Two classes left before Christmas break. (See my August post, if you’re wondering what this is about.)

There’s a pattern to trying the new. Week One, there’s a straightforward anxiety…and age brings to that the knowledge that you’re allowed to look like an idiot at that one point! Which is a relief. But even if you are an idiot, it’s good to be an idiot who is trying.

I followed the dance steps as best I could…but the turns that we did that first class were ‘outside’ turns, which always feel very awkward to me in my left-handedness. (Left-handeds spin naturally clockwise on their right legs…at least, that was my experience in my brief time in figure-skating–also “old” at 13/14.)

So I wimped out on the turns! Wimped out in week two, too. And that second class doesn’t come with the “first-time-and-allowed-to-look-like-an-idiot” card. I had to ask why am I doing this, and what do I want from it? What is the worst that can happen if I put myself into a turn? Stop halfway? Keep going? Go until I’m dizzy and fall over? What would happen if I fell over? What would happen if I laughed about it…and WHY am I so serious?? Ah. Maybe that’s the question.

Week Three. I felt like quitting. I’m in a class with two young women who have danced forever, and are now in college and want to keep up one night a week for fun. The town I live in is so small that it is impossible to run a true “adult beginner” class…because no one will be in it. Except for me, it seems. And I don’t want to drive into the city. Can’t justify time and gas when there’s something in my community to work with and support.

How does a dance class work? First half hour–at least–is grueling warm-up. Without the past year of yoga, I’d be dead. I’m still dead. By the time we start the second half hour, my core is lying on the floor, doing floppy-wristed sign language: “Why??”

And the next fifteen minutes is spent in moving back and forth across the floor, working on steps and jumps. I watch the young dancers go ahead of me, and then I’m partnered with the teacher, usually with a simpler version. I am grateful for the fun nature of the teacher, and for the acceptance of the young women. I will say that: each week I am grateful for that.

The final fifteen minutes is time to dance. That is Terror Time. And yes, week 3 was the make-or-break. Some thoughts about this: turn off the critical mind. Stop thinking about what EXACTLY I’m doing, and do what I see the others doing…except I know mine doesn’t look like that. Oops, turn that off. Because I do think and over-think. I live in my head. How useful is the head? Not very, more often than not.

Week 5 I didn’t feel well at all and stayed on the couch…and missed it! That was a turning point. Then twice this term the two classmates have been ill or unable to make it and I’ve ended up with one-on-one time. That has helped my over-thinking, and given me time to know that THIS is what is happening in a step. And caused me to feel more confident in the watch-and-follow of the other weeks.

So almost made it through the term. What stands out? My need to focus COMPLETELY for the entire hour, on NOTHING BUT DANCE. At the same time, as well as focusing, I need to let go. An image of two reins to guide a horse comes to my mind…so this simultaneous focus and letting go works in tandem.

Writing was like that, at some point—the focus thing. As an artist who has been practicing for years, it is critical to remember this. But it has all the slipperiness of meditation. Maybe “clear focus”–no slippery stuff–can be the goal.

I asked one of the dancers this week, about her need to focus. She said she’s been in competition, and found herself thinking about what’s for dinner. Muscle memory, she says.

But my focus wavers, and I’m suddenly on the wrong foot. There’s a short-lived rush of humility, then the push to keep going, find the right foot. Hear the music over the sudden roar in the ears; care terribly and not too much. Forget the head and feel it.

I made the trek into Free Flight Dance School, into their summer registration time, along with a number of moms, signing up their little daughters.

I didn’t dance as a child, even though I longed to. I didn’t take a dance class ever until my mid-twenties when I quit smoking. (Dance was my reward.) It was at the Kay Armstrong school on Broadway. How fortunate! To take classes with Kay and with Bob in their last year teaching there. It was a sad day when they closed. They had a special way of teaching adults; they taught as if we were children. (Bob even using a conductor’s baton—or what was it?—to tap on errant body parts: “tuck this in,” “turn this out.”) When the school closed, I tried Goh Ballet, but adult students were only fundraisers there; altogether it was just another exercise class. And how I loathe the gym. That was my short-lived dance time.

Now I’m old(er) and it has taken a huge effort to drop twenty pounds this past year. Part of that has been a result of taking a weekly dance class with my friend, Susana. This ballroom-hybrid (for lack of better term) has been a doorway.

I awake at five to write, and my evenings tend to be muddy-headed time. But week after week, when I dance, I clear my head. It’s astonishing to me that remembering steps and, more significantly, I suspect, remembering sequences, does something to my brain.

And I think: how often have I told students who are blocked, “Find an art form without words, and go and watch. Better yet, partake. Do this often enough, and it’ll push words right up and out of you.” Art is about story-telling, so the forms with no words tend to “force” story.

I’ve done this myself: sat listening to jazz music, then gone home and written. But now I’m at the ‘better yet, partake’ time.

Post-dated cheques are in, registration form filled. I have the shoes. Not sure what to wear. But I’ll be there, the second Friday of September, 6:25 sharp, for the adult lyrical/jazz class. I know I’ll be more nervous than any of those little girls in their classes. I know there’ll be steps that I’ll need to do over and over again before the mud clears. And then the next Friday I’ll have to do it all again. I know that dance makes me feel very much on the student end-of-things, makes me feel insecure…and old because I can hear my child-voice so clearly. It has so little to do with my writer self, and yet is so connected, too. And when I’ve gone over and over steps until my body begins to remember better than my mind, and we’re dancing as a group–when you can stop counting with the music–then something happens. I’m not sure how this is going to be, with the change from Susana’s group, where I feel secure and among friends, to lyrical/jazz. The New.

I know mostly that something that terrifies me so much is something I need to do. Finally.

This showed up in my mail. A thank you card and chocolate, in a lovely little fat envelope. Completely unexpected, for something I’ve done in the past year. Something I’ve quite forgotten about. Wasn’t expecting for it to be acknowledged like this.

I nibbled the chocolate happy face, and wondered about email and snail mail and cards and thank yous, and the time we take to say “thanks.”

Made me think about the way people hold doors open for others in NYC–how that really touched me last time I was there. Made me realize that somehow, in our West Coast craziness (how did we EVER get the rep for being laid-back?) I’ve forgotten to do that, to shoulder check and see if someone’s behind me. To pause.

How to make a big difference.

I received this from a writer friend:

In my writing group we were discussing how writers start writing. Do they start with an intention as in an overall theme statement?

My thoughts go to Arthur Miller, who said that if he knew the theme to the work before being two-thirds through, the work was suspect. He felt he shouldn’t know. Writing is an act of exploration.

I think this: no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.

I remember finding those words of his, and feeling a deep sense of relief (how we don’t trust ourselves!) because I’d always felt some guilt over not really knowing/ understanding my path when I began to work on a project.

When I talk with school groups, the subject of “planning” comes up. It ALWAYS comes up. Teachers are particularly eager to hear this. If, in the Q&A time, the question hasn’t come up from the students, then the teachers ask it. Of course, they are confident that I will give some cred to the words they’ve been repeating since September: plan, plan, plan.

As a young person I was one of those students who would quickly write the entire book report or project so that I could back-track and write the dreaded “outline” on schedule…then pretend to write the longer piece afterwards. I could not write an outline until after the project was complete…or at least the first draft. (Yes, teachers DO love me when I talk about re-writing. Re-writing IS writing. Planning is something else.)

I will say: MANY writers can and do plan, and it works well for them. Or they’ll plan to a certain degree, or point in the story. Fair to say, too, that for certain genres there are types of planning that do not interfere with “exploration.” A mystery, for example, might take a certain shape, but the elements of character development can still be discovery.

My books have begun with an historical question or a question about something in our society that is poking at me with something sharp (here, I have to go with caution), a title (yes, all on its own), an image, a fleeting glimpse of a character who puzzles me. Perhaps most often, a setting. Mud Girl was all about the setting to begin with. For me, if the first element of a story to enter into my mind is the Theme, then I become very anxious about it.

This may be because of my background. I grew up with dogma. I try hard to avoid dogma. Perhaps for a writer who has grown up in another way, working with a controlling theme from the moment of genesis is comfortable. But for me, it isn’t. In fact, in the last few weeks I’ve abandoned a project whose “theme” came early on. Too early. And I’ve been wrestling it back to a place of “discovery” since. I’ve moved on to another project. After 172 pages.

Maybe it’s a question of why we write. Back to those school projects: as children and early-year uni students, we write to study others’ words. We are not taught or guided to find our own thoughts. No one seems to think about this possibility…until grad school. So, all the “planning” takes place. You can plan when you know–or want to think you know!–exactly where you’re going.  Imagine if we told students to “write until you discover something new about yourself or the world.” It would be a challenge in the 22 minutes allotted in the lesson plan. But this should be the point in writing, in painting, in dancing, and creating music.

Some writers talk about taking that “theme sentence” and writing it in big letters and hanging it over their workspace. Reminding themselves what it’s all about. Maybe. Maybe that’s what your story is all about. Is that what writing is all about? Is it ALL your story is about? Might you go zooming to that place…and miss something on the way?

What do you want from writing? From your practice of sitting at the desk?

I’ll be interested in your responses. I hope someone disagrees. Or something. I have no idea where this will go. Let’s see.

Oh, it’s TOUGH to write short!

How can I evoke “magical week” in short? I’ll try.

Snapshots:

small town libraries that feel to be so much a “hub” of their community;

teens thinking—seriously—about careers in arts (oh, can’t put the sound of buzzing bursting minds in a photograph!);

pre-schooler in jammies and train slippers, out for an evening in the library;

round, round, wondering eyes, and dozens of hand-made, wrought with thought, Thank you cards;

bank employees, leaving their stations, sitting on the floor like schoolchildren gathered for a story;

pot-luck lunch and rattly taxi disguised as a family mini-van;

gathering of young people faces together with my cousin and my grand-great-aunt, listening;

VIA rail, passing towns, passing lolloping cows, and a lone chicken walking through a wood, passing children with grandpas waiting to wave at the train–yes, three children     with grandpas (they still do that!);

You CAN fit a big old chunk of this country into a snapshot—don’t ever think you can’t.

What does it mean now, now that I’m home? I pack up a box of books and send it to a school in Kapuskasing, and feel a Connection. I sit at my lone, early morning writing time, and feel a Purpose. Readers have faces and hands and hearts.

Humbly: Thank you for the reminders, all of you, for each reminder.

Caroline Adderson and I arriving @ Ottawa airport

St. Mary’s water tower…

Bearskin airlines plane from Timmins to Kapuskasing–no arguing about who gets the aisle and who gets the window seat!

Kapuskasing. A magical word to me as a child. Where my Mom was from. Where there was Family. Great Grand-Mere. Great Aunts and Uncles. Twelve of them. And cousins and cousins and cousins.

It meant so much for me to be there. My cousin met me at the airport (after a 14-seater plane ride! with ROARING engine) and in the morning (frosty!!) we went to the school. Right by the front door was an AMAZING display of visuals from The Cul-de-Sac Kids! (And funny: someone had placed a training-wheels bike right next to it, which connected completely with my presentation!)

For lunch, the teachers had a pot-luck. And I had a conversation with a music teacher about…what else…arts careers! and how to sustain them..seems to have become a theme of the week: follow your passion and it will work. Had the same conversation with the newspaper reporter who came to interview me after the second presentation of the day. The students–two groups of grades 1-4 and 5-8–were terrific, with more Good Questions.

And to close the day, a trip to the local branch of the TD Bank! Who makes it all happen. So we had a quick read.

Magic happens in many forms. Often, money has nothing to do with creating magic. And other times, money has so much to do with it! If you know me, you know that I’m a hippie who doesn’t think well of the directions that business ethics often take. So when I acknowledge and say huge positives about an organization or business, it’s Big Stuff for me. So here: Thank you, thank you TD Canada Trust for what you do for children’s literacy, literature and book and story creators in this country! Thank you for a most magical week.

And thank you to CCBC–the Canadian Children’s Book Centre–and Monica Winkler, for administering and organizing, Canada Council (funding readings for public), and also all of the teachers and librarians who volunteer to organize on their ends. And Niki, driver- extraordinaire! And my cousins, Lorraine, Pauline, and Gaby, for driving me to presentations.

And all the young folks who listen, ask, learn, READ, and write! Keep on rocking in a free world!

Had terrific fun with grades 1 and 2, talking up more “Funny Writing” and then grades 3 and 4 “Re-VISION-ing.”

And sold every book I carried in the doors. And left a few unhappy that there weren’t any left! PLEASE go to your local bookstore and ask for THE CUL-DE-SAC KIDS. And you can let them know the ISBN.  That’s the little International Book Number on the back of the book by the funny little barcodey thing: 9781896580999. It MAKES MY DAY when someone goes to a bookstore and ORDERS the book (because then the folks who own the bookstore know my book is out there…THANKS!)

Any school with a picture like THIS in the office has to be a good place… Thanks for a great morning, K-W Bilingual School (Kitchener)!

Yeah! I picked up 76 copies of The Cul-de-Sac Kids from Tradewind Books on Granville Island last Friday. Emmett and a friend and I were heading down to Science World, in keeping with our “Field Trip Fridays” thing (saw a wonderful movie on the BC part of the Canadian Railway!) and stopped in. I carried the box from the office to the van–and realized this is not good for my ageing back! Had to plop them in the car and reward myself by going to get some of that amazing Turkish Delight from the wee candy place in the Island market. (Or, as my middle son used to say, “Tuggish Delight”–when reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)

So here they are:

And yesterday I hit the local thrift shop to find myself a suitcase ON WHEELS. After all, there’s only so much Turkish Delight I can reward myself with…

Airing it out on the deck…

Now off to Ottawa, Toronto, St. Mary’s (home of Canada’s Baseball Hall of Fame!), Waterloo, and my mom’s hometown, Kapuskasing!

I am SO looking forward to introducing this one to the world! A new age group–ages 7-8 or so–and Funny! I’ve so enjoyed hanging out with these kids…and their new neighbour. Who is supposed to be a hockey player, but is quite a disappointment on that count.

The Cul-de-Sac Kids

On May 6, I’ll be flying to Ottawa to begin a week of touring Ontario, going to St. Mary’s, Nepean, Osgoode, Toronto, Waterloo…and (drum roll!) Kapuskasing, my mom’s hometown! I was there twice, with my mom, in my early twenties. I am so very happy about all of this

Here, I’ll have to place a photo of my great grandmother’s house as I remember it, at the outskirts of town, and where she raised her thirteen children, one of whom I’ll be visiting!