Oh, the places you’ll go
our Canadian celebration: fast food at Harvey’s, Sunday evening, 6:15
Sometimes it looks, from the blog, like I’m hyper-productive. And sometimes that’s true. But not always. Today, for example. Today I got up at 5am, yet I’ve done nothing more productive than a load of laundry. I just heard the washing-machine buzzer go, so if I get up off of this twirly stool (formerly part of a drum kit) and toss that load into the drier, that will be two loads of laundry, making me twice as productive.
I exaggerate only slightly.
office, with dogs, Monday, around noon
I took photos of most of the places I’ve been over the past two days. Maybe I need a day like today to do nothing and not be productive, who knows. A body can get tired, and so can a mind, worn down and flattened to dullness by the necessity of production. My energy and drive are renewable resources, but maybe to renew them, I need to sit fallow now and again.
Here’s where I’ve been, since leaving the wild Wild Writers Festival on Saturday afternoon, flying home filled to brimming with words and names and ideas and emotion.
That same evening, Kevin and I went out together to a dinner hosted by the festival, and then to a reading afterward. It really is a treat to be surrounded by writers, to hear about their struggles, and their secrets to survival. I rely on this blog, frankly, to keep me connected to other writers, because I really don’t move in literary circles. My actual physical circle is basically my neighbourhood, and includes friends I’ve known for years, and friends I’ve made since having children. In some ways, I think I’ve been protected by this, and allowed to make my own mistakes and explore my own interests, but in other ways, I miss the camraderie of running into people who do what I do. It’s why I love the Wild Writers Festival, and feel blessed by its existence, and thankful to those who put their energy into bringing it into being.
Kevin and I did not stay late. That is the theme of our lives at present. We do not stay late. Ergo, our social lives are somewhat shrunken. I wilt around 9 o’clock. That’s my glass slipper hour.
Wayne Gretzky Sports Complex, Brantford, Sunday afternoon, 1:15
Sunday saw me and swim girl driving rainy country roads to a swim meet. It was her second day, and she’d already won a bronze medal in the 200m breaststroke (looked after by her coach, as neither Kevin nor I could be there). I failed to appreciate the significance of this accomplishment until arriving at the meet: it was a big meet! Teams from all across southern Ontario, from Toronto to Windsor, and there was my kid in her purple suit swimming to another medal — silver, this time — in the 100m breaststroke. I got to hug her immediately afterward. I spent much of the meet crouched on a stair-step on the jammed pool deck, reading Ann Patchett’s THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE, and wishing myself more tolerant of violations of personal space. I’m so Canadian that way.
Home from the swim meet, we went out for a family meal at Harvey’s. We had a gift certificate, that’s why. It was ridiculously fun. Hey, maybe we can count it as our Canadian celebration.
Up early yesterday for kettlebell class. I’m back! And symptom-free! And my muscles ache! So yesterday was kettlebells, followed by nap, followed by getting kids to school, followed by office time. Blissful peaceful office time, with dogs snoring underfoot. I’m sifting through my HAIR HAT stories. Not much happened for many hours, and I enjoyed it. Because by 3pm it was kids home, and snacktime, and laundry folding. So much laundry! Three days of laundry! Despite a full half hour invested in folding, I had to abandon the still-overflowing basket because it was time for the hellish Monday swim commute. From our house to UW’s pool (where AppleApple swims) to the Rec Centre is probably less than 4km, all told, if we could go by bike or on foot through the park. But we can’t (aka don’t want to) because it’s dark and snowing. This trip via car, is beset by road closures and heavy traffic, and takes us a full half an hour. We arrive at CJ’s swim lesson just in time, every time.
swim lessons at 5:30 on a November afternoon
I sit in the stands, and breathe. I watch him kick, kick, kick, and move less than an inch, yet he doesn’t seem discouraged. His googles (as he calls them) are too tight and leave marks around his eyes, yet he doesn’t me to loosen them. He talks non-stop in the shower, by the locker, in the parking lot, all the way home. This is a good stop along the way.
At home, there are 15 minutes in which to devour a tofu stir-fry that Kevin’s whipped up in my absence. My mom has arrived too, to babysit and let us borrow her car for the next portion of the evening’s adventures, as Kevin and I will be going in two different directions.
soccer field at RIM park, 7pm
I get to go to Albus’s indoor soccer game! I don’t do enough with his boy, and he notices, so I’m making a conscious effort to do more. I believe showing up is a big part of parenting, and matters more than anything I could try to say with words. And it’s doable: it just means shifting things around a little bit, here and there. Kevin will take the gymnastics run (Fooey and her friend) and pick up AppleApple from swimming, instead. It’s companionable with my boy, and I manage not to embarrass him with my (inevitable) running commentary and encouragement from the sidelines, if only because he claims afterward not to have heard me (phew!).
gymnastics club, 8:50pm
We’re home again. I help load the dishwasher. I dress CJ in pajamas and leave the bedtime tucking to Kevin, because we’re off again, me and Albus, to stop at a convenience store for milk and bananas on our way to pick up the gymnasts. “I forgot my camera!” I say, and Albus reminds me that phones have cameras these days. I finish off the mini-this-is-where-I’ve-been session with a few terrible shots from the gym.
blurry gymnast daughter: damn you camera phone
And that’s where I’ve been.
A wild Wild Writers Fest
This is the little park at which I stopped to take photos on my way to this year’s Wild Writers Festival. I was running late, due to a croupy son, and half a night spent lying beside him listening to his breathing, and then accidentally sleeping later than expected in the quiet morning house. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” I said to Kevin, as if it were his fault, and he should have been my alarm clock. He whirled me a breakfast shake, and made coffee while I tried to look presentable and gathered my supplies.
The night before I’d been at a book club. Actually, it’s been a busy week, and all the nights seem to have been late ones, with class prep on Wednesday, then class on Thursday, then soccer and running and a book club on Friday, and then the croup. I chugged the shake, slapped on mascara, and took the coffee to go.
But I stopped to take photos.
This was my destination, yesterday morning: the CIGI building in uptown Waterloo, where the Wild Writers Festival was being held; a six-minute walk from home. In some ways, it’s convenient to attend a festival in one’s hometown: the six-minute travel time, for example. But in other ways, it can be harder to leave it all behind and dive in. I knew, six minutes away, Kevin was stuck with two soccer coaching gigs, a sick kid who needed to be taken to a walk-in clinic, and a swim kid to send off to a meet.
But there’s no point in being somewhere if your mind is somewhere else. So I arrived, and dove in.
I sat in on a publishing panel that featured my Canadian editor, Janice Zawerbny. And then it was my turn to lead a panel titled “From literary magazines to small press success,” though I’m not sure we covered the topic, exactly. My four fabulous panelists were Claire Tacon, Colette Maitland, Nancy Jo Cullen, and Elisabeth de Mariaffi, and part of the pleasure of being moderator was getting to know them all, through their writing, in conversation at the panel event, and then less formally afterward, when we were all feeling more relaxed, perhaps even giddy. From here on in, I will hug every moderator of every panel I ever sit on, because oh boy, moderating takes far more effort than I’d previously appreciated. The hour and a half flew, however, which seemed like a good thing.
Then it was on to lunch, which I ate in the green room, catching up with Miranda Hill, who I met while sitting with her on several panels at writers festivals last year. After lunch, I sat in on her panel on MFA programs, which was really fascinating, especially given that I’m dipping my toe in the teaching of creative writing for the first time right now, and still trying to figure out the value of that enterprise — not so much for me, as teacher, but for my students. The session ended movingly with all three panelists (Leesa Deen and Helen Humphreys, along with Miranda) remembering the work of Bronwen Wallace, a Canadian writer who died too soon. It was an unexpectedly moving moment.
It was then nearly 3 o’clock, and I felt, guiltily, that I should go home and relieve Kevin. He’d been texting me updates throughout the day. I was in the green room, gathering my stuff, when I heard that something exciting and romantic was going to happen at the poetry panel, the last session of the afternoon. And then I knew I had to stay.
The panel was terrific: Bruce Taylor, Amanda Jernigan, Kerry-Lee Powell (whose collection The Wreckage I had to buy after hearing her read), and George Murray. And at the very end, as rumour had promised, George Murray read a poem to us all, that was clearly meant for his girlfriend, Elisabeth de Mariaffi, who was sitting in the front row. It was called “The Proposal.” And then he proposed.
It can’t get more wild than that, really, can it?
Then I went home, practically flying. There’s more, but I’m out of time because today I’m taking the child to her swim meet. Which isn’t wild, but shall be done.
This is the story
Not having time to take and process new photos is not a good reason not to post, I’ve decided. That’s a lot of nots. Not having time to write a new post is also not a good reason not to blog, I’ve decided. I’ve got fifteen minutes, tops. So this ain’t gonna be uber-reflective or even mildly reflective. Think: stream of consciousness.
The phone keeps ringing, but it’s not good news, or news of any sort, in fact. It’s those people longing to clean my air ducts. “I don’t have air ducts.” “What do you have, ma’am?” “Nothing that you could clean,” I say, and he laughs — mockingly? The line goes dead. “I was supposed to hang up on you,” I say, too late.
This week, I’ve been reading through all of my students’ rough drafts for the short story unit, in preparation for a workshopping session tonight. I’ve prepared a “helpful” mini-lecture on the difference between description and story. These are not the same thing, not at all. I’ve looked longingly at the new book by my elbow, Ann Patchett’s THIS IS THE STORY OF A HAPPY MARRIAGE, and wished to cast aside all cares and responsibilities and gulp it down, and I have not. I have resisted and scribbled comments in pencil on all of my students’ stories.
I haven’t been reading so much at night. The tired leaks into my free time. Tuesday evening, the kids in bed and Kevin off to hockey, found me folding laundry for a full hour (three days’ worth) while streaming a new sitcom, “Mom,” which was not as funny as advertised, although not terrible. (Be warned: my standards for sitcoms are pretty low.)
In other news, I wasted the better part of Tuesday paying stupidly avid attention to the not-so-mysterious but nevertheless mind-boggling show put on by Toronto’s own mayor, Rob Ford. As AppleApple (also an avid news-watcher) and I stared at Ford’s “apology” streaming live on the kitchen computer, we provided shocked running commentary that mostly revolved around the slow-dawning realization that the man fully intended to ride this out, God bless the good people of Toronto. And bless ’em indeed, for he’s causing exactly the trouble and chaos that any addict causes his family and friends, all the while insisting it’s not him, it’s them. Anyone who’s seen a family go through this pain knows exactly what we’re all watching here, and it’s not funny at all.
But there, more time wasted. And it’s not him, it’s me. Where are your boundaries, woman?
A student asked me whether I write every day. I replied, Yes.
It’s true. I do write every day. But let’s be frank. I’m not writing books every day. Most days this is what I’m writing: other things, smaller bits, random and not held together by any particular theme aside from necessity. Notes. Marginalia. Lists. Letters. Journal-type scribbles. Stream of consciousness blog posts.
Today’s session is out of time.
For a limited time only
It’s only Tuesday, right? I’m apprehensive about my responsibilities this week. The layers of planning material in my head keep shifting, and I’m terrified of what might be falling to the bottom. It’s dark down there. Things might biodegrade without me even noticing.
I fall asleep to syllabus material, and wake considering supper plans versus ingredients on hand. A small but persistent section of my brain is wholly devoted to identifying time slots in which I can fit in a run. I’m visiting a book club this week, there are teacher interviews to arrange for each child, and I’m in charge of facilitating a panel discussion at the Wild Writers Festival on Saturday, at which I’d like very much to appear a) prepared, b) composed, and c) sane. (If I could actually be all of these things, that would be even better.) The clock is ticking on resolving a gymnastics decision, swim girl has a big meet in Brantford all weekend, and we need to plan a birthday party for next weekend. What else? Oh, the asthma puffer ran out this morning. Our tub tap is leaking rather frantically. Our stove needs repair.
I wrote a piece for Open Book Ontario, which they’ve posted today. I’ll admit it reads rather manically. It’s on my writing habits, and the peacefulness of my office. This office is my calm centre. I’ve started doing yoga in here some mornings, with kundalini music playing, and it’s pure bliss.
Much of my happiness comes from motion. I see my eight-year-old spin on a bar, hold herself upside-down, toes pointed, strong and glowing. I see the game unfolding on the field, the risks being taken. I see my eldest and me racing up and down grocery aisles late at night, revelling in the hunt for bargains, laughing at our impulses and follies: for me, corn flakes; for him, anything new and available for a limited time only, such as the soda that purports to taste like chocolate.
But I’m tired. I’m tired, and I know, too, that much of my happiness comes from points of connection, from stillness within the motion. Holding CJ’s hand on the walk home from the school bus. Washing his hair in the pool showers. Conversations as we drive somewhere together, me and a kid, or two, or three. I’m always looking for what I can share with each child, and that keeps changing. I remember when I gave the kids a bath every night before bed, and they remember how I pretended to be a giant making kid soup. Now we’re splintered and running, and I’m looking for those moments to stretch out my hand and grab on to theirs, figuratively if not literally, as we whirl in our separate circles.
The days look impossible if I try to hold them all at once.
So maybe, really, I shouldn’t try. I won’t try. If there’s any secret to this time, it’s that. Do what you’re doing, be where you are. Make your lists, prepare, yes, but know what you’re waiting for, and recognize it when it arrives, no matter how small it seems. It’s none of it small. You know what I mean.
Day of the Dead
I was kind of bummed out about missing my kids’ Halloween on Thursday evening, even though it was a really terrific class (and I read them Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, which would scare anyone), and the trick-or-treaters and their dad had to endure cold rain and wind. Even so. I missed it. And got no good pics.
But we were invited to a Day of the Dead party last night, so we decided to all dress up. Bring out the camera, Obscure CanLit Mama.
Why is it so much fun to dress up and be scary? We revelled in the chilly walk over to the party, dressed like this. I can’t explain it even a little bit. Be afraid! And be festive!
We didn’t stay late, in part because a) we were all tired, b) the littlest threw up after devouring two giant cookies and guzzling root beer, and c) well, that last reason is really quite enough to warrant an early departure, let’s face it. Oh, yes, c) we had swimming and running and soccer and more soccer today, that last item all the way down the highway in Mississauga. Which is where we’re headed right about now, as soon as I push publish on this post.
