Contemplation of Dr. Kathleen Wall's blog, Blue Duets

This semester, I have been following the blog of author and University of Regina professor Kathleen Wall at Blueduets.blogspot.com. Her comments tend to be very philosophical and grounded in real life. She really looks at the world thoroughly, sees it, experiences it, contemplates it. In reading her posts, I get a real sense of being inside her head and riding the waves of her consciousness. It’s a deep, yet unpretentious, blog, which I like.

In her most recent post, Dr. Wall talks about going to visit an aunt with her father on Christmas Eve when she was a child. She says that her own memories of it do not agree with the memories of her sister. She describes her childhood memories like this:  

“So this silent, capable man who is driving us:  what is he thinking?  Is he feeling guilty for not visiting at other times of the year?  Does he see this as a simple duty he must discharge?  What role does my mother's impatience play in this pilgrimage?  What is his tie to Aunt Nell, given that he lost his mother when he was in his early teens?”

I find this interesting because recently I have begun thinking of my parents in this way as well, as repositories of stories that are ultimately unknowable to me. They are like novels that I can try to decode, but often, in my classes, I feel like I could write several completely different and contradictory essays about the same text, so can I ever really know my parents, or anyone else? Or can I only know them according to the analytic approach I choose to apply to them? Are people who they are, or who I decide they are? Am I me, or am I a multitude of varieties of myself, as decided by everyone who meets me?

I also think about this a lot when I’m with my kids. I wonder what they make of me, and what they’ll make of me when they grow up. I wonder what memories they’re making and how they’re going to re-interpret those memories later in life. I wonder how they’re interpreting my behaviour, what they might one day wonder about or realize about me. I wonder if I will be a bit of an enigma to them, like Dr. Wall’s father seems to be to her, according to her quotation.

Overall, Dr. Wall’s blog gives a real sense of personal engagement with the world, both physically and meditatively. There’s something about it that feels soothing to me. Reading it, I feel like I’m sitting next to her with a cup of coffee and a cat in my lap, too, contemplating the changing colour of the sky.

One more video, now that I know how

Here's one more video by Ok Go. You've probably already seen it, but it's worth seeing again. If only I had this much interest in treadmills, I might fit back in my old jeans.

Also, the sentiments of both songs coincide with my feelings about starting my next English paper, which I am about to do.

Yay, I'm posting a video!

I finally realized how to post videos, and to properly appreciate You Tube (thanks Aislinn, Kelli, and Chelsea)! This is not literary, but it is an example of what I find interesting in the world. I thought of it after watching Kelli's dance video, I'm not sure why. They are both technical, but in very different ways.

Note on a quote I have been pondering

Recently, I have been re-reading Munro’s book through a Gothic lens in relation to research for my portfolio project. It eerily reminds me of the really awful book I wrote fifteen years ago. There are so many similarities it’s almost creepy, but my story was very poorly written (I see now) whereas Munro’s is essentially perfect. Anyway, Munro’s book reminds me a lot of my own life growing up as well. So if her book reminds me of my life, and her book is like my own book, then I must have subconsciously been writing about my own life, in some way, those fifteen years ago.

Which brings me to a quote I recently found while doing research for my modernist essay. It is by a scholar named Aaron Jaffe, who writes: “writers frequently tell more about their true selves and convictions under the guise of fiction than they will confess publicly.” I didn’t mean for my book to be about me, but looking back on it now I can see where my true self was in there. A teacher friend of mine read it to her grade 6/7 class a few years ago and she said she could hear me in it. But I didn’t intend to present at all in my recent story about the “conversation house.” Yet, a friend of mine who read that story said that he could sense so much of me in it. That sort of disturbed me and I can’t exactly say why. But I think that’s why fiction resonates so well, because it is an expression of the author’s convictions and that makes it socially relevant. So when my husband asks why I want to read stories that aren’t even real, I guess it’s because all fiction, to some degree, has this element of ‘real’ to it, the real expression of the author’s take on the world.

Today, I am happy...

...because Jann Arden has written her memoir! I LOVE this woman. Then, I read in the inside cover that she has previously published two other books, so I went on the Chapters website and put them in my cart. Oh, happy day! I will begin reading it immediately after my last final exam on December 15 and report the next day on how amazing it is. I am especially intrigued by her father's quote on the back cover: "There isn't a goddamn morsel of any goddamn sense to be made of any of this goddamn book." How great is that?!

I feel so special...

I got a letter from Alexander MacLeod in the mail today. He wants me to renew my subscription to The New Quarterly. Oh, Alexander, anything for you!

Why I am not entitled to be an adult

In far too many ways, I have wholeheartedly embraced being a full-fledged adult. Yet, in other ways, I cannot stop being a child. Take, for instance, my Jasmine Becket-Griffith fairy collection that I keep next to my computer.

This montage changes regularly because I have about forty of them. It is so much more fun, and less lonely, to write stories and essays with these little creatures (a.k.a. inanimate objects) sitting next to me. It all began with this one:

She's called "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary" and is holding a teeny-tiny copy of Poe's "The Raven." I was only going to get this one, but clearly these figurines quickly became a crack-like addiction for me, albeit with less debilitating repercussions. But I figure that since I'm already such a prematurely old fart in so many ways, they help to balance me out by bringing out a bit of the kid in me that has been repressed by those evil things called 'responsibilities'. Also, I find them oddly inspiring for some reason.