Red Cedar

I’ve been having trouble catching up on sleep lately, a couple of weeks of not enough and I feel like my days are spent treading rather than floating. It’s the lack of days off and to myself lately, too many demands at once coming in the form of work, people, family obligations. October and April – the two months I’m most prone to overwork – so I’m not surprised. But still, it’s difficult to see the end.

I’m almost done with the first piece of short fiction that I’ve “finished” since I was eighteen. Finished in quotations because I’m not sure that I ever feel anything I’ve written is truly complete. But there is a point at which you let it go, and since I’ve decided to submit this one to the Geist Postcard fiction contest, that point will be later this week. I’m hoping to have another piece to send along with it, which depends entirely on my focus in the next two days.

Whether or not these place in any capacity (it’s a very popular contest), I’m feeling good about my re-engagement with writing these days, even as I reassure myself that it’s not all a big waste of time. I don’t believe other people’s art to be a waste of time – which is a helpful reminder to be a tad gentler on myself.

In any case both of my readers so far have 1) enjoyed the piece, and 2) offered some helpful critique. The thing about postcard fiction (which by definition is a short story under 500 words) is the requirement for careful editing, which is where outside eyes are needed. That removed perspective to ensure the story has actually translated from my imagination to the page. In this instance I believe I have been successful with at least that.

I am waiting for the read of one other writing friend (who I have sent three versions of this to now, each a small tweak on the last) and have pledged not to change another single thing until I do. On Thursday or so I will put this in an envelope and mail it away with hope that at the very least the contest judges won’t secretly laugh at my entry as they bypass it for those more accomplished. As if I would even know if they do.

Really, what’s most important to note is my overwhelming gladness at the fact I have reinstituted my writing practice in the last several weeks (with Brian’s help and support) and from that initial process I have managed to finish at least one piece I wouldn’t have otherwise. Overworked or no, at least the creative outlet is alive and sparking, which makes the exhaustion just that much more bearable.

I went last night to a Writer’s Festival event where I got to see my creative writing teacher for the first time in 17 years. He was in town to read along with eight other writers from the UBC writing program – all of them illustriously published and awarded. I thought they were all quite fabulous, though if I had to pick favourites I would say they included Jack Hodgins reading from his novel-in-progress, Joan MacLeod reading from her play Another Home Invasion and Kevin Patterson telling a tragically funny story from his childhood (he elected not to read because apparently he is bad at reading from his own works).

And then, of course, there was Terence Young – the most influential teacher I had throughout my whole educational career (including university) – who I was just proud to see read in the funny, possessive way you can be with people you have known.

Terence started the creative writing program at Claremont Secondary in my Grade 12 year. A brand-new class with unorthodox methods that involved a lot of listening to Leonard Cohen, using profanity, and sitting atop our desks – it turned out some pretty phenomenal writing. It was a super exciting class for me, rebel teen always on the verge of dropping out, because it was the one place you could go in the school and say what you wanted to say. Write what you wanted to write. Be just yourself, in a class where you didn’t have to deal with the jocks or the assholes crowding you out the rest of the time.

And it’s funny remembering this now – and realizing how safe I felt in that particular classroom with those people – some of whom were friends, some not. But it of course is the teacher who creates the environment, and the one Mr. Young modeled for us was respectful and fun. Both in and out of class – we were always welcome to join him and his poet-wife Patricia outside of the school for evening poetry readings and other literary events. Terence introduced us to local writers, esoteric writing, and the realization that being an adult didn’t have to be a terrribly uncreative thing. He also introduced some of us to the idea that our thoughts and output mattered as much as anyone else’s did (a lesson I am still trying to master today).

That class really did make a better writer out of me – and to this day I use writing exercises introduced to me there – free writing or basing a poem off the first line of a song. The poems I published in that year’s Claremont Review (founded in that year also by Terence and still going strong today) are ones I can even find the quality in now (as opposed to a lot of other crap I wrote at 19 and 20 which I find embarassing). Not only that, but I took the editing lessons to heart so much so that I use a lot of those same editing techniques today in my professional life.

After seventeen years I finally got the chance to tell him what it had all meant to me. Just a ten-minute conversation was all it took to honour this person who had such a positive impact on who I would become. And likewise, after seventeen years it was gratifying to hear how much that first creative writing class he taught had meant to him – turns out we were a bit of an experiment to prove if you just gave people some tools and encouragement they would make beautiful things out of them. And become beautiful people through them too. I remember how special that class felt, and am pleased to discover that feeling shared by even its originator.

And it’s huge inside of me, this reunion, especially these days when I am writing seriously again every morning forcing words onto paper that may still go nowhere despite the dedication…. I was so very proud last night to see my teacher reading his fine work, and be able to answer to him honestly “Yes, I am still writing”. I suppose it’s just that, to produce in this world is a difficult thing and I’m so pleased with all of us who do. I’m so pleased I met someone early in my life who taught me how to.

Thank you. Thank you.

First snow on the north shore mountains this morning and when my hand searched for the cel phone to text you my excitement I realized I had left it at home. Plugged into the charger where I left it last night. I am now likely without it until tomorrow evening which suits me fine except that I find myself attached to being able to communicate with my partner, silly thoughts and moments that carry us to one other and alleviate the workaday. I suppose it’s no coincidence that as we have driven ourselves further apart from each other, racing busy critters going from place to place, so the technology that allows us to remain “at home” with our loved ones has developed in tandem.

I have often thought about this on the road, how the laptop and the cel phone make a much easier existence than if I had neither. As important as the kitchenette in my Ottawa suite is the wireless connection that allows me to chat with my friends, my mother, my partner on the nights when I am blockaded in my room by frozen sidewalks and blowing snow. It makes travel less lonely, but it also creates a split in attention to the present because while you are away, not at home, in another physical location – you remain (at least) in mind measure rooted with the people who define home for you.

But so then do the people who miss you exist simultaneously in two places. That home place, and that in-between mediated by wire and fibre – a physical presence also a disembodied thought, a voice not quite there but coming through as a mirage. Warbling and distant it lacks in the same way a photograph can not capture truth but only essence. Sometimes exaggerated, sometimes pale. But something nonetheless to fuel the nights when the embrace is absent, the kiss unreachable, the glance a memory of light only. Not to be cheapened by modernity we knit our connections over distance, we create new mediums to do so. We only move fast enough to just keep up.

I had an incredibly stupid time getting out of my house this morning, basically because I couldn’t find anything to wear that fit properly, which set me up for a bad mood day… though I think I’m finally almost out of my funk which means it’s time to write something here after a four-day absence (union meetings late last week being the cause).

Fair enough that I’m not supposed to complain because my clothes are all 2 or 3 sizes too big – Brian reminded me of that this morning when I was frustratedly belting a skirt that ended up looking like a drawstring sack at the top when I was finished – but still, at 6 am I want dressing to be an effortless process. I want my cute clothes to continue being cute on me.

And really, it’s not a negative – but I’m just in the middle of this whole thing about identity, body image, disordered eating, and a daily conversation with the mirror that gets more critical with every bit of weight I lose. Suddenly all the monster wants is stronger, faster, thinner, sexier – when a month ago I was just happy with “in better shape”. It’s remarkable what shedding excess pounds reveals, besides more pronounced collarbones, isn’t it? Not that I haven’t wrestled with these feelings in the past, the sense of becoming a different person – or at least having an entirely different relationship to my body can be a tad unsettling at times. Particularly on days when I haven’t gotten enough sleep and/or don’t feel like going to work.

But despite all of that, I made it into the office, then to the gym late this morning to lift weights and admire the fact that my arms look almost cut when I’m in the throes of lat pull-downs; my reverse abdominal crunches are just that much easier to complete three sets of. Really, I’m in increasingly good shape and I know it shouldn’t matter that there are people who swim eight times as fast as me or have nicer shoulders. There’s just a lot of stuff getting worked out besides my heart and lungs, and I suppose this integral to re-invention. How do you know who to become if you never evaluate who you are?

There are worse problems to have, I know. This just happened to be mine on a Monday morning. I’m hoping the rest of the week picks up from here.