Red Cedar

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start.

I haven’t posted here in awhile and that’s really due to several factors, including (but not limited to): work stress, another writing project, covid, more work stress, family aging transition stuff, post-covid exhaustion, throwing a 50th birthday party for my partner, quitting my work assignment, and starting a new job in another organization.

In other words, a lot has been flying around over here, and it hasn’t all quite landed in a way that I’m satisfied yet. It’s made it hard to write, let alone get all chatty about my life.

But I suppose the main news is that I’ve taken a 2-month assignment with my union as a way of escaping a very stressful job situation in which I felt I could not succeed. The assignment has me in Victoria three days a week, so I’ll be staying in my trailer on my brother’s property while I decide if this is really what I want to do with my life, or whether I should just go back to my pre-assignment job which is still open for me and allows me to work from home full time.

I would feel stupid about all of this if the decision to leave my last job didn’t feel so imperative. After only eight months, I had hit a full-on burnout/anxiety wall and couldn’t imagine what that feeling of constant pressure was doing to my heart (let alone my mind). And while I could have returned to my old unit straight away, I felt strongly that I did not want to give one more ounce of myself to an organization I was so disappointed by (my latest work crisis was driven by poor leadership which lead to improper tasking and unrealistic expectations, not to mention toxic internal dynamics), at least not if I could take a breather somewhere else for awhile.

This is not to say the new job won’t be busy, or that this organization is without issues, but at least they will be different issues than the ones I’ve been dealing with. (Retirement would be my preferred option, but I’m still a few years away from that.)

Two days in, and things are moving along. This week I am fixing up my trailer a bit (cozy new electric fireplace pictured above) and am trialing different options for gym workouts in the vicinity of my new office. I am not one who loves new routines, but I’m taking this as an opportunity to get off my tiny island and see friends a bit more – maybe even go out to a decent restaurant or two. On the work front, this is really just an orientation week, but already I can see what I’ll be working on the next little while and there will be plenty to do.

I don’t know where this move will take me next, there is definitely a chance I’ll end up back in my old job later this summer, but there is just as good of a shot that I won’t. This is not at all what I expected would happen at this stage of my life, but here I am and it feels weird but not bad weird… which is really all I’m looking for at the moment.

Often when I sit down to write I have no idea what I want to say before I start. Writing is one of the ways I discover what my subconscious is working on, and it’s through putting words to the page or screen that I formulate my opinions about the world much of the time. Truth is, I’m really a verbal thinker (talking helps me think through sticky problems), but in the absence of other people writing is the next best thing.

Because of this tendency to think and write at the same time (rather than planning out what I’m going to say), I delete a lot of what I write. Every remaining sentence is one I have tinkered with, re-written, and re-ordered innumerable times. It is a frustrating and slow process, and as I’ve aged, one I find hampered by brain fogs – a kind of internal weather subject to settling in when I least expect it (particularly when my B12 isn’t in check). Whenever I am struggling to get a good sentence on the page, I think about Edna St. Vincent Millay, the celebrated poet of the early twentieth century who is said to have composed her perfect stanzas so thoroughly in her head before writing them down that they needed no editing. I only hate her a little bit for this – though I expect her famous mind for writing declined in middle age when she developed the morphine addiction that would contribute to her early death at 58.

In writing practice there is an often-discussed divide between the “pantser” and the “plotter”–the former being someone who flies by the seat of their pants and does little or no planning before sitting down to write, the latter being the opposite–someone who meticulously plans out their work before committing anything to the page. Apparently there is also a middle way known as “plantser” but I have never heard anyone identify themselves in this category.

I would very much like to be a plotter, as deep in my heart I do feel it’s most correct to sit down with a structure and an outline before one starts writing. However, I am just not that way, and it’s not for lack of trying. My friend Kyla identified my problem with plotting when I was attempting a novel during Nanowrimo some years back when she said “If you’ve worked out what you are going to write in some detail, the actual writing part becomes a bit pointless because you already know what is going to happen next.” This, I find to be as true with non-fiction as with fiction writing. If I’ve already worked the problem out in my mind, I’m ready to go onto the next thing, not elucidate more on the thing I’ve figured out. Of course there is always a lot of editing, but my outlining process happens in long-form writing. It’s time-consuming because there are a lot of dead-ends, but given my attempts to change my writing “personality” over the years, I’m not sure a pantser can become a plotter (and vice versa).

With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about the logistics of writing a book. Over my adult life, this idea has come up several times, but I’ve always talked myself out of it fairly quickly. The closest I’ve come was the completion of Nanowrimo about a decade ago, from which I emerged with a terrible first draft of a novel at 65,000 words or so. I’ve never been interested in revisiting that project or fiction in general since, though it was a revealing process in many ways. I learned that 65,000 words in a month is 2100 words per day and that if one doesn’t self-edit too much, those words can be knocked out in as little as 90 minutes. I realized that the phenomena of characters making decisions against the author’s intent or plans is a real thing–characters do come to life in the subconscious in a way that gives them their own agency to redirect or drive narrative development. And ultimately, I understood that to turn out something book-length means putting oneself in service to the writing above all else for at least a specified period of most days.

In my usual nod to plotting, I’ve attempted some thoughts towards a book proposal in the last month, but found I got bogged down in questions I knew would only be answered through the writing itself. And so I’ve been writing instead. About 4000 words so far, not very much, but enough to see the process I learned during Nanowrimo works as I remember it did. A few hundred words a day, allowing the writing itself to generate ideas and direction, some dedicated reading that inspires and influences my own topic and writing style – and I can see it’s possible to do this thing, though I shake my head as I type those words.

Yesterday I wrote in my process journal, “If a book is to be, it will come out over a long period of work and I will be confident about it then. I do not have to be confident about it now.” Perhaps a bit of a mantra each time I sit down to the laptop and feel stumped at what is going to come next. The trick is to first get a lot of words on the page which reach towards something, and once I see what that something is, to remove every word that doesn’t actually need to be in the way. So that’s what I’m attempting right now. Getting a lot of words on the page every day. I’m not doing anything as heroic as Nanowrimo so my daily output goal is 500-750 words, except on days when I’m writing the newsletter or this blog. I figure that 10,000 words a month is respectable and doable progress, though it will mean cutting back on textile studio time to get there. Even if there is not a book at the end of the rainbow, I will have figured out a lot of thoughts by writing them down.

As to what I am writing about, I’m not exactly sure yet. Not sure enough to share in any case. I will document my experience here as I go as this is the public record of my inner life, and to some degree the writing I am doing now is connected back to the reasons I started this blog in 2003. So if I’m a little quiet at times, that’s where I am. Working out what I think, word by word, encouraged by the springtime emerging outside my window.

Tomorrow I turn 49. Not a milestone birthday, but a messenger of sorts. A foreshadowing.

As far as it goes, I’ve done well in the last year. My fitness has been on track, I started a new job in the fall, my family is all still living, my partnership is loving, and I’ve put a fair amount of writing and objects out into the world. If I find myself anxious these days (and I do) it’s not because of any lack in my own life, but because the socio-political winds are blowing in the wrong direction and I am not able to prognosticate the future. But then I remind myself, it was ever thus, and there is no period in which humans have been free from calamity or suffering and why should now be any different?

One of the weird coincidences in my life is that my birthday and work anniversary are only a few days apart. As of February 3rd, I had worked for my employer for 24 years which is half of my life. I’ve been thinking about how much I identify with that role lately, specifically as it relates to people in my Facebook feed spewing conspiracy nonsense, not to mention supporting the current protest in Ottawa. While I don’t believe that government does everything right/makes all the right choices, I have grown impatient (angry, really) with the implication that myself and people like me are working in concert to actively harm our fellow citizens, neighbours, and family members. Because for someone to believe in the conspiracies being promoted out there, that is literally what they have to believe, not to mention the fact that nearly every doctor, scientist, and academic must be in on it as well. Whether it is 9/11 or anti-vax, to believe in conspiracy is to actively despise the civil service, or at least some quarter of it. And while I aspire to detachment, I’ve started to take that quite personally.

I am a big believer in the right to public protest, and have participated in many a demonstration in my life. I believe citizens should let government know when they are dissatisfied with policies or are seeking redress, and I’ve always felt that a demonstration outside my workplace is a sign the work we do is relevant to people, enough that communities seek change or inclusion in process. Where things veer off course for me is in demands that democratic processes should be discarded in the face of big trucks, that government should abandon programs or policies without plans for new ones that take all people into account, and ultimately that fascist views should be included in “the tent” of ideas for consideration. If anything is worrying me on the eve of my birthday, it is this.

On the weekend I read about a California couple who got snowed in at their mountain cabin on December 6th, but only recently called for help as their supplies dwindled. I suppose they were used to being snowed in and were just waiting, figuring two months of supplies would last until they could get out again. But as it’s been a historic snowfall year in Lake Tahoe, that didn’t happen and they had to call for helicopter evacuation. Upon reading this I implored Brian to imagine living that far off the grid, and how lucky one would be to not know what was going on in the world. If I didn’t know about current events, then surely they wouldn’t be impacting me the way they are. Right?

In the meantime, Brian bought me an Oculus VR headset for my birthday and I’m finding solace in virtual reality. It’s very clean and trippy in there, surprisingly calming. I seem to have reached a point lately where all I want to do is take low doses of mushrooms and float around in imagined reality. Given the state of the world these days can anyone really blame me?

In 2021 I made no new year goals, and I barely chose a word to guide my year (though I played with Renewal as an idea, I can’t say I really committed to it). Feeling disillusioned by my inability to plan around the pandemic which had blasted away all my goals for 2020, my general sense of well-being did not allow me to plan for the even the near future.

While I am not exactly able to see a path forward into 2022, and I am already tired by things to come, I have decided that rather than adopting a “let’s just get through this” mindset, I will work with the concept of fluidity and flow in 2022. As Lao Tzu and Lucretius (among many) have noted, water has the qualities of being soft and yet strong enough to erode rock. I would like to find the qualities of gentleness, strength, flexibility, and movement as I enter this new year with big and small goals. I am embracing “Fluid” as my word for 2022 as I seek to soften my approach to hard problems that have to be tackled.

Big Goals

1) Arrange renovations on my parent’s second home and move them into it. This is my biggest goal and part of helping them age in their community with less property to take care of.

2) Create my position at work and get appointed to it indeterminately. I’m currently on an assignment, but would like that to become permanent and am working towards that happening.

3) Staff my new work team once positions are created. That’s nine positions which come with a whole lot of work to create and fill them.

Fitness Goals

4) Run 15 km. (My previous record is 12 km.)

5) Complete one 30-day yoga challenge.

6) Increase on all my powerlifts: Deadlift 250, Benchpress 115, Squat 230

7) Complete one other fitness challenge (to be chosen later in the year).

Fibre Goals

8) Knit a first pair of socks.

9) Hand paint two warps.

10) Create some upholstery fabric and reupholster one footstool and a chair.

11) Weave a double-width blanket.

12) Organize community fibre meet-ups once omicron has passed.

13) Host an open studio where people can drop-in for a day of visiting and fibre discussion.

Writing Goals

14) Publish 10 issues of Comfort for the Apocalypse.

15) Make fifty blog posts. (One down, 49 to go!)

16) Complete one long-read essay.

Other Goals

17) Return to Zen practice and study. Attend one residential retreat in 2022.

18) Put $2000 in savings and leave it there.

19) Read 100 books (I did this challenge last year and got to 91). This includes War and Peace which I am reading right now.

20) Do the January Cure (The Apartment Therapy program for getting one’s house in order for the year to come, which started yesterday).

21) Get to New York for friend’s wedding and family visiting in June. This is covid-dependent, but it’s on the agenda and will be the first trip outside of BC in over two years.

22) Arrange one smallish house improvement project – laundry room, downstairs bathroom or tbd – in the fall.

Though I feel these goals are achievable because they align with where I am currently at, a lot of external factors will influence how and if they happen. While that is always been true, it just seems more obvious in the face of wave after wave of pandemic infections. While I hope that 2022 brings an end to Covid (or at least sends it into endemic status), I also know that I will continue to carve out a life in my small/local community and use the quieter pace of lockdown for generative creative and spiritual practice. I hope that you are able to do the same, finding a focus that works to stabilize your own place in this ever-emerging world and even discovering new pleasures amidst our days of uncertainty. A better world is still possible, but we have to believe it’s so in order to make it there.