Is this what Alice Munro would do?
People are starting to read The Juliet Stories. I know this because of the odd unexpected message appearing in my inbox, arriving in out-of-the-blue moments, an old friend saying, Hello! with excitement. Part of me wants to share the messages with you. Part of me feels awkward and reticent. Is this what Alice Munro would do? (She is the height of writerly grace, in my opinion.) Um, no, is the obvious answer. But then, publishing is such an altered world, altered even since Hair Hat came out eight years ago. Eight years ago, who had heard of “social media”? I’m a writer who works in an old-fashioned medium: the Book. But I’m also a blog-writer. Occasionally I’ve wondered whether blog-writing itself is my accidental calling — this brisk, confessional, and immediate form of communication.
The writing of a book requires such different mental mechanisms than the writing of a blog. It requires patience to somehow co-exist with impatience. There are intricate pieces to be held inside the mind, waiting for a chance to be written out, puzzled out, put together. Blog-writing, for me, is freeing. It’s like opening a window. Book-writing is exhausting. It’s like mining underground with a trowel.
However, the reading of either book or blog should not be exhausting. It should be compelling, thought-provoking. Perhaps in different ways, and on different levels. A blog is more like a snapshot. A book is more like a movie.
And this writer is awful fond of ye ole simile.
In conclusion (she pontificates), I’m glad both mediums are available. I love blogging. And I think, yes I do, that the book is nevertheless my form, too. And I hope you will read The Juliet Stories and agree. Therefore, I will do as Obscure CanLit Mama would do, and share some of this out-of-the-blue love with you. It’s too sweet not to.
:::
It was approximately 5:30am this morning, and I was wearing bike shorts and eating peanut butter on toast in preparation for a spin/weight class, when I opened this message from a friend, sent at midnight:
I’ve just finished [Juliet] and my head is reeling. It’s marvellous. I could not put it down. It’s the best book I’ve read in a very long time. I read 150 books last year, and this stands out above all of them.
You know what the best thing is? I feel like it was written just for me, like it’s bespoke fiction. It’s all the things I love, Munro’s Del and Gallant’s Linnet among them.
Glorious, Carrie. Just glorious. I can’t wait to tell people about this book.
:::
And I was in the whirl of supper prep, taking a quick breather in my office, when I discovered this message yesterday evening:
Good lord, Carrie. I know I should wait until I’m done, but I’ve just finished the first part of the book, and am exploding to tell you how splendid it is! I guess when I start a book by someone I know & care about I am always a bit nervous. What if I don’t like it, what if I think it could be better. But THIS book is a revelation. Carrie, it is just so damn good. Each story is vivid and gripping, and filled with tension and wonderfully flawed and alive characters. The prose is smart and crafty and clear and evocative …
:::
And I was sitting down at the computer with my cherished morning coffee, today, when I read this tweet from Sheree Fitch, an accomplished writer for children and adults, about whom I blogged not long ago:
Finished #TheJulietStories. Rhapsodic,original,heart-piercing,luminous #novel. #brotherlylove in allways #Thankyou.
:::
How does this make me feel? I don’t even know, honestly. Relieved. On the verge of tears. That feeling of it was worth it. I’ve got to confess, I was feeling nervous about the launch party on Saturday, but with these messages fluttering in my mind, I’m feeling the excitement. I’m feeling it!
Oh! And at the party, we may even debut the new song!*
*not live; my voice is not up to that
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One more thing before I sign off today. The New Quarterly has a lovely post today about The Juliet Stories. As you may know, four Juliet stories debuted in TNQ, in somewhat altered earlier forms, and the magazine has packaged them together in digital format. It’s like Juliet memorabilia. (!)
They also have three writing contests on right now, one for Occasional Verse (ie. a poem written for an occasion, like a birthday, or a book launch …), one for Personal Essay, and one for the Short Story (hm, maybe I should enter?). Each prize will bestow upon the winner $1000. Details here. Spread the word.
Catch me if you can
Run, run, as fast as you can. That snippet of verse is in my head, running too.
I ran this morning. I lost track of the time and we ran for forty minutes. A bit over my limit of 10-15, but my hip felt okay. Not perfect, but okay. Then I went to my physio appointment where we looked at video of me running on the treadmill last week. Fascinating. To see my stride slowed down. To see my right foot turning out on every strike, and my hip drop at the foot lifts (both sides). “Wow, my calf muscles look so strong!” I said.
Apparently there’s a reason for that. My very strong calf muscles have been providing the lift for my stride rather than the much larger glutes, which should be engaged to a far greater degree. It may not even be a weakness in the muscle, but a habit formed. I will need to teach my body to use different strengths.
I have a brand-new mantra. It’s very small.
Exercise every day.
Doesn’t matter what. Just so long as every day I do something. This injury has opened to door to new activities. So maybe I do my strengthening exercises after a short run. Or try a Pilates class. A recent article in the Globe and Mail reported on a rather remarkable study of 40-year-old to 80-year-old triathletes. The difference in muscle tone and size was virtually indistinguishable between the 40-year-old athlete and the 70-year-old athlete. A sedentary 70-year-old, on the other hand, had significant decreases in muscle mass and increases in fat tissue around the shrunken muscles. The exercise needed to be four to five times a week, and needed to involve the entire body: cardio, strength training, and weight-bearing exercise in equal measure. The message is not eternal youth, in my mind. It’s that we can and should use our bodies all the days of our life.
Rather than focusing on injury, I’m going to focus on ability. If I can learn how to swim at age 35, I can learn how to retrain my running muscles at age 37. I’m confident.
And I’m running late. Again. Run, run, as fast as you can.
:::
This was meant to be a post about our Family Day hot-yoga-in-the-living-room experience, wherein we turned our living-room into a hot yoga room using steam, a heater, and sunshine. Photo above. Family Day at our house has translated into “Do Everything Together Day.” I struggled a little bit with this notion, but I was the only one. I tried not to be a spoil-sport. And slipped away to my office for a few breaths alone only a few times …
The week in suppers
bread dough rising
**Monday’s menu** Sweet potato coconut soup (crockpot). Bread. Cheese.
**Veggies** I think there are enough veggies in the soup to skip the side. This recipe is a winner every time.
**Tuesday’s menu** Chili in the crockpot (with hamburger and spinach). Baked rice. Tortilla chips.
**Rush, rush, rush** Eaten in the half-hour turnaround between swim lessons and soccer. I love the crockpot for it’s ability to turn out hot meals on days when I’m out of the house from 9-5.
**re hamburger** I’ve been buying one package of local, organic, drug-free hamburger on occasion. I have no explanation/excuse. Clearly we are not vegetarian, at least not entirely. But we do continue to eat meat sparingly. She says, and then remembers Thursday’s menu. Ahem.
**Wednesday’s menu** Red sauce with basil and tofu. Spaghetti.
**Easy-peasy** Whipped this up after piano lessons. Thank you, home-canned tomatoes and frozen basil.
**Thursday’s menu** Baked beans in the crockpot. Hot dogs. Store-bought buns. Confetti kale (fried kale with grated carrots).
**I know, I know** This is weird meal for us. We rarely eat hot dogs and when we do it’s summertime and they’re on the grill and they’re local and nitrate-free. These were yer basic tube o’ sodium & fat. Here’s the story: AppleApple went to an outdoor education centre on Thursday, and the children were invited to bring hot dogs to roast over the fire. We bought last-minute grocery store dogs. She took two. Which left us with a package of hot dogs minus two. Just enough for supper, so I made a theme meal of it. I personally skipped the dog and ate beans on a bun with toppings. A couple of the kids tried that out for their third helpings, with ketchup, mustard, relish, etc. It was okay. But the confetti kale was fantabulous.
**Friday’s menu** Church supper. Spaghetti with meat sauce. Green salad. Cookies and squares.
**No dishes** ‘Nuff said.
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**Weekend kitchen accomplishments** Four loaves of bread. Batch of middling carrot muffins. Vat of turkey stock to freeze.
Fooey with her orange tea
**Cooking with kids** Fooey’s menu for Saturday’s supper: Chinese theme. Cod fish cakes (these were really good!). Orange tea. Miso soup (technically Japanese; but an easy favourite). Ginger and snowpea noodles. Ginger chicken. Fruit with chocolate sauce.
**Please help!** We have an excess of carrots in the crisper! In fact, carrots have entirely taken over the crisper. What’s the solution? My carrot muffins were an utter failure (my muffins always are; maybe I’m over-mixing?). Carrot soup? Carrot cake? Tossing grated carrot into absolutely every dish? What’s your favourite carrot recipe?
Juliet, out and about
I was glad to have a companion for yesterday afternoon’s rather odd errand — I’d heard the book had arrived in our bookstore uptown.
“I’m feeling kind of silly about taking my camera into the store. ‘Hi, can I take a picture of my book?’ What do you think?”
“Of course you should! It’s your book!”
I was surprised to find copies smack-dab in the front window, too. The article in the window is from yesterday’s local newspaper; an interview. Inside the store there was a poster about the launch party this Saturday.
I’m trying to figure out how I feel about all of this. I’m not taking it for granted, not at all. It’s lovely. That’s what it is. It is a lovely experience running alongside the rest of my life.
Yesterday, the rest of my life revolved around selecting disastrous areas of the house (they are all disastrous, so I decided to make the job manageable by focusing on one at a time), and sorting through the accumulated minutiae, organizing, and then vacuuming.
before
after
Is it just me, or does “before” actually somehow look better, more welcoming, filled with life, etc., than “after”? Whatever. Those photos represent hours of labour. I was pretty grumpy by the time we got to the uptown photo errand. And I missed my chance to go to yoga class. And no make-up yoga today because Kevin’s working in Toronto. And tomorrow is Family Day which means the pool won’t be open early. And And And.
So, yes. It’s lovely to find the mundane interrupted by the unusual.
Dreaming the house
Short post this morning. Because I MUST CLEAN THE HOUSE. Someone has to do something lest the crumbs start plotting a takeover. And the house is on my mind. Or perhaps more accurately in my subconscious. In the last week I have dreamed about the house, in one way or another, every single night.
The dreams are all essentially the same, though the details change. But the essential thread holding them together is that our house is not our house. We have moved to a different house, inevitably a house in sad disrepair. We’ve sold our house and now regret it terribly but it’s too late. We can never go home. Or, we return to our house but it is changed, and not for the better. We stare at the front window, broken and boarded up. We wonder why someone has torn the numbers off our house and spraypainted new numbers onto plywood. We feel desolate and confused.
In last night’s dream the children had to go to new schools with crowded, noisy classrooms. They had to walk long distances to get there. They were struggling to fit in.
I’m no dream analyst (okay, I’m an amateur dream analyst; it’s an unavoidable side gig as a writer), but this speaks to me as fear of change. Fear of the unknown. That sideways wandering into a life that is just a little bit different from the known, comfortable, and familiar. The way a seemingly insignificant change can tip us off kilter. Not all change is chosen. What happens when we come back to the house and discover it is not the same house? Remember that feeling of going home for Christmas those first few years after leaving home, as a young adult? Remember the dismay and sadness? Realizing we couldn’t go home in the same way–also that we didn’t want to, but that we missed what was gone forever.
This morning, CJ came into my bed to tell me another Cookie Monster story (“I think this will be a short one, Mommy.”) And when that was done, he said, “I forgot! We need a snuggle.” And when a snuggle had been had, he hopped down and headed for the door, paused, turned: “I will remember this snuggle forever, Mommy.” Little feet trotting down the hallway. Stopping. Returning. His face suddenly sad. “I won’t remember this snuggle forever,” he said. “You can always come back for another snuggle,” I reassured him.
Because that’s what we do. We reassure our kids. Even while we’re thinking, man, that is so damn true. You won’t remember this snuggle forever. Neither will I. It’s a pinprick of a moment in a wide life. I mean, it’s a good pinprick. But it’s here and gone. Change, change, ringing like a bell. And we’re opening the door to a house that is familiar, but not ours.
A more cheerful post to come, very soon. Meanwhile, I will test out the theory that tidying, vacuuming, cleaning, and baking will put the dreams to rest, at least for a little while.