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The neighbourhood crows are gathered in a tall spruce tree across the street– they caw and caw and caw and caw. The last time they were so upset there was a raccoon in the branches. A day of drizzle rain finally lifted in late afternoon. It’s been a perfect watering.

I made dumplings out of the wild mustard that grew spontaneously out of the garden. The seeds must have travelled with the soil that was newly purchased this spring. After some searching online I was able to identify the plant, and also learn that it is, indeed, edible. I thought it might be so– when I sampled a little of the fresh leaf it reminded me of Chinese mustard and daikon greens. Apparently Italians like to eat wild mustard. It tastes similar to rapini, but I find it sweeter. I blanched the greens because they have prickly fur covering some of the leaves and stems, and I read that boiling it would deal with this. I squeezed the water out of the boiled greens and minced it then added organic ground beef, grated ginger and garlic, salt and a dollop of sesame oil. This the filling, the big children and I folded the dumplings and we had our usual discussion of how many to boil and how many to pan-fry. They turned out very nicely and it’s so lovely to discover that a weed overwhelming a planted garden is also food. I did try dandelion greens one year but they were so bitter I had to spit it out. I remember my grandmother making dandelion greens from my half-forgotten childhood in Langley. My oba-chan’s greens tasted good. At least I remember it so.

I’ve started reading the novel, Mother, by Maxim Gorky. I knew nothing of this book or author– I only picked it up because of synchronicity. I had been in the library looking for specific titles for research. After I had found what I was looking my eyes passed over the shelves in front of me when I was snagged by the title in black caps. Just a few weeks ago I’d blogged about being a writer and a mother, then reviewed the Korean film, Mother. Now this! Three is a significant number in Japanese culture. Bemused I reached for the novel and read the back flap and then the first few paragraphs. I added it to my stack.

Gorky’s novel is very chewy. It seems to me that Gorky’s political and social justice agendas are the primary machines that drives this narrative. But he’s folded his ideologies into story form, utilizing the illiterate down-trodden mother to embody and speak the voice of the powerless proletariat “every-person”. According to Wiki, this novel was first published in 1907! I find that I keep on having cognitive dissonance, because the ways that Gorky depicts Pelagea, the mother, as a fully realized and changing and developing character is so very progressive and in some ways, very feminist. I mean this is 1907!!! (Sometimes the mother is idealized, but it’s very much in keeping with the workings of the novel– idealization is part of the ideological lever.) I’m only on page 147, but I’m very much moved by the descriptions of the daily drudgery and suffering of the proletariats as well as the fiery passion for the rights of the working classes and a faith in humanity despite all of the ugliness that circumscribes their lives. 

Sometimes the political speeches go on-ish, but that’s because I’m a reader in my petit bourgeois home, over a hundred years away, well-fed, warm and tired after a weekend of leisure…. Gorky put it on the line for social justice– he was sent to prison many times. He risked his life for his beliefs and his art form. It’s something to think about.

And the crows still caw and caw and I’ve yet to paint bright signs for tomorrow’s rally in support of passing a Burnaby school board policy that ensures that LGBT students and staff are and feel safe in school.

I haven’t worked on any fiction projects today– I did, however, do the dreadful filing of receipts and the desk is clear, wiped free of dust, and blessedly uncluttered. Writing new words at a clean and clear desk is a marvellous thing. But for now off to look for pieces of wood and large paper!

It’s difficult to comprehend fully, but I’ve been a writer for over twenty years. Unbelievable! Weird! By hook and by crook I’ve somehow managed to live off my writerly income, but this has been only just manageable because my ex-husband and I share our resources to raise the children and maintain family. I know I could not have stuck to my writer’s life as I have lived it as the primary care-giver single mom.

I don’t like to think of my writing as business and don’t do it naturally– this is partly a result of the idea of separating art (i.e. “high art”) from the commercial. Braid into this strand the political and it’s even more difficult to frame writing as business. Every profession will have members who think of themselves as the best, or the most “pure” (?), the most evolved, etc. In the great wash of life what people think of you and what you do does not truly matter. However, sometimes we can’t help feeling doubts and question what we do, how we do it. We can’t help these feelings and thoughts, because we are, aside from V.S. Naipaul <rolling eyes>, feeling and thinking social creatures.

If writing is the sole means of your income to not think of the business side of things is selectively naive and counter-productive. To think and plan on how to increase your income with your art so you can continue to do the art you love to do is not an evil thing. I have heard people in the literary arts and visual arts talk to each other about how so-and-so has “sold out” or “went commercial” and wasn’t “truly an artist anymore”. My first question I ask is who is it that deems this so? Are they coming from a place where income is a less pressing concern? I.e. do they have family money to fall back upon so they needn’t fear aging in poverty with no medical plan? And, finally, why must we cling to the weird Romantic idea(l) that artists must suffer for their art?I want to live and eat well. It is everyone’s right.

Art is also labour. I think of the writing I do as art but also as a serious (and joyous) labour. And as a worker I expect to be paid. I’ve been working hard at writing for many years. As I become better at this labour and art form I want a raise! Hahahahahahahahaaaa!

Meeting with my agent’s partners in Toronto has shifted something for me in how I think of my writing. I had been always placing the ideals (subjective) of art and politics in the foreground, but I think I need to balance the field with an equal amount of thinking and energy around elements of business.

One of the agents said that the average reading level was Grade 10. My friend said, That high? Instead of feeling like the writer must come down from her esteemed standards of excellence which involves a large vocabulary, and woeing and wailing that literacy has fallen so low, it can be seen as an opportunity to reexamine the author’s expectations of audience. There are also issues of class. Does your choice of vocabulary, construction and narrative only speak to a smaller specific audience or does it have the capacity to reach a wider and diverse audience? Who do you want to reach? Who do you want to have read your book? Do you want to make more money? To want to make more money is not, in itself, a bad thing.

The same agent said that books are luxury items. Most people cannot afford to buy books in the same way they would spend money on apples or bananas. True, I thought. I love libraries and frequent them and borrow books. But as a writer I earn money when people buy my books.

I don’t think it’s one or the other– we’re either true to our political beliefs and artistic ideals or we “go commercial” and write more mainstream. I like to think that it’s possible to combine the best of all wor(l)ds and an artful writer can pull this off! Why not? If you write it into being, you’ve written it into being!

God, I love this work!

WisCon 35 concluded—what a lovely weekend meeting up with friends from previous Cons, making new friends, and talking, laughing! Nisi Shawl gave a lovely GOH speech and I loved how she situated the idea of genius as not something individual and anomalous, but arising from and because of community, and that it is possible for all to shine. The feminist contingency from Japan, including Mari Kotani and Madame Robot had an excellent panel detailing their feminist domination of Tokon 10 last year in Japan. I loved the discussions that were generated by the Magic Realism and Diaspora panel moderated by Mary Anne Moharanj with Nisi Shawl, Sheree Renée Thomas, Ibi Aanu Zoboi, and yours truly. coffeeandink has shared her notes from that panel on her livejournal if you want to take a look. The loveliest conversations are held during lunch and dinner– reestablishing connections and proposing new projects. Building a wider lattice of communities. I’m so lucky to have been able to attend!

Intensive socializing, panels and a reading. Sometimes the introvert side took over, over-riding the professional face, sending me upstairs to pancake flat atop my bed. And what a lovely bed it was!

I must confess— I don’t have cable TV at home so when I’m on work trips and stay in hotels I am mesmerized by what is on there! Particularly paid-for programming/advertising. This time, of particular note, was the special cantaloupe skin cream that that model uses…. Whoa—the complete lack of any kind of scientific info and reliance only upon the model’s own face and then shots of the special French doctor and the story of him “discovering” the magic melons follows such a fairy tale narrative. Holy smokes, I think. Why not magic beans? Why not the Japanese magic pot? It’s brilliant in its simplicity and effectiveness. And frightening. People want to follow the cult of “anti-aging” and “youth” so very much. I love aging faces! I love the distinct lines, the imprint of experience that is etched into skin. I would stare at older people if staring wasn’t considered rude. (The special melon story is fascinating, but I still would opt for the Spanish snail slime cream they were advertising in Leiden….)

I quickly flipped through the numerous “reality” shows figuring young people partying and being unpleasant/drunk because I find them so very painful to behold. Then I was snagged by an “exposé”-type program that combined catching pedophiles with reality TV on hidden camera…. This was sick on multiple levels. I think it’s a good thing, of course, to catch would-be pedophiles who prey on young people online. But to record it on camera and air it on television is another matter altogether. We watch the pedophile enter the house where he’d been directed to go to by the “bait youth/child” and witness him being berated by the “host” of the program. This is truly disturbing as it situates the viewer as a weird voyeur. I think the viewer is meant to feel some kind of moral righteousness as the would-be pedophile is caught and also a sense of justice and power and superiority as we witness the very public humiliation of the man (I didn’t see any women in the program). The different men frequently claimed they had made a mistake. And that they would never do it again, etc. They were very compliant with their guilt, and several of the men mistakenly thought that the “host” of the program was actually the father of the child/youth he had preyed upon online. What the would-be predator doesn’t know is that there are an enormous number of police officers waiting for him outside. He is allowed to leave the house, thinking he has gotten away, when the spotlights are lit and he is roughly made to lie upon his stomach, told he is under arrest and handcuffed and taken away.

What are we when we observe this spectacle? What are we if we gain some kind of satisfaction from it? There is a kind of displaced mob-justice element, here, that should not be encouraged in our species.

Of course I find the idea of pedophiles and predators disgusting and reprehensible, but I don’t think that this means that they ought to be treated the way they are on the television program. I can understand police officers doing this as a part of their work. I suppose some people would say that such shows, if viewed by predators, could serve as deterrent as he may fear being caught is much the same way. And that this is reason enough for this program to continue. But at what cost for those who are not predators—a far larger number of people? That this is televised and can be viewed as a “form of entertainment” troubles me so very much. It can only sicken our spirit…. But I don’t want to end on appalling television programs!

I’ve written about being a writer and mother on this blog and though I’ve been doing these work trips for some time it’s still lovely to get away from the home front, have ROOM SERVICE and lie in bed whilst eating a clubhouse sandwich!!!! Hahahahahaaaa! Because I was getting into that space of being soooo sick of wondering what I’d make for dinner. Holy shit….

Rumours and buzz: Sharyn November, my editor at Viking, told me that the next new thing is supposed to be mermaids…. I can only hope it will be the man-eating variety rather than the wanna-marry-a-man kind. <weak grin> . I won’t be holding my breath. Tomorrow meetings with my agency and publisher. Finish an editorial. Catch up on emails, business, and back into a groove of writing.

Two nights ago I watched Bong Joon-ho’s 2009 film, Mother. I’m a fan of his earilier film, The Host, and love what he does with splicing different genres. Mother is also a combo-punch of films. I don’t want to say too much about the plot points because I don’t want to spoiler it or even place too many suggestions on what it might be like; it’s best just to watch the entire film if the trailer makes you curious. I must say that I found it extremely intense. It was also visually gorgeous and the acting was excellent. I don’t know if I could say I enjoyed the film.  I found it gripping, disturbing, extremely interesting…. I would definitely recommend it, though one must not turn to it as a feel-good film. No, certainly not that.

Sometimes when I read reviews by viewers outside of the culture of origin (i.e. Western reviewers of, say, international films) I wonder about the gestures and meanings that cannot be decoded by peoples who live with a different cultural grammar. For instance, the hero of the film, Mother, is the single parent to an adult-aged child who has mental challenges. Do-Joon has a very small working memory and behaves in a “child-like” manner. One of the details that might seem more extreme and “weird” by a Western audience as opposed to an Asian one is that 28 yr old Do-Joon sleeps in the same bed as his mother. So much cultural context can be misread or missed entirely…. I guess this is so about any decoding of art forms, but it would be good to keep this in mind when approaching films, books, art from cultures not one’s own: it is very likely that I’m missing a lot of references. I see the picture, but what I see is a partial image, and tinted with my subjective reading of what things signify. Moving onward, this film has got me thinking about so many things, but  not surprisingly, I’ve been ruminating on various depictions of “mother” to be found in literature and popular culture.

The DVD cover image is alarming. It’s a close headshot in 2/3 profile, Mother’s hair is in maddened disarray, the only use of colour  (only RED! on black and white photo) is in the cap font of the title, her shirt, and her bloodshot eyes. This is an image of mother of madness…. There’s also a long thin silvery object that’s held upon her shoulder and rising up past her neck, alongside her head. It’s not entirely clear what this shiny silver object is, but it is ominious. It looks a little like a sword. There is an implication of violence. Bong is most careful with his use of symbolism and recurring motifs. I think I ought to go back and watch more carefully the details without the distractions of plot. This film is truly gorgeous particularly in constrast to the violence and tragedy unfolding…. And his use of the same symbols and images, at different points and different settings resonate with such intensity. I really enjoy the ways he seamlessly contextualizes class tensions within the workings of plot. He also did this in The Host (an SF monster-film, political critique and comedy and trajedy….!!! Truly! He mashed it all up and I thought it worked. He made it funny not by accident, but because he wanted comic elements! Not for all viewers, I suppose.).  

So, mother-love is the force that transforms multiple characters’ lives in Bong’s film. I’m curious about how different people decode this narrative structure. In 2004 I was on a panel with Finnish writer, Johanna Sinisalo. I was so chuffed we ended up on the same panel because we’d both won the James Tiptree Memorial Award (in different years) and it was neat to meet her. Anyway, the topic of the panel was something like “Love in literature”. And it turned out that we both thought that the most powerful examples of love was that of the mother toward her beloved child. (This is not to suggest that all mothers love this way, or that all mothers love. Some mothers do not love their children. Shit happens.) The other panelist thought the greatest love was between a man and woman. It so happened that the other panelist was male. Clearly there is not enough data to make any conclusions, here, but perhaps someone can do a graduate project in this area…. ^__^

Consider the figure of mother in popular culture, film, tv and literature. We have the archetypes (sexist? patriarchal?essentialist?) of the long-suffering devoted mother. We have the evil stepmother. We have the failed mother. And we must not forget the “disappeared”-mothers so rampant in Disney narratives! Which mother characters stand out for you?

My first most memorable positive mother character was that of Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel. Maybe “positive” is misleading– Hagar Shipley was a deeply flawed character and an uneven mother. I guess what I was taken with was that she was utterly believable, flawed, human and marvellously “unbeautiful”. What was “positive” for me was that she was a character who portrayed a mother that was not limited to stereotype and generalizations.

It’s a little embarrassingly low-brow, but I have a fondness for the film, The Long Kiss Goodnight (the homophobic jokes throughtout of the film firmly set to the side) because it’s just kinda cool to imagine that a frumpy middle-class teacher/mom is an amnesiac assasin….

My heart breaks for the mother character that Julianne Moore played in The Hours.

There’s Mrs. Parsons in the Tiptree short story, “The Women Men Don’t See”. I LOVE her!!!

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone said/wrote that there’s a dearth of mother characters in fantasy and sf, particularly for adventures with children as the hero, because if the child’s mother was around the child would not have to go off and fight evil/save the world/slay monsters, because the mother would do this for the child…. This is a bit of a plot connundrum for the writer who wants to include three- dimensional and positive and realistically diverse depictions of mothers in fiction…. In fact, Melanie’s mother in my own novel, Half World, is missing for most of the novel…. >_< !!!!!

I still want to write a mother of all novels…. ~__~

Daughter likes to draw characters. One day she was sketching ideas on the white board and we began playfully thinking of different ideas and possible scenarios. What kind of personality would a teabag character have? What if it’s wet? What about a bean sprout (moyashi)? And then we got to the Japanese sweet potato, imo. A homonym of “emo”, we were delighted with the play of language/translation and we came up with a comic strip! Hopefully more to come.

(Click image to enlarge)

I’m not privileging this combo (1/2 Price Sunday Brunches!)– and, yes, there are fathers and aunties and uncles and guardians, etc. who also write as they nurture children. But today is Mother’s Day and I think it’s okay to speak of this particular combination. (If not today, then when?)

First off, it’s not easy. Especially in the early years. For those mothers with younger children, babies, and you’re dying to write…. It’s not easy. It’s just the limits of time. A baby truly needs you to care for it. And basically you’re on call twenty-four hours a day. For the next three years. If your baby has disabilities, the level of care/needs increases, and, may never change.

How is a mother to write? How is a writer who is a mother going to continue developing her craft, her imagination, her professional connections, not to mention community activism and engagement and also maintain a healthy and growing relationship with a partner???

Are you a mother who writes? Or are you a writer who is a mother? Do you differentiate between the two?

My son was three years old when my first novel was published. I was working on my second novel, but it was very difficult. I was also pregnant with my second child. During this time I went to a writing retreat and my group leader was Sky Lee. She is half a generation older than me and also a mother. I asked how she manages the parenting and the writing– how did a mother find the space to work and think? How did she deal with the frustrations of not being able to think through a longer project? Did she have any advice?

The children are this small, and need you like this for only a specific time, she said. When they grow up they won’t need you like they need you now. There is time for everything. Just enjoy them now. There will be time to write.

When I heard this I felt like a window had opened. Yes, I thought. There’s no time limit. It’s not like I’m an Olympic figure skater, missing my physical peak while I’m breastfeeding, thus, will never be able to practice and land my quadruple lutz…. I’m a Writer! It’s actually one of the few occupations where I can potentially get better and better as I get older!

Sky had given me a wider view of life, when I had been looking through a smaller frame.

Now, that doesn’t mean to say that I didn’t feel frustrations and that it wasn’t challening. Even without trying to have a writing life, the mother narrative itself is laden and loaded. It’s difficult enough trying to be a caring, thoughtful, patient, respectful, balanced mother. Motherhood is not a neutral site. But that’s a different essay.

My children are older now– aged twenty and sixteen. I have a lot of time to write. ~___~

Basically from babyhood to first grade it’s kind of a write-off. At least it was for me. But what made that okay was acceptance. I accepted that even if there wasn’t time in the present and the near future to write longer projects, I would have a wider field in the future. So it was important to be be present in the present, and live it well.

Also it’s not like one’s critical and creative mind is completely on sleep mode during heavy hands-on parenting. Life experience is also the stuff of stories. I was also observing and taking notes. I was also able to write short stories during this time. (I did get tired talking about “baby stuff” to other parents. I mean, sometimes it wasn’t so intellectually stimulating talking about nap times, colic, feedings, ear infections, soothers, etc. It’s good to have a close non-mom friend with whom you can talk to about other “ideas”…. Keep those juices flowing.)

Once both children were in grade school there was enough time to write. They still needed me and there were interruptions. That is the nature of living in a family.

So for the developing writer who is torn between baby, nap, scrawling a few lines of a poem…. There is time enough. Please drink plenty of water. Get sleep when you can. Dream. You will carry the seeds of story inside you. And you can plant them when the time is right. They even managed to sprout seeds they found entombed with Egyptian mummies! Don’t despair. You’ll make it. In time.

Once they are a little older you can go away on writing retreats. For one week, two weeks, a month if you have the means! Don’t feel guilty. Once the baby if off the breast they will learn to be okay even when you’re not there. This is also an important lesson. It needn’t be so drastic. One day. Two days. Then make it longer. It’s important that you do the things you need to feel happy for your creative self. Because if you’re unhappy then this unhappiness will spill into other arenas. The key is to seek a comfortable balance.

The place of balance between writing and being a mother is never fixed…. You will find your own path. But know that you  do not walk alone.

This is not a brag. Just a statement of facts. Or, to be more precise, I can see the construct of story overlaid or transposed or bolstering situations or events. Sometimes the stories are scaffolds. Sometimes the stories are frames. But some aspect of story is almost always discernable (I’m talking about the constructedness of story. The manipulation. Because, at its heart, the story is a manipulative device. The story is never neutral…. Not in the writing of it, nor in the reading of it.).

The past few days of Storied ”Reality” has been a bummer. I tend to think that a great many writers are depressives or melancholic or curmudgeons of some kind or another. This might be just neurotic egocentric projection of the worst kind…. But then again, maybe not. Clearly there’s something shared at the core of 1) Spending a lot of time alone with one’s thoughts and writing them down on paper, and 2) Preferring a book over conversation with a person (not always! but enough times….).  At any rate the past few days (from my vantage point in Canada) has seen a frenzy of media activity over Two Big Stories: 1) Royal Wedding and 2) Execution of Osama Bin Laden. The third Big Story has been the election in Canada.

Now, if they were “just news items” relayed in point form, perhaps. Or in the kind of language used in telegraphs (remember! Those Days?), then I would be able to decode the facts and integrate them into my understanding through a frame of my own (Oh, Virginia….). But the problem (not always, but sometimes I do wish I could unsee…. It might make life more pleasant… you know?) for me is that I can perceive the framework the news writer has cast and most of the time I Don’t Like It. Thereby, not only is the news just “naturally bad news” (say, fire guts a house killing all sleeping children), it’s also packaged in such a way that adds insult to  injury.

1) Royal Wedding. I know there are a LOT of Anglophiles out there (One of my sisters is an Anglophile, bless her twisted little soul.) but, really, people. Ultimately this is just another wedding between two straight people…. I know, I know, he’s a Prince. So this is where the overlay of other Stories begin layering and framing this common heterosexual event. The Fairy Tale (Girl wins the Prince’s heart with true love– this also dovetails with a story about class, as well as feeds into the “I want to be a princess” narrative.) has come alive with this wedding formation. Watch for a slough of common girl-becomes-princess films pop up at a theatre near you. This wedding was also being framed as the New Beginning after Dianna’s Tragic End. So that the Fairy Tale can continue, for the next generation. And that this Story can be carried forward once more. What for? My conclusion, here in the midst of my curmudgeonly forties (i.e. I might change my mind later, who know?), is that it’s all for economic gain. Marriage is embedded with economics. From the sale of wedding dresses, to the forming of families, to the paying of taxes…. I think family units are easier to appeal to (and control) as consumers. And, if not as family consumers, than as people looking to forming a couple (this shampoo will make your hair beautiful and sexy, therefore, appealing, instead of just clean…. Hahahahaha!), which, the story goes, will one day lead to a family where you will live happily (whilst paying taxes and buying Large Things such as refrigerator, stove, washing machine, used Volvo, and a house). Is this not the middle class dream? And, yes, I’ve dreamt this dream as well. I took the baited hook and swam and swam for many years without noticing the hook. <wry grin, next to the awesome scar in my cheek. Very macha!)

2) Execution of bin Laden. I won’t go into how the stories were constructed and used when he was alive. I’ll stick to the ones being formed now that he is dead. Bin Laden was the face of “ultimate evil” in terms of the general American imagination. I’m not saying that his part in criminal acts of violence, aggression and destruction were not awful and despicable. What I see is that upon his death, we have seen the unveiling of two different narratives. The first is a very very old story of Vengeance. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the lord, etc. An eye for an eye. Old testament variety. The vengeance story is still so very popular. It’s everywhere– in comics, in the Classics, in high art, low art, Vengeance might be hard-wired into our species…. A vengeance story is very cathartic for people. It serves as a proxy for the powerlessness we feel in our humble lives. Vengeance, however, is not the same thing as Justice. But a lot of people see it so…. So, immediate sense of catharsis for a great many people upon hearing that bin Laden has been killed. But then it’s the tale of transformation: the story of his Voldemort-ish type villiany becomes a narrative more along the lines of Halloween. Like Michael the psychotic killer, upon Bin Laden’s death, his evil continues. Even as Osama was the Face of Terrorism, now we are told that the evil has not died. That, in fact, terrorism will likely get worse and we must all be vigilant. Thus, the narrative of Terrorism continues and is a marvellous means of controlling public perceptions on money spent on war, weapons and never mind the man behind the curtain who can’t help you with your healthcare or you chronic unemployment…. (There was a marvellous editorial written by Kai Wright that articulated so well why “The Ability to Kill Osama Bin Laden Does Not Make America Great”.) Yes, Osama bin Laden was a hate-mongering and violent man. But he was and continues to be an effective narrative-shaping (and nation-shaping) device.

 The election in Canada. Ohhhh, lordy, lordy…. What to say? First off, only 60 % voter turn-out? Harper truly does not have a majority government if 40% of the voters did not vote. He has majority of 60% of Canadians. That aside, there was a historic and amazing surge of the Canadian Left with the NDP now the official opposition. But with Harper holding majority in the House I’m sorely afraid. We’ve seen massive cuts to women’s programs, the arts, the health sector suffering over the past years…. I’m afraid that the erosion will continue, or perhaps the boiling…. Like frogs placed in a pot of water– if you raise the temperature slowly enough the frogs will not try to leap out of the water. They accept the incremental changes until they’ve boiled to death….

Well! Not all frogs, I say!!! In times of challenge there are always people who stand forth and fight. Step up and resist. Say, No! Like the amazing Dominican nuns, I so admire and respect their non-violent resistance!

And so the master narratives are played and replayed, claiming their top forty spot year after year, ages upon ages, the same stories. But alternative tellings also exist. They sing their power, they sing their colours, they sing their resistance for all who would hear them.

Let me turn to the small. The quiet. The subtle. The ironic. The bitter, the biting, the cheeky, the ugly. You are lovely. Welcome. Sit, eat at my table. We are alive. What a glorious day.

(Not “Candy Mountain”….) <crooked grin>

For the longest time I’ve been meaning to dig up a chunk of my front lawn/moss in order to have a garden patch. I had read the ground-breaking <wink!> book on permaculture farming by Fukuoka, The One Straw Revolution ,  and had thought I ought to cover up the turf with straw and let is biodegrade w/o all of the labour of digging it up. Alas, it was one of those back-burner projects as I wondered how far I’d have to venture to find straw that wasn’t mixed heavily with seed/feed, etc, and then this past Saturday’s sunshine was as hot as summer and I Had To Do The Gardenwork Right Away! So I dragged out the shovel and enthusiastically began to dig out the sod. I’m going to have a huge patch of strawberries, I though happily. All the previous season’s plants had suckered themselves rampant like strawberries do and were crowded out in the flowerbeds. I’d dig them out and replant them in a front yard strawberry garden! A BIG strawberry Mountain! I thought wildly.

Alas….

Breaking sod under the bright sun was back-breaking labour. Mr. Fukuoka, I thought muchly humbled, I should have listened to you two months ago…. As I dug and dug, flipping over the chunks of turf to bash the soil out of the clumps, then tossing the grass-root remainders into large buckets, I came to the conclusions that:

1) I’m horribly out of shape. 2) Even though reading Mr. Fukuoka’s book annoyed me sometimes because some of his sayings reminded me a lot of my father and his tendency toward pronouncements while he sat at the kitchen table and my mother laboured over the cooking and I couldn’t help be triggered while reading about how one doesn’t need all this Stuff, and you can live simply in a rural farming setting and I was thinking: yah, but who does the LAUNDRY? I BET IT’S YOUR WIFE! I BET YOUR WIFE WANTED AN ELECTRIC WASHING MACHINE IN THE LITTLE HUT EVEN IF SHE WAS OKAY WITH THE FIREPIT COOKING! if I could get out of this sob-bursting, sod-busting labour, I would temporarily give up my feminist deconstruction and family baggage triggerpoints so that I could still have my large strawberry garden…. 3) The crows and starlings who come to rip up the yard must have been after those grodie fetal cutworms underneath the grass/moss. 4) My ambitions exceeded my capacity.

As I kept on eyeing the amount I had dug up and internally measuring it against my growing exhaustion, I began down-sizing my ambition. Maybe it doesn’t need to go as far as that peony plant. I can stop there, and curve it around, a smaller wedge….

There is something to be learned, here, about preparing and setting aside enough time to meet project goals…. But, yah. I wanted a one-day gardening project (there was still Easter dinner groceries to procure) and closure.

Strawberry Mountain is down-sized to Humbled Strawberry Patch! ^___^ .

Making turkey soup out of the bones. It’s raining, perfect timing for the transplanted plants! I got a rejection letter for a short story I sent to a magazine. Ahhh, well…. Rejection and dealing with rejection is an important part of this work. I quite like that story and will find it another home.

And onto more writing!

I remember being a child and feeling great disdain over adults who kept on going on and on about how quickly time passes. How they couldn’t believe it, where has it all gone, it’s a sign of age, etc. Some of my disdain (I hope!) was because these adults were at the house, drinking copiously with my father, and saying the same thing over and over again in varying states of deterioration. However, I remember thinking then that when I grew up I would never go on and on about how quickly time passes……..

>_< !!!!!

Always so many things to do in Vancouver and area. Tonight heading over to Centre A for Kyohei Sakaguchi’s artist’s talk and film screening. If you miss the opening the show will be up for some time.

Been furiously revising Darkest Light between self-soothing mini games of Tetris on a Gameboy Colour. Hopefully the batteries (on the GB) will run out soon and I will not replace them!  

Had an intensive and amazing opportunity to interact with the sparkly (no, NOT a pop vampire series reference! sparkles existed long before this series and will, long after!) junior and secondary students at Southridge school in Surrey this Monday. I had three class visits over the course of the day. I’m more accustomed to one class visit/day, so doing three was a great chance to experience what a teacher does on a daily basis! I’m supposing that most teachers who choose the profession have a high extrovert rating. Because otherwise how could she sustain speaking and engaging with students every single work day? Teaching is also such a performative occupation. I marvel and have great respect for teachers! Thank you to the students for their questions, for working so intently on the writing exercises. It warms the heart. And enough cannot be said about the efficiency, hospitality and warmth of Ms. Emma Breeze. (Doesn’t she have a marvellous name? I instantly felt name envy when I first saw it!)

Speaking of batteries running out… do you ever wonder about all of the passwords you’ve had to memorize and have forgotten? I like to picture myself in older age. My memory isn’t so great to begin with and I’m always having to make up new passwords for ones I’ve forgotten. But they say that we don’t actually forget everything we’ve forgotten…. We just can’t retrieve it. So I imagine myself being in my 80s or 90s. Hopefully not in too much pain, but my mind starting to wander. Maybe I’ll be in my own slipped timeline, like this Tiptree story, I can’t recall the title (!!!), about a man who had committed a crime on an alien planet. And their way of punishing criminals involves slipping his timeline, so he’s not aligned temporally, to everyone else’s time continuum. Ingenious, hey! There’s no need for a physical prison (and the outrageous costs of the prison systems) because he’s isolated out by time! ANYWAY!

So I’m this old woman, sitting in a comfortable chair, muttering a string of words, letters, numbers, over and over again. Because, finally, I’ve somehow accessed my forgotten passwords from a time long ago…. ~____~ Hahahahahahaaaa! (I hate having to remember so many passwords.)

Canadian election coming up! Stop the dismantling of women’s rights! If we’re not mindful of the threats, if we don’t act, so much can be lost so very quickly…. We need to observe what kinds of action have been taken, what kind of outcomes enacted, over what is said/claimed. HUGE difference!!!

Galloping forward!

In a professional way, of course. (Just like I admire and respect librarians!)  

This year I am so lucky as to have been introduced to an accountant who not only understands what kind of expenses/interactions/etc. that a writer is likely to financially experience, but, is also a writer himself! An accountant poet!!! This means that he actually knows how to deal with my receipts, in the best possible ways. He understands the workings of travel, research, business meetings, social expenses, etc. because he has experienced them also.

I mean after all these years I don’t know what to do with all of my receipts! My previous accountants, who were solid people, didn’t really understand the ins and outs of writerly business. My current accountant, to whom I was directed to by a writer friend,  can advise me on how to configure my work trips in a more business-minded way. Practical advice that is greatly appreciated.

It’s a blessed relief to feel like one’s business side of writing is in good hands. I don’t like to think of my writing practice as “a business”, but I’m required to file my income taxes and I want to feel confident that I’m getting the best return that I can. And, there is also a big part of this writing profession that is also about business. For me to pretend it isn’t does me no good whatsoever. Surely it’s important to maintain professionalism not only around ideas of craft and style, but also the business side of the equation. I hadn’t realized my own insecurities around the accounting side of the business until I experienced such relief in having been accounted for by an accountant who really knew what kind of work I did.

Some of my friends file their own income tax; they are so talented! They say that this way they know exactly what is being filed, and they can be sure that everything is handled right– we can’t necessarily know that the accountant has done this as you would have liked/preferred/wanted. This is true. My friend says that there is software that guides you through the entire process and it’s not  difficult. 

I hate working with numbers so much (aside from pondering pi and wondering why multiplying the 9 times table you end up with two-digit numbers, if added together, turn up being 9… i.e. 18, 27, 36, 45, etc.) that I would far prefer paying someone to do it for me.

I’m gleefully considering a MacBook! Or an ice cream maker (I’ve always wanted an ice cream maker so that I can make my own matcha ice cream….). Maybe I can get BOTH!!! Hahahahahaaa!

A MacBook can definitely be filed as a Capital Purchase. Accounting word of the day (wroooaaaaar clap clap clap!)! What about an ice cream maker? 

My accountant would know!