Thinking about all this “social” or “physical” distancing. And my picturebook, A Little House in a Big Place.

What is the story about? For me, the genesis of the theme of the story was the moment I began to think about the question: What happens when we “connect” with someone we might never actually meet? The moment when we look up and someone is giving us a wide and genuine smile…their face is utterly open, their eyes are saying, “Hey! I accept that you are in my world, and I LIKE that you are in my world! It’s OUR world! Have a GREAT day!”

And then they just go on with their day, walking away down the sidewalk, or stepping off the bus, or making lazy circles on their bicycle, and you—or I—go on with our day. Maybe on our bicycle. Or roller-blades.

What does it mean?

It might mean that we are all human. And we recognize that. “Hey! You are just like me! And I see you!”

And really, that makes us feel good. We can put a big word on it, like “recognized.” Or “validated.” But that’s the same thing as “feel good.”

In my picturebook, a train engineer waves to a girl every morning. Every morning, his train passes behind her house, and she waves to the engineer from her window. Later, when she grows up, she ventures out into the world, heading east on a …you guessed it…train. Out to explore the world.

When my sons were little, I blundered into all the pressure to tell children not to talk to strangers. What was that about, I wondered, and found myself hesitating to give this admonishment. Really, it was good meet people, in the park, the beach, the bird santuary—once we met a very keen bird photographer, who showed us the photos he was taking of an enormous bird of prey. I think of all the lives into which we would not have had glimpses had we paid attention to the “don’t talk” rule.

Of course, we want our children to be safe. But what does that mean? Do we not expect them to talk to OTHER HUMANS as they get older? How do we explain—at some later point (like when we take them to daycare, or school, and seemingly abandon them to strangers for the bulk of the day—that “strangers” are other people, and it is a good thing to talk with people, to smile at them, to include them in our lives in one way or another.

In fact, some day, a former stranger might be one’s best friend. A former stranger might become a brother or sister-in-law. Or we might even marry or partner with a stranger. Really…in all likelihood, you will. Ha. Funny thought.

So…how do we meet strangers? How do we let them know we see them? That we recognize that we are all human…

And now we are imagining a couple of yardsticks between our selves and other individuals—2 metres or 6 feet.

Makes me think of Joni Mitchell’s song “Come in From the Cold,” and the lyrics about “back in 1957….”

But even 6 or 8 feet away, you are still able to smile with your mouth and your eyes.

Even if you are holding your breath!

It’s been a week since Mr. Trudeau gave that talk. (Yes, there have been others and will be more…. but I’m talking about the first one that really registered.) Last Monday night, I went to hear some live music, for what I knew would be the last in what will be way too long. There was a small number of people there, all keeping distance. And each thoroughly enjoying, because we all knew, This is It.

Tuesday, I began to teach the first of my two UBC classes online. And just as I thought: my quietest class EVER bloomed full-on with active participation! I have been so heartened by them.

Days tick by. Slowly. I am managing to write almost 1000 words a day. But there are–of course–other demands on my time. And as I was standing outside my corner grocery store, Union Market, in a lineup that did not look like a line, waiting for my turn to be one of two people inside, a thought occurred to me.

This time we are going through, while very different from my time of caregiving, also shares some commonalities. In that time of crisis, I found that I needed to create mental boxes to place pieces of the reailty, and to differentiate between what needs to be considered or responded to each day/week/month.

And now I am doing that again. I have had moments of thinking of “future.” The first few times that my mind went there, I began to feel some bit of panic at the edges of the thought. I had to pull myself back from it. ( I have learned how to do that.) The panic and the need to pull back made me realize that I am back in crisis-land, and I realized I was going to have to unpack and use those old boxes again.

The boxes: The today box is for what needs to be done Right Now. Today I will think about the meals I will be making. I will look to see what I have. If I can delay shopping, I will. I’ve always loathed shopping of all sorts, anyway. What do I need to do for my teaching? Can I get my daily word count written? Are there phone calls I need to make? My mother is very lonely, and a phone call can make a big difference. Are their emails I need to make for the same reason? Then, too, there are emails and things that must be written in lieu of the book promotion that I had planned. When my mind begins to slip into that other mode–the thinking ahead or panic mode–I pull back to Today mode, and the Today Box.

But then there does have to be a This Week box, too, and in that box I plan when do I really have to grocery shop (Forage For the Family), and what do I absolutely need. I keep a running list so I don’t have to go out again for something I’ve forgotten. I do not want to hoard. And my new home is not big enough to hoard. But I also don’t want to be in a store for a minute longer than need be. I’m finding being in a store to be overwhelming. When I leave I always feel I have a sore throat…psychosomatic or what? When I get home, I do the rinse-with-hot-water-and-too-much-salt thing…and it goes away.

For This Week, I look at the calendar and plan for the on-line meetings, and class lectures.

Then there is the This Month box. This month…well, you get the idea.

There IS a Future Box, too. One for the looming summer. What will that look like? And now we are hearing rumours that the fall will be about Wave Two of This Virus Thing. So, for five minutes a day, I need to think about that. And on Facebook, when a friend posted lovely pics of the pottery candles she is creating, I wrote about how they look like Christmas shopping to me…so that is in a Future Box, too. I hope.

Oops. Don’t go…

I have become too good at cutting off mid-thought. Getting back to what is at hand.

When my mother was dealing with my dad’s ALS, she said she worried constantly about the future. I reminded her she had a lot to do today and this week. But she said she still worried.

“Put on a timer,” I said, almost harshly, really. “Ten minutes. No more. Think about the future, with a pen and paper and jot down what you need to do for it. When the timer goes, you know you’re done. You’ve done as much planning as you need, and as you can. and then get back to today.”

What’s that quote about writing a novel…? “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” (E.L. Doctorow)

Same thing really. Thing is, you have to drive and you have to write (if you are a writer). You can make the trip. That will happen. But you are only ever exactly where you are on the road at any given moment. So be there. In your This Minute Box.

I wish I had a photograph of this memory. But I don’t remember even owning a cell phone at the time or, if I did, I’d left it at home…where it belonged.

Once, years ago, I took my sons to Centennial Beach in Tsawwassen on Christmas Eve. It is a beautiful place, looking across the water to the town of White Rock. And to the south west is that bit of America, Point Roberts, rather wild looking.

It was a rare December day in its sunshine and clear cold; we do not have many of those days in the Lower Mainland of BC.

Rarer even, at the time, at that beach, one could build a fire, summer or winter. Though to that date, I’d never seen a winter fire going.

But that frosty Christmas Eve day, one fire pit was roaring, sparking into the crisp air, and there were two ageing women sharing the warmth. They’d brought fold-out chairs and afghans, and were bundled up with heavy bowls of soup in their hands. I remember the steam curling up from the bowls, and their hands holding those bowls and spoons, and their faces.

They were deeply in conversation, enjoying their meal, taking pleasure in the fire and the bright frost, and the togetherness.

Those were the years when I went to the beach at least once a week with my sons. And even as I did that, I was aware that that time in my life was passing, that one day I would not be here with them, that they would grow up and away, and that was natural and healthy. But that I would grow old and life would change, and change might be terrifying. I might be alone someday. Little did I know my spouse would be not with us anymore not many years after that, when my youngest was still in his mid teens.

I looked at those two friends–friends of many years, I would guess–and felt reassured that while life would move on in its way, there were good times to come. All one had to do for a memorable time was to pack a hot lunch on a cold day, and a blanket, and box of matches.

So now I spend a day writing by my Christmas tree, in my home in the city where I now live, and my woodstove crackles, and I remember that day, and those two friends. Little did they know how I needed to see that, and hear their laughter over the sand.

Yesterday I spent the better part of a day in a booth at 100 Hamilton Street in Vancouver–the CBC Radio building. The booth was carpeted and dark and filled with equipment. All I needed to do was put on headphones and speak into the big microphone. I’m such a tech-dummy that I forgot to put on the headphones and it wasn’t until I heard a voice–a small faraway voice–and looked for a volume button…though I could not recall being told anything about “volume”… at last it occurred to me to put on the headphones. Wow. I can only laugh at myself sometimes.

I grew up without television for the most part, and while my father listened to a bit of radio news, for the most part my home was silent in terms of media. Even music, records played on the stereo, was never background. No, if you put on a record, you were supposed to sit and listen to it. And true, music IS something to listen to, but it’s also good just to play it and enjoy.

It wasn’t until I met my husband Marty that I actually listened to our national radio. And because I was not aurally initiated, it took a number of months to begin to be able to absorb words in this way–yes, this was true for me. Marty on the other hand, grew up with the CBC. When we visited his father in his upholstery shop, CBC was on, and Don would work with the radio voices as his co-workers through the day. Then listen more at home at night.

The title of my memoir, Dance Me to the End, is from CBC radio. It is Leonard Cohen’s song title, and yes, I’d heard it before I heard it on the radio, but there was a morning when I was caregiving my husband, and I had to pause because the song had come on, and I was hearing the words as I hadn’t before. And yes, there is a poem in the book that opens with a line about CBC in the morning.

Marty passed away on a Sunday, and I remember my hand on the dial, turning off the radio that day. I remember other times, later, and trying to turn it back on. But in truth, I have not been able to listen to CBC as I used to; it is so connected in my mind with other times.

A couple months ago, I received an email from the publicist working to promote my book: she shared that she’d had a request for me to do a spot with CBC Syndication…meaning, short interviews with various show hosts from across the country, the ultimate in getting out the word about one’s work in this country. Exciting news indeed! The publicist and my publisher were thrilled, and I was too, along with a bit anxious to do this right, and also a sense of circling back to something…

A week ago, I found the right number on my car radio as I was on a lengthy drive, and listened again to the station that was, for decades, such a part of my life. I realized, as I listened, how this had been such a source of knowledge of my world. And how I have missed it. I wrestled with the sadness, too.

So yesterday, I showed up. I was led to the booth. I finally figured out the headphones before they tossed me out. And the first interview happened. After the second was over, and there were just some short seconds before signing off, the host wished me all the best “with the others,” as he knows the process, and nature of being asked similar questions repeatedly, and also with a thought to the subject matter of my memoir, the re-living of painful times. In fact, a small number of hosts did, in those post-interview seconds, share their own losses. At some point, I realized that as difficult as I might find talking, they too have jobs that demand speaking about the uncomfortable–probably often. And then continuing on to the next… That is not easy.

There was a knock on the door of my booth. I was so immersed in the process to that halfway point, that I had to think about where I was, bring myself back. A woman was looking in through the narrow glass panel in the door. Gloria Macarenko. A familiar voice. “Let’s do this one face to face,” she said and led me to her office. She mentioned the coldness in my booth, something about a flood in the building, and how the heat was working and not working.

We did the interview. She asked me how Marty would feel about what is happening now with the book. I started to answer, and then laughed and said how pleased he would be that I am here, at the CBC, doing this. How that would mean something to him.

She walked with me back to the booth and asked if I might need a shawl. I had a woolly sweater. But was warmed more by her offer.

Such professionalism in her work, and yet such human compassion, too. The two can co-habit. I could feel similar from the remote hosts, too. And as I went through the second half of interviews I was remembering what it was to feel connected with the CBC. I caught a bit of news from one station–weather and such–and felt the size of the country, and the tenuous threads that hold us together.

As I gathered my belongings to leave the booth, I knew I had another gift in my life: I was back home with the CBC. This process, the writing, the sharing the writing, has made it new. And that’s how we return after grieving.

October 8, 2019 was the birthday of this 11th book.

This is a particularly special book. It is possibly the only memoir I will write; it is the second book I have written for adults (and the first was almost–gulp–twenty years ago).

It is also the book that I was looking for when I was housebound and caregiving.

Reviews have been posted, and I have given interviews and written blog posts and articles. I will post links to all here…

Most recently, a piece in Chatelaine:

https://www.chatelaine.com/living/books/dance-me-to-the-end-alison-acheson/?fbclid=IwAR3qD8bv6wv2oP8vgPatKUl35M0XJJA0JuEjbgA0VuED6_TA_FqvyWYhU3A

A blog post for All Lit Up, a wonderful blog for readers.

https://alllitup.ca/Blog/2019/Under-the-Cover-Writing-grief-in-Dance-Me-to-the-End#disqus_thread

And a VERY lengthy URL for an article in The Delta Optimist, about the Ladner Black Bond books signing:

https://www.delta-optimist.com/entertainment/als-caregiver-s-journal-turns-into-her-11th-book-1.23977563?fbclid=IwAR0dNwqzzLA2SZ2NyIn0laoqNi6OJplCXdGI_e4aPZSp_ptismXj-99nf8M

Review in Library Journal:

09/01/2019

Inspired by the Leonard Cohen song Dance Me to the End of Love, this lyrical debut memoir from Acheson (creative writing, Univ. of British Columbia; Learning To Live Indoors) captures life as a series of snapshots, as a couple grows simultaneously closer together and further apart in the wake of a sudden life change. Acheson shares dreams and letters, notes and journal entries from the months after her husband, Marty, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She relates how Marty, a guitarist and music teacher, distracted himself with golf while she found solace in writing and reading. Alternating between hope and acceptance, Acheson recalls her decision to enter the role of caregiver, longing to remember who Marty had been and who he still was. Her prose shines when asking questions with no easy answers, including how and when to disclose to their sons and extended family. As people volunteer information and ideas, and as the family turns to fundraising, she considers the meaning of words such as struggle in relation to illness. For Acheson, caregiving requires humor, flexibility, suspending judgment—and the willingness to accept her husband’s end-of-life wishes. VERDICT A mesmerizing memoir by a talented writer on coming to terms with the unexpected.—Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal

Review by Sarah Murdoch, for the Toronto Star:

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2019/10/01/five-canadians-whose-books-youll-want-to-get-to-know-better.html

My second interview, for Mica Lemiski, of Fainting Couch Feminists:

https://soundcloud.com/faintingcouchfeminists/can-love-survive-a-terminal-illness-feat-alison-acheson?fbclid=IwAR2B05xy1ue6U8sYK_RGRkeytMVvfklGdhWcD-e9AxZeCyhKcki98SMzBDU

The Storytelling Show, Vancouver Coop Radio, Sept 1 and Oct. 10:

Argh! (spoken in Pirate)… I do struggle with the promotion thing as an artist.

In order to write, or do any art form, the artist has to sell. AND…the selling is also about communicating; I used to liken writing and not publishing to standing in a phone booth, with the phone held up to your ear and mouth…and then finding yourself without a quarter to put into it so you can actually dial and TALK with someone. Of course, now there are no phone booths, and the analogy falls to pieces…

But to be able to spend long hours writing…ah…  It’s about a feeling, a feeling that goes deeply. A sense of a slowed day, a day to move things around in my mind. The older I get, the more I realize that slowed time is best for writing…and frankly, that is what I most need and desire…in order to write. I am USED to shoveling my writing aside, to create some path, a path that leads from my house to the institution at which I work/teach.

I long to sit with the shoveled, and play! Make mud-pies. Build shapes. Let them topple and rebuild. And build.

And in order to do that, I need to sell books. The product of my writing.

My mother–bless her–went into her local bookstore and her local library, asking if they were going to put my new books on their shelves. They must have thought I was self-publishing, and so they gave her some paper-work for me to fill out. I put it in the recycling. (I do not envy the marketing WORK that self-published writers do, daily…) But both her bookstore and library have since ordered many copies of the books. Yeah, Momma!

My youngest brother was out in the world, with his wife’s wonderful artwork, selling at a market in the town of Sidney, on Vancouver Island, a town known for its bookstores, and in he went…asked them about my picturebook, explained I am his sister. They looked it up, and satisfied themselves that they might want to stock, and said they would order. Yeah, Bro! (Check out his beautiful surfboards…)

So this is how it works.

When a friend of yours, or a family member, someone you care about, creates work…GO! Seek it out. If you don’t find it, let someone know about it. This is how others find it, whether the others are bookstore owners or readers (or people who like visual art or are in need of a new surfboard…or a place for a vacation with a lot of bookstores…how DO we find out about what is Out There…if someone doesn’t share?)

It’s not promotion. It is sharing. Please share. Seriously. If you have a new book, contact me with a link, and I will put it here…and then I’ll trek out to my local bookstore, and convince them to share it, too!

I fully intended to write this immediately, once home. But was SMITTEN (only word for it!) with the flu, and am still in bed with a stack of books (so this is not a bad thing really!)

And I’m still putting together the pieces of the week in my mind. Surely Book Week is magical!

First, because my new picturebook is so directly connected with Book Week, there was a real sense of looping backwards and forwards for this week.  (And that sense of “looping time” is always magical.) I shared photos and pieces of my Book Week in Ontario seven years ago; that’s when the seeds were stumbled over, the seeds that germinated and became A Little House in a Big Place. It was such a pleasure to share with young readers just how those pieces came together, and what is their nature…and how they can use such pieces to possibly build their own stories. We brainstormed a LOT of stories; I’m hoping some of them get to fly.

Second, Book Week ends up being a time to meet new people. Readers, of course, smiling and filled with questions and ideas. And teachers and principals, school secretaries, librarians. I also met the people who had volunteered to drive me, and because we share a joy for writing and/or reading, these people tend to feel like instant friends! I also went out one evening–Thursday–to a restaurant, and met a woman who sat with me while a musician played and we had a wonderful conversation between music sets, with a few words gathering between songs: I could tell she is like me, and loves music, because she did not speak WHILE the music was actually happening. So nice to feel that kinship with someone. Better than conversing, that feeling. This was in the township of Cowansville, and it turns out that she has a wonderful project of going into small towns–villages–and filming people dancing. Music and dance, to me, are so healing and life affirming that, again, I felt like I’d found a friend. Such moments may have little to do with books and tours, but make the week a special time. And all the writers, illustrators and story-tellers who take part in Book Week are really ambassadors for books and reading…just as this woman is an ambassador for the freedom of dance.

On the first two days I also met two people who have the most interesting jobs of bringing together and creating COMMUNITY. Imagine having a job where one day you might be outside planting new gardens between a school and a seniors’ residence, and working toward growing vegetables and sharing them with people in that place…then the next day you are working to bring together a group of caregivers, and the next day…you’re driving a writer to get some lunch before she heads off to another school to share a story…all the time, putting together what will make a community a good place to be, and every day different. I love hearing about such life work. So “third” might be larger community.

As part of that, and part of meeting new people, there’s always a certain connecting with “old” friends too. (If you check out my book called 19 Things: A Book of Lists About Me, you’ll see there are 2 lists for ways to develop new friendships and to make old friendships better. Like that.) So always the wonderful folks at the Canadian Children’s Book Centre work with us if we have friends and relatives we can stay with. In Montreal, I stayed with my friend Silvia, who I don’t see often enough. I never sleep particularly well in hotels, so this was good, and we had a few lovely catch-ups.  (Below is their family cat, Romeo, who is not really a cat. He jumps up and down when he’s excited about the door being opened for him…most d– -like, to my mind. And is shockingly solid…even his fluff has heft! I kept telling the kids I was staying with a cow-cat.  Here he is, with his let-me-in face.)

)

Then there’s the NEW. Things I’ve never seen before, might not see again. A mural of Leonard Cohen on the side of a building–huge!–thrilled me. My next book, out in September, and a memoir for big people, is titled Dance Me to the End, after one of Cohen’s songs…so it seemed so right to see that mural.

And I do need to include this photo, of a woman who we (I was walking with the writers Helaine Becker and Bev Brenna) wondered about…she’d make such a perfect fictional “ghost of Sherbrooke Street.” She was dressed completely in white. One moment she’d be behind us, and the next ahead, even suddenly, inexplicably, on the other side of the street! It was dusk, and really, she glowed. Hmmm…

Speaking of ghosts, at Kahnawake Library, I had the opportunity to share the experience of ghost-writing a Boxcar Children book, Mystery at the Calgary Stampede. That was fun! With just a small group, and they shared snacks…

Come to think of it…maybe there’s a ghost theme here: a picture of the B&B I stayed… What do you think? Was an absolutely lovely place, with THE best raspberry French toast breakfast! But I’m thinking it could be the setting for a Feenie Bailey book, a mystery series I’ve been working on… (not published yet…)

At Bishop’s College School, I saw one of the countries oldest indoor hockey arenas. There was not time to go inside, which is unfortunate, but I did get to eat lunch in their dininghall, and that felt to be right out of Hogwarts! (I did not have my camera on me–a regret!)

Something of note: There are certain precautions I take before I leave home. One is that I put all my presentations on a USB stick. And I also carry everything I actually need for my presentations in my carry-on stuff, in the event that if my baggage goes astray, I’ll still have everything I need to do my work. But as early as the first day, I found that we had technology issues. Apple TVs were most of this, as my laptop does not connect with them. At Beaconsfield Library, the presentation came up…and then completely disappeared!  That particular presentation stood out for me, as the children were full of ideas…and they gave me courage and made me realize that tech is not necessary; it’s so much more important to get a sense of what is going on with the audience–just in that moment. So when, at the next library, Lennoxville, there was no projector, no technology at all (the library was a retired post office), I said,  “That’s just fine–we’ll go with it.” And that time was truly Magic! I wonder if children are so accustomed to a screen, that to be without is something new… (The Lennoxville sloth slung over the children… I think they are used to his presence. They paid him no mind.)

Before leaving the Townships to return to Montreal, I had a wait time for the bus, rain was coming down in a spring way,  and I thought it would be the ideal time for…

It freaks me out how the cheese squeaks!

I come away thinking about the pyrotechnics of contemporary life, and how humans still connect over simple things–stories and books and looking at each other. Maybe mostly seeing and acknowledging each other…maybe even just a simple wave of hand…oh, wait, that sounds familiar: that would be A Little House in a Big Place.

(Take a peek at this review if you’re wondering about my picturebook.)

Feels so good to have roamed this big old place, Canada, a bit more. Thank you to The Canadian Children’s Book Centre, TD Bank, Shannon Howe Barnes, Carol-Ann Hoyte, volunteers, teachers, librarians, principals, READERS READERS READERS… book nibblers, even.

With gratitude–

Alison

On Wednesday, Feb. 20, I had the pleasure to share A Little House in a Big Place with some of the learners at Anderson Mill Elementary… making this the first school to be introduced to the new book!

It was “reading week” at UBC, where I teach, so I flew with my friend to visit Austin, Texas, where one of my longest-ever friends lives. While there, I met one of my friend’s longest-ever friends, and then I met his spouse, Mrs. Husty. She teaches at Anderson Mill Elementary, and I gave her a copy of A Little House…and then we talked and decided I would go visit the children in her class. And she would ask Mrs. Brumley’s class to join us!

When I arrived, I discovered that altogether the children and Mrs. Husty and Mrs. Brumley had done the wonderful thing of already having read the book and…my favourite: come up with GQ…that is, Good Questions. I love Good Questions!

And I got to meet the school librarian, Ms. Henson… another one of my favourite things to do: meet the Librarian!

I do love Austin. It is a place full of amazing music EVERYWHERE. And many good places to walk, which is something that is important to me. There’s a beautiful river that runs through the city.

But this class visit was a highlight! Sharing stories has a way of bringing people together.

Thank you, Anderson Mill Elementary!  Thank you for the invite, Mrs. Husty!

Just like in December, when my new book showed up, these came along. And in a most odd way there is something equally ceremonious to seeing a work through to its close.

And I feel a rush of affection for libraries. Libraries take care of books and give them a home while people still share them.

Still life with books. Life stills with books.

February 4th would have been my dad’s 88th birthday. It is almost two months since he left us…and has left me thinking about him. About his way of being in the world.

When Dad had his first bit of pay in hand, so many years ago, he took one-tenth of it and gave it to his church. And with every pay-cheque following, through his entire life. In the Bible, it’s called “tithing.”

He tended to have conflicts with churches, and he would go through times of keeping his study of the Bible and his worship personal, and retreat from the more public practice of attending a bricks-and-mortar. At such times, he would bank his tithe in a special account or donate it to missionaries. His grandparents had been missionaries, and the role of missions was critical to him. So over his years of earning, he supported missions, missionaries, their children, their schools. He supported an airplane pilot in Indonesia, and a Bible School in Brazil, and behind the iron curtain radio ministry, as well as broadcasting elsewhere with the message that meant so much to him.

In the 80s–so long ago now it seems–I was earning not much more than minimum wage, but I remember wanting to buy unbleached paper. It was significant to me; I used so much paper. I always needed hard copy for writing my stories. I couldn’t think and type. I wrote long hand for first drafts, and then typed and then used a computer for later drafts. I was constantly buying and using paper, and the process of making that clean white stuff disturbed me. But at that time, it was new technology to create a product that was a bit less harmful for the environment, and it cost so much more. Much like buying organic food does now, or clothing not created in places of workplace horror.

I remember paying the extra, for dingy clay-coloured paper. And I remember thinking this is what it is to believe this is just right. Money where mouth is and all. Supporting what matters to one.

I couldn’t help but notice this past month, accumulating numbers for my taxes, the amount I’ve spent on music in the past year. Not much, really. Depending on how you look at it. A month of Vancouver rent for one or two co-habiting musicians, is what it would amount to. Add with local bands, the funds going to the restaurants and bars that host the musicians… maybe another month of rent. Maybe a food bill.

How much to bookstores. Small independents… My rule for buying second-hand books has been this: the author must be rich or dead. Small number for the first group, bigger options for the second. But alive and broke? Buy new. Watch the books you buy: if there’s a black marker slash across the bottom, it’s not a book from which the author will see earnings. (Is that another post? Do you know how this works?)

What you want to eat, drink, read, see, hear–tithe and buy. On a mission.