I’m not quite ready to return to blogging, still thinking about what that means for me given recent changes to the (free) blogging platform (Blogger) that I’ve been using for 13 (!!) years. All the doubts that regularly surface about the value of my writing here have been exacerbated by the global events of 2020, Covid-19 primarily, but also the horrible political climate in the United States right now and the urgent need for anti-racist work to result in credible and effective social changes.
My strengths, such as they are, my propensities, the lenses through which I view the world, all tend to arise out of my quotidian domestic, although I try to read widely and to extend myself, at least imaginatively, into other perspectives (often, it turns out, also quotidian and domestic). And too often, writing from this position feels small and limited and irrelevant. Petty even. Definitely privileged. Possibly over-represented.
I know that some of you will be kindly and sincerely jumping in here to reassure me that what I write is worthwhile, and I will very much appreciate those words. But still. . . Or, perhaps better, And still. . . . Because I think it’s possible to know that one’s experience and positioning is limited, and still to believe it’s worth trying to represent it. Even when one feels very vulnerable in exposing one’s limitations. For me, much of the value in this effort, I suppose, comes from the possibility of connecting, of being able to express a perception in such a way that someone else might recognize it or understand it or even just consider it. Some days I’ll settle for someone puzzling over or being disturbed or irritated by what I’ve tried to express, because that can be a connection as well.
So I’m working my way back to what this space will be in the upcoming months. I’m looking forward to potential conversations we might have. Not at all sure how I’ll be able to integrate the visual aspect that has been central to this space since I began — Blogger has made it much more difficult to upload and arrange photographs, and I need to decide whether or not to invest time and money and hair-pulling energy into moving to a different platform.
For now, a photo of a watercolour I sketched a few weeks ago in Victoria while visiting our son’s family.
A quotation from a French novel I read and loved last year — Alice Zentner’sL’Art de perdre: “Personne ne sait que les autres vont faire de notre silence” My rough translation would be “Nobody knows what others will make of our silence.” The words are spoken by an Algerian intellectual/artist to a young French woman who is in Algeria searching for the family history her father has refused to share; they serve either as caution (against the dangers of remaining silent) or exhortation (to give voice to our various histories). My own family’s Métis history (on my maternal side) has been obscured for generations, and attempts to reveal it now have only official documents as recourse; almost nothing remains of the oral stories, and only a few careful letters, names and occasion scrawled on the back of a few photographs.
You will have guessed by now that I continue to be guided by a line of Kim Stafford’s, read years ago in his The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer’s Craft and featured ever since in the top of the column to the right: “Coherence is born of random abundance.” In this age of deliberate branding, each word and image curated with a demand for consistency and focus, my faith in the value of “random abundance” occasionally wavers and I wonder what I’m doing. But my three-week break has me nailing those particular colours to the mast again. . .
If you’re willing to sail with me, I’ve already got my next post written. It comprises a paragraph from Carmen Machado’s In the Dream House, a moving, compelling, erudite, raw memoir about the author’s experience in an abusive lesbian relationship. The paragraph describes a first meeting, the coup de foudre (thunder-struck love at first sight), and ends with a surprising analogy. The analogy evokes a childhood experience most of us had — one that I wouldn’t associate at all with love or with a crush — but it works well. It also inspires me to ask all of you to share your own version of that almost universal experience. I’m hoping you’ll be back to see what I ask you, because I suspect we can build a fun conversation around that.
See you then. Meanwhile, I’d love to know what you’ve been up to while I’ve been away.
xo,
f
Un coup de foudre and a common childhood experience? You have me wondering. Right now, I feel that we are standing on the threshold of change. It seems that we can draw parallels between 1968 and 2020.
We were too young to understand all of the problems of the time and unfortunately most of those problems
have not disappeared. Covid-19 has shown us the inequities of the world order. Lukashenko, Trump, Putin are all symptoms of the times.
We can read and watch and try to be informed. Our awareness may dispel some complacency. We probably won't change the course of history.
As for quotidian, I know and acknowledge that many of us live a life of privilege. That is not to say that we do not struggle in other ways. If a picture of
bright flower or a happy grandchild story causes someone to smile, the sharing has cast some small joy into the world.
As for Blogger, I struggled to set up a new blog. I looked at lots of different platforms and it is ironic that now we are dealing with the challenges of a new version.
I look forward to the coup de foudre analogy.
Having walked in that area recently. I was charmed by your sketch. I love the way you just hint at the houses tucked around the bay and among the rocks.
You have certainly piqued our curiosity as to what your next post holds – looking forward to it, as always.
Frances in Sidney
Welcome back! While you were away, I continued getting rid of stuff, and we re-did our FBI background reports (still haven't committed any crimes) because the ones we had done prior to the shutdown are now useless, because they can't just take our word that we haven't committed any crimes. Looks like we'll (at last!) be able to submit our visa paperwork once we have said background reports apostilled (early October, fingers crossed).
Looking forward to your next post, and wildly curious about the universal childhood experience – can't wait to see where we go with that!
How good to have you back! I understand your doubts, but I am sure your writing here makes a difference. You spread informations and ideas, and you bring together people who would never have met in other circumstances. I love coming to your blog for the things I can learn – from you and form other commenters. I am sure, many of those who comment here would agree with me.
I was intrigued by that quote about the meanings and possible consequences of silence. These last weeks I have tried to reconstruct my memories of my first school years, in the late fifties and early sixties, and it struck me that as children we were surrounded by silence. Not so much in my family which was quite outspoken for the times, but in friends' houses and especially at school. We were dealing with adults who were trying very hard to forget and/or repress any memories of the horrors they may have witnessed, suffered, or comitted. Traumatized, the lot of them.
Cant't wait for your next post.
I hope you navigate the changes to your satisfaction, and whatever you choose, I'll be grateful for the years of writing, thinking, knitting, reading and photos. I share many of the same thoughts about what isk worthwhile.
Looking forward to more conversations. Your voice is distinctive–at once erudite and yet also practical. Life throws challenges at all of us–whether we are privileged or not–so your perspective is as valuable as any other. And I, for one, am grateful that you share yours with us.
Madame: Nodding my head at your thoughtful comment–I do hope that the current unrest brings positive change. The "consciousness-raising" that seems to be happening does evoke the late 60s. . .
Frances: Thank you! That's such a pretty Bay — you're lucky to have that walk in your neighbourhood.
Carol: You could not have picked a more complicated time to be poised on the brink of a trans-Atlantic move. May you continue to be able to tick items of your list! (and, apparently, add others back on!)
Eleonore: Yes, more reasons for silence in the 1950s and 1960s where you are, I'm sure, but there was reticence and silencing around many social issues here as well. It seems to me we're more open now, but I suspect we may also have shifted the way silencing works, inadvertently created new and potent secrecies. We just keep trying, right?
Duchesse: Thanks you — we've been sharing these spaces for a long time now!
Mary: Thanks so much for the encouragement. The danger, I think, is stagnation and complacency. . .
Definitely looking forward to setting sail once again. belle
Just wanted to say how much I appreciate your point of view. As someone in Santa Cruz, California, who had been living in a smaller, more domestic bubble due to COVID, and now feels lucky that my home didn’t burn down in the fires we have been experiencing (it came close), I am more aware than ever, how much we must rethink our lives, spaces, surroundings, and priorities. As a blogger, thinker and connector, your writing expands that important conversation. Privileged or not, it’s these connections between all of us – readers, writers, creators, observers, activists, caretakers, cultivators, builders, revolutionaries, peacemakers – that will make the difference. Besides, your reflections on the intimate moments when we stop to experience beauty feel more important than ever. Thanks.
I suppose I have mostly been getting used to a different way of living over the past month or so, with the realisation that this virus isn't going anywhere soon and it is adapt or, well, let's say…struggle. Sometimes it feels that all sorts of pieces are clicking into place and at others, frustration is almost overwhelming. My own, pitifully inadequate and painfully craven, government takes some getting used to. But I do feel that the next generation is going to rise to the challenge. They don't have a lot of choice. Keep writing because I like your voice.
Thanks for making me look up Metis, and learning about a people group previously unknown to me. I am very interested in the differences in the way indiginous peoples are thought of in society in Canada and the US, especially in the last 40 years. As in most things, I think y'all are way ahead of us.
Your posts are always thought-provoking, and I need more of that.
Thanks,
Mary Katherine
Love,love this watercolour! Such a beauty and peace and beautiful colour of the water
Looking forward to your new post as well-have no idea…
I hope that musings about the direction of your blogging in the future, will result with your satisfaction
Times are more than difficult indeed,but the best way,as I see it,is to write as you are and think,keeping some things to yourself. There will always be people who might be hurt or who may depreciate your efforts or attack instead. I love reading about "domestics",as well as about books,art or discussing various problems-it all is life. In situation like today,it is soothing to think about bread or fine wine or a nice walk,and to shift focus for a while.
You've got a louding voice,girl,so,you can be as you are,or as you want to be (Btw,I love this book very,very much)
Dottoressa
I’m eager to sail with you wherever your writing leads. Self-doubt can be uncomfortable to live with but, to my way of thinking, it is infinitely preferable to the smugness of those who are so sure of their views that they are unable to engage or even hear different viewpoints. I look forward to your next post and am pleased that you are developing your ideas about where you’d like to take this lovely corner of the digital world. The breadth and depth of the topics you share with us are a welcome antidote to the shallow and commercially oriented content that dominates social media. Besides, who else would give me insights into wonderful exhibitions in Vancouver and elsewhere that I would never be able to visit in person?
As for what I’ve been up to, I’m getting out a little more, mask on, within the limits of our coronavirus rules, including visits to family members I’d not seen for months, reading, cooking and doing yoga and a short finance and investment course online.
Belle: Glad you have you on board 😉
Wendyloch: Thanks for commenting and thus helping to build the connections you mention. Those may be our only hope now, and knowing that we're not immune from the fires that spare us this time 'round (such relief you must have felt, but so much anxiety to experience first!) . We really do need to take care of each other.
Annie: Interesting that it's the last month that you felt this way. So much of our experience has to do with how our governments responded, I suppose, and where we live. And I think our sense of how the next generation will manage might change, also, depending on which generation we see as "next."
Mary Katherine: So pleased to hear you find the posts worthwhile.
The use of "Métis" seems to change depending on the colonial (or, arguably, post-colonial context) in which it's being spoken. . . and, of course, while purity and mixity of "race" is biologically nonsensical, the resulting ethnicities and cultures can be rich and persistent.
Dottoressa: Oh, I'm so glad you found your way here, way back when, my friend! Thank you! And now I really must read that book! 😉
Maria: Thank you! Your second sentence — this is what I tell myself from time to time, and it's good to have readers who think the same way.
I'm glad to hear you're managing to get out a bit more — those visits are important (I'm impatient for a few more, but they'll have to wait), and I'm so glad the science caught up to let us know that masks can really make a significant contribution to lowered transmission.
NY Times: Chris Murphy. On democracy in the age of Trump:'It will fall apart at some point, and maybe that isn't now, but maybe it is.'
Rome 475 AD
It feels like catastrophe
but still we gather food, prepare food
Watch, wait
Cliche-nameless dread
But name it.
History will say
At that present time
That year
The dark ages began
2020 I hear it
Dear Frances,
I have found you a year ago or so via Taste of France and am enjoying your voice in all its variations and the conversations you spark between your readers. I do not follow every course you sail, but I really think your writing and exploring in all their abundance are valuable (I am not happy with the pronouns here – english is not my first language). So, thank you for writing, and I will continue to read.
Barbara: yes. . . (although it could be argued — and knowing historians, it surely will — that they began much earlier. . . Some of us were simply more protected from the warning signs. . .
Zagorka: Thanks so much for taking the time to tell me this. And btw, your English needs no apologies– you write well in it!