I'll admit I perform this damaging writerly 'duty' far too often. Or I don't. Whatever the case, I'm really working on it.
Also, my own proper-English editing. I have miles of books about this type of thing, and I think it's time I move them front and centre, crowd them round my desk, have them hover, like the thesaurus and the dictionary (yes, I know about spell-check and all that but sometimes it's not enough).
It's Saturday night. I've run today, I went for a tan (sue me), walked about, did my niece's hair, took her to ballet, read the Toronto Star (my dad would freak) page-by-page-by-page in the community centre where her ballet class is, the backdrop of this my muted ipod, screaming children, and doting parents. Doting, but not disciplining. It's a theme lately isn't it? But, really, today, the whole world bothered me. I mean, I loved the bright sun, I loved my run (oh foot, please be good. I know you're hurt), I loved helping my sister.
But I hated the traffic. How warm I felt, how many cars on the road, my late bedtime, my sluggish morning.
But I got it all done. I sent in my Letters for our Daughters and got a positive response.
I made it to church. Even though, while I was there, I completely zoned out, in a meditative fashion (very unlike me) and had to rely on the other people around me for the cues of standing up, sitting down, kneeling. I guess it was good. I lost myself for a good forty minutes thinking about May, last May, the May before that--how much peace I've been able to garner this May around. How horrible it can be when you are in strife while gorgeous weather swirls around. How my running the last two years fed on strife. How this year, I pray, I will give it happiness to feed on. I lit some candles, I stared at the flickering light, looked at my own reflection in the black lacquer of the piano at the front of the church, reminding me so much of my childhood Saturday nights. Funny that the two candles I lit were for the piano players in my life.
I bought a huge bag of vegetables at the market (inspired by, I'm sure, the vegan ultra-runner I read about in Runner's World). I did my banking, got Starbucks, and more laundry is on the go. Cleaning. Well, that will have to happen tomorrow. I didn't do my hair today. Or put any make-up on. I just didn't want to. There's some correspondence I would like to get out tonight, some dishes and leftovers that need to be put away -- I just roasted chicken pieces, made a portabello/saffron/roasted tomato risotto. Spinach on the side.
And I'm in tonight. Super-moon awaiting. Perhaps my tarot cards need to see this.
Oh, and bonus--Porter extended their sale on summer flights and I found (and booked!) an ever better deal than the one I was cruising for this week. I booked the times I wanted (one day after Mike's birthday, but better than nothing--his birthday is on the 5th of July--I will arrive, belated, on the 6th, late at night). I stay until Monday night (no one likes these evening flights--so--great price. GREAT price.). Happy. Called Mike. He was happy too. Two months to seeing Mike seems do-able. After five months apart last summer, these two sojourns, one last weekend, one July 6th, are like delectable gravy. I am so thankful.
Back to church.
All the same faces. Older faces. Under-housed men doing the rounds with the collection basket (two collections today, the second to help keep this beautiful church, this basilica in good repair. I'm a designer. I know what the upkeep can cost to keep a building this unique, this very special brand of vintage, in good repair). I walk home in the lovely sunshine, I buy my vegetables.
I'm in for the night, the crazies of the pre-full-moon out in full force, my desire to be solitary and comfortable and silent being fulfilled. Chardonnay is in my present, book to read in my (near) future.
That's really all I have to talk about at this point.
Well, that, and the thoughts I've had today about this blog. About how I wanted it to springboard a memoir for me. And now, finally, as I reach that last thirty-something birthday, I think I finally know what I want to do.
Stay tuned. (and look for the super-moon!)
Saturday, May 5, 2012
It won't let me sleep
It's like the opposite of writer's block. It's like writer's overflow.
Even though I'm tired, I've heated my foot up with the heating pad, I've finished the book I started reading on the plane home from Boston (Ruth Reichl--Garlic and Sapphires. One thing I love: reading about things I love doing, ie, eating, also, running, and writing, and up-and-quitting-one's-job and just STOPPING the paycheque-slavery that we of the gainfully employed so lament...)
So I'm up again. I did turn off the light briefly after I talked to Mike, after my next-door neighbour (I often wonder if she sits up against our shared wall, bedroom to bedroom and stills herself to hear sounds she can bristle about. In this case, tonight, it was just me, mewling along the long-distance line to Mike, that must have set her off. She started scratching the wall...or something that sounded like that. Or she's purchased a cat that is more sensitive to sound than she is. No. That can't be right. No living thing could survive in that smoky nest with her). Sorry. Uncharitable. But the scratching was...unnerving. And it had the (desired?) effect of getting me off the phone and making me alert.
F*ck.
I visited my friend (well, blog-friend) Julia (http://www.juliaipsa.com/) and took in her last few thoughtful entries, heard her describe herself as 'humble' (which is exactly how I always think of her, somehow, a very humble person, surrounded by a city full of ego, taking glorious photos and not realizing it) and I returned back to my mantra of "calm".
I very much admire Julia's wonderful attitude towards children and I remind myself of this when I get impatient on the inside as I hear children wail insistently while I am at the library (my cell phone discreetly muted) and when I am in church, trying to find some peace away from my own ego-driven city, or when I am at a restaurant. I remind myself of how my own niece and nephew talk loudly in Starbucks and how unmoved I am when they do it (biased beyond belief I am. Nepotism at its finest).
And then I move on to a little piece in my head entitled "why I would be a terrible parent" (moody, impatient, surly in the mornings, chardonnay'ed in the evenings, homework bored me the first time 'round, I leave pills all over my apartment in the manner of a kind of Valley of the Dolls existence, I have this fetish for not putting things away yet I abhor mess..) I did that dance for a bit.
Then I turned off the light again and tried to sleep but I feel like the light from the upcoming "super-moon" is starting to invade my room. That, or after sleeping in the pure darkness of a small town in Maine and a beach town in Conneticut last weekend, my circadians are waltzing. Super-moon is a remarkably uninspired way to describe the moon I think. They interviewed an astronomer on the radio as I drove home who, when pressed about how this years' moon compares to the super-moon of 2011, said "that was a super-super-moon". Me, in the car, to myself: somebody get this man a thesaurus. I want to call it a "glorious" moon, or an "abundant" moon. A "generous" moon. A gift-of-a-moon. I suppose, though, that if all that we believe and research about full moons is true, there are many professions who are not looking forward to a calm weekend at all thanks to the super-moon. Doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, police, fire-fighters. And on a Saturday night to boot. Oh God. Despite my haze of calm driving to my mom's this evening I did notice the drivers on the road seemed distracted, the pedestrians misguided, and I had a feeling of....I guess ominous anticipation.
I must have a pill for that somewhere in here.
Back to Julia--I have, I will admit, a strange predeliction to the blogs of New Yorkers. Their lives seems impossibly full ( I tease my friend L. that her weekend-goings-on are enough to fill a whole summer of weekends in my Toronto world of reclusive roof-deck-tanning and the disappearance of my friends into this new role called "motherhood"). New Yorkers' lives seem glamorous. But sometimes I can detect the amount of work they have to put in (not my friend L., she's above all that, and not Julia, she has an identity and a commitment to self that allows her to rise above too), but alot of the others--it's both tiring and thrilling to read about yet another night out, or a brunch with sixteen people (L. had me crying with laughter describing how some New York restaurants have banned cameras becuase of instagram-addicted/blog-hogging scrums photographing their food, that insistent city-driven impulse to document their important selves to the masses). Tiring too to read about workout regimens (who CARES?) and tiring to read people who are obsessed with their appearances to the point where I imagine their vanity to be beyond the realm of my imagination, and that it must be very, very crippling. {Scrum is a word I've just honed into. I love it. I love it with the same intenisty that I hate words like "hubby", "sleeps", as in 'two more sleeps' ugh it's days or nights people, pick one, go with it, "tummy" and "grub". Ick.}
But curiosity gets the better of me and I read torrid entries about why their lives are exceedingly special and I gaze at their often-poached images (L: I'm so confused, tumblr, pinterest, what's the difference?), showing the country house that is coveted and the necklace that is begging to be bought from a store that steals ideas from artists they don't pay, and wonder: just what is so wrong with these lives they are leading that makes them look so far outside themselves for an answer, a fix?
There must be a pill for that somewhere.
Even though I'm tired, I've heated my foot up with the heating pad, I've finished the book I started reading on the plane home from Boston (Ruth Reichl--Garlic and Sapphires. One thing I love: reading about things I love doing, ie, eating, also, running, and writing, and up-and-quitting-one's-job and just STOPPING the paycheque-slavery that we of the gainfully employed so lament...)
So I'm up again. I did turn off the light briefly after I talked to Mike, after my next-door neighbour (I often wonder if she sits up against our shared wall, bedroom to bedroom and stills herself to hear sounds she can bristle about. In this case, tonight, it was just me, mewling along the long-distance line to Mike, that must have set her off. She started scratching the wall...or something that sounded like that. Or she's purchased a cat that is more sensitive to sound than she is. No. That can't be right. No living thing could survive in that smoky nest with her). Sorry. Uncharitable. But the scratching was...unnerving. And it had the (desired?) effect of getting me off the phone and making me alert.
F*ck.
I visited my friend (well, blog-friend) Julia (http://www.juliaipsa.com/) and took in her last few thoughtful entries, heard her describe herself as 'humble' (which is exactly how I always think of her, somehow, a very humble person, surrounded by a city full of ego, taking glorious photos and not realizing it) and I returned back to my mantra of "calm".
I very much admire Julia's wonderful attitude towards children and I remind myself of this when I get impatient on the inside as I hear children wail insistently while I am at the library (my cell phone discreetly muted) and when I am in church, trying to find some peace away from my own ego-driven city, or when I am at a restaurant. I remind myself of how my own niece and nephew talk loudly in Starbucks and how unmoved I am when they do it (biased beyond belief I am. Nepotism at its finest).
And then I move on to a little piece in my head entitled "why I would be a terrible parent" (moody, impatient, surly in the mornings, chardonnay'ed in the evenings, homework bored me the first time 'round, I leave pills all over my apartment in the manner of a kind of Valley of the Dolls existence, I have this fetish for not putting things away yet I abhor mess..) I did that dance for a bit.
Then I turned off the light again and tried to sleep but I feel like the light from the upcoming "super-moon" is starting to invade my room. That, or after sleeping in the pure darkness of a small town in Maine and a beach town in Conneticut last weekend, my circadians are waltzing. Super-moon is a remarkably uninspired way to describe the moon I think. They interviewed an astronomer on the radio as I drove home who, when pressed about how this years' moon compares to the super-moon of 2011, said "that was a super-super-moon". Me, in the car, to myself: somebody get this man a thesaurus. I want to call it a "glorious" moon, or an "abundant" moon. A "generous" moon. A gift-of-a-moon. I suppose, though, that if all that we believe and research about full moons is true, there are many professions who are not looking forward to a calm weekend at all thanks to the super-moon. Doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers, police, fire-fighters. And on a Saturday night to boot. Oh God. Despite my haze of calm driving to my mom's this evening I did notice the drivers on the road seemed distracted, the pedestrians misguided, and I had a feeling of....I guess ominous anticipation.
I must have a pill for that somewhere in here.
Back to Julia--I have, I will admit, a strange predeliction to the blogs of New Yorkers. Their lives seems impossibly full ( I tease my friend L. that her weekend-goings-on are enough to fill a whole summer of weekends in my Toronto world of reclusive roof-deck-tanning and the disappearance of my friends into this new role called "motherhood"). New Yorkers' lives seem glamorous. But sometimes I can detect the amount of work they have to put in (not my friend L., she's above all that, and not Julia, she has an identity and a commitment to self that allows her to rise above too), but alot of the others--it's both tiring and thrilling to read about yet another night out, or a brunch with sixteen people (L. had me crying with laughter describing how some New York restaurants have banned cameras becuase of instagram-addicted/blog-hogging scrums photographing their food, that insistent city-driven impulse to document their important selves to the masses). Tiring too to read about workout regimens (who CARES?) and tiring to read people who are obsessed with their appearances to the point where I imagine their vanity to be beyond the realm of my imagination, and that it must be very, very crippling. {Scrum is a word I've just honed into. I love it. I love it with the same intenisty that I hate words like "hubby", "sleeps", as in 'two more sleeps' ugh it's days or nights people, pick one, go with it, "tummy" and "grub". Ick.}
But curiosity gets the better of me and I read torrid entries about why their lives are exceedingly special and I gaze at their often-poached images (L: I'm so confused, tumblr, pinterest, what's the difference?), showing the country house that is coveted and the necklace that is begging to be bought from a store that steals ideas from artists they don't pay, and wonder: just what is so wrong with these lives they are leading that makes them look so far outside themselves for an answer, a fix?
There must be a pill for that somewhere.
Friday, May 4, 2012
Conversations and Observations
It's the calm end of what was a calm (translation: I'm too tired to be stressed about anything) day.
I even look tired, something I detest, and my skin is mottled with pms blotches and that (just occurred to me) might be why I've been dragging all week (that and the fact that I haven't run since last Sunday. The week just ran on without me. Also, I have this foot thing that I am trying not to focus on. But I am..resting it. Next week is race week. God help me).
Talked to my friend L. last night--always uplifting, funny, and spot-on about her take on life.
We were discussing my post from yesterday and she coined the perfect phrase to sum up what I was writing about: "It's like killing off a main character and then not telling anybody why!"
We were surmising about the possibilities and using our writerly imaginations to fill in the blanks
(L. is also a blogger, see my sidebar and this link, http://blackcatbaby-imjustsayin.blogspot.ca/).
I told her my theory and she gasped. We talked (myself as a northerner and Canadian to boot, her hailing from SA) about the seemingly mystic power women in the Southern U.S. seem to have over men (could be our perception but they do seem to really know what they're doing--and my general opinion is that handling men is a skill much like writing--you are born with your gift--it can't be taught). My burgeoning theory has taken flight and I'm not convinced that we're in the final installment of this part of the book in this life we're reading about. Meaning; sometimes characters get called back on. Because not everyone has a zero-tolerance policy, and marriages are as individual as sets of keys, as snowflakes, and this may be a prologue to a reunion. What I was saying is, she might know exactly what she's going to do. And here we are, loyal readers, hanging on every word, wincing at every veiled reference.
It was pure late-night speculation but all in all harmless musings.
Trust me; I am one who recognizes the power of a philanderer to cause psychological anguish.
And when the only justice you can rely on is the karmic backlash, you just have to be patient.
But as I was saying it was an okay Friday all in all.
When I left for work this morning, the ground was damp from last nights' rain and everything smelled like Spring. I don't care if it rains all of May. I loved being gently wakened last night by the sound of the rain starting up again, around 2 am. It's one of my favourite sensations; being absolutely sheltered, warm in bed, while rain starts to patter outside. I live on the top floor of a three-storey building so sometimes, when the rain is particularly loud, I can hear it bounce off the roof. If anything else wakes me in the night, I can get quite grumpy--but not with rain. I always love the predictable sound of it. Symmetry.
Other things today: no traffic, breakfast in the car (I never make time for breakfast. It's shameful). Made it to the library on the way home to bring back my almost-overdue books and pick up a few more (back to the fiction again, loving it--the McCall Smith book that I looked for last time was back on the shelf, I snared it).
Had dinner with my mom at her apartment in the Beach,(chicken tacos) and then watched tv after admiring her beautiful new dining room curtains.
Was home from her place by 8:30 pm, face washed, hair up, air conditioning blasting (when I'm tired, I overheat, it's the weirdest thing). Ipod on Sunday playlist, garbage and recycling taken out, laundry in the dryer, catching up on emails, reading Runner's World while I waited for my computer to power up, and this, blogging, writing about my day, at its very end. I'm just about to turn everything off and get ready to read in bed as the clothes tumble.
Oh, and one more thing: I fnished and submitted my contribution to Letters for our Daughters.
My concept had been rolling around my head for a few days and tonight, after a fairly peaceful day and this very calm evening, I finally typed it up. It took more of a poetic form than that of a letter, and I welcome editing, but it's done--my first attempt. All that I really want to say to the next generation(s). My niece's generation, whom, for her sake, I hope gets the most liberated generation of men ever. With my contemporaries mothering the sons as well as the daughters of her time, it might end up being a bit of a mixed bag, I have to say.
Well, start as you mean to go I say.
Start as you mean to go on.
I have to be up early.
I have a long run planned (despite my foot, see, not focussing on it, that's my plan). I also am going to take my niece to ballet class and prior to that I have to do her hair in the requisite bun that she has now become dependent on me doing (I had a flashback to my own childhood thinking about this: my mother used to put my hair up and I remember thinking, at age seven--who will put my hair up for me when I one day leave home? Oh being a Virgo. Takes planning in advance to the next level).
Happy (calm) weekend.
I even look tired, something I detest, and my skin is mottled with pms blotches and that (just occurred to me) might be why I've been dragging all week (that and the fact that I haven't run since last Sunday. The week just ran on without me. Also, I have this foot thing that I am trying not to focus on. But I am..resting it. Next week is race week. God help me).
Talked to my friend L. last night--always uplifting, funny, and spot-on about her take on life.
We were discussing my post from yesterday and she coined the perfect phrase to sum up what I was writing about: "It's like killing off a main character and then not telling anybody why!"
We were surmising about the possibilities and using our writerly imaginations to fill in the blanks
(L. is also a blogger, see my sidebar and this link, http://blackcatbaby-imjustsayin.blogspot.ca/).
I told her my theory and she gasped. We talked (myself as a northerner and Canadian to boot, her hailing from SA) about the seemingly mystic power women in the Southern U.S. seem to have over men (could be our perception but they do seem to really know what they're doing--and my general opinion is that handling men is a skill much like writing--you are born with your gift--it can't be taught). My burgeoning theory has taken flight and I'm not convinced that we're in the final installment of this part of the book in this life we're reading about. Meaning; sometimes characters get called back on. Because not everyone has a zero-tolerance policy, and marriages are as individual as sets of keys, as snowflakes, and this may be a prologue to a reunion. What I was saying is, she might know exactly what she's going to do. And here we are, loyal readers, hanging on every word, wincing at every veiled reference.
It was pure late-night speculation but all in all harmless musings.
Trust me; I am one who recognizes the power of a philanderer to cause psychological anguish.
And when the only justice you can rely on is the karmic backlash, you just have to be patient.
But as I was saying it was an okay Friday all in all.
When I left for work this morning, the ground was damp from last nights' rain and everything smelled like Spring. I don't care if it rains all of May. I loved being gently wakened last night by the sound of the rain starting up again, around 2 am. It's one of my favourite sensations; being absolutely sheltered, warm in bed, while rain starts to patter outside. I live on the top floor of a three-storey building so sometimes, when the rain is particularly loud, I can hear it bounce off the roof. If anything else wakes me in the night, I can get quite grumpy--but not with rain. I always love the predictable sound of it. Symmetry.
Other things today: no traffic, breakfast in the car (I never make time for breakfast. It's shameful). Made it to the library on the way home to bring back my almost-overdue books and pick up a few more (back to the fiction again, loving it--the McCall Smith book that I looked for last time was back on the shelf, I snared it).
Had dinner with my mom at her apartment in the Beach,(chicken tacos) and then watched tv after admiring her beautiful new dining room curtains.
Was home from her place by 8:30 pm, face washed, hair up, air conditioning blasting (when I'm tired, I overheat, it's the weirdest thing). Ipod on Sunday playlist, garbage and recycling taken out, laundry in the dryer, catching up on emails, reading Runner's World while I waited for my computer to power up, and this, blogging, writing about my day, at its very end. I'm just about to turn everything off and get ready to read in bed as the clothes tumble.
Oh, and one more thing: I fnished and submitted my contribution to Letters for our Daughters.
My concept had been rolling around my head for a few days and tonight, after a fairly peaceful day and this very calm evening, I finally typed it up. It took more of a poetic form than that of a letter, and I welcome editing, but it's done--my first attempt. All that I really want to say to the next generation(s). My niece's generation, whom, for her sake, I hope gets the most liberated generation of men ever. With my contemporaries mothering the sons as well as the daughters of her time, it might end up being a bit of a mixed bag, I have to say.
Well, start as you mean to go I say.
Start as you mean to go on.
I have to be up early.
I have a long run planned (despite my foot, see, not focussing on it, that's my plan). I also am going to take my niece to ballet class and prior to that I have to do her hair in the requisite bun that she has now become dependent on me doing (I had a flashback to my own childhood thinking about this: my mother used to put my hair up and I remember thinking, at age seven--who will put my hair up for me when I one day leave home? Oh being a Virgo. Takes planning in advance to the next level).
Happy (calm) weekend.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Other Blogs
I think I've mentioned it before, but I love reading other good blogs.
I love seeing other points of view, reading about people's outlooks on the world, and feeling a little like you 'know' who they are--even though you usually don't (on my sidebar, with "I'm Just Sayin", and "threadless" --all written by people I do know, however.
One of the amazing things about bloggers you know is that you know their situation. You know what is going on in their lives, they know what is going on in yours (and can surmise things from your blog like nobody else). They can, for lack of a better term, navigate the narrative, so to speak.
Readers who don't know you can't do that.
Bloggers you don't know, but read, admire, and follow can't give you that either.
And it can be tough.
In my own blog, I try to carry a narrative, I sometimes link to other posts of my own when I think they might carry weight or give a reader more a glimpse inside my little world, my 'revolving door planet'.
I have what one might call 'themes'. For instance, in a nutshell, I can summarize this blog from its inception, April 2009, to now:
Started the blog as a bored singleton whose friends were all deeply entrenched in the world of engagements, marriages, husbands. I held down two jobs for twelve years and was feeling stymied by both.
I started writing as I was bored with journalling 'just for me'. I had volumes of journals from my twenties (I've kept them ALL) and I hadn't been journalling, or doing ANYTHING creative other than amazing scrapbooking for years.
Yes, I am an interior designer.
But, (truth time): My job is mostly numbers. Contracts. Budgets. Deadlines.
My desk is covered with papers, samples, files, folders.
One day I'll take a photo.
I warn you: It is appalling.
So, not much of a creative outlet.
I didn't write much in the beginning. I talked about the end of my sister's marriage in one post that year (when I look back at that post now, it was very vague. One reason for that is that I promised myself this blog was going to be about Me and my life--I didn't want to use it as a forum to muse and think about other people all the time.. I'd been doing that far too much).
I wrote about my then-boyfriend moving into my condo. I outlined my CN tower climb for charity in another post. I talked about my journalist neighbour and her fondness for putting me in print (in Toronto's most circulated paper).
Then December 2009 hit. A friend who I'd once been so close to died in an accident.
Cue; tailspin.
2010 ushered itself in. The year starting off in sluggish January, not showing its colours yet, nothing on the horizon as far as the eye could see. My narrative included my newfound hobby, running, something I hadn't been committed to in a long time, I wrote about wanting to write my memoir, and I talked about books I was reading. I grieved all winter for my now-lost friend. Spring came around. With it, my father's devestating cancer diagnosis and my then-boyfriend, the one I'd 'taken a chance on' had an affair with a co-worker at the restaurant we all worked at. I didn't find that out until AFTER he moved out. The chaos in my life fuelled my writing, it fuelled my reading, it fuelled my running. It fuelled ME. I lost about ten pounds that summer. I wrote about the 'break-up diet'.
I travelled. To see Mike, the man I was falling in love with long-distance-style. I wrote about driving on my own to Maine. About seeing New York City for the first time. The signs and the omens I experienced in 2010 were a recurring theme, too. My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary (to be their last). I wrote a poem about it.
Now writing in itself had become my narrative.
Mike came to Canada. He met my parents.
I went back to Maine after Christmas, had the worst flu/cold of my life over New Years ringing in 2011. I look back at that as my body getting as strong as it could for the coming year which, in all of life's paradoxes, would be the hardest one of my life, with a strong, sweet ending, but getting there would take almost everything I had.
Spring 2011. My father's grim prognosis. Writing to keep myself sane, to keep myself getting out of bed; I look back at entries now and think, "Oh yes--written while I was on AUTOMATIC." There is no other way to describe it.
Through it all, the readers knew. They knew because I told them. I wrote with no veil between Reader and Writer. It's how I have to write.
Then I got engaged to Mike, we got married four months later, and I wrote about that; our happiness, our honeymoon, our sheer joy at being together. My sheer joy of remembering what it was joy felt like.
And life runs on and on and the days gallop by.
So when I read a blog, like reading a book, I want to know. I'm driven by a curiosity that I have to satiate.
And when it doesn't happen I apply the same scenario over and over again: I stop reading.
I love seeing other points of view, reading about people's outlooks on the world, and feeling a little like you 'know' who they are--even though you usually don't (on my sidebar, with "I'm Just Sayin", and "threadless" --all written by people I do know, however.
One of the amazing things about bloggers you know is that you know their situation. You know what is going on in their lives, they know what is going on in yours (and can surmise things from your blog like nobody else). They can, for lack of a better term, navigate the narrative, so to speak.
Readers who don't know you can't do that.
Bloggers you don't know, but read, admire, and follow can't give you that either.
And it can be tough.
In my own blog, I try to carry a narrative, I sometimes link to other posts of my own when I think they might carry weight or give a reader more a glimpse inside my little world, my 'revolving door planet'.
I have what one might call 'themes'. For instance, in a nutshell, I can summarize this blog from its inception, April 2009, to now:
Started the blog as a bored singleton whose friends were all deeply entrenched in the world of engagements, marriages, husbands. I held down two jobs for twelve years and was feeling stymied by both.
I started writing as I was bored with journalling 'just for me'. I had volumes of journals from my twenties (I've kept them ALL) and I hadn't been journalling, or doing ANYTHING creative other than amazing scrapbooking for years.
Yes, I am an interior designer.
But, (truth time): My job is mostly numbers. Contracts. Budgets. Deadlines.
My desk is covered with papers, samples, files, folders.
One day I'll take a photo.
I warn you: It is appalling.
So, not much of a creative outlet.
I didn't write much in the beginning. I talked about the end of my sister's marriage in one post that year (when I look back at that post now, it was very vague. One reason for that is that I promised myself this blog was going to be about Me and my life--I didn't want to use it as a forum to muse and think about other people all the time.. I'd been doing that far too much).
I wrote about my then-boyfriend moving into my condo. I outlined my CN tower climb for charity in another post. I talked about my journalist neighbour and her fondness for putting me in print (in Toronto's most circulated paper).
Then December 2009 hit. A friend who I'd once been so close to died in an accident.
Cue; tailspin.
2010 ushered itself in. The year starting off in sluggish January, not showing its colours yet, nothing on the horizon as far as the eye could see. My narrative included my newfound hobby, running, something I hadn't been committed to in a long time, I wrote about wanting to write my memoir, and I talked about books I was reading. I grieved all winter for my now-lost friend. Spring came around. With it, my father's devestating cancer diagnosis and my then-boyfriend, the one I'd 'taken a chance on' had an affair with a co-worker at the restaurant we all worked at. I didn't find that out until AFTER he moved out. The chaos in my life fuelled my writing, it fuelled my reading, it fuelled my running. It fuelled ME. I lost about ten pounds that summer. I wrote about the 'break-up diet'.
I travelled. To see Mike, the man I was falling in love with long-distance-style. I wrote about driving on my own to Maine. About seeing New York City for the first time. The signs and the omens I experienced in 2010 were a recurring theme, too. My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary (to be their last). I wrote a poem about it.
Now writing in itself had become my narrative.
Mike came to Canada. He met my parents.
I went back to Maine after Christmas, had the worst flu/cold of my life over New Years ringing in 2011. I look back at that as my body getting as strong as it could for the coming year which, in all of life's paradoxes, would be the hardest one of my life, with a strong, sweet ending, but getting there would take almost everything I had.
Spring 2011. My father's grim prognosis. Writing to keep myself sane, to keep myself getting out of bed; I look back at entries now and think, "Oh yes--written while I was on AUTOMATIC." There is no other way to describe it.
Through it all, the readers knew. They knew because I told them. I wrote with no veil between Reader and Writer. It's how I have to write.
Then I got engaged to Mike, we got married four months later, and I wrote about that; our happiness, our honeymoon, our sheer joy at being together. My sheer joy of remembering what it was joy felt like.
And life runs on and on and the days gallop by.
So when I read a blog, like reading a book, I want to know. I'm driven by a curiosity that I have to satiate.
And when it doesn't happen I apply the same scenario over and over again: I stop reading.
News
http://lettersforourdaughters.com/
I linked over to this amazing website yesterday in my post, and I wanted to share--I've been
invited by the author of this incredible project to submit something! I'm going to be musing about that out loud in the next few days.
Please, go and check this out--correspondence for the next generation(s) of women.
I linked over to this amazing website yesterday in my post, and I wanted to share--I've been
invited by the author of this incredible project to submit something! I'm going to be musing about that out loud in the next few days.
Please, go and check this out--correspondence for the next generation(s) of women.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
List-Poem-Tuesday Loves
I was doing some light cleaning tonight, on a work-in-progress I like to call my "fridge collage" when this jumped out at me (it was hiding behind a poem hand-written out by my aunt, by Rumi, a way-in-the-last-century mystic and, it may be said, amazing poet).
I don't know who wrote this (if you do, please let me know, either by comment or by email). All I know is that I've read this over and over again, whenever I was in the depths, and it always somehow helped. I think that my boss's mother gave it to me, years ago, photocopied lovingly on our office photocopier. She was a swell woman, let me tell you. An inspiration. She typed things on a typewriter in her cubicle, and it was papered, from top to bottom, side to side, with drawings and letters from her thirteen grandchildren. After she got really sick I was entrusted with the task of dis-engaging these paper treasures from the cubicle 'walls' and putting them away in a box, along with the typewriter and her adding machine. I still miss her dearly.
Here it is:
15 Things You Probably Never Knew or Thought About:
1. At least 5 people in this world love you so much they would die for you.
2. At least 15 people in the world love you in some way.
3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you.
4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone.
5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.
6. You mean the world to someone.
7. If not for you, someone may not be living.
8. You are special and unique.
9. Someone you don't even know exists loves you.
10. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it.
11. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look: you most likely turned your back on the world.
12. When you think you have no chance of getting what you want, you probably won't get it. But if you believe in yourself, probably, sooner or later, you will get it.
13. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget about the rude remarks.
14. Always tell someone how you feel about them; you will feel much better when they know.
15. If you have a great friend, take the time to let them know that they are great.
Pretty simple stuff, isn't it? Yet powerful.
I'm trying to be more positive (ongoing quest) as well as sharpen my blog-skills so that I don't lag and have a long time between entries.
So here are some Tuesday "loves":
May. I love May. Not too hot (usually), not too rainy (usually), great running weather, people in better moods (myself included), the start of what I like to call 'the summer long-weekends', and there are flowers blooming everywhere. All good.
This blog: http://lettersforourdaughters.com/ which I found on this blog:
http://www.or-so-i-feel.blogspot.ca/
Don't wait for an explanation, just visit these two blogs. GOLD I tell you.
When my friend K sends me cool spiritual stuff like this:
"There is an Indian Belief that everyone is in a house of four rooms: A physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room everyday, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete."
-- Rumer Godden
Good hair days, good hair tips. Go here: http://www.hdofblog.com/
I recently started using hairspray. I know. Elementary. I can't believe the difference. At Target over the weekend I found a Pantene anti-humidity hairspray. In a 2-pack. For $ 4.98. I am giving one to my mom. I've also been doing a weekly treatment of macadamia nut-argon-oil magic. Great results.
Coffee. Delicious, and as I read in an article in Oprah last week, a great metabolic booster. Double benefit!
New England.
Mike's family and extended family, many of whom I had the privilege of meeting on the weekend. Billie and Roger (Rock) are going to get their own posting. They are going on 56 years of marriage. Over dinner Friday night I made them tell me their life story. Beyond fascinating. We have so much to learn from our older relatives--they are teachers and guides through this life.
As always, having the opportunity to talk to a man in his seventies or eighties, I feel such a wistful longing for my father to have reached that age. How much he would have had to share by then.
Another Tuesday thought: I miss you Dad. I love thinking about the time we did have. How funny things could be even through the horror of illness. The big pink bird on the windowsill. How you would laugh so hard at something you would start to cough. How dignified you were during the doctors' meeting that day in your hospital room, all those people surrounding you, with all these plans, and you in your hospital gown, listening intently. No signs of fear, though you must have felt lots. Only 'calm acceptance'. I kept all your notes. I saved all your emails.
That's me in a nutshell on a Tuesday.
Thanks for reading.
Unrelated
I check my stats, blog-wise, that is, on a fairly regular basis.
Much of my traffic is people I know reading my blog.
However, the recent spike in visitors from Russia intrigues me.
Is this real? Is it spam?
And Germany--for months now there is ALWAYS a German viewing of my blog.
I chalk it up to the fact that my cousin, who is a frequent visitor to Germany as she has
a 'relationship' with someone there, is blog-stalking me.
The Russian thing puzzles me though.
I don't get alot of reader mail, so I blithely keep writing for me, myself, and my sanity, as well as a core of people, as I mentioned, whom I already know.
Whatever.
Who ever you are...
keep reading.
Much of my traffic is people I know reading my blog.
However, the recent spike in visitors from Russia intrigues me.
Is this real? Is it spam?
And Germany--for months now there is ALWAYS a German viewing of my blog.
I chalk it up to the fact that my cousin, who is a frequent visitor to Germany as she has
a 'relationship' with someone there, is blog-stalking me.
The Russian thing puzzles me though.
I don't get alot of reader mail, so I blithely keep writing for me, myself, and my sanity, as well as a core of people, as I mentioned, whom I already know.
Whatever.
Who ever you are...
keep reading.
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