There’s something about this time of year.
I always anticipate that it’s going to hit at the beginning of September with the start of the school year but I’m usually wrong. There is always a month of readjustment and settling in. It’s not until now, at the equinox, that I really feel it – a surge of both mental and physical energy and a desire to regroup, reorganize, make lists of goals. It’s all left-brain activity.
The start of a new school year was always exciting to me. Everything came alive and was new. New books and shoes, haircuts and spectacles. New classes, teachers, friends and adventures. The unrelenting green of summer suddenly bursts into a rainbow of colour. The air is crisp and clean and stirs our blood along with the falling leaves.
SEASONS EFFECT OUR ENERGY AND OUR MOOD
This got me thinking about the seasons and how they affect our mood, our energy, and our productivity. Certainly this is true for me and I think it may in some ways be an environmental or a physiological change. But it’s also something that’s deeply entrenched in our way of life and in our culture. It’s something that stems from history and is part of our evolutionary story.
Even amongst our prehistoric ancestors the end of summer was a time of social gathering and relaxation. This would be followed by a busy time in preparation for the winter months ahead. There would likely have been a frenzied time of hunting, gathering and preservation before the cold winter months forced us into our sedentary and enclosed hibernation, when the cave painting, basket weaving, song singing and storytelling would take place.
Perhaps it’s the storyteller in me that feels the need to get organized in preparation for this busy time.
MIDWINTER FEASTING AND CELEBRATIONS
We have a desire to accomplish a great deal in a short time, after which we know we will be rewarded with the midwinter festivities, another time of rest, social engagement and feasting. This is followed, for me anyway, by a bit of a low ebb. January is a time to reflect on the holiday season and establish new benchmarks for the beginning of the new year. But before we take action we need to contemplate while we’re undecorated the Christmas trees and sweeping up the needles and putting away the trappings of the festive season for another year. January has traditionally been a month of recovery, reflection and rest, perhaps partly because I celebrate my birthday at the end of January. I don’t switch into it a new mode until until then.
A TIME OF INTROSPECTION AND CREATIVITY
Then around the last week in January or the beginning of February I feel a burst of energy. But this time it’s one that’s in harmony with the solitary, pensive, creative nature of the season, and is typically when I start a new project.
This burst of energy continues and the sustained until Winter gives way to the new life and energy of spring draws us outside and into the action. The frenzy of the summer season is upon us and we succumb to the nomadic urge to move to the Summer camp, to mate, to plant our seeds and nurture our crops in preparation for the fall harvest once again.
Some people don’t like change and resist it, but I love it and crave it. I don’t live by the clock but the turn of the seasons, nature’s measured march of time from one activity and ritual and festival to the next always inspires and energizes me.
How about you? What is your favourite season? Do your peaks and valleys of both physical and mental energy correspond to the seasons?
Those of you who read Regency fiction will know what this term means: The cut direct. For those that don’t, it refers to the social snub, a complete diss. Which was done very rarely only under extreme circumstances when a person was in the wrong place at the wrong time or behaving in an inappropriate way for their social class or the setting, or importantly was known to have done something shocking or socially unacceptable. It was extreme and it was noteworthy and it was a shocking cut down.
It was not done simply because you were too busy or self-important or didn’t like someone. Despite the accentuated social hierarchy in Regency England, people in those days understood that every person was worthy of acknowledgment regardless of their place. Whether a servant, a merchant or a member of the nobility, everyone had an appropriate address and everyone was acknowledged. It was ungentlemanly and unkind to treat people badly or to just simply ignore them. Not that there were not social boors then as now.
Which brings me to my reason for my blog post today which admittedly is a bit of a rant. This is been bothering me for sometime now.
FALLING STANDARDS
In the last couple of years, I’ve had occasion to apply for employment or to make inquiries with a number of business people. And I’m frankly still shocked at the lack of appropriate business etiquette that seems to be the norm in today’s world.
I sometimes wonder if it it’s a problem unique to the younger generation but I hope that that’s not the case and I would rather not believe that.
Although if it is a demographic phenomenon I can only assume that the current generation have learned their bad habits or failed to learn good habits from their parents, teachers and mentors. Perhaps we simply forgot to pass along what we understood and took for granted.
ANOTHER CASUALTY OF THE ELECTRONIC AGE?
Alternatively, and more likely, this can perhaps be explained by our sudden global immersion into an age of electronic communication. Early on (The 80s and 90s?) there was some kerfuffle about lack of etiquette in email communications and people talked about that and took the time to critique and to pass along what they felt were important guidelines for appropriate behavior.
Now of course we have Facebook and Twitter and Instragram and LinkedIn. All these new, abbreviated forms of communication added to our options for and to further confuse our standards of appropriate social congress.
But things have clearly gotten out of hand.
Standards of behavior and modes of communication that might arguably be appropriate for some of the new social media platforms should not therefore translate into our person-to-person, face-to-face interactions. I should say that this does not apply to follows, friends and likes. But I’ll leave advice about what’s appropriate on those platforms to the social media experts.
A SOCIAL OBLIGATION
It used to be and not so very long ago that if you phoned someone and left a message they were socially obligated to return your phone call. It didn’t matter if they were busy or if they didn’t want to talk to you or even if they didn’t like you. The onus was on them and it reflected poorly on them if they simply ignored your message. The same went for written communications and invitations, which clearly extends into the world of e-mail. It maybe electronic but it’s still mail.
If you’re very busy and very important… It’s likely you have staff and one of their responsibilities is to take care of your correspondence. Note the word correspondence: the CO and the RE meaning that it involves two parties and it’s reciprocal.
Sadly we live in an era of spam. We are all of us bombarded with email spam, with advertising, with telephone solicitations of every kind. All of them intrusions into our privacy (you remember privacy don’t you?) And the stuff of course must be ignored and should be ignored but that’s another rant.
But I’m talking about our personal one-to-one communications. The kind that impacts on our daily lives and our livelihood. I realize that sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference between one and the other. It’s my belief that we need to assume that a person who’s contacting us with their own name has a good reason to do so, is doing their job and pursuing some worthy goal and deserves to be acknowledged respectfully and politely. Until proven otherwise.
FINISH WHAT YOU START
Furthermore if you initiate communication with a person or persons and then someone responds to that you owe them the courtesy of a reply. If you post a job and receive responses to that in the appropriate mode and manner then the onus is on you and it is appropriate business etiquette to acknowledge and reply to those responses. It is just plain rude to ignore them.
No matter how busy or important you are you owe those people the respect of an acknowledgment. Very likely you have staff whose job it is to do exactly that. It’s up to you to say thank you for responding and then let people know if the position is been filled or if their application is unsuitable. They’re worthy of that. Has our new, electronic age of communication so depersonalized our exchanges with other human beings that we can now without compunction treat them like trash?
Everyone’s time is valuable. If someone made the effort to find your notice, to prepare materials, and to submit them, how can you imagine that it’s alright to just ignore them? Is that how you treat your clients? Is that how you want to be treated? Let’s remember the golden rule people. We’re supposed to be living in a civilized society.
It reflects very poorly on you and on your business and business practices. This applies equally in personal and social situations. And yet regretfully it seems to be the new norm.
What about you? Have you received “the cut direct”? How did it make you feel? Did it change your opinion of that person or company? If you agree with me, how do you think we, as a society, can address this failing? Create courses for students to teach social and business etiquette? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.
Every once in a while I read a book, see a movie, or gaze on a work of art that just rocks my world and reminds me why I’m alive and who I am.
CONVERGENCE
I had one of those moments recently while reading Susanna Kearsley’s latest novel, The Firebird. Something about the convergence of art, history, love and war, connection, and mysterious paranormal phenomena that hint at the unknowable potential of the human mind and our place in the universe, as well as Susanna’s beautifully rendered prose and expert storytelling create that experience for me – like a punch in the gut. Or, more like a flaring of that fire in the belly that drives me to create.
HUMANITY
Something resonates to remind me what I care about, what I believe I’m capable of and why I have always had a persistent, unexplainable desire to create something that reflects upon our fundamental humanity and resonates and connects. A reminder of our common humanity, and something deeper and more mysterious about our interior lives as opposed to our day to day existence which is in so many ways petty and superficial, and raises us up above the banal, pragmatic aspect of our existence. I think this is why art, architecture, music and literature and in some way history, which removes us from the particular and reminds us or gives us some perspective on the general human condition, has this effect on me.
MORE
This line of thinking reminded me of a powerful, award winning, academy-nominated short animated film that I saw when I was doing an intensive screenwriting course at the Vancouver Film School, called “More” made by filmmaker Mark Osborne in 1998.
I wanted to share it, and I managed to find it and link it here. Although the ending is ironic, I can’t help relating to this poor idealistic schmuck and his burning desire to create something “more”, something beautiful that clearly everyone in his dull, monochromatic world desires. And despite the ending, I can’t help believing if more humans acted on that urge, the cumulative effect would render the world an even more colourful, blissful place.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you have that feeling? What are the things that inspire you and make the fire in your belly flare?
After seven long weeks in a small rural island community over the summer, the past week was spent on a quick return trip to the city, ostensibly to attend a friend’s wedding, but also to take care of a hectic round of shopping and errands in preparation for the start of the school year. The experience was so overwhelmingly busy and exhausting that I didn’t even open my laptop, let alone have time to sit and write a blog post. I did have a few ideas, but they were swept from my head as quickly as they settled there (thus the dead air space here.)
TOWN MOUSE VERSUS COUNTRY MOUSE
The one idea that has stayed with me throughout is the contrasts, naturally enough, between city and country living, which brought to mind the moral tale of Aesop’s fable, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. For those that need a quick refresher, in the original fable, a sophisticated city mouse visits his friend/cousin in the country and partakes of a rustic meal, which is not to his taste. Boastful of the benefits of urban living, he invites his country cousin to the city to enjoy its opulent pleasures, and once there, their sumptuous meal is interrupted by dogs, who give chase. Escaping, the country mouse returns home, concluding that he prefers the peace and security of the country to the stresses of the city. After the past week, I can surely relate.
CITY LIFE
My first foray into academic specialization was in fact as an urbanist – I studied urban geography and sociology as an undergraduate. As such, I studied the origin of cities and towns, their patterns of growth, land uses, and the behavior and artifacts of urban dwellers. Clearly it is no surprise that people first came together to live in numbers, and behind walls, for reasons of safety (a reason which is not so true of today’s cities) and of course to conduct commerce (more true than ever), and I suppose for society, although that perhaps was an offshoot of the cities themselves. The more people and activity there was in cities, the more needs for goods and services emerged, as well as the maintenance of infrastructure, and so of course cities also became the place one went in search of employment. Not surprisingly, my undergraduate studies corresponded with my early twenties, and a move from a smaller city to a large city with a university, and a stage of life that was stimulus-seeking. The city had great appeal, both in theoretical and in real senses. I think that the city really is the environment best suited to the stretching, shaping and testing of young minds, not unlike the tempering of iron on a hot forge.
Map of Old Florence
DIVERSITY AND CULTURE
As cities emerged, with large concentrations of people, they came to represent not only population density, but population diversity (for of course people came from far and wide, and cities have always been magnets for immigration, where newcomers to a country can always find like-others to support them and their transition to a new place.) People brought with them their various ways, including skills, food, language, music, religions, costumes and culture. And so anyone living in a city was much more likely to be exposed to this diversity and its corresponding excitement as well as the cross-fertilization that results. Large numbers and varieties of people living together and conducting business also leads to new experiences that we associate with urban living today: fine dining, great shopping and the arts (music, theatre, galleries, museums, educational opportunities, culture, and of course the political life that urban living of necessity engenders). These things become objects and industries in themselves which are self-perpetuating, leading to the kinds of innovation that we associate with cities.
GROWING OLD ALONE
Skipping over a career as an architect, the next opportunity I had to think deeply about city life versus country life came in my iteration as a Gerontologist, during which time I had the chance to design and teach a graduate class in Rural Aging. Despite decades of urbanization, there are and will always be some people who live in rural and agrarian settings. And eventually these people grow old and frail. In brief, the two principal challenges of growing old in a rural setting are transportation and isolation. For these reasons, housing options for older people are better when they are clustered and closer to services and supports. Around the same time I was inspired by some of research being done by some Dutch colleagues that involved surveying and layered mapping (via GPS) of self-selecting (by choice or default) aging populations in city neighbourhoods, appropriate housing, services, and nodes and pathways, both concrete and imagined. I was unsuccessful at that time in securing funding to replicate that research in a Canadian context, but I was a great believer at that time that growing older in a supportive community-integrated (as opposed to a segregated designed institutional) setting was the way to go. I guess I still do.
SUPER-MOM, ANYONE?
The two roles I’ve adopted since those days that affect my views on urban versus rural living are important ones: that of parent and of writer. Interestingly, in retrospect (as I now have a teenager) I think raising children in a rural or small town setting makes much more sense. Not only is it less expensive, but the two aspects of parenting in the city that loomed large in my experience were Programming and Chauffeuring, both of which are related to the real and perceived risks (as well as the real or perceived opportunities) of modern urban living. Both of which suck up a great deal of time, energy and resources. And despite the enviable way that some mythical parents seem to do their job, my life never afforded the time, energy or inclination to partake of those benefits of the city, such as fine dining, fashionable shopping or engaging in arts and culture, for myself or my child.
For me, as I think it does for most, family life revolved around mac and cheese and chicken fingers, soccer and piano lessons, and suburban mall outlets like Gap, Old Navy and The Bay, from which a never-ending succession of shorts and shoes and socks in larger and larger sizes must be procured. The few times my husband and I attempted to hang on to our previous, child-free, yuppie lifestyle, by finding and paying for an expensive babysitter and attending the symphony or theatre, and going to a nice restaurant, we invariably talked wistfully about our son all evening and fell asleep halfway through the performance. Why not just embrace the fact of your stage of life and make it easier on everyone? Forget about fashion, fine dining and fine art for a few years and give yourself a break. Let the kids climb trees and run barefoot in a field, let them have rabbits, and don’t even think about the spit up or spaghetti sauce on your smock. Everyone will be much happier and healthier, trust me.
George Bernard Shaw in his writing shack
PEACE AND SOLITUDE
As a writer, of course there are some benefits to urban living, such as education, support groups and writers’ conferences, but really most of these benefits can be realized on-line these days, and in fact most of them are (except conferences, but then why not take a trip once or twice a year?) The things that busy urban life do NOT provide very well are peace and solitude: two things that writers need in large measure. This is likely why writers have traditionally taken retreats, or rented seaside cottages or secluded cabins in the woods. So they can actually get the writing done!
As we head into the last week of summer vacation, and I’m back in the country, I almost dread the ultimate return to the city for the start of the school year. This summer hasn’t been a very productive one for me as a writer (other than blogging), as there have been other, more pressing issues, such as my health, to deal with. But still I can imagine how much I could get done if only I could stay. I can almost see myself going for solitary rural walks, watching the trees turn colours overhead, and breathing the bracing fresh country air as I prepare for long fall days bent over the computer, fire crackling, funneling my creative energy into my writing and editing.
ASIDE: In my meanderings I found this lovely essay by Tom Hanks in the NYT Sunday Review about his love and obsession with typewriters. Read it and smile, and tell me you don’t want to run out and buy an old typewriter.
BALANCING THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?
Instead, I’ll be heading back to the hectic, highly scheduled, socially demanding, time-gobbling, over-stimulating urban environment that always seems to act in opposition to those things that best serve my writing. Peace and solitude. I’m wondering if there is a way to have the best of both. Of somehow enjoying the best that the city has to offer, and still hanging on to the lifestyle that nurtures and supports my energy, my health and my writing. As I grow older, I think that there may in fact be benefits to growing older in the country. At a certain age we have accumulated enough experiences, have tempered our inner steel sufficiently, and have tired of the stimulation. In other words, we’ve been there, done that. Now it’s time for rest and reflection. Attributes that serve the writer well. But of course, one cannot reflect upon that which one has not experienced. So a time for every season, as they say.
Being a late bloomer in so many ways, by the time I have the freedom to retire to the country to pursue the quiet, solitary lifestyle of a (rural) writer, I’ll be too old and feeble to drive a car or carry my groceries, and then I’ll have to start looking for a supportive urban neighbourhood to make my elder years tolerable.
So what are you? A town mouse or a country mouse, and why? What stage of life are you in and what about your environment makes that better or worse? And finally, do you own a typewriter?
Recently I occasioned to re-examine a blog post that I’d bookmarked some time ago, two actually. The first, by Kat Latham, and a second, in a guest blog post by Sara Megibow. Both make enlightened and persuasive arguments against detractors of romance fiction, in response to the typical negative feedback fans universally face, making the point that there is nothing inherently “anti-feminist” about romance fiction. Especially the modern variety. Both are worth a read, or a re-read if you’re familiar with them.
Kat makes the valid point that: “Throughout a novel, a heroine’s character arc often involves her struggling with the expectations society has for her as a woman, and it can be heartening to see how others (authors, not characters) confront the issues I face.”
Sara raised these points in rebuttal to those who compare romance to pornography for women:
“I maintain that healthy sex is an important women’s issue. Raising our daughters to have a thorough, healthy, self confident, realistic and safe understanding of their sexuality is important (incidentally, raising ourselves to be healthy sexual adult women is also important and…difficult).
Addressing the way-too-prevalent scars caused by rape, incest and other molestation is an important women’s issue. And having a mouth-watering sexual relationship with one’s husband or partner should be an important women’s issue too. Sexual fulfillment is a part of sexual health, yes? There’s nothing about sex that isn’t political and our brave and luminous authors are tackling these very issues right under the noses of potential readers who would snub them for it?”
BEYOND FITZWILLIAM D’ARCY
I agreed with both Sara’s and Kat’s posts and with most of the commenters, but it was a particular comment by “A. Lady” that prompted me to type a reply. “A Lady” says:
“I agree that the genre has improved in its gender politics, but a couple of things still grate on me. One is that even though the hero doesn’t have to have a personality disorder or be a rapist to be well-matched with the heroine, I do think there is still a preponderance (in historical fiction) [MACS NOTE: not exclusively] of members of the aristocracy or bringands/priates [sic]/warriors of some desccription [sic], which tends to re-inforce the stereotype that the hero needs to be socio-economically well-off or physically active and “tough” in order to be attractive. This is obviously not without exception, but when did you last read a historical romance where the hero was a clergyman with a fairly middle-of-the-road income who likes reading? Emphasising income or physical attractiveness is okay (hey, Jane Austen did it), but it does seem to indicate that there are no other models of masculinity or male attractiveness.”
MODELS OF MASCULINITY
While I’m as guilty of the next girl of swooning over the stoic and socially awkward Mr. Darcy, I have to say that all the feminine stereotypes aside, I think this is one thing romance fiction needs to seriously examine. Fantasies are well and good and serve their purpose, but where contemporary (I mean modern, as opposed to the sub-genre) romance fiction has come a long way toward addressing modern women, their shifting place in society, and issues of real relevance to women today, it pretty much ignores the impact these changes have had on our everyday heroes.
Here’s my comment to Kat Latham’s post:
“This is a great post and I’ve enjoyed the comments/discussion and agreed with all of it. I do want to pipe up here to say that A.Lady’s point about stereotypical heroes is extremely valid and the most important one so far. While heroines have changed a great deal and for the most part kept up with changes in society and mores, heroes definitely have not. I do think they have become more psychologically complex, and in that sense have improved. On the other hand, why can’t we read romance fiction with heroes who are not alpha-types? Is this really all romance readers want or will tolerate? Or are publishers for the most part afraid to deviate from this standard?
TRAPPED IN SOCIAL STEREOTYPES
I try in my own novels to make sure that while the heroes have some traditionally attractive qualities, they are either “fringe” alpha or not alpha at all – exploring characters that are introverted, intellectual, spiritual, insecure or even socially awkward geeks, for example. (Could this be why I’m not published yet, I wonder?) These are more relevant to today’s society, both for women readers and for potential male readers who perhaps can’t relate to romance novels because they CAN’T SEE THEMSELVES ON THE PAGE. Perhaps some of the vocal critics of the genre secretly resent the fact that so many women’s fantasies focus on rare or unrealistic stereotypes for men – ones they themselves don’t meet.
I would also point out that in some ways the world has changed more for women than for men. They are still trapped in their own social stereotypes, with all the attendant expectations to BE alpha, be providers and protectors, keep their weaknesses and feelings closed up, and dealing with that. Unfortunately for men, they don’t have the same dialogue and peer support that women do as they work these things out and renegotiate or even DEMAND that society accept these other, less stereo-typical attributes. Some of their worst detractors are other men, and it’s extremely difficult for men to go against the expectations and limitations of their own “group.” (As an aside I’ll take this opportunity to plug one of my favourite TED Talks.) It take courage to deviate from these expectations, and stereotypes in romance fiction do none of us any favours. We need to give men permission to NOT be alpha, and send that message out to society that they are still valuable and attractive. ALL characters are more attractive if they are strong and self-sufficient and have spunk. They are also more attractive if they are sensitive, caring, expressive of their true feelings and well-groomed. DUH. But we don’t have to distort reality or exclude real human beings in order to satisfy our craving for love stories with happy endings.
REAL MEN VERSUS ROMANCE HEROES
And, in that way I have of unintentionally casting a net and catching all manner of flotsam in it, and afterwards remarking that there appears to be a pattern, I also dog-eared an article from the July 2012 issue of RWR (Romance Writers Report, issued to the organization’s members) by Betsey Prioleau entitled, “Talking the Lady into Love” Tips from Nonfiction.”
“To listen seductively isn’t as simple as it sounds. A man must be all in, mentally and emotionally engaged, and attuned to subtexts and unvoiced feelings.”
This article was meant to provide romance writers with information to help them “amp up a hero’s allure” by providing some hints about the types of language and behavior that succeed in making a heroine think about love (and lust); it also points to some interesting contrasts between real men and romantic heroes.
Without repeating the entire article, for those who are unable to access it for themselves, I’ll summarize the key points. Prioleau argues that a man’s attributes or skills that are most able to seduce a woman include the following:
Men who are engaged and active LISTENERS
Soothing SWEET TALK
Amusing: DROLL, SILLY, ZANY, WITTY banter to make her laugh and relax
ENTERTAIN & INFORM, intelligence, engaging STORYTELLING, witty banter, big ideas
LYRIC: poetry, rhyme, rhythm, music of the soul, mesh of sound and sense (the romance of the singer/songwriter/poet)
Nothing about social status, titles, income, sports cars or biceps.
This list could be looked upon as yet another list of stereotypical attributes which most modern men would fail to measure up to. Certainly many of the men I know would not score so well on these parameters. That was my first reaction to it. But upon further thought, perhaps, if men MUST change to adapt to a new, feminized society, and to establish and strengthen their relationships with women, these are the characteristics that they should augment. We cannot ask modern men to be dukes, Scottish lairds or bucaneers, but maybe we could ask them to cultivate more of these attributes. At least the playing field would be relatively level, and who can complain about that?
“The brain can be the sexiest part of the male anatomy – if the man knows how to spin his smarts and stories with conversational charm.”
And, because why make something simple and short if you can make it convoluted and complex, I have one more piece to this post. Today, a fellow named Jeff has been working on a new patio here at the house, and, like many residents of this island, he is multi-talented. During a brief respite from his heavy excavation work, as he often does, he pulled out his acoustic guitar and sang a few old Dylan and Beatles tunes, belting out the lyrics across the landscape. The number that struck a chord with me today was, “Girl” by John Lennon. Curious, I searched up the lyrics of the song:
Girl, by John Lennon
Is there anybody going to listen to my story
All about the girl who came to stay?
She’s the kind of girl you want so much
It makes you sorry
Still you don’t regret a single day.
Ah girl
Girl
When I think of all the times I’ve tried so hard to leave her
She will turn to me and start to cry;
And she promises the earth to me
And I believe her
After all this time I don’t know why
Ah girl
Girl
She’s the kind of girl who puts you down
When friends are there, you feel a fool.
When you say she’s looking good
She acts as if it’s understood.
She’s cool, ooh, ooh, ooh,
Girl
Girl
Was she told when she was young that pain
Would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said
That a man must break his back to earn
His day of leisure?
Will she still believe it when he’s dead?
Ah girl
Girl
Curiously, I found the following comment from “Soma” attached to the post, only the most eloquent of the bunch, but telling, I felt. Are there voices we are not hearing because it is “political incorrect” to express these, perfectly valid, feelings?
“Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure? Did she understand it when they said that a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure? Will she still believe it when he’s dead?
To me this is the most profound line John ever wrote. I hear people saying all the time that “it’s a guy’s job” to do this or that, especially to earn all the money, and subtly or not so subtly people are telling girls that if a guy isn’t constantly breaking his back for her temporal well being then he’s not worth being kind to. Then some girls grow up thinking they just have to act sweet when things get rocky and they’ll prolong a relationship where the guy gives her his all. %45 of suicides are by unemployed men between 35-50 (about %2 of the population) because people don’t put any worth on them and then proceed to blame them for it. And there are many more deaths from men having stress related health issues because they’re too scared to take the “easy way” out. To me, this isn’t just John’s story, this is a story of gender bias that’s politically incorrect to address.”
Well. Food for thought. What do you think? Do you agree that stereotypes of attractive masculinity as portrayed in romance fiction are harmful, outdated and discriminatory? Do you think they work against the ideals of feminism? Do you think these images of manhood contribute to the discrimination that romance fiction faces in broader society?
In closing, here’s John Lennon and the Beatles, singing Girl.
Come in, sit down, have a cup of tea. I want to tell you a story.
Truly, I tell you, I’ve been absconded by fairies this past three days, and taken on a fanciful journey. My body aches with fatigue, my head spins, my spirit soars, and my feet have not yet returned to the ground.
Yesterday I felt I could not write a blogpost, I had nothing to say, I was bored with blogging, I did not care. But I realize that yesterday I was still in thrall, and only today am I able to tell you about it. But quickly before I fall asleep.
ARTIST STUDIOS
This past weekend brought yet another expression of the boundless creativity and rich cultural life that this small, rural island community contains – namely the annual Denman Island Artists Studio Tour. While there are more artists per capital on this small island than just about anywhere else in the country, just twenty or so are featured each year on the tour, and of these I spent part of the weekend visiting but a few.
While there are many talented painters, photographers, potters, sculptors, metal artists and quilters, etc. here, there are just two or three artists who’s medium and offerings stirred my soul and that I want to share with you. Firstly, Studio Angelika, where Angelika Saunders creates “mixed media collage with hand-made papers” as well as sculptural objects and handmade boxes, in a beautiful seaside cottage setting, using a variety of natural and found materials and objects was a revelation.
MAGICAL MIXED MEDIA
Angelika’s creativity is boundless, and her sensitivity to colour, texture and composition truly inspiring. On my own artistic journey, I have always been particularly drawn to mixed-media collage and assemblage sculpture.
In Angelika’s hands, fibres and scraps of nature that common mortals would walk past, such as dry twigs and the lacy skeletal remains of leaves, feathers, sea shells, stones and bits of rusty metal, become gems that find their way into her skillful compositions. She generously and enthusiastically demonstrated her paper-making technique when I expressed a particular interest, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on some tools and materials to try my hand at this fascinating craft, not to mention all the things one can do with the paper.
SPIRITUAL PLACE-MAKING
The second studio tour that moved me was Dragonfly Knoll Gallery, home of John Tallerino and Marc Randall who engage, respectively, in assemblage shrines and hand-made books. You’ll soon see the connection.
The entire atmosphere at Dragonfly Knoll is serene and magical. These two spiritual gentlemen have created an entire world around their lovingly hand built home using recycled heritage windows and doors, romantic dormers, embracing porch upheld by gnarled tree trunks, a garden filled with insightfully placed shrines and objects of beauty and spirituality, from gongs made of rusted iron to wire, mesh and glass dragons in flight, to clockwork Steampunk-inspired chicken sculpture. Their studio, made up of several charming”rooms” along this corridor (my old architecture prof Brian MacKay-Lyons would have loved it), was one of the most comfortable, inspiring spaces I’ve ever felt. While I love John’s shrines, I fell in love even more with the place, made up of all these bits of evidence of the mindful, centred and inspired way that John and Marc live. It was Hobbit-like, in some ways, and a place I could imagine easily spending three hundred years, with never a moment bored or restless.
I was also very moved by Marc’s lovingly hand crafted books, with their hand-made papers (see the pattern?), whimsical embossed and hand dyed leather covers, carved and polished wood, and hand stitched bindings. I want to rush right out and take a workshop on hand-made books, and begin this exploratory creative journey myself. Somewhere in the muddled mix of hand-made paper and books, and mixed media collage is my own spirit scratching in its attempt to find expression.
INSPIRED STORYTELLING
What, you might ask, has any of this to do with loss of sleep? Well, in addition to touring artist studios over two days, and having my sensibilities and spirit carried away on a corporal plain, I spent almost every waking hour reading one of the most compelling novels I’ve read in a long time.
I inadvertently discovered author Laura Kinsale last week through a Smart Bitches, Trashy Books review, and after sampling Nick Boulton’s delicious voice on samples of her audiobooks, I became intrigued by Laura’s storytelling and downloaded an e-book of Flowers from the Storm. Once I began this amazing, compelling tale, I literally could not put it down. At my age, all-night reading binges are not well-advised, and yet I watched the dawn light creep into my bedroom windows two of the past three nights as I turned page after page after page of this beautiful story.
The hero, Christian Langland, Duke of Jervaulx, suffers a cerebral hemorrhage, and his journey of suffering, madness and recovery, in stark contrast and complement to the spiritual struggle of the pious Quaker heroine, Archimedea Timms, makes this a one-of-a-kind love story.
I found Christian’s handicap with language fascinating, and as he emerges from the fog of his damaged brain, and expresses himself with increasingly complex vocabulary and sentence structure, Maddy and his close friends adjust and simplify their own speech to make themselves understood by him. At the same time, the tempo and rhythm of Laura Kinsale’s prose is deeply affected by this linguistic transformation so that we began to see and feel and breath in the stark, staccato, powerful jumbled poetic word arrangements of the hero, and this begins to feel normal. Better than normal, somehow. No ordinary historical romance this, an absorbing and compelling tale of human suffering and redemption, as well as a deeply moving love story that will stay with me forever.
While on the one hand I want to buy and read everything Laura Kinsale has written, a part of me wants to dwell in Christian and Maddy’s world for a while yet. And I’m left with an even greater dilemma, which is, should I spend my precious hours here on earth reading, writing or pursuing creative and spiritual expression in visual arts? There never seems to be enough time to do it all. And in the end, we still have to sleep.
Tell me what inspires or excites you. Do you have obsessions that keep you up all night? Are you a compulsive reader, or an artist that finds beauty in the ordinary world?
