Carrie Snyder | Writer

All shook up

Sunday, Sep 15, 2013 | Friends, House, Kevin, Music, Reading, Readings, Writing | 1 Comment

I present to you the chaos in which we are currently living. We are having the house re-treated for bed bugs this coming week, which means moving all of the furniture away from the walls, so Kevin decided to finish the painting project in the living-room. Praise be! I’d resigned myself to the likelihood that we’d be looking at empty walls blotted with holes pretty much indefinitely. And now we’ll enjoy a freshly brightened space instead.

As it is, it feels like we’re living with uncertainty pretty much indefinitely.

this morning, in process, two walls done

I keep getting messages from friends concerned about my ability to take it easy and rest. I would like to assure you that this is not actually a problem. In fact, I’m finding it alarmingly easy to rest, for the simple reason that my head hurts when I don’t. I can see why you’d think it hard for me, given the pace at which I prefer to live my life, but what’s perhaps more distressing is how easy it is for me to shut down, lie down, close my eyes, and not do anything at all. The only problem, I suppose, is of identity. I prefer the Carrie who operates at high efficiency and can be relied on to squeeze the marrow out of her days and hours. The-meditational-Carrie-on-the-couch-whose-head-hurts-when-faced-with-effortful-tasks seems a foreigner, a stranger, from whom I may learn something, someday, but whose presence is, it must be said, a bit of a drag. It reminds me of the six weeks, or so, post-partum when everything would feel off-kilter and I would long for life to return to normal; and eventually, it did, or rather to a new normal. I imagine, at some small distance from now, writing an essay reflecting on this slightly bizarre time in my life.

A friend on FB recently posted a status that went roughly like this: “I’m thinking of all those times when I thought ‘I’m barely holding on.’ Perhaps it’s those moments that are conspiring to help me let go.”

I like that. The positives of this experience seem to relate to letting go. Maybe that’s why I’ve been playing the piano more often, and singing: my head likes it, and I feel very free as my fingers and voice improvise and play with rhythm and melody. I’m shifting plans to make life easier, too. On Friday, I realized that there was no way I could drive myself to and from Toronto for a reading; so Kevin drove me, and we got to spend an unexpected evening together. Hardest of all is not limiting physical activities, but cognitive ones, as I’m healing. This includes limiting writing time, reading time, and time conversing with friends, all of which I find surprisingly taxing. I trust that my friendships and books will wait for my return; my anxiety circles instead around a fear that I won’t be able to write with clarity and depth, given this injury seems to affect most strongly my ability to focus for long periods of time: that’s why I’m continuing to blog. It gives me hope.

Here’s how Kevin and I are living right now: like grad students. It’s like we’re camping inside of our ordinary lives. It changes the perspective. There is comfort in simplicity, in a bed on the floor and not much more, the entire family crowding in on a Saturday morning to laugh and talk and snuggle.

What happens when we’re shaken up? What happens when we can’t be our best selves? What happens when we’re asked to live in flux? What happens when we let go of all that we can’t control?

Good things

Friday, Sep 13, 2013 | Chores, Kids, Laundry, Organizing, Teaching, Work | 5 Comments

I like to note what’s working for our family at any given time, even though this is bound to change.

Piano practice: What’s working is to tailor a small reward system to each individual child. Albus earns screen time following piano practice. Fooey puts a sticker on her school calendar every time she practices, and earns small rewards (books or crafts) for every twenty practices. AppleApple likes to play the piano and doesn’t like keeping track of things, so she doesn’t want or need a reward.

I’ve put a dishwasher emptying schedule on the chalkboard. The three eldest take turns unloading, and put a check mark beside their name each time. This helps balance it out on days when one child can’t take his or her turn. No fighting over who has done it more often. CJ is too small to unload the dishwasher, so his job is to the water the plants every few days. He gets a checkmark too.

The laundry is an ongoing issue for me, for which I seem to have less and less patience. Since the bed bug situation began, I’ve been running everything through the drier as a precaution. A pattern has taken hold: the laundry gets washed, dried, then left for days sitting crumpled in baskets until I finally undertake the task of folding and distributing it. This does not make me happy. Last night, while I was at class, AppleApple and CJ spent an hour folding and distributing laundry: they made it into a game, apparently. This makes me very happy.

this is my office, with bonus points to anyone who can actually find it, or move that duct-tape-covered chair

Everyone was waiting up to hear about my first class last night.

this is my echoing classroom

I can report that the classroom is not an ideal workshopping space, and I’m hoping to get the class moved. I can also report that that my concussion symptoms did not feel worse after teaching for three hours, for which I am more than grateful, I am deeply relieved.

I woke this morning feeling better relative to every other day this week.

A friend sent me a link to Tabatha Southey’s reflection on her own experience with concussion. Given that it’s Tabatha Southey, it’s very funny, and also comforting: I relate to the feeling of disassociation she describes, and her inclination to start crying just about whenever. I am not a crier, generally speaking, yet I’ve found myself slipping easily into tears. (Parking ticket? Tears! Children holding hands on the way to school? Tears! Someone “hates” the supper I’ve made? Tears!) It doesn’t seem like a bad thing, though that may be my disassociative self talking. Nothing seems like a bad thing, really, which makes life very liveable.

But I look forward to exiting this fog. I really do.

It worries me to think of my brain being bruised. It worries me to consider bruised the part of me that I rely on for judgement and self-critique and sensible advice and the ability to focus intensely. It’s given me a whole new perspective on injury and fitness, and also on the idea of pushing beyond one’s limits. I can push my muscles beyond what seem to be their limits, and I trust my body’s capacity for endurance, but it never occurred to me that I might have to extend the idea of physical limits to my brain. It doesn’t seem the same, to me, as a hip injury or an ankle sprain: I wouldn’t shy away from activities that might re-injure those body parts, but would I risk re-injuring my head? I don’t think so. My head is my livelihood.

A few more good things, before I sign off: my kids like to read the newspaper, comics and obituaries. I know it’s off-beat, but I gravitate toward the obituaries, too: all those stories, the attempted summing up of all those lives. Here is AppleApple, before leaving for school this morning: “Mom, you have to read today’s obituary about a nun who was 109 years old!” That makes me happy, too.

And I’m oddly happy living with my dresser drawers emptied out and the majority of my clothing temporarily stored in giant plastic bags (a bed bug precaution). I have a tiny rotation of clothes available, all are clothes I like wearing, and the lack of choice every morning is a peaceable thing. I may never go back to full drawers again.

Finally, I’m very happy with the random tasks that got accomplished over the summer. The following messy places got thoroughly cleaned and organized: the fridge (!!), the art table and accompanying bins and shelves (why do we have so many art supplies?), the children’s rooms and their bookshelves, the bathroom cabinets, the swim stuff, the bins of gift bags in the attic (I know, you wouldn’t think that’s much, but it felt like an accomplishment), and my home office. My office, with its tidy new filing box, makes me especially happy.

Oh, and one more good thing! Here’s the link to the official announcement in Quill & Quire about Girl Runner.

In my mind

Wednesday, Sep 11, 2013 | Dream, Kids, Sick | 8 Comments

I’m basically scooping my daughter’s homework deadline, but I just had to share her response to a school assignment to write a six-word memoir. After trying out a variety of ideas that played around with her connection between the imaginary and the real, she came up with the six words above, and had me take an accompanying photo. I love the dreamy, peaceful, joyous expression on her face. The saddle is from my own pony-owning era, with safety stirrups that I remember my Gramps, who loved horses too, insisted I use. We couldn’t find a bridle with reins in the attic, so she’s got a skipping rope instead. Hey, the imagination works wonders. Her little brother and sister have also been welcomed into this imaginary world and AppleApple happily responds to all requests to “go ride Nellie.”

(As an aside, do you think you could write a six-word memoir? Could I? Maybe I will ask my students to try this exercise when we meet for the first time tomorrow.)

This is turning into Carrie’s bad news bed bug and concussion blog, but I figured you might like an update on my head. I saw a sports medicine doctor today. If you’ve got a few minutes, take time to watch this surprisingly helpful and succinct video on concussions made by a doctor in Montreal. Unfortunately, I’m not even at step one of the steps to recovery: I’m still suffering symptoms even while at rest. But overall, I was relieved to know that I haven’t done anything too terribly wrong, with the exception of going back on the field to play out the game in which I suffered the concussion. In retrospect, I realize I would never let one of my kids do that, but apparently my judgement wasn’t the best following a blow to the head; and it’s not a mistake I’ll make twice. Otherwise, I’ve been properly conservative in my attempts to return to activity. I’m going to see a physio tomorrow, who also specializes in post-concussion syndrome, and will report anything of interest. Meanwhile, I need to be cautious even about my cognitive activities (argh!), which obviously take precedence over any exercise-related activities. The doctor’s words that stick in my head are: “You will get out of shape. I know that’s frustrating.” I think my main goal for right now is to accept that, and be grateful for all that I can do in the weeks and months ahead.

For example, I recognize that I won’t be able to race the Run for the Toad this year. It’s not that I couldn’t do it, rather that I would pay a very heavy price to complete it. Running seems to be a major symptom trigger. At this point, if I feel well enough, the doctor suggested an easy walk, and possibly an easy swim. But if I’m honest about how I’m feeling, even an easy walk hurts rather than helps right now. So does looking at my computer screen. Which means I’m signing off for now.

Thanks for all who have reached out to me recently with thoughtfulness and care!

Good news, bad news

Monday, Sep 9, 2013 | Publishing, Readings, Sick, Soccer, Teaching | 11 Comments

Good morning.

“Do you plan on waking up tomorrow morning?” Kevin asked me last night, as we were reading in bed.

“Um, yes, waking up in the morning would be my plan,” I said.

He meant, should he set his alarm or did I plan to wake up early, but the phrasing seemed ominous under the circumstances. My bad news is that it appears my concussion symptoms have not gone away, as I’d hoped, despite a restful week at the cottage. I tested things out last week with three short easy runs that caused me no ill side effects. So I thought it was safe to do a longish run yesterday in preparation for the 25-km trail race, just a few weeks from now: off I went, enjoying a speedy comfortable 13km run in beautiful weather, returned home feeling terrific, and gradually became aware as the afternoon turned to evening that I wasn’t feeling so terrific anymore. Headache, nausea.

In fact, I was feeling so off that I realized I couldn’t play in my soccer game. You know me. That’s huge! It was our last game of the season, and we were playing in the cup final. It was painful to stand on the sidelines, but my team played an awesome game under the lights (with a sliver of a moon overhead), and I was so glad I’d come out to cheer. We won! So my team went undefeated all year, won the regular season, and the cup final, and as you can see from the photo, we were all pretty happy. Look, shiny medals!

Come to think of it, this is my first experience being on a winning team, mainly because I only recently started playing team sports — this is just my second season. And here’s my observation: it was really fun to win, but it was more fun simply being part of a team that enjoyed playing together (which is probably a good recipe for a winning team). We were well-matched in effort and skill, the talk on and off the field was positive, supportive, and helpful, we put together some awesome plays, and I learned a lot playing with these women. The coach was pretty awesome too. So bottom line: winning is fun, but playing for a happy team is more fun.

I feel fuzzy-headed, today, though. Is my writing fuzzy-headed too?

I’ve made an appointment with a sports medicine doctor who specializes in concussions. Maybe should have done this weeks ago? But there’s no point beating myself up with should’ves and could’ves. I will keep you posted on progress, and meantime, I’m going to do NOTHING exercise-related. I’m also going for a nap as soon as the guy punching a hole in our basement wall is done (yes, we hired him to do it; something boiler-related).

We’re having a nice gradual entry into extra-curriculars this fall. This week Fooey’s gymnastics starts. Piano lessons continue. We have two meet-the-teacher nights, one of which I have to miss due to teaching myself — my class starts this week. I also have a reading on Friday in Toronto, and I encourage and invite you to come: click on the link for details. I’ll be speaking with three other panelists, including the delightful Kerry Clare of Pickle Me This, in support of a new anthology (in which I have an essay) called Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding. These are light-hearted, funny reflections on breastfeeding, and I’m looking forward to sharing stories (and in my case reminiscining, since that time has passed for me, now).

So that’s my week. I also have more revisions to get to following an excellent editorial meeting on Friday re Girl Runner. I keep meaning to make an official announcement with links, but I can’t find any links, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you, in my semi-addled state, that if all goes according to plan Girl Runner will be the lead novel on House of Anansi’s list next fall! Gimme a woot-woot!

This is a Twitter pic of me reading at the Starlight in Waterloo on Thursday night. Fooey and AppleApple watched with great interest as I applied my “going-out” makeup in the dining-room mirror, with Fooey offering plenty of style advice (AppleApple agreed that Fooey was the expert, and shared her own method for choosing her outfits: “I reach into my drawer in the dark and pull out whatever’s on top.” Then she pairs whatever she finds with soccer shorts). My friend Zoe came along to the reading and promised me that I didn’t look old and haggard. I forgot to ask her about looking “witch-like,” which I think the photo evidence suggests may be the case. In any case, Zoe and I are already excited about planning a launch party for Girl Runner. It’ll be epic!

But, oh right, there’s still work to be done before then.

And I must rest my head, too. Good morning.

Best thing this morning

Friday, Sep 6, 2013 | Exercise, Kids, Parenting, School | 4 Comments

I didn’t tell them to do this.

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About me

My name is Carrie Snyder. I work in an elementary school library. I’m a fiction writer, reader, editor, dreamer, arts organizer, workshop leader, forever curious. Currently pursuing a certificate in conflict management and mediation. I believe words are powerful, storytelling is healing, and art is for everyone.

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