More with less
First park run this morning after spending several weeks away, resting legs and lungs: instead of feeling out of shape, out of breath, I feel strong, my stride free and easy. The rest has done my body so much good.
Rest. It’s such a gift.
Every year it’s the same. I come home and want to replicate that feeling of being away, especially being somewhere with limited access to the internet and email, isolated, quiet. Trying to pin down what feels hard about coming home — it’s the restlessness. At the cottage, I don’t feel restless. I accomplish very little, but I feel content. Here at home, it’s the opposite. I accomplish more, and yet feel anxious and unproductive. I can see the world hurrying by, and time seems like a leaking bucket; maybe I’m more likely to fall into the trap of comparison.
One of my favourite cookbooks is called “More with Less.” It’s a Mennonite cookbook from the 1970s. I’ve always appreciated that ethos: more with less.
At the cottage, away, I’m content with less. Can I carry that concept home?
What’s precious, in a life? In an hour? In a season? What matters to me? I’m the only one who can answer that question for myself. Each of us would have a different answer; and maybe our answers change at different times in our lives, at different ages.
Right now, my wish is to tread lightly on this earth, and in other people’s lives. Do as little harm as possible. Share the joy. Be generous with what I have on hand.
xo, Carrie
PS Thankful for a beautiful review of Francie in The Miramachi Reader. The reviewer summarizes the plot brilliantly without giving anything away (not an easy feat).
Woman with the owl tattoo
This is the lake into which I’ve dunked my full self every day for the past seven days. Some days it has been warm and sunny, even hot. Other days, like today, it is cool and windy, cloudy, rainy, almost cold.
Today, I went kayaking first, to warm up.
I never take my cellphone out kayaking (for obvious reasons), which means I’ve never gotten a photo of those rocks and trees visited only by water. I didn’t kayak the first few days here, because I was waiting to feel rested up and restless, and when that happened, it was bliss to be back out on the lake in the little blue kayak, wearing my baseball cap and favourite blue lifejacket.
I got a very large tattoo this summer (as well as a small one). When I catch a glimpse in the mirror, it gives me pleasure to think: this woman could be an aging rock star, or an aging artist! I still can’t give a particularly good reason for getting the very large tattoo, or even for the chosen image (an owl made of woven ribbons), other than I like it.
I like it. It makes me feel both more myself and more like a different, alternative self, living a much edgier, cooler, artistic life, that probably involves less cooking and cleaning, overall. Fewer challenging parenting decisions.
At the cottage, we mostly unplug and read. I’ve read all the August New Yorkers from cover to cover. I just finished my friend Emily Urquhart’s memoir, Beyond the Pale, which explores folklore and genetics. And I’m currently tearing through a novel called Nightbitch, by Rachel Yoder, a writer with whom I share Mennonite roots (she was raised in Ohio); the book seems to me to be an answer to the question: why is motherhood so confusing and impossible? Or, maybe it’s a theory of motherhood, or an abstract on how to respond to motherhood, including positing motherhood as intensely lived performance art. Whatever it is, it’s deeply weird, hilariously funny, and consoling. I keep reading lines out loud to anyone who will listen.
I recommend pairing Nightbitch with this New York Times opinion piece on the “mothering instinct.”
Bracing. Just like the cool lake water. Some summers I haven’t gone under the water even once. I used to swim no matter what, training and doing lengths back and forth in the deeper water, but after a near-drowning experience a few years ago, I’ve been cautious and nervous in the lake. This summer, I decided to try, at least, to walk in and go under, no matter the weather. I’m fascinated by people who’ve taken up immersing themselves in freezing cold water, hacking holes in icy lakes in the middle of winter. It seems to have become a popular thing during the pandemic. I don’t live close to a body of water that would qualify as a lake, but in truth, even if a handy icy lake existed nearby, I’m not sure I’d have the fortitude for it. My alter-ego with the owl tattoo totally would. But for now, I feel practically heroic for paddling around the shallows of this little bay on an overcast and cool day, limbs tingling and bright, and chasing it with a blissful hot shower, enjoyed outdoors under the pine trees.
Maybe this is where my owl tattoo self lives all the time. I love the sound of the lake water on the rocks at night. I love the isolation. Everything slows, here. My racing mind. Time. Longing. Experience. Expression. It feels like we could always be here, when we are here.
xo, Carrie
Sharing good news
The X Page workshop’s 2022 performance of “Voices” is now available to view online. And the stories have been published online in The New Quarterly.
This year’s workshop ran from the beginning of May through the end of July. We met in person weekly, adapting to the changing pandemic protocols during those months. Miraculously, everyone was healthy and able to be present for our final performance at the end of July. It was momentous to be together again, and to experience the warmth and support of an in-person audience. The flexibility and generosity of everyone involved in this project made it all possible.
It is hard to say goodbye — there’s an intensity to the experience, collaboration and shared energy building toward a final goal. It’s thrilling and then it’s over.
We are always looking for ways to extend the project. Last year, we launched a monthly online “writing club,” and I’m looking forward to helping host those meetings starting in September. The writing club is open to all past, present (and future!) X Page participants and team members — essentially, those interested in staying connected or getting involved are welcome.
If you’d like to learn more about the workshop, please visit the website.
xo, Carrie
This is where I begin
I want to write about how to be, how to get through the days when I’m feeling weak, discouraged, overwrought (or perhaps under-wrought?), weighed down, anxious. I want to know how to be the kind of person who can experience such emotions and somehow surf atop the worries and fears and enjoy the day, nevertheless. There are many things to worry about, after all. The details may change, but there is always a list, available for the mind to scroll through, no matter the season.
Why are some days harder than others? Is it what’s happening externally, or is it how I’m framing things, seeing things, inside my own mind?
I don’t know.
But there is no perfect day, no perfect hour; that I do know. There is no reason to wait.
I lay out the template for survival, for dressing for the weather, for putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again. I step into it.
What am I missing? Can I fill a gap, answer a need? Is there something on my mind that I long to say to someone, a message I long to share that is waiting for the right moment to be spoken out loud … or let go of, maybe? Is the sense of fear or worry based on something real? And, if it is based on something real, is it something over which I have control? Would the problem, whatever it may be, be solved or helped by my immediate attention and focus?
Or, is everything actually okay, right now? Or, is it both? Not okay and okay.
How to clear a pathway for the mind to do its work, with clarity? How to be not okay and okay at once?
Not okay: The house smells like skunk and mothballs, the kitchen is somewhat torn apart, there is an excess of cucumbers and zucchini in the refrigerator, someone I love is in pain, I woke every hour last night.
Okay: The dog doesn’t smell too much of skunk, the neutralizing paste mixed up at midnight was quite effective, there is an excess of cucumbers and zucchini, the stove works, I walked with a friend this morning, yoga felt amazing.
The details of our days matter. It’s where we live, after all. Not in some theoretical place, but here, now, with whatever our bodies are telling us. I haven’t cracked the code for how to enjoy every bit of it; that bar is too high. So I tell myself: bring the bar down a bit lower … lower … lower yet … and appreciate what you’re doing on a small scale, how you broached a tough conversation, or bit your tongue, how you looked up new recipes, got creative, took a nap, did what you needed to be more kind.
How can I be more kind? To myself, to everyone else? This is where I begin, over and over again.
xo, Carrie
Experiences, ordinary and extraordinary
Quietly, quietly, the book slips into the world, into being, and there it is. Here it is. It’s hard to know what to do after that, as the writer. The author of that world. (It sounds so powerful — to author a world — but it’s actually mostly surrender to the forces that rise and compel a person to place words on the page; to go looking for shape and structure in a mess of accidental imagery.)
Just before the book came out, I did an interview with another writer. It’s always terrific to be interviewed by another writer, who is as curious about process as I am. Have a listen if you have time.
James Tennant · GET LIT E297 Carrie Snyder July 28
I’m also told that the audiobook is available everywhere you get those, if that’s your preferred mode of absorbing text. I voiced the audiobook version, and I loved reading for it, just like I loved being at the front of the room on Tuesday evening, in conversation with my dear friend Tasneem Jamal, talking about Francie and especially about the writing process. I think we managed to avoid any spoilers, and didn’t get lost in the weeds (or the labyrinth, as it were).
I’d like to share how I felt during the book launch: Alive. Comfortable. Myself, but as if my self were a source of light and lightness. Ease. Enjoyment. Delight. It was as if I were completely in tune with all the positive energy in the room. That good, deep, loving energy was almost visible to me, it felt so present. Time slowed. I could give and receive, relax, take all the time needed, I was aware of my feet on the ground, and my breath.
Most of all, I felt gratitude. Thankfulness. The warmth radiating from the open, generous faces of everyone who had taken time out of their day to come, in person, to share this moment with me. What a gift!
I’m beginning to understand that these experiences — like the X Page performance on Sunday, and the book launch — they don’t need to be anything else. They don’t need to build to something else, or become something else. They are whole, and wholly fulfilling in and of themselves. I love an experience. I love creating opportunities for flow. And it doesn’t have to be a heightened moment, either. I also love when an ordinary moment, seemingly every day and banal (like waiting in line for an appointment or stuck in the car in traffic), transforms in some way into an experience, a moment of flow.
It’s a way of being, of entering into relationship with the world, of allowing my joy to fly free, to freely express delight in being alive, without fear.
As I orient myself, today, I hope to find new and continuing ways to conjure and appreciate experiences, both ordinary and extraordinary, that make possible profound connection with others. I want to be open, always, to that swirl and whirl of delight in what is, that grounds us in what’s happening with joy, trust, light, and lightness.
That is my measure for success, for myself, now and always.
xo, Carrie