting requirements, and plans for the afternoon
It’s 1:45PM and suddenly the house has gone quiet. I’m alone in my office. I’ve got about an hour and fifteen minutes to put to use. This reminds me of the olden days, when I struggled to string together enough coherent thoughts and unbroken minutes to make, say, half a poem, or a quarter of a short story. The key is to have a goal, even a small one, and a plan, and to stick with it when the quiet strikes.
And so, I’m off.
(But I do intend to write a follow-up post to my previous one, discussing the important distinction between being a writer and writing. It’s the former I’m wrestling with, not the latter. It’s not the act that I find problematic or difficult, but the acting.)
I’m in Bayfield at their writer’s festival tomorrow afternoon, where I will do my best to be a writer. Check my events page, above, if you’re interested in finding out more (about the event, that is; not about being a writer).
xo, Carrie
Let’s see where this goes
Circular thinking.
I sit down to write here, on the blog, and my mind goes round and round the purpose of this blog. I wonder why people are reading, perhaps, and why they may not be reading. I wonder why I am writing. Do I have something to say? Is my purpose to amuse, to inform, to muse, to form? Do I call out in hopes of a response? Am I launching quirky missives from an insular and isolated place? Am I writing as a writer, as a mother, as a seeker, as a knower? Am I writing to you? Or to me? Or to no one at all, to the ether?
I’ve come a long way on this path of being a writer. When I was a child, I wanted to be a writer like L.M. Montgomery or Lois Lenski. I wanted to be a writer like Emily of New Moon. I wanted create imaginary romantic worlds of adventure and mystery. As a teen, I was in love with language, and saw in it a violent risky potential. I wanted to write like Michael Ondaatje. I wanted to write barely coherent poetic scenes of romance and mystery and adventure. I didn’t care whether or not my stories or poems made sense, only that they burst with emotion and the fullness of self, perhaps. As an older teen and into my twenties, I wanted to write like Mavis Gallant and Alice Munro. I wanted to craft brilliant sentences that both hid and displayed meaning, sentences that were as rich and big and complex as a whole story, characters whose motives were murky. I wanted to conjure worlds at a tilt from my own, veined and layered and dark.
And so I wrote and I read and I wrote and I read.
In some fundamental way, I refused to believe that I might not be a writer, someday. I willed myself to continue through years of small steps forward, and crushing rejections. I determined to improve. I determined to learn and to master the craft of storytelling. How to do this particular thing and do it well: how to tell a compelling story, not neglecting plot for style, not neglecting sentence structure for pace. I got better.
I got to where I am right now, here, sitting before this laptop, wondering, wondering. Do I still want to be a writer, so fiercely, so absolutely, so determinedly? Who do I wish to write like, now? Or, more importantly, perhaps, than I originally understood: what stories do I long to tell? And if I have no story that I long to tell, why craft the structure, why lovingly build the sentences? If the house is empty? (Is the house empty?)
Engagement is a key word of our era. That seems to me the purpose of social media. Anyone who wishes to earn attention, to market her work, must learn to engage with her audience, to maintain a call-and-response relationship, the bigger the better. It comes naturally to some, and less naturally to others. I put myself in the latter camp. Yet this blog is a form of engagement, whether or not I choose to see it that way. And when I recognize this and admit it, I become more and more uncomfortable as purveyor and publisher of posts. I cannot understand what I am doing, nor what my purpose may be. Is it, as originally intended when I started the blog in 2008, to narrate my every day life, to keep it in some form, and if so, for whom? For my children? For myself when I am older? Am I marketing my books? Practicing my craft? Indulging in cheap philosophy? Is this a publicly-kept journal?
Could I live without engagement? This specific form of engagement? (Silly question. Of course I could.)
Less, is the message that’s been coming my way. Not more, more, more, but less, less, less. For so long, I’ve fought to become more, to achieve more, to do more. I’ve worked toward big, specific goals and dreams. Now I’m confronted with this strange glimpse of myself, something I was afraid to see: I see that I will never write as wonderfully as I’d hoped to. I’m not possessed of a special gift. I’m a hard-working woman, that’s all, and I had a dream.
I’ve written that in the past tense without even noticing: and I had a dream. Strange. Isn’t it? Maybe the dream is shifting, deepening, altering course, becoming something else.
What now? What next?
Now: Life is strangely lovely at present. It is unexpectedly wonderful to hear less, less, less calling me. I feel myself relaxing into moments in a way that feels almost unfamiliar, unknown. I feel the pace changing. I feel myself at peace with what I have, right now.
Next? Being a writer isn’t something you quit. Writing is how I process the world around me; I’d be impaired without it. I continue to write, as always, but right now it’s a form of listening; without shape. I think my purpose is to listen, right now. I feel quiet. I feel a great deal of affection–of love–for those around me. The days are full, vivid, layered and veined and rich. I feel human. I feel flawed. I can’t think of anything I need or long for or crave, not even direction, right now. I feel present.
What I don’t feel is at an end with this blog. But I want to be honest about my ambivalence toward its purpose, and my use of it, at present. Thank you for listening.
xo, Carrie
PS Photos are from this past weekend at my brother and sister-in-law’s farm, taken after the sun went down, on the longest day of the year. Homework got burned, marshmallows got roasted and mushed between graham crackers, and the mosquitos almost won. Almost.
See the child
Another girl runner in the family.
This morning, I biked to watch my nine-year-old run her first ever race at a track meet: she was representing her school in the 60 metres. She was in the fastest heat and she placed third. She was glowing and proud. Then I sat in the grass and read a book and waited two hours for her next race. She popped by to sit with me a few times. She was nervous, proud, and excited about the meet.
Her second race was the 4 x 100 relay, one of the last races of the day. She was on the 9-year-old girls’ team representing her school against five other schools. All of the girls on her team are friends. She was running the anchor leg. They’d practiced and practiced at school, passing the baton, but this was the first time trying it out on the track.
I texted Kevin so he could be there too. We were standing near the finish line. I hoisted myself up on a railing to see better. Her friends are a speedy group, and when she got the baton, she was already in first place. I can see her running, running, running, arms pumping, up the black track, face shining. She crossed the line and knew she had won. The juniors at the school had walked over to watch the meet, and they were in the stands, all cheering for her: what a moment! Her second race ever. She crossed the line and her face broke wide with the thrill of it, the joy of it, and she jumped with her hands in the air, turning toward us. I won’t forget it. I’ll keep it here in my mind’s eyes, where I can see it anytime. She was shining.
I was crying, a bit.
What is the mixture of emotions that rise when watching your child accomplish something like this? She’s played soccer for many years, but she’s never competed as an individual before. We didn’t even know she could run so fast! Suddenly, I’m seeing my younger daughter with new eyes, seeing her as competitive and spunky and fierce and willing to throw herself into the race. So the emotions that rushed through me (and rush through me even now as I see that moment in my mind’s eye) are complex: pride, awe, joy, love. There is something amazing about seeing a child attempt something brave, something that requires courage, that asks the child to put herself—her effort, her identity, her physical self—on the line.
Were you nervous, I asked her afterward, and she grinned and nodded, Yeah, really nervous!
She was nervous but willing. And her nerves showed she cared.
In parenting, the reward is getting to see your children make their attempts. But it can also be heart-rending. There is a lot risked when we care and they care, no matter what it is we’re caring about—a big race, a tough test, a friendship, being on a team, performing at a recital or on-stage. These are risky moments that make us vulnerable—they are vulnerable and we feel vulnerable too. I don’t talk often about parenting through the experiences in which effort goes unrewarded; but those happen too, and those experiences are among my most gruelling parenting challenges, especially when the child cares deeply.
Yet, I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change being present to watch, win or lose, because it isn’t win or lose. It’s try. It’s do. It’s be. I wouldn’t wish not to care: them or me. The reward is seeing them present in their moments of effort and risk, pushing themselves, and, occasionally, flying.
This is the parent I strive to be: See the child; respond to the child’s needs and individual character.
See the child. See the child.
xo, Carrie
Where we’ve been: notes from away
We’ve been on a whirlwind adventure, and now we’re home, with all the laundry that implies. I am trying to write this with a chatty 7-year-old nearby, who is missing out on his class’s field trip to the African Lion Safari due to an upset stomach (barfed on the bus, apparently; luckily this occurred before this bus had left the school grounds). So, yeah, we’re home.
Where have we been?
On Friday, I drove to Stratford to pick up AppleApple, who had been to see a play at the Stratford Festival (The Diary of Anne Frank). We had a bite to eat, then drove on through ominous weather to London, where she had a soccer game. So, here is another soccer field in my summer 2015 series.
Home, late. Exhausted. Weary.
Up, early. Packing for a variety of activities and adventures: everyone in the truck, and we’re off!
First stop: Innisfil, Ontario. Brand-new library. (Brand-new everything, from the looks of it; this is a fast-growing town.) Reading from Girl Runner. Kids had fun too. All good. Back in the car, headed down the highway.
Second stop: Seeley’s Bay, Ontario. Visiting Kevin’s family, cousin-time, playing soccer and badminton, sleeping soundly, sleeping in! (Fooey appeared at bedside to inquire “Why are you still in bed, Mom? It’s 9 o’clock!” And it was …) Kevin and I even went for a run together, and managed not to get overly competitive (there’s a reason we don’t play Scrabble anymore). Packed a lunch, then back in the truck, headed down some back roads.
Third stop: Brockville, Ontario. I interviewed the son of Myrtle Cook, who won gold in the 1928 Olympics. What a treat to hear his stories about his mother’s career, both as a young athlete and later as a sportswriter, the only woman in the section. The kids were generously welcomed by our hosts, and treated to a swim in a nearby pool, and cookies and juice. It reminded me of my own childhood, when our family was frequently hosted by kind strangers, so often that we almost took it for granted that we would be welcomed no matter where we went. Maybe I still carry a bit of that with me. (This was a two-way street: our family home was also open to strangers and friends alike, and I remember playing with any kid or set of kids who happened along; my siblings and I could mix in with anyone, boys, girls, older, younger, didn’t matter, by dusk you’d have to holler to get us to come inside, we’d be having so much fun. It was an advantage of a peripatetic childhood.) Interview over, we were back on the road, with some pits stops for supper … and bathroom breaks … and more bathroom breaks …
Bathroom break # 542
Fourth stop: Montreal, Quebec! We stayed near the Olympic Stadium for two nights, and went to a women’s world cup match: Canada v Netherlands (which ended in a 1-1 draw). There were 45,000 or so people in attendance, and the place was humming with energy. Such a fun game to watch: cheering, shouting, clapping, oohs and aahs, highs and lows, fresh-squeezed emotions. I do love live sporting events. While in Montreal, we wandered the neighbourhood, and found ice cream at a place with a banner that read: “Cremerie/Sushi.”
CJ at the Cremerie/Sushi spot
We rode the subway. Tried to walk to Mount Royal, but were defeated by a) the distance and b) more importantly, the whining about the distance. So we stopped for poutine instead. We found a bakery selling the most delicious Portuguese-style custard tarts, and visited a famous bagel shop. The kids swam, I went for a run in a beautiful park. It was a holiday. Everyone was so relaxed.
We arrived early. Very early. This makes it look like we were the only people in the stadium, but we were soon surrounded. In the excitement I forgot to take more photos.
Ah, siblings.
And now, home. But despite the sick kid nearby, and the immensity of the laundry pile, I feel that holiday feeling lingering. It was hard to get packed up and leave, but once we were gone, it was easier and easier to be away, to imagine ourselves somewhere else, leaving everything behind. Not that we would, and we’ve got a lot to come back to; just that it’s possible to imagine escape and adventure when you’ve removed yourself from the physical trappings of home. It’s a kind of wonderful feeling, I must admit.
All for now.
xo, Carrie
A personal philosophy of time management
School project being completed at 10PM by kid after soccer practice: not exactly what I wanted to be assisting with, but nevertheless well worth my time. Why? Read on. (Yes, that is a pyramid made out of rice krispie squares.)
On Facebook last week, I posted a photo of my daughter at one of her track meets, and expressed my pride at being there to watch her race. Among the complimentary and sweet messages in response, an acquaintance posted this comment: Can you write a book or blog about how you manage your time?
It got me thinking: could this be a book that I could write? (Kevin says no; he thinks the subject would bore me silly.) (Note: “Could this be a book I could write?” is a surprisingly common question that I ask myself.) I do have a facility for squeezing a great deal into my day, including time for watching my kids do the wonderful and ordinary things that they do. And yet I often think my facility for organization has more to do with privilege than talent, because I don’t have to spend a great deal of time on tasks that may be essential or unavoidable to others, such as a long commute whether by car or public transit, or a full-time job performed primarily for money. Truth is, I resent and rage at any perceived waste of my time, such as waiting in long line-ups to sign official forms, or sitting in traffic on my way to an event I don’t want to attend. I’ve tried my best to work at being patient in these situations, and to learn patience and stillness from them, but I feel keenly any waste.
What’s being wasted? Time. Precious and diminishing with every breath.
Yet I’m quite willing to “waste” copious amounts of time doing things like this: meditating followed by journalling / blogging.
So it strikes me that a significant element to effective time management is defining what you consider wasteful, and rearranging your life to perform those tasks as infrequently as possible. Again, I recognize that it’s a privilege to be in position that would allow a drastic life change, like quitting a job, but most of us can probably find some small ways to change the lives we’re living if the lives we’re living cause us enough pain. How does change happen? In my own experience, it happens in a variety of ways, but most often it happens because I notice a point of discomfort, pain, unhappiness, and recognize that things I am doing (or not doing) are at least in part the cause of my unhappiness.
What comes next is that the routine has to change. The structure has to change. You can’t say “I’m going to make a change,” and not create the structure to support it. Small example: None of us are getting up at 5AM to run because we feel like it; it’s because we’ve decided it’s worth doing, and we’ve arranged our schedule, our habits, our routine to support our choice: we’ve checked the weather, we’ve laid out appropriate workout clothes, we’ve gone to bed a bit early, we haven’t had a drink, we’ve set our alarm, we’ve arranged to meet a friend or friends, and with the wheels in motion, we simply show up and do what we’d planned. But without the supporting structure to carry us through—to carry the idea through to action—we’d sleep in, telling ourselves, I’m too tired right now, I’ll just do it tomorrow, or I’ll run tonight instead, or … and the imagined moment never arrives.
It’s like painting lines for bike lanes sandwiched between live traffic and parked cars and then blaming cyclists and drivers for colliding. It would be more useful and more accurate to blame the structure instead, rather than putting the onus on human beings to make rational, correct, perfect choices at all times, in all situations, in all weathers. Human failure is inevitable. Therefore, change the structure, put the bicycles in a separated, unobstructed lane, and everyone will both feel and be safer.
Structure is what shapes our lives, far more than we accept or acknowledge, and this is true right down to whether or not we floss our teeth, or eat lots of veggies. That we are “creatures of habit” is a truism because it’s true. So scan your daily life for routines that aren’t serving what you value. Maybe there’s room for a change, here and there.
I realize it’s more philosophy than step-by-step advice, but here is my time management strategy in a nutshell.
1. Identify what matters to you.
2. Be curious, be open. Respond to pain or unhappiness (and to joy too!)—recognize it, don’t ignore it.
3. Figure out what changes are possible.
4. Don’t think about making a change, actually force change to happen by altering the routines and structures that govern your daily life.
One last piece of my time management strategy: celebrate every little thing worth celebrating. The sandwich that tastes good, the kid who is telling you a story, the green of the clover coming up in the back yard, being outside, a good nap, holding a 3-minute plank, chatting with other parents beside a soccer field on a particularly fine late-spring evening, driving with a child and having a side-by-side conversation. Don’t waste your own time by wishing you were somewhere else. Whatever it is, wherever you’re at, take it in. Tell yourself: This is not a waste. This is my life.
xo, Carrie
PS I feel like this post has a slightly preachy or evangelical tone. Please don’t think I think you should be getting up at 5AM to run; rather, I think you should be getting to do your own personal version of an early-morning run, that is, the thing that’s kind of hard but makes you feel alive.