May madness
sending happy vibes
When I woke up this morning, I remembered my dream. It seemed ominous. I’d been dreaming about sleeping. As in, I was sleeping inside my dream. I think that might define tired.
We’ve entered May, which is a month more packed with events than usual. So let me begin this post by telling you about some of them, in case you’re interested in attending/listening in/sending happy vibes. (I was going to say “send advice,” but it strikes me that advice is not at all what I want. I want happy vibes. Please.)
May 3 (tomorrow): If you’re in Guelph, listen in to a live (gulp) interview I’ll be doing with Dan and Peter who host a show called “Books for Breakfast” on CFRU radio. You can stream it live, or listen to the podcast later. You can. I won’t. I cringe when I hear my own voice. It sounds so different inside my head. My instructions are to pour myself a cup of tea, have my book handy, and pick up the phone when it rings at 8:30am tomorrow. I’ve arranged for the kids to be out of the house a wee bit earlier than usual.
Also tomorrow, immediately after the interview, I’m off to represent the Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. I’ll be leading writing workshops for teens at an enrichment conference here in town. I’m going to call this day: The Day of New Experiences. Which is much better than its alternative and less motivational title: The Day of No Napping.
May 7 (Monday): Guelph, the ebar, 7-9pm! I’ll be reading with Andrew Hood, and doing a little Q&A afterward with Dan from The Bookshelf. Look for me at around 7:20, according to the schedule I’ve got. Any friends from Waterloo interested in coming? I’d love to carpool with someone.
May 15 (Tuesday): Indie Night at the Starlight in Waterloo! Doors open at 7. There will be nine authors, brisk and entertaining readings, and books for sale. Heather Birrell will be there with her new book Mad Hope, and fellow Anansi author, Robert Hough with his new book Dr. Brinkley’s Tower. And many more. Should be awesome.
May 16 (Wednesday): Short Story Shindig at Type Books in Toronto! 7-9pm. I’m reading with Heather Birrell and Daniel Griffin, and our host for the evening is the most awesome Kerry Clare (who writes the best book blog on the block, Pickle Me This).
May 27 (Sunday): reading at Wilfrid Laurier University. Details to come. Apparently Congress 2012, a gathering of some 7,000 academics, is coming to Waterloo, and WLU is putting on a literary salon to entertain those so inclined.
May 29 (Tuesday): Books and Brunch at A Different Drummer bookstore in Burlington. Starts at 9:30am. I’ll be reading with Jay Ingram and Dennis Lee.
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Note to self: find a more efficient method of posting this information on blog.
Meanwhile, onward. I started today with a good run with a dear friend in early morning light that was nothing short of beautiful. Pink sky, fresh light, new day. That’s the good thing about not sleeping. Being awake in today.
Swept along the beautiful river
my kids
Usually on Monday mornings, I post my “week in suppers.” Today, I’m going to change the routine to honour where I’m at. Which is not to say I’m cooking no suppers. Suppers have been and will be cooked. But this has been an emotion-filled weekend. I’m not even sure where to place myself in the midst of the emotions and events. Am I observer? Participant? Witness? Conspirator?
On Saturday, parenting alone, I enjoyed the company of six children for part of the morning. I have difficulty describing how happy it makes me to be with my kids and their friends. To be part of their conversations. To listen to them relating. To laugh. To consult. To make plans together. And to allow myself to be swept along by their energy.
One of my closest friends lost her father on Saturday. He’s been our neighbour for the past few years, too. Thinking about him as I drove across town to pick up my soccer girl, I thought about how life sweeps us along, and how we are both at the mercy of a greater current, and yet blessed to be a part of it. I sat in the parking lot and wrote the poem I posted here on Saturday (typed into my BlackBerry; first BB poem of my life, I must admit). Then I picked up my soccer girl, and watched her transform into piano girl — and win a prize at a piano competition.
Piano and competition are two words that fit together rather uncomfortably. I considered my emotions as we listened to the competitors playing their songs, and I found myself disliking my instinct to contrast and compare rather than simply appreciate and celebrate. Nevertheless, to see my daughter rise to the occasion and play her song with imagination and flair, and then to see her rewarded with a ribbon … it was such a joy. I kind of wonder at myself for taking so much pleasure from the achievement. Why should my pride be any greater for her winning than for her purely being willing to try, practicing, working hard, and performing her heart out? You know?
We stopped at home to get changed before going to Grandma’s (where the other children already were). My friend called just then with the news of her dad’s passing. “His spirit has left his body.”
When I think about her dad, I remember a man who lived with an almost casual generosity. It was so much a part of his being. There was nothing forced about it, not like he had to remind himself that others needed caring for. Simply: he wanted to help, to be of help, and he did, and he was.
I almost want to stop this post right here, but there’s more. It was such a weekend. A big birthday party had been planned for Saturday night, and I was hosting it here at our house (hence the children off to Grandma’s). With my friend Zoe in charge of vision and decorating, we transformed our house into a … hm, how to describe it? Indian colours and food and music and bindis and a mehndi artist and hanging silks and mango lassies and women. It was a party of many layers. I’ve never cried at a party before — good crying. I’ve never om-ed at a party before. I’ve never limboed under a platter of Indian funnel cakes, either. It was a beautiful night in honour of a beautiful friend.
By morning, the house was spotless (true story). I picked up my soccer girl and drove her to another game, and watched her play a position she never played even once last year: forward. I watched her make passes and chances and exciting runs and assist on a beautiful goal. And then I watched her play the second half in her usual position in net. She played the whole game with intensity, and such happiness. Pride doesn’t cover my emotions.
When I brought all the kids home, we snuggled in our rearranged living-room (there are a lot of pillows on the floor right now). They watched a movie, I napped, they were all around me. And then Kevin arrived home from Ottawa, putting us all back together again.
So, you see, I spent a lot of the weekend on the sidelines, just watching and taking it all in, doing what needed doing, being of use, being present.
I have this feeling that life is filling me up. I might be here for awhile. When I’m full, it will be time to share and process and, maybe, who knows, to write another book.
Life is bigger
A poem for this day
I am swept along
I am a still point in a river that will not quit its rushing
I am immersed in the world
I am blessed
I am not to understand everything and not to take anything
I am given to grace and place
I am sure as a branch and broken as a branch
I am breath and brilliance and calm
While I am, I am
With love with fierceness with the selfness of ongoing until
Gone
Burn in the water flame in the soil flicker in the darkness of a house at midnight
Steady on.
Telling tales
Today I was here. Do you recognize this place? I took this photo in the atrium of the CBC building in downtown Toronto. I was at the CBC to record a “riff” for The Last Chapter, a book show that airs on CBC Radio. I have no idea when/if it will air. I’m glad it wasn’t live. To be honest with you, I can’t remember what the heck I actually said. I sat in my own little room with headphones on and answered questions into a microphone while a friendly producer smiled at me through the glass. I wondered, at one moment, whether she was giving me the sort of smile you’d give to a skittish horse or anxious child. As in, you’re doing great! No really, you are! No really! The whole interview tilted in a direction that was personal; but that’s that nature of the book that I wrote. I understand why readers are interested in those aspects of the book. I understand, but I’m not sure I’m qualified to talk about that part, at least not with any kind of objective perspective.
Here’s what I thought about after the interview. When I was writing the book, it felt like an entirely fictional creation. I couldn’t even think of it as having any relation to my actual childhood experiences. But now, when I’m asked to reflect on the personal connections, I can see the many links between my actual experiences and what turned up on the page. It’s complicated. And in writing about real experience, fictionalizing it, it’s become muddled. Even in my memory. So much of what happens in the book — the stuff of plot — didn’t happen. But then, so many little details were things I actually experienced. The wind through open car windows, driving through a cloud that had come down to the ground, playing on the flat roof of our house, bomb shelters at the school and just down our street, listening to grownups play and sing beautiful music, the sound of the ocean at night, and on and on.
My brothers had the chicken pox, and I didn’t. We moved around the city, much like the Friesens do. We attended the same schools.
Yet when I was writing it, I didn’t see my own family in these places and circumstances, I saw the Friesens. I didn’t want to write about my own family, and my own circumstances. That’s why I invented the characters. But I see how wound together the real and the invented became in the telling. I think it may have been wiser to say, as Alice Munro would have, that I made everything up. I did. But not from scratch. Maybe it was like making bread from a sourdough starter. The bubbling beginnings were there.
Anyway, that’s what I “riffed” about, though I suspect much less coherently, in a studio in Toronto today. And they recorded it. And who knows what they’ll take out of it. Ever feel like you’re swimming further from shore than you meant to go? I felt that way today.
People behaving badly (or not)
A quick post on a busy day. First, must let you know about an event taking place tomorrow evening, at which I will be reading: at The Silver Spoon in Kitchener, and I’ll be going on around 7:45/8pm. (I probably won’t be behaving too badly, however, contrary to the poster’s title. Which could be a disappointment, I realize.)
I’d also like to direct you to a few finds online.
:: A great review of What We Talk About When We Talk About War, by Noah Richler (once-upon-a-time, my boss). Reviewed by Kerry Clare at Pickle Me This. Very thoughtful.
:: Today, on the main page of the 49th Shelf, my list of “books that made me want to write.”
:: And, in honour of poetry month, a wonderful poem by a Canadian poet, Amanda Jernigan, who is making waves, and was just nominated for a major award. I wasn’t familiar with her work, but immediately loved this poem. It’s called Catch.
Happy Wednesday!