ON WRITING/READING

November 24. Good morning! It’s another new day and another blank page. I thought I would talk about writing since I am reading Stephen King’s On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft. It’s a very good read. He is a very successful writer. I would heed his advice. That’s the biggest light bulb moment for me just now – to listen to those humble successful people. I’ve wasted so much energy and time on little pesky critical thinking-they-know-it-alls. Come to think of it now, I’m guilty of being a know-it-all myself. Eeek! Writing can be illuminating, spotlighting my own flaws. It’s like dust motes in sunlight. Now that I know, I will do better. No more unsolicited advice.

Stephen King’s advice to be successful at writing is that you have to read and write alot. I have been reading since I can read, first in Chinese and then in English. I have long since lost my Chinese. I had only a grade 2 when we came to Canada, but I could read my mother’s Chinese books. Being 8 or 9 years old, my mother didn’t want me to read her adult fiction books. Shed encouraged me to read newspapers and to learn English. You can imagine what happened with that advice.

I HAD to learn English. It came easily with the help of Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, Puff and my teacher, Miss Woodall. I can’t remember the exact moment that I held up my hand to ask permission when I felt nature calling. Before that I just got up and left the classroom and went to the basement where the batheooms were. I am surprised I remember all that and their names after all these years! I’m at an age where my memory is deteriorating. Writing is good for brain health. It would be so much better if I can make it a regular daily morning habit. My mutterings could serve as my memory and mood board. It could serve as my brain health chart.

Books were and still are good friends. Libraries are happy places for me. We didn’t have a library in our little town then. A library on wheels came to town maybe once a month. I think you can get more books more often by ordering through the mail. I can’t remember how that worked but the postage was free. I read many of the Little House on the Prairies , Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys books through that system. Then there were Little Women, Little Men, the Bobbsey Twins and…

Enough now for today. Keeping it simple, let me finish with my 3 daily gratitudes.

I am grateful for this morning’s ski in the North and South Park. The track was not great today but still ski-able. I got fresh air and exercise.
I am grateful for today’s mobility class. We ran through a range of exercises for various joints. I always come out feeling better than before.
I am grateful my mood is improving. I am feelings bits of sparkling joy.

COME SATURDAY SNOW

Come Saturday Snow

I’m looking forward to have a rest day tomorrow. I’ve had a full but good day. The prediction of a snow storm for the weekend was correct. I’m feeling the storm within. I’m feeling Caroline Myss’s statement of what is in one is in the whole. What’s in the universe is in me. It is a heavy feeling. I hope it passes soon.

I was happy to get my Saturday morning swim back. All the better that it is an hour later than the pre Covid time of 8 am. It wasn’t exactly a crowd but there were 4 more bodies than my previous pool all to myself. It is rather sad that it took a pandemic to make people stay home and not go south of the border. We have plenty of good stuff to enjoy. Too bad for me though. I lost my own private winter pool. But it was good for me to share and to swim a little faster. Some people are nervous. I could feel their frenzy in the water. I was happy enough to step out after doing 18 lengths.

The snow started coming down heavier in the afternoon. I was glad to get to the library after my swim. Two of my reserved books have arrived – Brave New Medicine and The Art of Fermentation. Both have very good reviews. I love Michael Pollan’s forward in the latter. He describes fermentos as a most interesting, eccentric and generous bunch. I like to think of myself belonging to such a group. To date, my fermentation adventure includes making sourdough bread and pancakes, yogurt, kimchi, kombucha and fermenting beans and Jerusalem artichoke. It is very rewarding. The book promises more.

Looks like winter and snow is going to stay. I don’t really mind. The snow makes everything look clean and lightens up the darker mornings and earlier evenings. We got our greenhouse finished just in time. It’s a good thing I rescued the little onions from the garden yesterday. It’s something already a little green I can plant in the greenhouse. Today I thought of the geranium and some succulents that can tolerant some cold. And I seeded some radish. The passive solar greenhouse is a total new thing to us. It is fun to experiment to see what can and cannot be done. What I could lose are a few seeds and plants. I will gain much fun and knowledge. It will all fill my spirit.

LOVE, HOPE, COPY AND PASTE

It is strange how books find their way to me. It is as if they know that they hold the knowledge I’m seeking. You know I’m a serious girl. I’m always pondering about the universe and the meaning of life. I wonder about what is love and hope. Are they verbs or nouns? Can you hold them in your hands and examine their nature? If they’re verbs, how do you go about loving and hoping? Would you get anywheres hoping and loving? Or is it just pining away?

I know I think too much. It would be good if I could lighten up and just live and be happy. Maybe I should heed one reader’s advice and ‘start filling a jar with notes of things you are happy for‘. And what would a gratitude list do? Don’t I have to do some other stuff besides? Is it not like Facebook’s rhetoric? If you believe this, if you are my friend, etc. etc. copy and paste. What does copy and paste accomplish besides that and getting a whole bunch of people copying and pasting?

I know, all I am doing is asking more questions. I offer no answers. Putting the questions out there is valuable. They’re food for thought, stimulous. Wait, what about the books? you ask. Yes, the books. They’re the two latest ones I’ve read. Strange that they both landed on me at the same time. Both contained the answers I needed. The first one was Home by Toni Morrison. The second is Mercy by Jodi Picoult. Strange, how some books get ratings. I loved both books but Mercy got a lot of bad ratings. Perhaps the subject of mercy killing and a cheating husband doesn’t sit well with female readers. It sat very well with me. Made me look at love and forgiveness from many sides. Both book made me feel hopeful again. They’re both fiction but you know what they say about truth and fiction.

AN UNLOADER’S REGRET

Sometimes I feel foolish being here, day after day. But it is the need of conversation and a friend that I return. It is true that I am my own best friend. Who has walked in my shoes and see my exact point of view? I feel it is foolish to tell another, “I understand. I get it. I know where you are. Been there. Done that.” We each have our own unique experiences and way of seeing the world. We couldn’t possibly understand another’s. All I can do is accept another’s when they tell me. Believe and don’t try to change or contradict. That is my motto.

It is here that I get to talk without interruption or correction. No one will say, Who’s THEY? No one will tell me I’m making assumptions. Before I go on and forget, I can tell you now who THEY are. They are our human tribe. I hope no one will demand who the THEY are from me any more. In my space, I can speak without judgement. No one will tell me that I say outloud what others would think only. It’s good I’ve unleashed my dark twin. I am getting a load off my mind.

Speaking of loads, it is quite difficult to rid them. Attachments have deep holds even though they serve no purpose. I felt so elated after doing my tax return this morning. It was a heavy load off my mind. In the process, I found that I’m not totally dizzy, ditzy and disorganized. I felt it was a good time to unload more of my outdated nursing texts and journals into the recycle bin. I gathered all the hard covered Nursing Skills manual. They were in excellent condition. I don’t think I’ve ever actually read one. Regret coursed through my body. I put them back on the shelf. Then I gathered them up again and ran outside. Into the bin they went. My logical self had asked: Of what purpose do they serve on the shelf for another 30 years?

My book shelves are getting thinned and dusted. I am sure I will experience more regret as I rid more of what is not needed anymore. It is not the books or objects that I am attached to. It is the memories they invoke. The regret over choices made, things not done, etc. There is only one path we can go down at any one time. Too bad we can’t straddle them all. Maybe hanging onto stuff is the straddle. I’m afraid of letting go. It is really being stuck and unable to go forward.

The feelings of regret and pining over choices not made are human. They are short lived like the ones of a buyer’s regret. I remember I’ve said “My God, what have I done!” over many purchases. All that evorporated with the enjoyment of the piano, house renovations, my Bernina sewing machine. I’m making real progress now, however slow it may be. An inch, a book, a square a day can add up to quite a bit in a year. I have alot of books but not 365 – I think.

IS IT TRUE?

Yesterday, I discovered exercise was the best medicine for my nervous jumping heart. I was grateful for the loud music next door that pushed me onto my bike. It was nice my SO (Significant Other) accompanied me. We headed off to the library.

I kept my nervousness to myself. No point voicing it, giving it strength. I inhaled and exhaled. I pedalled, pumping my legs up and down. I saw them as pistons firing smoothly, moving the blood through my heart chambers, then out to the rest of my body. I was safe.

We are at the library. I find 2 books by my favourite kick-ass author, Janet Evanovich, Notorious Nineteen and Smokin’ Seventeen. The titles alone give off more energy than spinach. Look out, Popeye! Wait, I’m not done yet. Here is Olivia Chow’s memoir, My Journey waiting for me. I hope she will win the mayorship of Toronto. That Rob Ford need to be ousted. You must know who he is. He has been talked about on all the late shows in the U.S.A. – Kimmel, Letterman, Jon Stewart….

I found Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement in the next aisle. I discovered her through the movie, The Joy Luck Club. Reading her memoir, The Opposite of Fate, was like finding myself. I recognized myself in her, my mother in her mother Daisy. The lives of Chinese immigrants in America had the same familiar ringtone – even Olivia Chow’s. I felt that Amy and Olivia were like my sisters.

I found one more book I could not resist – Byron Katie’s I Need Your Love – Is That True? I know, I know. I wasn’t going to read any more self-help books for awhile but who could resist a topic like love. And she asked a good question, Is it true?

Now I am done. We load my treasures in my SO’s cargo bike and head for home. I am relaxed, breathing in and out, pedalling easy and steady, not rushing, not worrying, not anxious. My heart is in its place. It’s pumping rhythmically in even strokes. It’s singing that everything is fine. And it is true.

SOME DAYS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

I lost my battle to inertia today, sleeping in till after 8. Then after breakfast, I curled up with a book in the sun room and lost myself in its pages. It was wonderful laying in the sun, wrapped in my quilt…..living other people’s lives, feeling their emotions and not having to deal with anything real. I didn’t even make dinner.

But you can handle only so much inertia before you start feeling not so great. I felt all the weariness of others’ guilt, anger and remorse. And they’re not even real people but made up, fictitious. How stupid is that? But I knew there was a lesson for me in that book. And I had to get to the end of it. And so I sped ahead to the last chapters. Then backtracked to the middle to complete the story.

You see, I have no patience, even in my fatigue. I cannot do one thing at a time, in order, no more than I can read one page at a time in the order they were put together. I suppose it is not that huge a revelation. but it is some kind of awakening. I will have to slow down and learn to dot all my i’s and cross all my t’s. I might miss too many things along life’s road if I don’t.

I finally did manage to get myself up off the couch. It was a very painful process. And Sheba and I went for our walk. It was equally painful but the important thing was we still did it. Some days are just better than others.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity

books