The invention of a winter solstice celebration
Yesterday our family celebrated the winter solstice. My made-up ritual went like this:
〉 bake brownies with Fooey
〉 tell everyone we would eat brownies as part of an after-supper solstice celebration
〉 then tell everyone they would have to recite a poem at said celebration
〉 light all available candles and arrange on dining-room table
〉 turn off all other lights
〉 gather (that took awhile)
〉 enjoy the scene
〉 recitation by CJ: presentation in French, which he wrote and performed at school, on his stuffed tiger
〉 reading by Fooey: a dramatic performance of excerpts from Geronimo Stilton
〉 recitation by AppleApple: a dramatic performance of “The raven himself is hoarse,” Lady Macbeth soliloquy
〉 reading by Albus: from Diary of a Wimpy Kid
〉 recitation by me: of “First Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
〉 reading by Kevin: poem from Ken Babstock’s collection Mean
〉 (with occasional interruptions: moans from CJ, who is suffering a terrible toothache that comes and goes, and will be investigated further by a dentist this afternoon)
〉 the eating of the brownies (probably not helpful to the toothache…)
I know our solstice celebration was just hacked together, like a fort made of blankets or a book made of folded-up construction paper. But it was a really fun thing to do. (Fun = entertaining, creatively delightful, collective and personal.) Even though I love the winter solstice because it means the light is coming back, gathering in the early dark made me appreciate the early dark, too. It lowers around us and encloses us, safe inside our house, and, if all is well, it brings a stronger sense of warmth and togetherness. All is well. It’s never far from my mind how fortunate, how easily disrupted, “normal” is.
Today: kids enjoying first official day of no school. They are currently — all of them — barricaded in an upstairs bedroom, dressed in costumes, making a movie using our little digital camera based on a book everyone finds funny: “Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores.”
Which leaves me free to write this blog post, process photos, and start wrapping presents. Before dentist-time.
xo, Carrie
Blessed
Seen: park bench, Vancouver
I spent part of this morning at a friend’s annual solstice breakfast, a neighbourhood gathering of women friends, many of us known to each other for a decade or more, and I think the feeling around the table this morning was gratitude for the deepening of friendships over time, and the welcoming of new friendships, too.
Kevin and I landed by chance in this neighbourhood eleven years ago; we knew one couple who lived nearby (she was there this morning too). I wouldn’t have even known what to hope for at the time, much less could I have imagined how the move would shape our lives–our daily lives and our lives as they’ve unfolded and continue to unfold through all of the stages and seasons. My own childhood was very different from the childhood I’ve chosen to give to my own kids. There are upsides and downsides to both. I moved often as a kid, changed schools often, had to make new friends, find ways to fit in, and say goodbye, often. I remember relishing the adventures. It was sometimes hard to be the outsider, but I also became almost effortlessly adaptable, a natural observer and mimic; and also effortlessly open to adventure, my mind full of possibilities and dreams, open to new places, cultures, languages. It was a lucky childhood for a writer, and perhaps it made me into one. My own children know what I didn’t know, and what I sometimes longed for — friendships predating memory, continuity of ritual and landscape and seasons, the stability of rootedness.
I didn’t know what moving to this neighbourhood would give me. But maybe I intuited the possibilities. It is so good to be a part of a community. We went around the table this morning, each naming what we were grateful for. I felt grateful that friends continue to invite and include me, even though I’ve been missing-in-action so much of this year, often too tired or simply not present, not available to come and share the friendship. I recognize how important presence is to friendship. I’m so grateful to be invited to the table.
This may sound ever so slightly off-topic, but bear with me. There are times when I’m overwhelmed by fear or sadness. And I ask, in those moments, what comforts me? The answer is friendship. Even if I don’t always choose to reach out, I know in my bones that help and support would flood in my direction if I were to call out in need, just as I would offer the same. To be part of a community is to know, to trust, I’m not alone. We’re not alone.
I can’t think of a greater comfort.
I hope for you the same.
xo, Carrie
PS My two-word letter to my younger self is up on the 4Mothers blog today. An interesting and challenging exercise, if you want to try it too.
Confessions, concerts, and My Perfect Family
This post is illustrated exclusively by cellphone-created photographs. Bear with me.
I’m presenting as dazed and confused this morning. No special reason for it. Could be the season. So many plans to keep in my head. I should be making good use of the quiet house, which will transform into a temporarily endangered species, seen rarely to never, come Friday around 3:10PM. Instead, I’m enjoying it. I just had a nap by the fire with the dogs. This is like stepping into a confessional. Shhhh. It was so so lovely. Forgive me.
I dreamed that I’d accidentally downloaded a virus onto my computer that rendered it useless; it kept running a program that showed a creepy GPS map of where I was at all times, with dire messages directed at me. That was not so lovely. But it does point to a certain subconscious anxiety underlying the lovely nap time, which is that I have work to do!
Good work, work I’ve been enjoying, but work nevertheless.
This morning, I got up early and went for a walk with my Thursday running partner. Tuesday’s running partner did the same. I feel immensely lucky to have running partners willing to walk with me during injury. Do you know how hard it is to get up early and go for a walk? It’s about a billion times harder than getting up early to go for a run. No zap of endorphins to reward your efforts. Hats off to all early morning walkers.
Tis the season of the festive school concert, and that’s where Fooey and I were yesterday evening, at AppleApple’s. Here, Fooey is reading patiently before the concert begins; ie. that is not a scowl of irritation. The scowl of irritation arrived when the concert was over and we had to wait around in the crowded gymnasium for AppleApple to come and find us (she thought we’d come and find her in the band room, until she realized we didn’t know where the band room was…). Anyway. Concert. Strangely glorious, I must say, and I don’t mean the parts involving my daughter specifically, I mean the whole thing. I should not be allowed out without a package of tissues. Because in the moment, there seemed nothing more moving than these groups of 12 & 13 year kids singing, dancing, and playing instruments together. (Maybe I’m going through something hormonal?) The squeaking of reeded instruments, the tuning (lack thereof), the confidence, self-consciousness, talent, and bravery–the participation. I would do all it over again.
Wait, I’m going to. Albus’s festive school concert is on tonight. Wish me luck, though. The turning. The tuning.
Have I shown you this picture yet? It’s a scene from My Perfect Family, you know, the family that is mostly fantasy, but occasionally surfaces into reality, in one’s living-room–the family you dreamed of creating back when you thought you were in control of such things.
Children reading by the fire. Perfect Children reading Christmas books lovingly collected over many years and brought out every December by The Perfect Mom. I have photographic proof that this actually happened. Once. Last week. For a few minutes.
Okay, thanks for walking along with me this morning. The confusion and daze is lifting, I think. Time for work.
xo, Carrie
PS I won a prize! This blog was judged First in the category of Writing & Literature and Third in the category of Life at the 2014 Canadian Weblog Awards. I get this button. I’m not sure what to do with it, so I’m pinning it here.
Just add blissful yoga chants
The girl who runs: here is the cover for the Spanish version of Girl Runner.
I am not the girl who runs, at present. I am the girl who spends an hour a day exercising the finer muscles of her core while listening to blissful yoga chants. Just add blissful yoga chants and suddenly it’s an hour of calm. Picture the fireplace going, the pocket doors closed to keep out the dogs, a meditative atmosphere. I can’t complain. (I am also a bit old to be referring to myself as a girl.)
This was a good weekend.
I went to two parties in one day, which upped my average for parties attended this year by about 150%. I danced in high heels (my physiotherapist might not have recommended this, but I seem unscathed by the experience). I played and sang Christmas carols. I slept in on Sunday morning. (Thank you, dear pancake-making husband.)
Yesterday, we failed to bake Christmas cookies, discovering ourselves out of butter rather late in the day. So much for keeping to a promised schedule. This is why I do not, as a general rule, make such schedules in Blogland. Too many schedules to follow out here on the other side of the screen.
I just submitted final grades for my course, so barring any glitches, I’m done for the year. Onto the next project, next deadline. Phone off, pot of tea, beans simmering on the stove for supper, laundry spinning, house blessedly quiet but for the dogs.
The timer I put on this blog post is about to go. I’ve been putting timers on many activities lately. It’s a really efficient way to get work done, and not get caught up in the time-destroying web that is email & social media. (No offence, email & social media; I like you quite a lot, but you have the ability to crush my focus into a zillion broken shards with just a few simple clicks on a few important and educational and — my personal catnip — inspiring links.)
There goes the timer. Exiting Blogland.
xo, Carrie
How to write good*
I’m nearly done marking, and find myself reflecting on how better to structure my course next year, should I be invited to teach again. I’m also thinking about how I might structure a higher-level creative writing course: what elements are missing from my current curriculum that perhaps belong in a separate course altogether?
My goal for next year would be to teach grammar in a creative way, because without the tools to build complex yet clear sentences, it is virtually impossible to construct complex stories. And all stories are complex when you break them down: there are so many elements that go into storytelling, many of which become instinctive when one has practiced writing for years and years, but which are actually very tricky to manage–slippery to manage, evasive, elusive, invisible, unrecognized, subtle, and unavoidable. Setting, plot and sub-plot, voice, character-building, relationships, dialogue, mood, verb tense, movement through time, descriptive language, meaning, thematic layers, back-story, interior and exterior action, emotion, perspective. Have I touched on everything? Probably not. Beginnings and endings. Deciding when to tell what you know. Eliminating that which is extraneous, even though you love it dearly. Editing. Rewriting. Not becoming attached to any part of what you’ve made, so that you can cut it out, if necessary. (Writing is not like parenting: writing requires a ruthlessness that I would never draw on, as a parent.)
And here’s the issue: to manage all of these things, or any of them, really, you must construct sentences that support what you’re trying to do. There is real technical skill underpinning excellent writing.
So I find myself dreaming up writing exercises that would seamlessly include practice in the craft as well as the art. I think it’s possible. It’s kind of exciting to dream this stuff up, actually.
This is not what our living-room looks like at present. This is my aspirational living-room.
On another note …
Things that go well, and things that do not, and things that mysteriously fit into both categories at the very same time:
– helping children practice instruments in the morning, before school
– walking dogs to meet kids after school
– being injured and unable to run and doing an hour of daily core-strength exercises instead
Snapshot 1: “Nope. I’m not going to practice this morning. I’ll practice later! After school!” “But that doesn’t seem to work. Later never comes.” “But I don’t want to do it now!” “But it’s always now. It will be now after school.” “Well I don’t want to do it right this second!” “It’s a privilege to get to play the violin. We can’t keep having this conversation.” “Ok! I will play! But you can’t comment!”
A few minutes later …
“Why are you so excited when CJ practices, but not with me?” “CJ lets me help him.” “But you can’t help me. You never played the violin.” “Your teacher can help with the bowing, but I can help with the notes.” “I don’t want to talk about it now…”
Snapshot 2: Kids running down the sidewalk after school, excited to see dogs. “Wow, you guys are fast today. You’re the first kids I’ve seen.” Small dog in pink sweater decides to stop and produce on someone’s front lawn. I remove mittens, pull plastic bag from coat pocket, stoop to clean up. What happens next happens all at the same time. Pack of schoolchildren appears. Dog slips collar and begins trotting toward street. Neighbour girl excitedly runs to pet dog who has slipped collar, and who is not the friendly dog! I toss mittens, grab for loose dog, try to hand other dog’s leash to daughter while not dropping half-filled plastic poo-bag, and warning (in what I hope are non-frantic tones) the neighbour girl away from the (undeniably cute) dog who is not friendly. Time skips in jagged leaps. Pack of schoolchildren passes, unharmed. I see myself kneeling on the quiet snowy sidewalk, half-filled poo-bag in one hand, skittish dog in the other, trying to figure out what’s gone wrong with the collar. “Mom, you almost threw your mittens in Suzi’s poo!” “What? There’s more poo?” “It’s right there.” “This is way too much drama for me!”
Snapshot 3: The remains of supper are on the table. I’m lying on a blue yoga mat between the couch and the bookshelf that doubles as a computer desk. Kevin is perched on a stool near my knees, replying to work emails on the computer. I’m doing repeats of bridge, which I kind of hate, kind of intensely. Fooey is kneeling on the couch, leaning over the back, observing me from above. AppleApple is moving around restlessly on the beanbag chair near my head, observing me from above. Dogs arrive on scene, enormously excited at the discovery of a human trapped at the licking and sitting-upon level. Imaginary announcement over imaginary PA system: “Could all family members please report to the yoga mat behind the couch? Calling all family members…” The pay-off will be running again. And, possibly, abs of steel, and glutes that could crack a Christmas walnut. Bad image. Time to stop writing.
xo, Carrie
* title is tongue-in-cheek; but you got that, right?