A Monday Morning in March . . .

I’m currently working on my post of Books I Read in February, which will appear here in its entirety. (I’m debating also posting a brief excerpt or a simple list over on Substack with a link to the blogpost. So far, my book posts have only appeared here, and I’m loath to mess with our book chats, but always happy to grow our community. Still pondering. . . )

Meanwhile, I’ve posted a new article on Substack: “On Writing the Ordinary, and Why that Matters (Against the Ob-literation of so much that we value). It was prompted, in large part, by the upending I felt — as did many/most of you, I know — in watching Friday’s horrifying imbroglio. I suppose you could say it’s my ode to what keeps me going, comforts and inspires me in my quotidian domestic, my daily rounds.

The essay is full of visual images, which might be why I got a warning, as I neared the end of my draft, that I might be exceeding email limits. So I left this photo out and decided I’d share it over here instead. It was meant to exemplify the simple pleasure I take in choosing an outfit for my day, in paying attention to what I wear as an “ordinary” creative act, especially when I think of heading out on my “ordinary” daily walk. (And yes, I fling that word around repeatedly throughout the post. What do the kids say? #sorrynotsorry)

Here’s that photo

To see the others and read the article, you’ll have to pop over to my Substack. I’d love you to consider a Free Subscription. Once you have an account, you’ll be able to Comment, and you know how much I value those comments — for the conversations we build in community and also because I’m human enough to appreciate the encouragement 😉

I know that some of you have been having difficulty figuring out how to comment, and I appreciate your persistence. I believe you have to log in the first time, at least, and I know that you can only see all the comments if you click from the Comment icon within the post itself. As well, I think that once you’ve written your comment in the comment box, you might need to click on the circle/icon to the left of your name so as to bring up the Reply button, and then click on that button to post. Some of you may find it easier to do from the App on your phone; some will prefer posting on a desktop/laptop. And some of you will not want to add any more online platforms; I understand.

But if you’re not yet subscribed (and so didn’t get the emailed article), you can check out my latest piece of writing, here. And here’s a brief excerpt, to whet your appetite.

There’s a sign I walk by regularly — “Obliterate Ordinary” — it’s integrated into the architectural facade on two sides of one of the many new buildings in the neighbourhood adjoining ours, an area primarily zoned industrial for decades, but now filled with tech and creative and mixed-use, some retail, residential, brew pubs, restaurants, doggy-day-care and dance studios. I’ve done a rudimentary search-engine scroll to find out what and for whom these two words are meant to signify — so far, no luck. Frustrating, because they disturb me and I’d like to know their provenance.

Aside from being bothered by the missing direct article (“the ordinary” would be slightly more palatable to me, not quite as suggestive of a huge army tank rolling over ordinary thisses and ordinary thats (so many possible Nouns and Gerunds to destroy! Ordinary Houses, Ordinary Shoes, Ordinary Girls, Ordinary Eating, Ordinary Chatting, Ordinary Soap, Ordinary Fork. . . .you get the idea!). Aside from this cranky sometime-grammarian’s concern over syntax, I object both to the notion of Obliteration and to the denigration of Ordinary-ness as something that deserves to be erased, wiped out.

For example, raising our children to tell the truth is Ordinary, for most Ordinary parents of my acquaintance, at least. Perhaps this is privilege? If so, it’s a privilege I treasure and want to protect, even as I’m willing to acknowledge it. I want us to be very careful about what we aim to erase because the consequences of accepting Obliteration as Ordinary can be horrifying.

So I’m here today with a random batch of Ordinary to share with you. And if it will come to seem, as you scroll through the post, that there’s considerable Diversity in my Ordinary, well, I guess I would say to you that that’s the surprising thing about “the ordinary.”

Thanks for visiting. Hope your Monday gets your week launched satisfactorily. May it be a week full of Ordinary Satisfactions and Simple Pleasures! (’cause that’s what helps us get through all the tough stuff that these days seem to hold).

xo,

f