Author Archives: nothingbythebook

How can I be so tired, explained

1

It’s 8:15 pm on a dreary, cold February evening and I’m beat, in bed with Murder in the City, a one-season BBC murder mystery, but it has Kris Marshall in it, so of course I watch. I feel a little guilty. I don’t particularly want to watch the show. I want to, dare I tell you, turn off the light, close my eyes and sleep. I’m exhausted and tomorrow’s another full day and OMG, it’s just 8:15 pm, how can I be so tired, what’s wrong with me?

2

It’s not quite 6:30 am on that same dreary, cold February day and my alarm’s about to go off but I’m already awake. I give myself 15 minutes of think in bed time, then roll out of it. I’m logged onto my work computer by 7:01 and answering my first Teams ping by 7:02.

I step away from my computer at 7:45 to make a scrambled eggs and cheese burrito for the giant teenager lumbering down the stairs. He inhales the food while I review a script for one thing, prep a pitch for another, do a bit of back and forth with the translator of another thing, and open the document for the thing that I’m 100% supposed to focus on today.

“Mom? Ready?”

It’s -100 degrees outside, so I drive the child to school. We leave at 8:30 am, he’s at the school door before quarter to — the ride usually takes five or six minutes but there’s a lot of snow. I’m back at my computer by 9:15, cafe latte in hand because, did I mention, it’s a dreary, cold February day, and sometimes, happiness comes in a cup?

3

It’s coming up on 1 pm and I realize I haven’t exactly eaten. I’ve been working in a fairly decent state of flow so I’m not sure. I must have eaten something, surely — the latte had full fat milk in it, so that’s something, right? — and oh, evidence in the sink, a dirty dish, but also, I’m starving. 

I eat.

And back to computer — I ache now, shoulders and back, so I lie down on the bed and work in a horizontal position. The brain is getting dumber but I’m only now getting to the thing that I 100% must achieve today and I need to wrap work by 3 pm… I hurry.

3

It’s 3 pm and I accept that I will not finish the thing I 100% need to achieve today although I’ve made some progress on it — and moved a dozen other things along — but I didn’t do the thing, so I’m dissatisfied. But. It’s 5 pm in Toronto and I’ve been working since 9 am Eastern Time, so I make myself put the laptop away — I manage to do it by about 3:20, whoo hoo — and make a ham and cheese and hot banana pepper bagel.

Not for me. For the giant man-child.

4

By 3:45 pm — it is such a dreary, cold February day but at least it’s not dark — I’m in front of the school. Child clambers into the car.

“Food!” He eats while I drive across the city to the math tutor’s. We’re making great time, so we stop at the south Goodwill for a five minute “do they have sports jerseys” here check. They do. We leave $20 poorer.

Child devours bagel and potato chips provided by considerate mother but is still starving so we stop at a bakery to get him a cookie. Two cookies. Two very large cookies.

He is a very large man child.

5

Between 5 and 6 pm, I sit in the corner of a pristine kitchen in a comfortable chair and write while the child maths. The math tutor is very good at his job and the child enjoys the sessions. I enjoy the hour with my notebook.

The kitchen, however, while pristine, today has a distinct cat pee smell. I don’t see a cat. I don’t comment on it.

6

The roads are shit but traffic is light, and we’re home by 6:20 pm. I’m super organized and supper things are all prepped, only re-heating required, so we’re eating in 15 minutes. By 7 pm, we’re both fed and I’ve loaded the dishwasher.

And OMG, I’m so tired, I think I could fall asleep standing up.

I exercise instead.

7

By 7:30 pm, I’ve done my 22 minutes of injured Russian ballerina exercises (she’s actually a Canadian ballerina but I like saying injured Russian ballerina more) and I’m in a hot bath with my phone and laptop. I Duolingo and watch an episode of Murder in the City.

And, we’re where we’ve begun.

8

It’s actually 8:38 p.m. now, because I’ve ben writing for about 20 minutes. I’m pleased. At this rate, I’ll likely be semi-awake at 9 pm and, you know, when you wake up by 6 am, a 9 pm bedtime is what you should be aiming for, right? Right. I’m actually a very responsible, self-aware adult who values her sleep, not a pathetic energy-less dishrag with no life.

I’ve had a very full day. Work happened, and I actually feel good about most of what I did today — except not finishing that thing that I 100% meant to accomplish, but, there’s tomorrow still. Feeding the child happened. Driving the child to school happened. Driving the child to the tutor (and back) during rush hour happened. Feeding the child (and self) a really delicious supper happened.

Hell, exercise and bath and writing all happened too.

Also, at some point, I cleaned the cat’s litter box. And unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. 

I pretty much killed it today.

Whoop.

9

It’s 8:43 am and I have no guilt about feeling exhausted and ready to sleep.

Good night.

xoxo

“Jane”

But should you let the light in?

1

You know the song, right?

If you don’t, here it is. You’re welcome. You can play it in the background while you read the rest.

2

I’m cracked open. This can be a good feeling. It’s not a good one today. I feel — well, I already named it. Cracked open.

No, I don’t like it.

But I’ll probably do it again. At least occasionally. I have done so, intermittently, for years.

Leonard Cohen would understand.

3

In case you chose not to play the video or listen to the music, this is the relevant lyric:

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in

4

The crack is vertical rather than horizontal. It runs deep, this chasm. Deep and narrow. I always appreciate its narrowness. It means that I can cover the opening relatively easily.

I tend to forget about the depth. Impossible to fill. And this sucks.

On the plus side… it’s so deep, I rarely reach the bottom.

5

The light is supposed to heal. Before it heals though, it illuminates. 

Some things should really stay in the dark.

Her: We’re doing this today?

Me: You know it’s actually more effective than therapy.

6

I’m not going to tell you what lives in my dark. This is why we invented poetry and storytelling, after all. To hide truth in metaphor.

(Actually, we first invented poetry as a mnemonic aide. But nobody wants to hear that story any more than they want to hear that writing was invented by accountants.)

And also, it doesn’t matter — what caused the crack, what lives in the crack. None of that matters.

The only thing that matters is how you re-cover it.

Me: See what I did there?

Her: It’s not clever if you have to point out how clever it is.

Me: Remind me, why do I let you live in my head?

7

I prefer to keep the crack covered and mended. But. I’ll grant you that every once in a while, the wound needs air and light.

And it’s better if you choose the time, place and method of exposing it.

But sometimes, accidents happen.

So. Here I am, cracked open. Feeling things and not fighting them very much. Nor thinking about them either. Just feeling. Being.

It will be over soon. Everything passes. Especially self-awareness.

8

Her: So many dreary self-indulgent thoughts. Can we move on, please?

Me: Yeah. Lets.

9

I never got to see Leonard Cohen live. True story — when he died, on November 7, 2016, he was, what, 80? 82? He was the first and only “celebrity” whose death I mourned. Chiefly because — true story — there ended any chance of me ever fucking Leonard Cohen. Or giving him head on an unmade bed… but that’s another song…

I fully realize the futility and foolishness of this idea. But see, while he was alive, there was a non-zero chance that it could happen. Right?

Death, well, that was the end of that fantasy.

Side note: Did not even realize I harboured this fantasy until the poet died.

Another side note, but totally on topic: Exceptional poets make fantastic lovers. Because to really get metaphor you have to be thoroughly grounded in reality.

10

He promised me the crack’s where the light gets in. And he was right. I guess.

But sometimes, the immediately correct choice is to keep the light out.

Yours in metaphor,

“Jane”

How to be at peace with killing your house plants

1

The book is called How Not to Kill Your House Plant, and I think it would probably help many, perhaps even most people, learn how to properly take care of their plants. Less than half a dozen pages in, I realize I need a different type of manual. One that’s about just coming to terms with the deficiencies in your character that will result in most of the plants in your care meeting an untimely end, either from neglect or a combination of neglect and erratic overcompensation. 

This does not exist, as most plant care book authors start from the assumption that we should keep plants alive indefinitely. And that we want to do so.

But how about… we shift that paradigm? Just a little?

I like green things in my house. They’re pretty. They make me happy. They give my cat something to do. (While I’m very grateful to now live in a mouse-free house, my cat’s life is, unfortunately, significantly less fulfilling.)

I enjoy them. I water them fairly regularly, except when I forget. Two or three, sometimes even four, times a year I remember to fertilize them. Once a year — ok, that’s ambitious, let’s say once every couple of years — I repot the hardy ones that have thrived under my erratic care and now need a bigger pot.

And every once in a while, more often than I like, I murder them. Or, they choose to die, I don’t know, it’s not all me. Some of them do really well. Some of them just roll over and don’t even try.

And at some point, when they start to look really pathetic… and no longer make me happy… I have a little chat with them, thank them for their time with me, and consign them to the compost bucket.

This is not evil.

It’s house cleaning. And an emotional house cleaning of sorts.

And it’s ok.

It really is ok. 

2

I currently have 11 plants in my house. I don’t know the names of most of them. One is called a prayer plant. It’s the newest addition, just a few weeks old. It’s doing pretty well. It shares its pot with a single Hoya leaf. I’m not sure if that’s a good coupling — I just had no idea what to do with that single Hoya leaf, which refuses to both grow or die. I bought the prayer plant to replace one that gave up the ghost. Well, the cat helped — it was her favourite plant to knock off the shelf. It didn’t really matter where I put it or how I protected it. Disobedient Sinful Disaster found a way to knock it to the floor. It survived many falls. Until one day, it didn’t.

There’s also an ivy plant that I bought for $0.99 at a gas station or some such place. It was sickly and pathetic for the two years that I kept in the bathroom, back when I had a window in the bathroom. Now it’s away from moisture and not getting very much light either and it’s thriving. SinSin has zero interest in it, so it’s doing pretty well.

I’ve got another cutie that I’ve now had for five years that’s due for a new pot. The cat sometimes eats its leaves — I guess it’s not toxic to cats because she’s never puked or been unwell after her intermittent chewing sessions. Sometimes it looks great and sometimes it droops a little. Overall though, it looks pretty happy.

A friend gifted me a polka dot plant in a tiny pot at Christmas and the little bugger is thriving despite my repeated attempts to drown it. It needs a bigger pot now too — its will to live is strong. This one hangs out next to an African violet that was also a gift from a friend, more than a year ago now. I love African violets but I never baby them or repot them. I enjoy them until they die. I do make an effort to water them properly, but also… sometimes I don’t.

I’ve got a pot of rosemary that has ambitions of becoming a tree. Prognosis looks good. And a pot of mint and a pot of basil that I harvest regularly — probably overharvest. They look like they’ve got a few more weeks in them. I’ll replace them with new ones when my consumption outpaces their production.

And then there’s the spider plant (I think that’s its name). It’s also about five years old, grown from a cutting a friend shared with me. It’s had its ups and downs — I almost gave up on it on its last down and gave it a deadline. The motivation appears to have worked.

Finally, there are the two geraniums I’m attempting to overwinter. So far, so good. But if we don’t make it until the weather is warm enough to move them back out on the balcony, I’ll be ok.

(They won’t be, but I think they’re ok with not being ok, if you know what I mean.)

3

I don’t mean to be a heartless plant killer. It’s a priority thing, really. My intermittent attempts to learn how to take care of them better always fizzle. I’m not going to to keep a plant journal, or water different plants on different schedules. Once a week (sometimes less often), I check if they need water. I don’t bother to let the water sit overnight for the chlorine and fluoride and what not to evaporate. That’s the way it is. I don’t care about the plants enough to baby them. Cause they’re plants. Not my babies.

4

If you’ve got two green thumbs or if you’re a devoted plant parent — hats off to you. I admire you and your plants definitely look better than mine. 

But I’m ok with my lackadaisical approach to house flora. They’re here for me. Not the other way around.

5

xoxo

“Jane”

Why do we feel guilty over resting?

1

It’s a lazy sunny Sunday and I’m resting. But expanding some energy feeling guilty about it.

I could — should — clean. The floors are hairy and I haven’t given the bathrooms a proper clean for weeks.

Or I could go out. It’s a sunny, relatively warm winter day. I could spend it in the mountains or stroll along the river in the city. Or I could call a friend I haven’t seen in a while, catch up over coffee. Or I could go to a coffee shot alone. Or run to IKEA — I’ve been putting off buying an extra shelf divider for my bookcase. Or I could, whatever, window show at my favourite thrift shop or used book store.

But I just want to be a cat, sit on my couch and purr in the sun. Binge watch a show — I’ve just discovered The Foundation. I could read the rest of the stories in Jorge Luis Borges’ The Aleph. 

Or not even that — just staring out my window at the still sunny world outside sounds pretty good.

That’s all I want to do.

I’m a grown-ass, fully middle aged (when did that happen??) adult. I don’t owe anyone anything today. I don’t need to do anything — why do I feel guilty about simply being Why do I feel I need to do?

2

I don’t actually think there’s a second part to this mini-manifesto. You know the answer to the question I’m posing as well as I do. And telling you my take on it, well, it’s doing something.

I’m going to just be instead

Ha.

Small victories.

xoxo

“Jane”

Valuing the creative in the ordinary

1

I met someone the other day (it doesn’t matter which one) whose career it is to study creativity. I asked him if he thought of himself as a creative person. A creative, because we’ve started to use the adjective as a noun sometime in the 21st century.

He paused.

I wish I knew what he had thought during that pause. It would have been informative.

“Of course,” he said.

I’m not so sure.

2

I think (almost) every human is creative. If creative means to want to make things. Chairs, pipelines, electric cars, houses, food, gardens, as well as art.

Somewhere along the way, though, something (probably capitalism) started to turn many of us into consumers, rather than makers.

And to fetishize creativity.

This isn’t good.

3

Hack: Writing in short stanzas is a creative cheat on how to craft a first draft of an essay without transitions.

4

We’re talking about creativity, and you’re saying that work and school are sapping it, you have no juice for your own creative work.

I hear you. I’ve had the same experience, in the past, sometimes in the present.

I try to reframe it: See creativity in what I do for work. In what I do in the kitchen, in my house, with my children. With my friends, when I arrange a gathering.

It all comes from the same artery, from the same heart. 

You’re not convinced.

I hear you. I don’t always convince myself either. I privilege the poem over the speech; the novel over the strategic plan.

But really. It’s all the same.

Can you see?

5

The creativity expert studies creativity because he both fetishizes it and devalues it. 

And also fears it.

But it’s so simple.

What makes it complicated, or difficult, is the perceived need to monetize it, capitalize it.

Imagine if you just… don’t.

6

I’m practicing the basics right now. Breathing. Moving. Eating.

Loving.

Sometimes, it’s difficult. It shouldn’t be. But it is.

7

I’m in a room full of ordinary people who all want to be extra-ordinary. Who all think they are extra-ordinary.

I’m bored. And sad. I retreat inward, into breath and stillness. Then movement.

Creativity, making isn’t extra-ordinary. It’s as ordinary, as basic as life gets.

Let’s not fetishize it.

xoxo

“Jane”

Counting blessings

1

The couch is furry.

It’s also purple and velvet, but today, the dominant theme is furry. The fur is evidence of Bumblebee’s disobedience. The giant furball is laying demurely on the bare parquet floor, eschewing the small (real) sheepskin rug on which she’s permitted to lounge. Her eyes are guileless. “Hair?” they whisper. “What hair? I know not of what you speak, I’ve been lying here on the cold, hard floor like a good dog.”

Liar, liar, liar.

I ponder vacuuming the couch before lounging on it, but I’m wearing pants in which I’ve walked the dog three times today — there is no point. I sigh, and cover the dog hair with my legs.

On the floor, the beast heaves a sigh of relief.

It’s my fault, really. I shoo her off the couch most of the time, but not all of the time. When Ender lures her to cuddle with him on the couch, I don’t have the heart to separate them.

Yes, I’m a sucker.

2

The floor is crunchy. And also hairy. Two solutions: Vacuum/mop or wear slippers. I do both and engage again in some mental math. When might I be able to afford a housecleaner to come, say once a month, and do a really, really deep clean of the kitchen and the bathrooms, and also get into all the corners where the hairballs hide?

In five or six years, after I finish putting the third child through university.

It’s good to have goals.

3

The fridge is empty. This, I can fix easily. I pull out my phone, click on the PC App and start shopping. I look for Canadian products but also the cheaper products. And I’m a little resentful. I’m making amazingly good money right now — more than I’ve ever made in my life.

And it all goes to housing and food. 

I have a list of things I’m lusting after right now. New pillows, a new set of cotton bedsheets. A dedicated spice grinder. A Kitchen Aid mixer. 

Bigger dreams: New tiles for my bathroom. A more fur-resistant couch.

Make it bigger: A trip to Trinidad, Cuba. Another trip to Egypt. A trip to Italy with all three kids.

I buy some semi-fancy coffee instead, and a club size pack of ground beef that will provide my enormous sons with the protein they crave.

Here’s a somewhat depressing stat: Based on recent Canadian income stats, I’m in the top 10% percentile of Canadian households, just with my salary. I should be filthy rich, really. Right?

I’m clearly doing something wrong.

4

The living room is cozy. It really is just about perfect. I dream of a Roche Bobois Mahjong couch, but I’ve achieved the same effect with my purple velvet chaise lounge, acquired second-hand from a friend who was downsizing, four low and fat armchairs, $40 each at the Restore, and blankets and pillow covers from Khan el-Khalili in Cairo.

I’m so fucking privileged. Really. 

I’m clearly doing a lot of things right.

5

The bedroom is perfect. Yes, I’d like new pillows and sheets, but what I have is functional and cute. The bed is pretty amazing, a solid cherrywood four poster I inherited when my parents downsized. I painted the walls purple and the closet alcove yellow. Then I tore out the closet rail and shelf and replaced it with a bookshelf, on which I’m storing 10+ years of journals, and a desk.

I haven’t written at the desk yet — I write mostly on the purple couch or at the kitchen table.

But I like having the desk in my bedroom. 

It’s reminds me of what will be.

6

The desk is tiny — it’s meant for a child’s bedroom. Solid wood, I’ve painted it blue with splotches of pink. It used to be my friend’s mother’s sewing table. It was one of the pieces of furniture that he had a hard time passing on. He didn’t want it to just disappear. He wanted it to be loved.

It’s loved.

It’s filled a few different roles in my life: for a while, it was my daughter’s. Next, my youngest son’s. Then, it was the coffee station in my new kitchen.

Now, it’s… what is it? It’s a placeholder, I suppose.

But placeholders are very important.

7

The standing mirror in the bathroom is… flattering. It’s relatively small, with a gorgeous ornate white frame. I bought it new on a sale at Jysk back when I was living in the crack house. 

(The crack house was a good place to hang my hat for a couple of years while I sorted myself out and while I don’t miss it — it was drafty, smelly and mouse-infested and, yes, when I moved in, the kids and I found crack pipes in the bathroom — still, it was a good place and I’m grateful for my time in it.)

My love puts sticky notes on the mirror for me every once in a while. “I love you so much.” “You’re brilliant and beautiful.”

And did I mention, yes I did, it’s very flattering.

And how lucky am I that my bathroom is big enough to house a full length standing mirror. And a chair. And a table. And a shelf for plants, bath bombs, hair dryer, odds and ends.

One day, I’ll redo the tiles and maybe get a new, deeper bathtub. But even as is, the bathroom is amazing.

I’m so lucky.

8

The stairs are pink.

Enough said.

9

The house is mine. 

It’s not perfect, and I have a truly terrible neighbour next door. But I’m at the Coop where my youngest lives in six minutes by car. He can walk to mine in 20-30 minutes, less from his school. I can walk to work, and to most of the places I love. The neighbourhood is walkable, and there are three off-leash areas within easy distance. Countless coffee shops. 

A cigar shop for when I miss Cuba.

I have a balcony on which I can soak up the sun and a wood-burning fireplace for cold winter nights. Enough room to sleep all the kids when they need it.

I’m so lucky.

10

My heart is full.

Sometimes I forget — we all forget, no? — how lucky I am. The dog needs another walk tonight, and I’ll take her out soon for a walk in the crisp winter air. The cat will watch us leave in disgust — why would anyone venture out in that, she’ll say in her catty way. The dog and I will shrug, and be on our way.

When we come back, the house will be warm. I’ll go upstairs to my perfect bedroom and leave the dog on the living room floor. We both know she’ll relocate to the purple couch as soon as I’m tucked into bed.

Each of us will have a good night.

xoxo

“Jane” 

But what if I don’t want to be a brand?

1

I’m a human, a mother and a writer. Roughly in that order, I think, because one must be human first, right? If we all agreed on that, we’d have world peace and all that. But whatever. Maybe you’re not a human first. Maybe your first label is narrower — you’re an American or a yoga instructor. Maybe it’s broader — you’re a primate, a vertebrate, an animal. I don’t want to pick a fight about this, ok? You’re what you are, and you need to be you. Me, I’m a human. A mother. A writer.

I am not a brand, and I’d really, really appreciate it if you’d stop pressuring me to be one.

Yes, you. All of you. Ok, maybe there’s a Buddhist monk in Tibet somewhere — or a psychonaut on Hornsby Island — who’s not on that wagon. (Of course, there are Buddhist monks with brands too; just google Thich Nhat Hanh or Sylvia Boorstein.)

But most of you? (Ok, I exaggerate, fine, not the whole entire world. But everyone in my professional and creative circles You know who, what I’m talking about.) You want me to be a brand.

I don’t wanna.

I really, really don’t.

I just want to be… a human. One who writes and makes and creates and laughs and cries and dances and stumbles, occasionally falls, sleeps and wakes up, lives and eventually dies.

And I want that to be enough.

Why isn’t it?

2

The new year is all about beginnings and endings and that’s dangerous. Reflections, too and that’s worse. It’s very, very dangerous to reflect and navel-gaze during winter’s dark. Right? Do not, do not make major life decisions at Winter Solstice. Or as of January 1, no matter how tempting that is. Wait for the Equinox, wait for spring.

When you have to wake up before sunrise, when the sun disappears before you wrap your day job… yeah. Bad time for making decisions. Hit pause. Wait until you feel the sun on your face in March.

3

Question: Was being human always hard? When, exactly, did we invent existential angst? Is there a gene for it? If yes, could I have it removed?

I realize that was four questions. Whatever.

Her: You know, there are drugs for this.

Jane: I know. I choose to experience the dark unmedicated. It’s part of the deal between the Super Ego and the Id. 

Her: For someone who repeatedly curses Freud’s outmoded theories, you sure reference him a lot.

Jane: Just because he was wrong about everything doesn’t meant mean the man didn’t spin an effective story.

4

Human, mother, writer.

Not a brand.

Enough as I am,

Even on the bad days.

There’s great freedom in utter insignificance. Right?

5

Sidenote: I’ve written some really funny stuff in the dark.

6

Her: I get what you were trying to do with the juxtaposition of these two topics in this post but I don’t think it’s working.

Jane: But it’s on brand.

xoxo

“Jane”

It’s the most difficult time of the year

1

Many years ago, I lost a baby at Christmas. What a stupid euphemism — like I misplaced him. I didn’t. I know exactly where he is, exactly where he isn’t. 

It’s been more than 20 years. I don’t think of him often, not really. Every once in a while. Always with pain.

And always, always at Christmas.

It doesn’t start as thoughts, you know. My body, it just remembers. And I wish it wouldn’t, but it does.

First the pain, then the emptiness.

At some point, the brain connects the dots and tells me — hey, this is why you’re feeling like shit. You’re welcome. (I don’t actually ever say thank you.)

I have many hacks at this point to get through it all. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes I cry.

2

It helps to remember that I’m not the only one. Not the only mother to have suffered such a loss. Not the only person facing the bonhomie  of the holidays with a hidden sorrow. People don’t stop dying, fighting, leaving, suffering just because it’s Christmas.

Often, they suffer more.

3

None of this is to suggest that you shouldn’t wish me Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Or gift me cards and cookies.

Just, like… be ok with me not expressing unalloyed joy over the holiday season.

And cranky Aunt Augusta, who gets even more cranky over Christmas? Cut her some slack, ok? Maybe something horrid happened to her in December 1987 and she’s, you know, remembering…

4

I once wrote an entire book about horrible Sundays in December. Everything bad that happens to the characters — every single one of them — happens in December. On a Sunday.

I didn’t realize at the time why. I wasn’t offering it as biography. Or writing it in December.

5

There are many wonderful things about Christmas, of course. Setting up and decorating the Christmas tree. Watching the cat redecorate it. The pierogy making assembly line at my mom’s house. The kids enjoying their presents. All our special “we make these only once a year because they’re so much work” Christmas foods. Cards or emails from friends you haven’t heard from all year.

But also, through it all, behind it all, there’s grief. New grief. Old grief. Hidden grief.

It’s not your responsibility to fix it.

Or to avoid triggering it. You can’t. It just comes. 

Just, when it does, let me feel it.

xoxo

“Jane”

On regulation, desire and discipline

1

I’m in Toronto for the third time in two weeks. Living out of a suitcase. Disregulated. Frantic, overfull days.

I counter by creating mini-rituals. I leave the hotel room dressed to the nines — my version of, anyway — but not bundled up. I carry my winter coat down the creepy generic hallway, down the elevator, all the way to the lobby doors. Put it on just as I exit. Walk first on this side of the street, then cross over at precisely this point. Walk slowly. Stop at what, after the first Monday morning, I decide is my new favourite coffee shop. Order a decaf latte (get mocked by the barista, a little). Take a few slow, hot sips in the cafe. Ground myself in this way.

I don’t have time to do my full Morning Pages but I jot down a few thoughts. Play with one short concept. Draft a vignette. Arrive at the office with game face on.

Do all the things.

When I get back to the hotel room, I take off my shoes first. Then the coat. Hang it up. Jacket and scarf off. Then everything else. Put everything away carefully. Draw bath… make a note to self to bring a nice candle with me on future trips.

Stay in the bath until I’m a raisin. Then write a few words before climbing into bed. Make a note to myself to exercise more — at all — on the next trip. Walking is not enough.

2

I get a promotion and I’m stoked. But also, existential angst hits. Is this selling out? Or living my purpose?

3

A casual conversation during dinner with my VP about skills, sharp claws. I tell her about my practice of starting each day with writing three long hand pages. Every day? Even on weekends? She asks. She sounds incredulous. Every good day, I reply. When I skip, nothing else is as good. Think of it, I tell her, as practice — stretching, running, lifting weights. I need to keep those muscles working, improving. That’s how I’m able to productive a cohesive 90 minute script in a few days. That’s why I’m able to elevate a colleague’s work in a few minutes.

4

The most useful advice I offer to writers: Write. Practice, to a purpose. 

Nobody likes to hear this.

They want a hack.

A magic AI prompt.

5

In a dirty sheesha cafe — so dirty, I will not be coming back. But it’s all right, it’s what I need right now. Recalibrating. Full days. Busy days. Busy brain. I need to push the busy to the back so that I can rest. Set the ground work for a productive day tomorrow.

Can I apply the discipline I apply to my creative work to everything else in my life?

Yes. I think so.

6

Busy is not conducive to productive. To creative.

How do I sustain my ideal pace and cycle in a Monday to Friday corporate world?

How do I help to facilitate it for my team?

How do I write another novel while fulfilling this new role?

7

I want to write another novel. Finally.

The desire is there. I feel it percolating in-between thoughts about content strategy and actionable tactics.

8

Suddenly, an intense desire for silence.

9

Thought: White space also tells a story. Unoriginal, I know. But important.

10

Full days. Quiet nights. I miss home. I miss you.

I’m on my way back, full of desire.

But also, grounded.

This is good.

xoxo

“Jane”

Think-not-think: A tip for burnt out creatives

1

I hit Friday fried. By my last two meetings on Thursday, I can’t language. You know? I open my mouth and my tongue struggles to form the syllables that need to become the words that will give voice to the thoughts I want to express. I’m crossing into the zone where I’m about to start making stupid mistakes because I have no bandwidth left for thought.

The cure, for me, is pretty simple. I need, first, some down time and then some thinking time.

I start the downtime with some manual labour. I sweep and vacuum. I gather up the leaves. I do a load of laundry, start to finish. Get the body a little tired, get the mind focused on the body. Then I take a very long bath, with neither book nor show to distract me from the water, the bubbles, the dark.

I do nothing, I am nothing.

Then, I turn to the page. As writers, I think we’re so lucky that we can rest while writing. Not on the current WIP — now is not the time to torture the novel, speech or article. It’s time to play. Write a bad poem. Play with the cadence of a pretty, useless sentence. Journal — but not about the things that cause you pain. Find an interesting, warm memory. Take that weird overheard phrase — “But what would I do with a gallon of Cool Whip?” — and give it silly, imagined context.

Create that space within yourself.

Play.

Play is rest.

2

Successfully, sustainably creative people know how to play and rest. And, with practice, we learn how to do it before we burn out. We recognize the signs and course-correct before we crash.

Unsustainably creative people burn out. Frequently.

When I’m living my life right — and yes, there is a right way, of course there is 🙂  — I don’t get to the fried stage. I take that pause when I start to feel fatigue. That’s how I (used to) write a full first draft of a novel in three to six weeks: Stop when you still have juice. Recharge before that battery dies.

Work, deadlines and contracts sometimes make this difficult, sure. But it’s possible, attainable, practicable.

Do it.

Do it yourself, for yourself.

Nobody else will — or can — do it for you.

They’ll just tsk tsk when you crash and burn.

3

Rejuvenating rest and play look differently for each of us. Sometimes, I can reset in the arms of someone I love. Most of the time, I need silence and solitude. My notebook. The self-permission to play with the things I work with. Sheesha. A trashy novel. A pile of cookbooks full of recipes I’ll never attempt because seriously, four hours of active kitchen to time to put something on the table?

I’d rather write, sleep or, you know. Reset in your arms.

But looking at the pretty photographs makes me feel good.

4

After I write-play, I stretch out of my purple sofa and think-not-think. I look at my animals, the lazy cat, the dog who really wants another walk but knows she’s not getting one for a while. My bare toes.

I think-not-think about the WIPs now. The “not” is the most important part of this: I’m not actively rolling anything over. I’m not reflecting. I’m actually not thinking about work at all. Except that it exists and it’s inside me. And when I not-think about it, I think about it in that magical way that will let me think about it happily a few hours, days later.

Breathe in, breathe out. Watch the smoke. Listen to the breath. Look at the cat. 

Don’t think, but let the thoughts come.

5

We call ourselves knowledge workers or creatives now and they claim to value us… but neither they nor we give ourselves sufficient time, the permission even to do the thing that makes us sustainably creative:

Think-not-think.

Play and rest.

6

My homework for myself on that Thursday night is to play and rest, think-not-think.

My homework for what would be an unproductive, frustrating, burnt-out Friday: think-not-think. Lay on the floor. Stare at the ceiling. Feel the space inside. Delay responding to that non-urgent email. Reschedule the important, requires thought meeting.

It sets the stage for a fantastic Monday, fulfilling Tuesday. I’ll have words, thoughts.

But first, this: rest and play. Think-not-think.

xoxo

“Jane”

Anatomy of a week

Monday

I move between bed, bath and couch, book, audiobook and my show on Amazon Prime, occasionally eat leftovers, nap often.

In the evening, I’m picking up my lover and his lover but not my son and his father — one set of travellers is due to arrive nine’ishs and the other after midnight. I’m supposed to pick up the earlier arrivals and not the later ones.

But stuff happens, and I end up with all four of them packed into Darwin the beetle for the chaotic three-drop drive home.

This is a happy if slightly awkward moment.

True thing: When I see my son waiting there outside the airport, everything else disappears, nothing else matters, my lover disappears (he understands), my child is back.

Tuesday

Work. So much work. Also, am I getting a cold? No, I refuse to be getting a cold, but I work from home just in case. I don’t have time for my personal writing in the morning and I’m not right for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, I pick up my son from his dad’s — teenagers on summer vacation sleep forever. I bring him home, feed him. He’s restless.

We walk downtown to the Value Village Boutique to look for jerseys, find none. On the way there, my crazy neighbour passes us on an electric scooter and swears at me. Fun times. I make a note in the “violations of the restraining order” log on my phone.

We walk back across the downtown, cross the river. I drop him off at his dad’s and continue walking on to my home. My body doesn’t appreciate the exercise. It would prefer to nap.

I skip Tuesday dance church to catch up with my love, back in town after a few days away. He’s fighting a cold. No kissing. How can you truly reconnect without kissing? We hold each other tight but I still feel very far away.

Wednesday

OMG so much work, why did I accept this 7:30 am meeting what was I thinking, it’s fine, it’s fine, I’m up and awake. I work from my lover’s house in the morning while he sleeps — it still feels, a little, like reconnection. I think with envy about the people who can pick up any connection, any relationship after a period of absence without effort. When I don’t see you, whether it’s for a few days or a few weeks—or few years—you fade, you get so far away, I forget how to be with you, I’m not sure if you are still there —if we are still there.

I look into the bedroom.

Still there.

Back to work, so much work.

Power Nap.

More work.

Tea and cookies with my sick love.

Tender goodbyes, but no kisses. 

Home via the local Somali butcher for some chicken.

So tired. Full work day but unfulfilled, I know why, I did not do any of my writing, will I be able to today, I can barely keep my eyes open.

Nap. Make food. Pick up sons.

Supper. Arbitration. The 15 year old and 23 year old do not get along super well these days. The 23 year old’s jokes don’t land well. The 15 year old’s moodiness likewise. And I’m a very bad referee.

The eldest walks to his dad’s, I drive the younger.

Back home, exhausted, I contemplate bath and bed.

But I haven’t written — for me — for two days.

I make tea and sheesha and pull out my notebooks and the laptop instead.

The writing isn’t good. But it is. For today, that’s enough.

Thursday

Up early enough to write, it will be a good day. And yes, the morning is magic — I slide from morning pages to creative writing to the first work task effortlessly and I’m brilliant, I feel brilliant, sharp, alive.

Mid-morning, I relocate to the office to keep on riding the wave — I do ok. I feel a crash coming and I ward it off with a coffee walk — but not coffee — with colleagues.

I check in with the youngest son to see if he wants to hang in the afternoon but he’s ditched me for friends and I’m relieved, to be honest — tired, so tired and I have plans in the evening.

I trudge home — so tired, you know that story about how if you’re feeling low energy you should go for a walk? Ha. No, you should nap, the walk takes forever, my legs are made of cement, my shoes are bowling balls and my head so so so heavy—and I’m asleep almost before I cross the threshold.

But I manage to make it to a (really bad) comedy night (like, really bad, has nobody told these children how to structure a bit? It’s really not that hard — jokes are hard and being funny is hard, but giving your performance the semblance of cohesion is so easy, I can teach you in 5 minutes, are you willing you learn?) with a cute girl, and feel like a functioning adult who goes out and does things after work and that feels good.

Oh, and do you remember, I wrote that morning? Yeah.

Friday

This is way too much work for a Friday, but I’m on it, I got it, I do all the things, I don’t drop anything. And I start the day with my own writing. I know this is, if not exactly the secret to a good day… ok, it’s like this: If I do my morning pages, I may or may not have a good day. It’s a crapshoot, you just don’t know what will come. But if I don’t do my morning pages, nothing feels right for the rest of the day and I ache.

Check in on sons. Uncoordinated schedules. I feed one at 5 and the other at 6. It’s all right, the one on one time with each is nice. 

After they’re gone, I try to tidy the house. Give up as the neglected middle child, living on her own in Vancouver, calls. Essay emergency. We talk themes, metaphors, narrative hacks. 

Torment the cats for a bit, then trudge up the hill to see my love.

He’s sick, I’m exhausted, we talk a bit and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer in bed.

I sleep.

Saturday

Up early, man unconscious, woman restless. I pack up and tiptoe down the hill to my place, count the cats. Still three for a few more hours. I feel ungrounded, confused — stop.

Write.

Set up cute writing area on balcony. Decide to indulge with sheesha again (feel a bit guilty about it, because nicotine is a nasty drug but also, it’s been a rough week, and I’ve been caffeine and alcohol free for almost two years now, give me something to feel guilty about).

I sheesha. I write. I read.

Mid-day, I plan a picnic and capture the foster cats, return them to their people. There is much joy.

Then I picnic with my still sickly love at a park with a view. We eat, talk, read, nap (me), drink too much tea (me), need to find a place to pee in the bushes (again, me, also, seriously, what is it with the lack of public washroom facilities in this city, do you think I like peeing in the bushes? No. I would very much like to pee in a clean public restroom, thank you very much).

We pack up when the sun starts dipping behind the mountains and it gets chilly. My place first — check on the cat, unpack picnic leftovers, pack computer and clothes. Up the hill next.

I take a long bath while he putters. Then we parallel play: I read a Georgette Heyer murder mystery so clearly inspired by Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd that I know who did it from the first paragraph while he watches a show (ear buds in) and stitches his leatherwork project.

Still no kissing but we finally feel more real.

Sunday

I write.

I feel good.

I write some more.

xoxo

“Jane”

Donut delivery

1

I’m driving back to my house in the rain to pick up a donut I forgot to deliver to my eldest baby — wait, I’m telling the story wrong, because now it’s Monday, and the story starts on Saturday, when I drove 150 km to get what are supposed to be the best donuts in Alberta.

This, by the way, is an Alberta thing. I may live in a 1.3 million-person city, one of the largest in Canada, but let’s be honest, we are in the middle of nowhere. It’s a beautiful nowhere — Rockies to the west, Foothills to the south, Badlands to the east — but it’s not uncommon for us to drive three hours (one way) for a thing because, while everything in the city is close, nothing outside the city is.

Also, we have amazing highways.

Anyway.

The Donut Mill is a local tourist attraction.

Don’t mock. The donuts are sensational. Totally worth three hours in the car (round trip).

Especially with good company.

So I drive 150 km on a donut-getting date and of course, I get extras for my bae and the resident progeny. That’s Saturday.

Test of how good the donuts are — they’re still good on Sunday. But the eldest has excellent appetite control and eats a big supper, so only has room for one of his two donuts. (Of course I get ’em two each.)

He runs to his dad’s house after supper and I promise to drop the second donut over when I take his younger brother home.

But I forget.

No biggie; I’ll be back and forth with the younger one on Monday — I’ll drop it off then.

But, I forget again. I deliver the younger progeny back to his dad’s house minus donut for the older brother.

Text exchange:

Jane: I forgot your donut!

Son: 😦

Jane: I’ll be right back.

Son: Thank you!

Spoiled Gen Z kid and over-smothering Gen X mother? Sure. But I take the 18 minutes out of my day to deliver a two-day old donut to the 23-year-old. (6 minutes back to my house, 6 minutes to his dad’s house, 6 minutes back to mine.)

Not because the donuts are that good (although they are pretty good).

But see, I do it, because I said I’d do it and also, because I can.

2

My (adult!) kid does not expect me to do this. But also, he’s not surprised that I do it. And I think that’s pretty awesome.

3

One of the tricky things about raising securely attached kids is that they kinda take you for granted. But again, that’s ok.

When the neglected middle child was taking an extra semester of chemistry at a somewhat distant high school after graduation and before university, my lunch hours for five months consisted of driving her there (12-20 minutes one-way depending on traffic) and then driving back, three days a week.

She could have taken public transit.

But the ride gave me 24 to 40 minutes of time alone in the car with her — at that challenging age when teenagers don’t really want to spend time with their parents.

Similarly, during COVID, his dad and I routinely drove the eldest to his job at a really, really far away Home Depot. Not always — sometimes he biked, sometimes he took transit.

But when our schedules allowed, when the weather was crappy, we did.

For three years, I wrapped work twice a week at 2:30 pm so that I could be at my youngest son’s junior high school by 3:15 pm for school pickup.

He could have taken public transit, or car pooled with another kid. Or gotten picked up by Grandma — I leaned on her, and my partner — when work made its demands.

But most of the time, I did it. And I did it for that 20 minutes in the car and the after school snack and the shared transition from school to home.

The crankies call it helicopter parenting.

I call it remembering how tough it was to be a latch key kid — and how awesome it was when my mom was there to pick me up on cold days.

(And there are a lot of cold, crappy days in the middle of nowhere).

4

I’m a first gen immigrant child of first gen immigrant parents, who worked multiple jobs while going to school to upgrade skills.

I couldn’t really take them for granted. They had a lot of things to do.

I was probably in my 20s before I realized that my mom spent her entire nursing career in Canada working nights so that she could be home, waking up post night-shift, when we got home from school.

Or so that she could, post-night shift, drive us to school on those -20, -30, -40 — we don’t close schools for nothing in Alberta — mornings.

And I was in my 30s before I realized that she kept on working nights til retirement so that she could still be there during the day for me on the “Mom, I’m on deadline and I need help with the kids today” emergencies (there were many).

5

So it’s not about the two-day old donut, you see.

It’s just about being there. When you can.

6

Whenever I interrupt my work day to ferry a kid here or there, I’m very aware of my privilege. I have a job that doesn’t require me to be on a phone queue, behind a cash register, clocked in. I can often take that time, make it up later.

There are so many parents who can’t.

But I can.

Why would I not?

7

The donut delivery happens in the evening, so not on work-work time but on my writing-thinking-relaxing time. It’s an 18 minute chunk of a busy day. It also fuels me. And lets me sit down to my creative work with a smile. As I’m writing, my eldest — who is an adult now and doesn’t need me for most things — is sitting at his computer, munching on a semi-stale donut.

And probably not thinking about me.

But that’s ok. 

He might remember it in his 30s. When he makes similar choices to be there for his kids, his friends.

Right?

xoxo

“Jane”

Biking in Waterton Lakes National Park
From the archives: 2012 trip to Waterton.

Permission to be

1

It’s a low energy day — I have a lot of those these days* — and I’m in bed at 8 pm feeling I’ve done nothing, nothing. I sleep for 10, almost 11 hours. I crawl out of bed feeling rested but also very aware my well is about a quarter full, maybe less, and that quarter is quickly depleting, in no small part because I’m feeling I pissed away yesterday and I’m going to piss away today and so, why even bother getting out of bed at all?

There’s a hack for this feeling.

I know it.

I make myself use it.

“I’m not sure I belong here.” Comet aka Cosmo aka Grapefruit aka Pomegranate aka I think we will call him PomPom trying to settle in his new temporary home.

2

The hack: Write down everything you actually did on that low-energy, do nothing day. In order.

Stick to facts and try to keep commentary and judgement down to a minimum (but if you slip, whatever, don’t beat yourself up over it)

Ok.

Low energy day, yeah. What did I actually do?

Got out of bed. Did the wake-up , get moving things and ablutions (isn’t ablutions a great word, btw? And I never get to use it). The face got washed. The hair got brushed. Ditto teeth (I think).

Cleaned the litter boxes (two) and cuddled the cats (three). (I’m fostering two very stressed cats right now, whose people’s lives got turned upside down but that’s another story).

Logged in to work before 7 am. Miracle.

Checked to make sure last night’s minor’s crisis was resolved — it was. Victory.

Couple urgent emails.

Made coffee (decaf). 

Wrote Morning Pages. (There’s no wrong way to write the Morning Pages, says Julia Cameron, but some days feel less wrong than others. These pages felt good. They woke up my brain even though my body still felt as if a bus had hit it and they let me flow into the day’s first creative work task) (Emails don’t count).

(Emails should count—I really need to recalibrate the part of my brain that doesn’t think of emails and meetings as work… it’s work. I just have nothing to show for it at the end of the time though, you know? Anyway. Also a different story.)

(But, idea. Could I turn meetings into an art project. A meeting log that’s kind of a little practical but also fun and creative. I’m not drawing enough, at all, these days, and that would be kinda cool. And not take a lot of energy. Made even give me energy. Right?)

Wrote a thing. A little thing, a short thing. But important. It was done in 15 minutes. Had to remind myself it would have taken most other people two to three hours.

Answered some more emails.

Meeting. Participated, engaged, connected. Had to leave early to go to another meeting.

Second meeting: Participated, engaged, challenged. Generally contributed; begged off early, exhausted, when it became clearly further participation would be of limited value.

Ate. Not a good breakfast. Pie. But I ate. And it was calories. 

Felt stupid and lazy — can we reframe lazy as tried? No? It was genuinely lazy? Yeah, genuine lazy — so tried to use AI to help me write a shitty first draft for a thing. After 15 minutes of prompts and four drafts of crap, wrote my own shitty first draft in seven minutes. (Still debating whether the 15 minutes of having AI generate the shitty drafts that were unacceptable helped me write my own faster? Maybe?)

(I should maybe say here that I really like AI. But when it comes to the level of work I need to produce, AI writes like a first-year intern or third-rate college communication student who revels in cliches, uses adverbs to mask lack of real content, and obfuscates rather than clarifies.)

Refined it — the non-AI draft — to something publishable in about 20 minutes. Felt brilliant for 30 seconds. Sent in for approvals.

Took a pause to ponder AI, my future job prospects, employability, career. Got depressed.

Took an intentional  break and made tea and breakfast for my bae, who stumbled downstairs after a marathon morning meeting held in my son’s/the foster cats’ bedroom.

(Yes, the foster cats are currently sharing my son’s bedroom.)

Cuddled the foster cats and the one and only Disobedient Sinful Disaster, the resident Siamese queen.

Said goodbye to my bae.

Realized it was 11 am and I hadn’t eaten a proper meal yet.

Fridge was empty, so ate another slice of pie.

Responded to a “Hellos moms” text from the online summer school -attending teenager and picked him up from his dad’s house.

Responded to a couple of emails while in the car. (But not while driving. I’m responsible.)

Walked dog and made teenager get some Vitamin D via the sun (usually not a problem for this kid. But sometimes. Getting them out of the house can be an effort…)

Remembered there was no food at home (except maybe some pie crumbs). Took teenager to drive-through for a burger.

Did not get self a burger. Ooops.

Introduced dog to foster cats. Could have gone better.

Arranged for a couple of meetings.

Responded to more emails.

World on a video script for something complicated and interesting. Enjoyed.

Thought about eating something that was not pie but the only things in the fridge were carrots and cabbage. And raw pork. Had coffee (decaf) instead. With liquid whipped cream (=calories).

Emails. Just a couple.

Got green light on something, informed relevant people, drafted some notes related to it.

Checked on cats.

Returned to script.

Proofed teenager’s film study assignment and explained the difference between a short sentence and a sentence fragment — and tried to explain how to use sentence fragments effectively.

Returned to script.

Interrupted cat fight.

“That’s right. Get under that couch and don’t come back out.”
SinSin bullying PomPom.

Felt beyond exhausted — considered that even with my teenager-getting breaks and coffee and pie consumption, I had clocked 7+ working hours. Put computer away.

Had 30 minute Power Nap.

(How to Nap 101: Experience exhaustion so deep that as soon as you lie down and close your eyes, you fall asleep.)

Woke up to text from 23-year-old:

“When supper today”

Responded:

“When you get here”

Response:

“I’ll be there are 5.”

OMG, how was it already/only 4:30?

Crawled out of bed.

Checked on cats. And teenager.

Sliced and spiced pork, cabbage, carrots, rice.

Cooked.

Walked dog.

Fed sons. Chatted with sons (sort of).

Cleaned kitchen. Drove the teenager and the dog to their dad’s house while adult son ran home, because he’s stupid fit.

Pondered reviewing and deleting some old emails.

Got ice cream instead.

Ate ice cream and read book.

Checked on cats.

Had bath.

Thought thoughts, some of them work related. (Problem solving in the bath and shower is a real thing and should be billable…)

Separated cats for the night. (Introducing adult animals to each other is a pain in the butt. One forgets.)

Ordered groceries.

Signed tax documents.

Tried to watch a show.

Fell asleep instead.

“I’m pretty sure you won’t kill me.” Avocado testing her sense of safety.

3

You see what the hack is, yeah?

“I can’t believe you let two strange cats move into my house.”
Disobedient Sinful Disaster aka SinSin looking unimpressed.

4

Note to self: You kinda did a lot. You were 100% entitled to feel exhausted at the end of a 14-hour day, even if it did include a nap.

Also, woman, eat a proper breakfast and lunch. Not pie. You know it makes a big difference.

And don’t forget the vitamins.

“You may be feeding us but we don’t trust you yet.”
PomPom and Avocado dining.

5

Follow-up note to self: But also, you know. You don’t need to do a lot. You don’t need to justify your existence via a list of tasks. It’s ok to just exist. To just be.

(Is it? Honestly, I’m not so sure.)

“I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know how I’m coming down.”
Avocado learning new skills.

6

Note from cats: Meow.

“I’m not sure about this new living situation.”
PomPom and Avocado in deep conversation.

7

Low energy days sometimes happen for external reasons but sometimes — these days — mostly internal. Chemical. Hormonal. 

It’s very difficult, in this world we’ve created, to accept their reality. To say, “Today, I need to rest and just be.”

Because there is always so much to do.

“Given what you’ve just inflicted on me, I deserve extra meals.”

8

Cats don’t have this problem, hey?

Sigh. Stupid, stupid, stupid overactive monkey brain.

“This isn’t so bad.”

9

The low energy is followed by a mid-energy day. But also, I’m tracking what I’m doing and giving myself a pat on the back every time I achieve something. Also, I’m eating. Also, I had slept for 10+ hours. Also, the cats are cute, the teenager is loving, I’ve got a friend’s birthday party in the evening, all is well with the world, mostly.

When my energy flags, I look at the things I’ve done and give myself permission to rest.

To be.

“Why is there no food for me on your tray?”
PomPom getting bolder.

10

Final note from cats: Purr.

Xoxo

“Jane”

“Nobody forget this is my house.”

*Learning moment: “I have a lot of those these days” — that’s how you use those/these properly. You’re welcome.

Yelling at strangers and other cautionary tales

1

There’s a terrible commercial Amazon Prime is inflicting on me every time I watch my current binge fave — Bones, based on the books of Kathy Reichs, not unproblematic but decent brain candy for tired evenings — and the result of that commercial is that I will ever ever use Skip the Dishes, so, commercial AND commercial saturation fail.

Have you seen it? It’s the one where an extremely annoying man tells strangers that they “shoulda skipped it.” I think it’s meant to be funny… all I see is a someone being rude and sanctimonious to strangers. Hello, person carrying heavy bag of dog food, person in long grocery line, family in a car full of hungry, exhausted adults and kids  — your life decisions suck, let me mock you for them.

There was a different way of telling that story, selling that product than having an obnoxious dude mansplain my life choices to me.

Badly done, Skip the Dishes.

2

I did recently tell a stranger that he was making terrible life decisions. Yelled, actually. I was in a park on an awkward first date. We were eating ice cream and doing the awkward first date questions (“So what do you like to do for fun?” “Do you have any siblings?” Can I be perfectly honest? I don’t care if you have any siblings until, like, after we’ve know each other for a year and there’s a chance I might meet them. Can we talk about the books we’re reading instead or weird ass conspiracy theories we’ve… oh, you don’t read. Ok. Help.) while in the background a father was verbally abusing his son.

I guess he thought he was educating him. Disciplining him.

Maybe you’d think it was nagging, I don’t know.

I was hearing a barrage of undisciplined, emotionally disregulated, psychologically unsound comments on an eleven year’s old pretty normal, age appropriate — if annoying — behaviour.

I try really hard not to judge people’s parenting. Because parenting is really hard.

And when you see a mom (it’s usually a mom; because, statistics) lose her shit at a playground over some small thing — you don’t know what’s happened before. You don’t know how many times she’s had to redirect, distract, remind. How little sleep she’s had. You don’t know.

So I was trying very hard to not judge the man. And failing.

Because what I was hearing, watching wasn’t someone maybe having a hard day.

It was someone systematically destroying their child’s self.

Out of habit.

And I was just watching.

Until…

“You’re a lost cause!” The man screamed at his son. (His son’s crime was saying he did not want to play at the basketball court, because he did not like the kids who were playing there.)

I did not think.

“Hey, dude. Do you think that’s an okay thing to say to your son?” I yelled. And then I turned to the kid. “I think you’re pretty awesome, kid. I’m picky about who I play with too.”

The man did not acknowledge me. He stalked off. It’s probably just as well: if he had yelled something back, I probably would have lost it more. And hands would have been thrown (and I would have won and ended up in jail). But, let’s be honest: cowards who enjoy destroying children don’t know how to respond to a strong adult’s challenge to their bullying.

The kid looked at me, though. I don’t know what he thought. But I hope he heard me.

Funny thing—I’m not sure I did the right thing.

But it was the only thing I could have done.

Silver lining: my date thought I did the right thing.

Me? I’m not so sure.

3

I’m never sure I’m doing the right thing these days. It’s horrible and I hate it. Most of my life has been very black and white. Clear yes, clear no. Kick-ass executive function. Right, wrong. Act now. No moral ambiguity.

Today, everything is grey — and I can’t even use that metaphor, because a book I dislike ruined it for me. (Yeah, that one. Have you read it? Then you probably understand…)

4

The poet John Keats coined the very uncomfortable but beautiful phrase “negative capability” when he was just 23. (Lucky for us; he was dead at 25.) He defined it as “when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

I recently found out that he had a hard time living in negative capability himself. In a letter to a friend, he wrote:

I am continually running away from the subject — sure this cannot be exactly the case with a complex Mind — one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits — who would exist partly on sensation partly on thought.

I guess this should reassure me? Maybe? But in my current state, it’s just depressing.

Still. One can strive. He did.

5

But suppose one wants to take a break from striving? And just be?

6

My youngest son is steamrolling through a five-week summer course of grade 11 English. I sit down with him to talk through outlines on Brave New World, Macbeth, then proof his essays and explain all the things teachers apparently no longer teach. Subject-verb-object sentences. Paragraph structure. Building an argument. Why phrasing a sentence like this makes it more powerful — why, if you get lost in your own thoughts and sentences, the simplest hack is to chunk them. Make them short. Use that sweet period. Knowing how to use it is the ultimate writer’s hack.

I’m in awe of how far his writing has come, this kid who didn’t really read until 11, 12 and struggled with writing well into his teens. Now, he can analyze Huxley and Shakespeare. He doesn’t enjoy doing it, mind you. I don’t think he’ll ever come back to these texts after high school. But he can do it. And he’s so proud of his achievements.

As he should be.

As am I.

7

Existing in uncertainty without negative capability makes you really, really resent people who are… sure of themselves, their position, their opinion, their path.

So I feel like maybe I owe a big apology to all the people I encountered during my black and white days. Man, I must have been insufferable. Sorry.

Really, really sorry.

8

Keats’ epitaph on his tombstone reads, “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.” 

He died before he knew he was immortal. 

In another letter, to his fiancee, he writes,

If I should die… I have left no immortal words behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had the time I would have made myself remembered.

When I die, I will have left behind children who, I hope, know that they were loved. Beyond anything.

I hope.

But also… I would like to leave behind some words.

And not the kind I yell at a stranger at a playground.

9

Have you ever noticed that I like to write these posts in beats of 5,  7 and ideally 10?

Three is the most powerful writing number, but those additional three work very well for longer pieces.

Sometimes, though, the love of structure requires some slightly awkward creative gymnastics.

10

Hungry, I don’t skip it. I look in my refrigerator and scavenge, create a meal out of odds and ends. I eat it while watching Bones, reading Keats and trying to embrace uncertainty. Don’t fight the current. Let it take me… where? I don’t know. I hate it, can’t relax into it.

But I try.

In the end, that must be enough.

xoxo

“Jane”

Soul-searching, writer style

1

“I’m not sure how to examine my soul. I tried to do it by looking in the mirror but it made me feel all queer when I looked for too long. Hav you ever done that? Looked in the mirror and felt all queer?”

Elizabeth George’s character, Hadiyyah, age 8, in Playing for the Ashes

2

I most often examine my soul while looking at my toes.

I’m sitting, on a sofa, the floor, a chair with a footstool, a picnic blanket by the river, legs stretched out in front of me, notebook in my lap. I’m writing — and you’d think that I’d be examining my soul on the page, but no. The true introspection happens when the pen stops moving and I lift my gaze from the page to my toes. Then, the thought, the brief insight, the even briefer, more fragile truth.

On the page, I create my reality, craft and control the story.

Starting at my toes between paragraphs and sentences, I just am.

Most of the time, it’s easier to write.

3

I don’t mean that I lie when I write. But I choose: I choose what to tell, what to omit. Where to assign meaning. Where to deny it.

It’s not therapy but it is a fantastic coping technique.

4

“I’m fine with it and actually, it feels good so long as I don’t think about it too much.”

Me, to you, explaining that not very important thing that doesn’t bother me at all

5

I can write myself into peace. Or into despair, anger.

Most of the time, I choose to write myself into peace.

Sometimes, I let myself write the pain. But not too often.

It doesn’t feel good, you see. So why would I want to choose that?

6

Have I ever told you about my theory that nothing actually exists until someone imagines it? Like, there were no rainbows — or black holes — until a human imagined them them. And then — presto.

The spectrum of light, including indigo.

(Seriously, how take is the colour indigo? Fake.)

Her: Problem: Who imagined the humans?

Jane: Dumb question. The demiurge, obviously.

7

Sometimes, my love and I watch Esoterica together — a vlog about religion, magic and alchemy, hosted by a Jewish scholar — married to a rabbi — who is somehow able to fulfill his curiosity about all things esoteric without losing his faith.

Sometimes, I envy him.

Other times, I think he’s a liar.

8

I look at my toes, but there’s nothing there. This disturbs me; I go back to the page.

9

I think maybe what’s happened is my soul is on vacation. That’s why I can’t find it right now now.

Don’t worry. It will come back.

It usually does.

10

The dog and cat are chilling with me on the balcony. The morning sun feels good on my skin. A human I love sleeps upstairs. A few blocks away, my eldest son is probably still sleeping too, re overing from a 10-day adventure in British Columbia with childhood friends. Some 1000 kilometres across the mountains, the neglected middle child has finished her spring semester and is enjoying a visit from her dad and her youngest sibling.

Maybe there’s a reason my soul is not in my toes.

I close my eyes and let my thoughts touch the tendrils of the souls I love, near and far.

I sigh with contentment.

I write about it.

It’s not a lie.

xoxo

“Jane”.

But see, we’re all doing it all for the first time…

1

Today’s view: a sun-baked Cairo street, which I’m observing from a shady, cool Cairo cafe. I’m drinking Turkish coffee and smoking double apple sheesha as payment for electricity and wifi. The mid-day prayer is on the radio in the background. One of the waiters refreshes my coals, the other unobtrusively prays. The hostess leans against the front door, scrolling through Instagram.

Me, I’m writing, very much at peace, resting after a morning adventure of roaming the back streets of Mohandessin — the neighbourhood where I’m staying — and getting thoroughly lost — then found — in its slanted gird.

I won’t lie — I experienced a flash of panic at one point after my phone died, but oh, the exhilaration when I finally recognized a landmark and found my way back… Not quite as intense as the exhilaration that followed surviving the Blue Hole, but pretty close.

2

Last night, overwhelmed and overstimulated — Cairo is a lot — I open Instagram myself and get lost for a while in friends’ stories and strangers’ reels. The Instagram algorithm is confused or malfunctioning and throws me into Get Z/ young Millennial dating angst.

Get X dating angst exists, of course, but it must be different: We’re older, after all, and we remember (maybe) how to meet people offline and differentiate better between online and IRL. Also, those of us who were looking for the one true love, marriage and children have already done it and we’re now either unhappily married or happily divorced and in a very different place than a twenty-something looking for the one (or to increase their body count) (both laudable goals; no judgement here for either choice).

But maybe not — what do I know. Maybe it’s just me and my crowd and the rest of Gen X is as whiny as these Gen Z influencers. In any event, for me, my own angst at 50 is all professional and creative. As far as my heart goes, I’m at peace. And I really enjoyed dating in my 40s — enjoy it still in my 50s (that still feels so weird, btw, that I’m now in my 50s, how did that happen?).

And from this smug standpoint, I look at the Gen Z and Millennial dating angst — and advice — with amusement and compassion.

3

The Instagram algorithm throws mostly straight cis Gen Z men (I’m trying not to call them boys — they so desperately want to be men) into my feed. It’s not entirely broken so I’m ending seeing mostly dudes who a) are getting laid regularly (Congratulations!) and b) want to unpack toxic masculinity. The enthusiasm with which they offer advice to to other men and to women is… adorable. Yeah, I can’t think of a better word. Adorable.

(But also — is men giving dating advice to women mansplaining? Cause I sort of think it is…)

(But also — why is Instagram not showing me any women giving men dating advice? Cause I know it must be out there.)

(And also… why am I still doom scrolling Instagram? I’m in Egypt. I should be doing Egyptian things. Or Egyptians.)

Their advice to women, btw, boils down to, “Don’t date assholes.”

Their advice to men is, basically, don’t be an asshole.

4

Here’s some unsolicited dating advice from a queer Gen X women with no agenda: Think of dating as both exploring and building on existing connections. Date your friends. Meet your friends’ friends and families. Date your children — by which I mean, put as much effort and creativity into your plans and relationships with them as you would to a new romantic love. Do fun things with fun people, even if you don’t know them very well. Invite people to your home for coffee, for dinner, brunch, movie nights. Meet for work or reading dates in cafes. Go to art galleries and thrift shops as a group of friends.

Invite the strangers you’d like to get to know better to hang out with you and your friends.

Take the pressure off, you know? There’s no stress, no end-game, no agenda. Do fun things with fun people — build community in the process.

There doesn’t have to be an agenda.

There is no end game.

5

During my 2.5 weeks in Egypt, I meet many people, have lovely experiences and stay celibate.

This surprises me at first, because a) I’m very slutty, b) Egyptians are beautiful, and c) I’m here during my bad decision week (i.e., I’m ovulating). But I’m never tempted to escalate things and on reflection, it makes sense. I’m in a constant state of low-grade anxiety and hyper vigilance because everything is new, different, often overwhelming. As a result, my sex drive is suppressed. 

It’s not that I don’t feel safe — but there’s too much to navigate for me to feel sufficiently comfortable to want to get naked with a stranger.

Is that what’s happening with Gen Z? Too much to navigate all the time?

Maybe.

Back home in the wee hours of each morning (Egypt does not sleep), I check in on my kids, debrief with my partner, send photos to my loves and friends.

I feel at peace.

But I’ve already told you that.

6

Aging is weird.

It’s weird in an even more profound way that motherhood is weird.

Think about it — aging.

It’s inevitable.

Everyone gets older, more experienced — more physically fragile — eventually dead.

Everyone who’s older than you has been your age once. 

Everyone gets older.

But for each of us, every year, every stage — every day — is new.

This is the first time that I’ve been here, that I’ve been this me. Almost 51. (Or, as my daughter would frame it, basically dead.)

In a bizarre way — I’m new to me.

Isn’t that kind of weird?

I t feels weird.

Not bad.

Just, you know… new.

7

I finish my coffee, sheesha and writing. Grounded in myself and solitude, I get ready for the afternoon and night’s adventures.

I’m so grateful — for this experience.

For self-awareness. For Loops and low prescription glasses. For this feeling of piece in the midst of chaos.

And I wish I could tell the Gen Zs that it will come to them too, with time, with experience — when they take the pressure off — and they don’t have to go to Cairo to get it (but hey, if the Nile, the desert and the pyramids call you, you should definitely come visit).

Of course, they won’t believe me.

Because they’re doing it all for the first time.

xoxo

“Jane”

Writing is easier with a view

1

In On Writing, Stephen King describes how, after he faced up to his alcoholism, he rearranged his writing room, getting rid of the massive desk that used to dominate it, and replacing it with a smaller one, which sat in a corner of the room, while a couch and armchairs, where his kids could hang out, took centre stage.

It’s been a while since I’ve read On Writing, and the person I lent the book to never returned it so I can’t flip through it to check the details, but I still remember King’s moral in that section: “Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”

Or, to put it less elegantly: Writing isn’t life. Life is life, and writing is part of it. Writing happens in the middle of life.

You can write anywhere. I can write anywhere: I’ve finished stories in hospital beds and on airplanes. As a professional writer, you would train yourself to write anywhere.

But still.

Writing is easier with a view.

The view isn’t about beauty or distraction. It’s about life — and what life provides for a writer is context. Connection. It reminds you of what what, the why… and the how.

Her: What does that even mean?

Jane: Hush. I know it’s nonsense. But I’m on a roll.

2

I’m in Egypt, sitting on a south-facing balcony in Dahab. Have you heard of Dahab? I hadn’t — it’s basically a resort town in Sinai, nestled between the Red Sea and a mountain range that includes Mount Sinai. Yeah, I’m basically a stone’s throw away from where Moses climbed a mountain to have a chat with a burning bush.

I’m here with a woman I met six years ago on a dating app and who is now a close friend of my heart. People here ask us constantly how we met and the conversation goes something like this:

Them: So how did you two meet?

Her: We met on a dating app. Six years ago.

Them: Oh, wow, I guess it worked out really well!

Me: Um, not really, we did not work very well as lovers.

Them: [Fall silent in confusion]

Us: Hee hee. Any more questions?

Disastrous as lovers, as friends, we are the secret ingredient. Also a little terrifying to the fabric of the universe.

Dahab was made for us.

We don’t really do much. We move from each cafe to beach cafe, drinking Bedouin tea and Turkish coffee, smoking sheesha, eating too much. At the end of each day, we swear we will never eat again. Every morning turns us into liars.  We’re starting to get concerned none of our clothes will fit by the time we get back to Calgary but who can you say no to street mahshi, enthusiastically sold to you on the street by a Bedouin woman with a TikTok account? Or baladi bread that’s made right in front of you and put into your hand scalding hot from the oven?

On the one that day we do do something, we snorkel through the Blue Hole, which boasts the most diver fatalities in the world. I don’t find this out until later — and we’re snorkelling, not diving. Free of this information, I still have the single most terrifying experience of my life.

So much blue. So much space. So much, so much, so much water.

My friend has a life changing experiences, becomes god, realizes she was meant to be a fish.

When we get to the shore, I sit on the steps and cry and shake for 20 minutes in sheer relief that I’m still alive.

She holds me and vibrates with joy.

3

The next day, my view is turquoise water, red sand, entrepreneurial Sinai children, wild German shepherds and the occasional sun burnt Russian tourist. 

I have random thoughts. About generational trauma, childhood imprinting and the freedom stray dogs and cats enjoy — and its price. And how the thing that travel should teach you is that no matter where you go in the world, people are the same: They love their children. They enjoy sharing food with their friends.

They want to be happy.

What travel seems to teach you instead: Tourists are evil. Also, why is it that Western cultures export the worst of themselves — rampant capitalism, conspicuous consumption, so much fucking plastic — to every corner of the world?

Still. In the middle of all of this: People everywhere love their children. Get joy from sharing meals with their friends — and strangers.

Want to be happy.

4

Writing when I’m away from home reminds me how easy it is to write at home. Also, how easy it is to get lazy about tit.

And it also reminds me how lucky I am. Since before I could remember, I’ve had two desires: To be a mother and to be a writer.

I am both.

How lucky am I?

5

It’s only been a day but, back in Cairo, I already miss Dahab. Cairo is beautiful and intense — overwhelming. Dahab, for all of its fantasy-like quality (seriously the blue of the Red Sea looks fake), feels like home.

But I won’t come back.

What I love about Dahab is already being spoilt by development — new mega hotels, new summer homes, everything on a lavish scale. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of what it was, to still enjoy what it is.

I will not love it five years from now, I know this.

6

My view today is a soccer game on a TV screen in a sheesha cafe in Zamalek. I’m writing, thinking, reading, catching some solitude before joining my friend and her friends for a Cairo Friday night. There will be food and tea, enthusiastic conversations I can’t follow, maybe dancing, maybe Afghani vibes.

Afterwards, exhausted, I will sleep like the dead. Write in the morning.

Think about the discipline I want to bring back to my writing practice when I return home.

Life is not distraction.

It’s context.

It’s source material, an ever-changing view.

xoxo

“Jane”

.

That time nobody heard the tree fall

1

Today, I miss the privacy of public writing.

Not a paradox — if you write publicly but anonymously (or under a pseudonym no one’s yet cracked), you have a freedom that disappears as soon as you’ve outed yourself (or been outed). 

When your public writing is fully attributable — when you are identified in each and every word — you’re more accountable, sure, but also, your writing loses some of its edge.

I know that my first novel — the one that I thought no one would ever read while I was writing it — while in many ways my worst one remains my most honest one.

(Fiction can be honest; good fiction must be honest. You know that.)

I know that my blog can’t touch some topics, because it’s now read by my parents, occasionally kids and day job colleagues. I can’t go there, I won’t go there — you don’t get to know that about me.

So many experiences, ideas, rough drafts never leave my notebooks now.

Sometimes, I censor myself even in my notebooks.

It happens like this: I’m writing, maybe for myself, but suddenly, an audience obtrudes. I’ve written professionally for all of my adult life. It’s second nature for me to write for the reader. And a journal entry or morning pages rant morphs into a proto-blog post, an article. Honesty is replaced by craft, technique. As it should be — honesty without technique is a bad first draft of a confessional poem shared at a pub’s Open Mic.

Technique with compromised honesty though can become a lie.

Sometimes, I want to write — and share  — the truth. 

And I miss the anonymity of the 2009 “Jane” and my other pseudonyms.

2

The opposite argument: If you aren’t willing to sign your name to it, you shouldn’t publish it.

Should you even write it?

3

Younger me — journalist me — pre-romance novelist me — was all about the integrity of the real byline.

Older me has increasingly recognized the need for silence, anonymity, self-protection.

Fragile me, today, thinks art can be anonymous.

Exhausted, overstimulated me, who just wants to write stories and has zero desire to be a YouTube, Instagram TIkTok etc marketer and content self-promoter, is starting to think that art doesn’t even have to be shared.

Make it.

Put it in a drawer.

It exists.

That’s enough.

4

Her: You don’t really believe that.

Jane: It might be a self-protective lie. I don’t know. But it feels like the truth.

5

The force that doesn’t want to keep art in a drawer is ego. Vanity. But it’s so good. But it can help people. But I made it. But isn’t it special?

Can it be special in a drawer? In a notebook?

Fun fact: I never feel much angst over writing as other people. It brings me a lot of pleasure. And the work is still out there.

I know I’m not fully at peace with writing… and not sharing. If I’m not going to share — sell, publish — why am I writing it in the first place?

Seems unprofessional. Self-indulgent.

Story: I want to exist.

Jane: I know. Here you go. You are told, you exist.

Story: Are you going to show me to anyone?

Jane: Not you. Not yet.

Story: Then am I really here?

I know stories don’t have existential angst. Not really.

Do they?

6

Sometimes, I would like to tell you a story without you knowing that I’m the one who made that story.

Sometimes, that’s the only way to tell the full truth.

That’s why so many of our best, most enduring stories are such outrageous fairy tales.

Story: Is that what I am?

Jane: No. You, for now, are a secret. Isn’t that special?

The story does not believe me. But as I haven’t told it to anyone, it doesn’t even exist — so what does it know?

Xoxo

“Jane”

Talent dysmorphia, imposter syndrome, the Dunning Kruger effect and crawling up the slope of enlightenment while crying

i

Me, on every third or fourth Monday morning: Why am I even in this job? Today is the day they find out they made a huge mistake and shouldn’t have hired me. Have I been here long enough to get any kind of severance? Am I ever going to get another job?

Me, on the occasional Tuesday or Wednesday: I’m a f@cking genius, OMG, watch me soar, eat my dust, I win!

Me, the next day: It was a fluke, I’m never, ever going to pull it off again.

Me, last Friday: Why are you thanking me for this? An unethically trained monkey could do this. 

Me, today: Is it ever going to get easier? Seriously, at which point is my Super Ego going to let my Ego consistently feel that it’s competent?

Id: Never. This is why we should never listen to the Super Ego and just do what we want. Ice cream for lunch?

ii

“The worst people often think they’re the best. My dad calls it ‘talent dysmorphia.’”

Jack Danvers, Ted Lasso, Season 3, Episode 5

Does this make talent dysmorphia the opposite of imposter syndrome?

Image Source

iii

One of the most devastating experiences of my life took place after the Calgary flood of 2013. It wasn’t the flood itself — that was awful in its own way, of course — but one of its consequences. One of the volunteers cleaning out our main floor carted out one or two (or five, I don’t remember) boxes of my 1990s and 2000s clippings, newspaper and magazine stories, early manuscripts. They were soaked because I stored most of them in cardboard boxes. And on the ground. I know. Don’t judge. You weren’t planning for a flood either.

I told him to toss them. Sean, who had perhaps a better idea than I did of how important “writing” and “writer” were to my identity, rescued them and spent three weeks drying them out. (This is also why we had such a magnificent divorce. Life hack for divorcing well: Marry a good person, and never forget that they are a good person.)

Most of the clippings were not salvageable. But some were. And I slogged through more than 20 years of my writing, from age 13 onwards, to try to figure out what was worth keeping.

Nothing. It was all crap. Especially the stuff from the 1990s. I wept. Who published and bought this crap? It was terrible. And, OMG, at the time, I thought it was so good. 

Me, 2013: I’m never keeping anything I write ever again.

The Internet: Ha ha.

iv

Ok, some of it wasn’t utter crap. It showed… promise. But most of it was.

Pain.

Him: What you were writing in 1993 should be crap compared to what you were writing in 2013. How do you feel about what you wrote in 2015 now?

Me: Crap. Utter crap. I’m never, ever re-reading that first novel.

Him: Because you’re better now. Right? Wouldn’t it have been awful if, in 2013, you were looking at what you wrote in 1993 and wishing you could write like that now?

Yeah. Ok, that would be way worse.

But the other doesn’t feel that great either.

v

I don’t byline much anymore — it’s mostly ghost or corporate work. And I do a lot of it, so I can’t keep track, really, of what I wrote when. (Or for whom.) Sometimes, this happens:

Me: Ok, that source piece you sent me was brilliant. I basically just rejigged this and this, added this new development, and we can just use it again.

Her: You know you wrote that, right?

Me: What? I did? Let me look at it again.

It’s no longer brilliant; all I see are its flaws.

Id: Jane, baby, repeat after me: We do not listen to the Super Ego.

Me: But Super Ego has such a confident voice…

Image Source

vi

The Dunning Kruger effect, if you’re not familiar, was first described by David Dunning and Justin Kruger in 1999. Dunning and Kruger’s thesis was that people with limited competence overestimate their abilities. Later researchers added the flip side: High performers tend to underestimate their skills.

Adam Grant’s treatment of it in Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know is pretty brilliant:

Image Source

I spend much of my working and creative life in the Valley of Despair. How about you?

vii

Silver lining: On that occasional Tuesday or Wednesday when I know I’ve killed it… I know that I’m so good at what I do because much of the time I think I suck and so I work really, really, really hard to get better.

viii

Typical first date conversation:

Them: So what do you do for work?

Me: I write.

Them: Cool. So what do you do for fun?

Me: I write.

Them: Umm… and what else?

Me: Um… I read about writing. I go to workshops about writing. I teach workshops about writing. Um, and I read lots of fiction and stuff — but that’s also at least in part to study structure and rhythm and to get better at writing.

Ok, I also dance. But sometimes, when I dance, I wish I was writing.

ix

Me, on this Monday: Why am I even here? How many people did I totally snow to get this job? 

Id: I thought we agreed we were not going to listen to Super Ego.

Me: We also agreed we’d never reference Freud again, but here we are.

Id: You need to take a break and write some high class porn. Come on. You know you want to.

Me: I need to write this brief and I’m too stupid to form a single coherent sentence.

Id: Close your eyes. Let me write for a bit. I have some ideas.

Me: Fine. I’ll be here on the floor crying.

A couple of hours later:

Me: This is not terrible.

Id: I win! Now let’s go have cake. And oh, oh, oh, I have the best idea for a story. Remember that asexual you dated until you found out she did 60 to 80 Tinder hook ups a year?

Me: She also liked spiders. I mean, she really, really liked spiders. And, she was a dentist. She really liked being a dentist…

Id: Can we write that story? Does she keep spiders in her office at work? OMG, yes she does, that’s how she decompresses between patients: She goes into her office and plays with her tarantula. And then one day, the spider gets away and…

Super Ego: We need to work on the brief.

Id: I’m writing the slutty asexual who loves spiders story.

Me: Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll be on the floor crying.

Ego: Hello? Anyone even aware that I’m here?

Id, Me and Super Ego: Shut up!

Image Credit: Julian Schultz, UnSplash

x

My back, eyes and brain all kind of hurt, so I’m lying on my belly on the office floor, not working on the slutty asexual who loves spiders story (but, actually, it’s not a bad idea, I should totally write that story one day).

Colleague walking by with a visitor: And that’s Jane. Never mind her, she’s a genius. The rest of us use desks like normal people.

For about five seconds, I believe it. Genius. Juice.

That’s all it takes to finish the damned brief.

Id: Can we write my story now?

Soon, baby. Soon.

xoxo

“Jane”

The gift of creative practice

i

The thing about being an artist, a creator, a maker – you’re never really alone.

What a gift that is. A quiet moment, a lull, a boring party, your friend 20 minutes late for a coffee meet. A notebook, your sketchbook, the laptop. A few minutes for your creative practice. Don’t doom scroll. Describe the cafe. Imagine a backstory for  the person at the next table. 

Write a bad poem.

(All first drafts are your worst drafts, they’re supposed to be bad.)

ii

I’m too literal to be a poet. I write to be grounded. I like words and sentences to be unambiguous. Clear.

But here’s the thing – even the most unambiguous phrase is open to interpretation.

Even the most clear-cut sentence needs to make room for the reader’s reaction.

iii

We come back from the poetry reading full of thoughts about self-confessional poetry. You blame Sylvia Plath. I love Sylvia Plath – but I dislike, with passion bordering on hate, amateur self-confessional poetry.

It needs a ruthless editor. It’s too much about the poet – it has no room for me.

And I, like all readers – all people – am at my core a narcissist.

Why is that poem about you and not about me?

iv

You want to make art. Make art. Dream big.

But start small. In those unexpected spaces. Listening to a poem that doesn’t engage me, I start playing with an idea that does. I wish I had a notebook – why didn’t I bring my notebook?

I commit the idea to memory, anchor it to the moment. It will be there, waiting for me, the next time I have a lull.

v

I try to explain lulls to the “aspiring” writer who doesn’t have time to write.

I show her how much she can write in five minutes. Fifteen.

Her: I can’t do that.

Jane: Practice.

vi

Nobody wants to practice.

vii

I practice in the morning with my Morning Pages. They’re messy and chaotic, whiny and often bad. They’re not art. But they’re preparation for art. They’re part of my practice.

viii

Upstairs, my son is sewing. I hear the intermittent hum of the sewing machine. A short pause. A long pause. I smile. There’s a maker upstairs, practicing. Creating.

ix

It took me a while, as a writer, to recognize that my children – my sons specifically – create in different ways. One cooks. Designs on a 3-D printer. Daydreams about tattoos. 

The other hot-glue gunned and taped… everything. Now, he sews. 

Different technique.

Same end goal.

To make something, create something out of the flotsam and jetsam of life.

Desire, dreams, ideas given form.

What a gift.

x

The sewing machine whirrs. I write. 

My son and I are together and alone, but not.

We practice.

I’m full of gratitude for the gift.

xoxo

“Jane”