Boundaries are love!!
My goodness. What a year, what a season.
Boundaries are love!! a friend texts me.
Another friend helps me dig into my worry that writing has served as a form of therapy, lo these many years, and with medication now lowering my anxiety to levels previously never experienced, I wonder, will writing still come to me, will I still feel the urge if it’s not an obsessive impulse?
I am collecting the wisdom of the sisterhood. I made my birthday (December 29th) into an opportunity to connect and confer and laugh and reunite and relax with friends and family, near and far. In fact, the whole of this holiday season has been about this: connection, and ease. Sleep when tired. Rest when the stomach flu takes you down. Let someone else (Kevin! Angus!) cook the big turkey dinner. Bake in concert with kids and kids’ friends. Knead sticky bun dough for a good half hour while listening to a meditation. Walk through the snow storm. Snuggle the dog. Savour the warmth. Sing carols and hymns for hours. Be clear of mind. Drink in the kindness of others. Pour out what you can. Invite. Delight. Say yes, and thank you, and welcome, and thank you, and eat till you’re filled to the brim.
I’ve often been more reflective on birthdays past. This birthday, I chose to socialize all day long.
Can a woman contented with her life still be a writer? I woke up this morning and thought: I wouldn’t trade this contentment, this inner peace and delight that flickers with promise and hope, in order to write another book. But why am I building a case for either / or? Surely there are other paths in. I could argue as effectively that I’ve written books in order to be published, as some kind of proof of belonging, or proof of a longed-for identity (though that’s not how belonging works, nor grounding in identity; another hard-won revelation this year).
I’ll be teaching creative writing again this winter, and I’m interested in exploring what writing feels like now, again, anew; what feeds the urge to create; what sates it; what can I learn with / from my students?
If I’m not writing to ease my anxiety … if I’m not writing in order to be published … what sparks the desire to write a-whole-nother-book? It’s gruelling work that doesn’t quite make sense, as those close to me have observed — the effort I put into draft after draft can’t be paid off in the resulting novel. Effort and result are disconnected; even, I’d argue, unrelated. I’ve experienced book-writing as a painful process, I guess I’m confessing. It hasn’t made logical sense, not from a financial perspective, nor from an artistic perspective either, really; which is why I’m curious to know: will I still be able to make a beautiful book, with alive characters, built on an elaborate structure I see in my head, if I’m not obsessed, or in pain, or seeking to soothe deep anxiety? I’m hopeful. I am.
And I’m willing to shed all ambition to be a person with delight in her voice, and love in her throat, and patience in her bones.
What a wild experiment this living is.
What a lucky woman I am, to get to live in concert on this planet with so many wise, kind, generous spirits and friends. What a wonderful year this has been of feeling intensely (gratitude, shame, pride, uncertainty, clarity, anger, delight and so much more) and of paying attention to what the feelings are telling me; of making mistakes and being forgiven; and of seeing Francie in the world. The feeling I’m feeling right this very second is GRATITUDE! I’m thankful for a new job that brings me satisfaction and delight (as a temporary secretary / library clerk in the public schools); and for everyone who loves me as I am, a mess of flaws and inadequacies and intentions and goofiness. I carry you somewhere inside me, everyone who’s walked even a step with me on this path. Thank you for letting me give, when and what I could, and thank you for the gifts you offered me, whether I deserved them or not. I am a grateful, humbled recipient.
Please forgive me the times I let you down, or was too inward-looking to notice what you needed; or stuck in my own head, or protecting my pride. (I’ll forgive myself too; I’ll try.)
Boundaries are love!! Do I know what this means? I’m learning / unlearning, but I get it muddled often enough to cause pain.
Well. I’m human. Let’s all be human together. We’re so interesting and strange and difficult and curious. But we’re not disappointing! Not really, not truly, with a shift of perspective.
Wishing you time for reflection and / or fun as you look toward a whole new year.
xo, Carrie
Bring the light
Winter solstice. Do you mark this day?
I shared the morning with women from the neighbourhood, many of whom I’ve known for nearly twenty years, a few even longer. (I don’t host this event — I just get to go! It was dreamed up eleven years ago by my friend Kasia, who deeply understands the power of ritual.) It’s been two years since we’ve been able to come together to share in this ritual of welcoming back the light, on the darkest day of the year. There was magic in the room.
I love how as we age, we are freer with our emotions, freer to express our whole selves. We knew each other when our children were babies; and now our children are teens and young adults, and our parents are growing older. Crises are familiar to us, during this stage of life. And so, I think, we’ve all learned through experience how to offer each other support and care. With laughter. With tears. Without judgement.
I would like to honour the women of my generation, who are edging up to fifty, or already there. I see in my friends such a wealth of wisdom, honouring care, love, and intention. We’re in a gritty time in our lives. Yet we are not depleted. I love what I’ve learned from my friends: how to care for myself, how to care for others without losing myself, how to be kind. When I think back on dark times, there’s a friend coming toward me, carrying the light, meeting me where I’m at. I can picture these exchanges inside my mind, a private photo album of kindnesses. Honestly, there’s so much kindness in this photo album, it’s bursting at the seams, and so many of the gestures are seemingly small — yet they live on inside me. Isn’t that a good to know? That your / my gestures of kindness don’t need to be extravagant. They don’t even need to totally make sense: spontaneous, simple, brief, non-intrusive (trust; the kindness I’ve learned from my friends doesn’t presume or assume or even claim to understand, it just shows up).
Light doesn’t need the right words. It comes from inside.
You / I / we all carry it. How powerful we are, how brave.
xo, Carrie
What are your feelings telling you?
My word this year has been FEEL. On Friday evening my word group chose photos that represented our word, and cut them apart and put them back together again. I chose two: one showed a young girl standing in a creek, exploring, and the other a group of people dancing at a party.
FEEL has been a complicated word to explore. Do I trust my feelings? Shove them down? Give them too much prominence? Misinterpret them? Feelings are transitory, embodied experiences. What are my feelings telling me? A revelatory moment came this fall when I told a friend (who is also a life coach) that I was trying not to be angry, even though that was the main feeling that kept emerging; she said, oh no, bring that anger, feel it, it’s got a message for you. Our feelings, she said, tell us what our needs are.
So I learned: If I’m angry, a need is not being met. It might not be a terribly obvious need. It might be a need I don’t even recognize as valuable. It might be a need I’ve been trained not to pay attention to. It might be a need that traces all the way back to childhood. You know? It’s messy in here. It’s a jumble.
So both photos seemed to capture FEEL — ever-shifting. I felt wild at times this year, out of control, swinging to emotional heights, careering to dangerous lows (more the former than the latter–but still unsettling). The people dancing freely represented this wildness. Yes, I’ve felt unsettled. No amount of advance preparation or knowledge or planning could shift what came at me, poured through me, but as the year progressed, I got more comfortable with that. Comfortable with being unsettled. Or, perhaps more accurately, comfortable exploring the sensation.
What is my body telling me?
I’ve been jumping into the stream, getting wet, getting muddy. That’s the childlike aspect of this past year: I’m exploring more like a child would, in terms that could seem simplistic or naive, not necessarily in an organized or well-planned way, just doing it. Doing what comes naturally, doing what feels right. It’s active. I wouldn’t say I’ve been impulsive, but I have let myself do things I didn’t, before. I’ve let myself do things that I enjoy, just because. No explanation needed.
One of my needs is recognition. (I don’t like this need, but ignoring it won’t make it disappear.) This year, I’ve discovered that the recognition I crave doesn’t need to be elaborate, or large-scale, or noticeable to anyone else. Recognition could be a kid excited to discover a soccer book I’ve placed prominently on a library shelf. I’ve realized, too, that the people who care about me don’t need me to achieve “great” things, they’re delighted when I’m happy, that’s all, as I am for them. I’ve put too much emphasis on achievement, is what I’ve recognized. External recognition has been a hole to be filled, affecting my life choices; it’s still there, but now I know it’s there, and I can find different ways to satisfy that need.
I have loved this year, in all its messiness.
I have loved feeling my feelings, listening, giving them freedom to wing loose. What is this feeling telling me? I pause to wonder, rather than judging it for being negative or ugly or inappropriate. Is it an old feeling, rising from an old pattern? Is this feeling my own, or am I confusing it with someone else’s?
One last discovery this year: my voice. That one session with the vocal cord physio last spring was unexpectedly revelatory. I discovered that my voice can be loud and strong! But at the very same moment, I realized that I hated hearing my voice speak loudly — I felt my feelings: embarrassed, guilty, ashamed, uncomfortable. What on earth? Think about what those feelings were telling me, and how deep they must go: I actually find it painful to put into words.You have nothing to say. You will embarrass yourself if anyone hears you. It’s safer this way: Keep quiet.
I had no idea my body believed this. Once I had this valuable information, I could address it, actively. My feelings were trying to tell me: pay attention! For your voice to be strong, dig down into the roots of this belief. Is it true? Do you really believe that it’s true? And if not, counter it by practicing those vocal cord exercises, practice walking around the house speaking loudly, even if you feel silly. Practice till it feels natural and right.
And that’s what I did. And there was a shift. And that’s what this year has been.
xo, Carrie
Good times, good times
Yesterday morning, walking the dog, I noticed the absence of a particular feeling that is usually with me, almost all the time: anxiety. It was just … gone. It’s absence was astonishing. I have become so accustomed to making it through my days while pushing against its tide. To tell the truth, it had come to seem entirely feasible that my anxiety has been integral to my personality and character, and that what I’ve accomplished in my writing career in particular was thanks to this undercurrent, almost ever-present, of anxious driving energy.
What did its absence mean? Would I still be myself, without a lingering certainty that something was going to wrong, that I was going to make a mistake? It’s what I’ve been pushing against, for years, I think. Its nervous buzz has motivated me to devote myself to yoga, meditation, journaling, running, and all the other lovely activities I enjoy so very much, and which feed me. There is not doubt they feed me. And, I realize, they feed me with or without anxiety’s hum running through my body.
I did a slow flow yoga on Tuesday night that was positively blissful, and in which I felt no pressure (interior or exterior) to do anything in any particular way, except to follow what felt good.
Here’s the funny part about this absence of anxiety: I have lots going on right now that could legitimately cause me to fret, stew, and otherwise send me into a spiral. And instead, I’m diving headlong into unknown territory, feeling a strange and unexpected delight. It reminds me of the change I experienced this summer, when the cold water of the lake seemed to call to me, come in, come in, this is quite wonderful! And it was! I’ve gone years avoiding lake swimming altogether because the water was too cold, and I “hate” being cold.
Except, I don’t. Or not anymore. I think it’s wise to check in from time to time with those stories we’re telling ourselves, about who we are. I “hate” talking on the phone. Except I don’t. I like not knowing who will be on the other end when I pick up, and what they might need, and how I might be able to help them in some small way.
I’m working a new job (started last week), and I’ve thrown myself into the deep end. It’s been oddly soothing to see myself differently, again. To find comfort with discomfort, joy with challenge, discovery with each new environment explored.
I’d forgotten my adventuring self. She was there all along.
xo, Carrie
A wonderful review
Super thrilled to discover this review of Francie’s Got a Gun, on Kerry Clare’s blog, Pickle Me This. I respect Kerry’s keen reader’s eye immensely, and I’m overflowing with gratitude for her deep and layered reading of the novel. As book-coverage shrinks in traditional media outlets, reviews like Kerry’s are ever-more meaningful and important (as are reader reviews on sites like Goodreads, Amazon and Indigo). Kerry’s long been a terrific booster of Canadian writers and writing, not to mention she’s a talented novelist herself (Waiting for a Star to Fall).
Here’s an excerpt.
I loved Francie’s Got a Gun, a new novel by Carrie Snyder…. It’s a taut, tension-filled story of a young girl who’s running with a gun in her hand, the question of “where did she come from” taking precedent over “where is she going?” because maybe the ending it inevitable. But is it? … I started reading this book and found it hard to put it down, but refrained from posting about it until I’d reached the very end, so I’d be able to tell you with certainty that Carrie Snyder has pulled off, with flawless execution, a rich and sprawling story, and she really, really has.
Click here to read the full review.
xo, Carrie