It's Christmas Eve, 2007, and I just wanted to wish everyone who reads this blog a merry Christmas. My wife and I always spend it here in the city. We see a movie in the afternoon (today it was National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which was an okay little movie for the season). We had people over after that to talk, laugh, drink, and be merry, and there'll be more company tonight and more of the same, I'm sure. Its probably my favorite night of the year. As Bill Murray says in "Scrooged" (love that movie), it's the one night of the year we all act a little nicer and treat each other a little better. Maybe that's a generalization, but as generalizations go, I like that one.
From my home office window, I can see the lights shimmering in windows of other people's homes, a few lonely cars stream by, and the melting snow glistens like frosting on a cake. The whole world seems to be slowing down and it will stay that way for a few hours. For a few hours, the world will be perfect. Hopefully, somewhere, the violence will stop, the burglaries will pause, and the singing will rise to a heartfelt anthem in some far-off countryside church. I wish it were so more often.
Merry Christmas to you all, whatever your situation, whatever your beliefs. I hope this night finds you with someone you love, having everything you need to be happy. If your situation is otherwise, then I hope you can find some peace and comfort not just now, but for most days to come because Christmas doesn't change your life; it illuminates it for what it is.
For now, though, the weary world rejoices. Merry Christmas.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
And So This is Christmas, And What Have You Done?
For the first time in many years, I've been able to witness the coming of the winter season, December, and Christmas as if in slow motion, enjoying every moment as it comes, lingers briefly, then passes. It's so strange not to be grading papers and working on a Ph.D. thesis or a paper of some kind. But I think life was meant to be this way--not the other way. I often think of that line in A Christmas Carol when the Ghost of Jacob Marley says to Scrooge, "Mankind is your business."
In fact, I have more time to think than usual this year, as well. I've been walking in snowstorms, I've stood in front of a window and marveled at the large flakes of snow that were falling, and I've heard the wind bellowing beneath the eaves, threatening to blow away the rooftop. I've taken my time Christmas shopping and am nearly done. I always leave something to do for the last week before the big day, and I certainly will be out there on Christmas Eve, just taking it all in, sipping on a hot tea while I watch the crowds bustle around. I guess it makes me feel more connected to people through their harriedness in some way. I feel like I'm just sitting there thinking "I'm glad I'm not you" at the same time that I'm thinking, "You poor soul, don't take it all so serious. You'll get it done and you'll be all right."
Of course, by not teaching this year I do feel a little more disconnected from humanity than usual. I've rarely seen any of my teaching colleagues except occasionally when I'm at MUN playing badminton or running the track just to keep atrophy at bay. They must think I'm strange and wondering what I'm doing when I'm not teaching. A few know that I'm writing and that I'm just a bit burnt out after the years of constant working. The majority don't really think about it, I'm sure. Mankind, after all, is not necessarily their business.
I've missed the students most of all, I must say. During exam week, I could sense the usual tension that they feel as exams draw close and the end draws near. For me, it's always that feeling of being proud of the ones who have not only made it to the end, but made something of it--having tried and, hopefully, been rewarded. I always look for that sense of closure, that the semester is done, that my course is done, that these students will go on to live their lives, and most of them I will never see again. A lot of them, I will see over and over again, of course, as some lives seem destined to intersect. This year, however, there was no "next wave" of students, no exam anxiety, no end of semester, and no whispered "Have a good Christmas" as they passed me their exams. All of that is part of why I love teaching, and I'm really looking forward to getting back it next fall. It's that connection that matters to me. The feeling of perhaps having made a difference, however small, if only for a few weeks, but hopefully for much longer.
My two favorite Christmas movies are "Scrooge" and "It's A Wonderful Life". Both are a celebration of life, an acknowledgement of life's difficulties, a lament for the past, and yet a declaration that the future need not be judged by the past. The future can be bright no matter how dim the past has been. The goodness in people can overcome the dark, the evil, and the apathetic (which might be the greatest evil of all). If it is true that most men live lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau), then both these films suggest that it is never too late too shake of the cloak of self-oppression and begin to live anew as if every day counted, as if every human being mattered. That's a lesson that I think gets lost in the daily grind of working and studying, sometimes even playing. Every soul matters. Every moment is precious. Profound, disturbing, magnificent thoughts.
For if your life matters, who is to say that there are others whose lives don't? If you have a right to be warm, fed, clothed, befriended, and loved, who is to say that there are other people who do not deserve these things? And yet there are those who don't have them, who suffer even as I write this, without adequate clothing or shelter, without any friends or family. Even in between the highs and the lows, there are people who have places to live, who work their jobs and/or go to school, and maybe even have families who love them or not (as the case may be). And yet they feel great sadness, especially at this time of year when "want is most keenly felt".
Dickens was right, of course. Want is most keenly felt this time of year. But so is luxury. So are happiness and contentment. Christmas is like anything else--it doesn't change what you are or how you feel about life, but it does emphasize what you already have and already are. If you were lonely before Christmas, then the carol singing and lack of friends or presents will only underline that loneliness and increase it. If you were content, appreciative of your life and choices you've made, then you will be extra content, extra appreciative during the sesaon.
I'm beginning to babble, as I am sometime wont to do, but as usual there is so much I want to say about this time of year. It makes me a bit melancholy because I'm just that kind of person anyway. But I'm happy as well because I'm generally a happy person who sees the good in other people even when the world we live in kind of scares me a bit. But, as always, that's a topic for another day.
I think here in Newfoundland we are standing on the precipice of a great height (a "sad height," perhaps, as Dylan Thomas might have called it). It's a time to think on where we've come from and how we got here. Things are changing rapidly because of the impending changes in economic fortune. Some of it good, some of it bad. It's the time of year for putting those things in perspective and deciding which direction our own personal lives will follow in the coming year. I know where I'm headed and where I'd like to be this time next year. It might very well be, for many of us, though, that we're already there and just need to put some time and thought into recognizing that fact.
Life is good and getting better.
And to all a good night.
In fact, I have more time to think than usual this year, as well. I've been walking in snowstorms, I've stood in front of a window and marveled at the large flakes of snow that were falling, and I've heard the wind bellowing beneath the eaves, threatening to blow away the rooftop. I've taken my time Christmas shopping and am nearly done. I always leave something to do for the last week before the big day, and I certainly will be out there on Christmas Eve, just taking it all in, sipping on a hot tea while I watch the crowds bustle around. I guess it makes me feel more connected to people through their harriedness in some way. I feel like I'm just sitting there thinking "I'm glad I'm not you" at the same time that I'm thinking, "You poor soul, don't take it all so serious. You'll get it done and you'll be all right."
Of course, by not teaching this year I do feel a little more disconnected from humanity than usual. I've rarely seen any of my teaching colleagues except occasionally when I'm at MUN playing badminton or running the track just to keep atrophy at bay. They must think I'm strange and wondering what I'm doing when I'm not teaching. A few know that I'm writing and that I'm just a bit burnt out after the years of constant working. The majority don't really think about it, I'm sure. Mankind, after all, is not necessarily their business.
I've missed the students most of all, I must say. During exam week, I could sense the usual tension that they feel as exams draw close and the end draws near. For me, it's always that feeling of being proud of the ones who have not only made it to the end, but made something of it--having tried and, hopefully, been rewarded. I always look for that sense of closure, that the semester is done, that my course is done, that these students will go on to live their lives, and most of them I will never see again. A lot of them, I will see over and over again, of course, as some lives seem destined to intersect. This year, however, there was no "next wave" of students, no exam anxiety, no end of semester, and no whispered "Have a good Christmas" as they passed me their exams. All of that is part of why I love teaching, and I'm really looking forward to getting back it next fall. It's that connection that matters to me. The feeling of perhaps having made a difference, however small, if only for a few weeks, but hopefully for much longer.
My two favorite Christmas movies are "Scrooge" and "It's A Wonderful Life". Both are a celebration of life, an acknowledgement of life's difficulties, a lament for the past, and yet a declaration that the future need not be judged by the past. The future can be bright no matter how dim the past has been. The goodness in people can overcome the dark, the evil, and the apathetic (which might be the greatest evil of all). If it is true that most men live lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau), then both these films suggest that it is never too late too shake of the cloak of self-oppression and begin to live anew as if every day counted, as if every human being mattered. That's a lesson that I think gets lost in the daily grind of working and studying, sometimes even playing. Every soul matters. Every moment is precious. Profound, disturbing, magnificent thoughts.
For if your life matters, who is to say that there are others whose lives don't? If you have a right to be warm, fed, clothed, befriended, and loved, who is to say that there are other people who do not deserve these things? And yet there are those who don't have them, who suffer even as I write this, without adequate clothing or shelter, without any friends or family. Even in between the highs and the lows, there are people who have places to live, who work their jobs and/or go to school, and maybe even have families who love them or not (as the case may be). And yet they feel great sadness, especially at this time of year when "want is most keenly felt".
Dickens was right, of course. Want is most keenly felt this time of year. But so is luxury. So are happiness and contentment. Christmas is like anything else--it doesn't change what you are or how you feel about life, but it does emphasize what you already have and already are. If you were lonely before Christmas, then the carol singing and lack of friends or presents will only underline that loneliness and increase it. If you were content, appreciative of your life and choices you've made, then you will be extra content, extra appreciative during the sesaon.
I'm beginning to babble, as I am sometime wont to do, but as usual there is so much I want to say about this time of year. It makes me a bit melancholy because I'm just that kind of person anyway. But I'm happy as well because I'm generally a happy person who sees the good in other people even when the world we live in kind of scares me a bit. But, as always, that's a topic for another day.
I think here in Newfoundland we are standing on the precipice of a great height (a "sad height," perhaps, as Dylan Thomas might have called it). It's a time to think on where we've come from and how we got here. Things are changing rapidly because of the impending changes in economic fortune. Some of it good, some of it bad. It's the time of year for putting those things in perspective and deciding which direction our own personal lives will follow in the coming year. I know where I'm headed and where I'd like to be this time next year. It might very well be, for many of us, though, that we're already there and just need to put some time and thought into recognizing that fact.
Life is good and getting better.
And to all a good night.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Walking in a snowstorm
Just got back from a walk in the wintery white of old St. John's. It's our second storm in a couple of days, and, amazingly, I'm not sick of it yet--even though the power went out for a few hours Sunday night. Not so bad really, as I remember some of the worst power outages this province has ever seen. Even then, it was fun. Cold, but fun. Strange how it always seems to happen around exam time for MUN students that the power goes out for anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on the severity of it.
It's been a day of writing. I'm working on a new gothic novel called Emily Dickinson's Ghost, which is taking on some pretty serious and sinister undertones and overtones. But I decided also to dust off a work I've had in progress for a couple of years now, a holiday-themed novel called Keeping Christmas. It's about halfways done and I just re-read it this morning. It's probably about the funniest thing I've ever written (of course, with some of the usual dark humour), so I think I should just keep working on it. I've already had a publisher interested in it, so I guess those are the ones I should finish. So now I'm working on two novels at once--one in the daytime and one in the night time. Very Jekyll and Hyde of me, I suppose.
As for my previous novel, Darwin Day, it's now in the hands of an editor, so we'll see. I've had a couple of passes from literary agents on this one, but that's not surprising. It's not what I would call a "big" novel; it's not the one that's going to make anyone's career, but it's a story I wanted to tell, so it had to be done. But it's definitely worth publishing, so I'm taking a different tact by approaching publishers instead of agents. But I'm doing it one at a time for now because that's what they prefer. It's a slow process, but I pass the time by working on something new.
Speaking of which, I don't think I've mentioned on here that my short story, "Break, Break, Break" is going to be published in an upcoming anthology of dark fiction by Hard Ticket Press. The story takes place on February 13, 1982--a horrible day in our province's history in the fictional town of Darwin, where a lot of my stories take place, and concerns a teenaged girl who breaks up with her boyfriend on Valentine's, the night before the Ocean Ranger sinks. I never thought I'd write anything about the Ranger, but I got inspired one night last summer when the editor, Mike Heffernan, asked if I'd ever considered writing about it. My immediate reaction was to say no. But that night I tossed and turned all night while I kept (swear to God that this is how it works sometimes) hearing these two voices in my head--a mother and a daughter, and they were saying these things to each other that frightened me, but I felt like I was eavesdropping. It was stormy, in my dreams, and I knew it was because I'd been thinking about Mike's suggestion. Anyway, I didn't sleep at all that night, and when I got up the next morning, I sat at the computer right away and emerged from my den about two and a half hours later with a completed story, some of which came straight from my dream. I wish it happened like that more often. I sent it off to the editor and he accepted it almost immediately, with some revisions of course, though not too many, which is always nice.
I'm thrilled to be a part of that anthology because there are lots of other really good authors in there, including Michael Crummey, Michelle Butler-Hallett, JoAnne Soper-Cook, and Bev Vincent. I've also agreed to write a stage play based on "Break, Break, Break," to be produced (possibly at the LSPU Hall) next February, as part of a six-part series of one-act plays all dealing with the Ocean Ranger. That's another reason I'm proud of that story--because it's about a very important subject that humanizes the tragedy a little, underscoring the devestating effects that it had on certain people. I can't say that I know for sure what that felt like for those people, to have lost someone so quickly like that. But I've known tragedy in my life that I was able to draw on. And the Ranger tragedy affects us all, even today, even younger generations, even if they weren't born when the rig went down off our coast.
Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. It kind of puts things in perspective. I've been out for a walk on a stormy day and I was able to enjoy it completely. I love that I'm still able to feel exhilirated by little things like that and maybe even put those feelings to words when I feel driven to do so. It's part of what being a writer is all about, but it's also what being human and reveling in life's little pleasures is all about. Reminds me a bit of that old chestnut, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I still love that poem and that's why I teach it in my first-year English classes whenever I can--to show that there is complexity sometimes in the apparent simplicity. That there can be clarity in the midst of chaos.
That sometimes you've just got to stop and take a breath when you can least afford to do so, on the "darkest evening of the year".
Anyway, got work to do. Hope you're enjoying whatever you're doing, even if that's writing exams or meeting deadlines. We only pass this way once, and it's the in-between times that really are the best times. Nobody sick, nobody dying. All's right with my world.
It's been a day of writing. I'm working on a new gothic novel called Emily Dickinson's Ghost, which is taking on some pretty serious and sinister undertones and overtones. But I decided also to dust off a work I've had in progress for a couple of years now, a holiday-themed novel called Keeping Christmas. It's about halfways done and I just re-read it this morning. It's probably about the funniest thing I've ever written (of course, with some of the usual dark humour), so I think I should just keep working on it. I've already had a publisher interested in it, so I guess those are the ones I should finish. So now I'm working on two novels at once--one in the daytime and one in the night time. Very Jekyll and Hyde of me, I suppose.
As for my previous novel, Darwin Day, it's now in the hands of an editor, so we'll see. I've had a couple of passes from literary agents on this one, but that's not surprising. It's not what I would call a "big" novel; it's not the one that's going to make anyone's career, but it's a story I wanted to tell, so it had to be done. But it's definitely worth publishing, so I'm taking a different tact by approaching publishers instead of agents. But I'm doing it one at a time for now because that's what they prefer. It's a slow process, but I pass the time by working on something new.
Speaking of which, I don't think I've mentioned on here that my short story, "Break, Break, Break" is going to be published in an upcoming anthology of dark fiction by Hard Ticket Press. The story takes place on February 13, 1982--a horrible day in our province's history in the fictional town of Darwin, where a lot of my stories take place, and concerns a teenaged girl who breaks up with her boyfriend on Valentine's, the night before the Ocean Ranger sinks. I never thought I'd write anything about the Ranger, but I got inspired one night last summer when the editor, Mike Heffernan, asked if I'd ever considered writing about it. My immediate reaction was to say no. But that night I tossed and turned all night while I kept (swear to God that this is how it works sometimes) hearing these two voices in my head--a mother and a daughter, and they were saying these things to each other that frightened me, but I felt like I was eavesdropping. It was stormy, in my dreams, and I knew it was because I'd been thinking about Mike's suggestion. Anyway, I didn't sleep at all that night, and when I got up the next morning, I sat at the computer right away and emerged from my den about two and a half hours later with a completed story, some of which came straight from my dream. I wish it happened like that more often. I sent it off to the editor and he accepted it almost immediately, with some revisions of course, though not too many, which is always nice.
I'm thrilled to be a part of that anthology because there are lots of other really good authors in there, including Michael Crummey, Michelle Butler-Hallett, JoAnne Soper-Cook, and Bev Vincent. I've also agreed to write a stage play based on "Break, Break, Break," to be produced (possibly at the LSPU Hall) next February, as part of a six-part series of one-act plays all dealing with the Ocean Ranger. That's another reason I'm proud of that story--because it's about a very important subject that humanizes the tragedy a little, underscoring the devestating effects that it had on certain people. I can't say that I know for sure what that felt like for those people, to have lost someone so quickly like that. But I've known tragedy in my life that I was able to draw on. And the Ranger tragedy affects us all, even today, even younger generations, even if they weren't born when the rig went down off our coast.
Anyway, that's where I'm at right now. It kind of puts things in perspective. I've been out for a walk on a stormy day and I was able to enjoy it completely. I love that I'm still able to feel exhilirated by little things like that and maybe even put those feelings to words when I feel driven to do so. It's part of what being a writer is all about, but it's also what being human and reveling in life's little pleasures is all about. Reminds me a bit of that old chestnut, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I still love that poem and that's why I teach it in my first-year English classes whenever I can--to show that there is complexity sometimes in the apparent simplicity. That there can be clarity in the midst of chaos.
That sometimes you've just got to stop and take a breath when you can least afford to do so, on the "darkest evening of the year".
Anyway, got work to do. Hope you're enjoying whatever you're doing, even if that's writing exams or meeting deadlines. We only pass this way once, and it's the in-between times that really are the best times. Nobody sick, nobody dying. All's right with my world.
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