Introverts Unite!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/01/30/quiet-revolution-of-the-50-percent-introverts-susan-cain/

 

It took me a long time to accept that I am a social introvert. I like people, just not lots of them all at once in my face. I prefer small dinners with friends to clubbing with strangers. I am a homebody not a galavanter.

 

Maybe I write because I prefer that to speaking. It's not that I have nothing to verbally say, but  what I say is well-considered and shared sparingly. I wish others would do the same, but such is not our culture these days. Today more is better, quantity is quality and there are few social filters so we hear just about every thought expressed 24/7 whether we care or not. Thank you Facebook.

 

I'm happy there is a 'Quiet Revolution' under way. I hope we can find a balance between the 'cult of personality' and a deeper more reflective state of being that might consider leaving a bit unsaid, a few seconds of silence perhaps to encourage sharing of emotions and ideas, which I believe they call communication. My husband calls it being on receive rather than transmit. We should all try that sometimes. You'd be amazed what you hear when you stop talking and just breathe.

 

My son had an extroverted teacher in his earlier grades. She was a good teacher, but she thought his lack of sharing in class (for which he was docked marks because it's all about participation and group work these days) meant he was approaching deaf-mutism. After I stopped my inner screaming, I told her that he only speaks when he has something to say and someone he feels comfortable sharing it with. He is with a teacher now who lets him speak and actually listens.

 

Introverts don't like being bombarded with stimulus. We will share if you give us room and time to speak. That's why I enjoy writing. I can have a conversation with my readers and myself without anyone interrupting. It allows for quiet reflection and communication.

 

Thanks for listening.

to boldly go where I should - any ideas on the art of brashness?

I love the protagonist's obsession with the classic tale Treasure Island in Sara Levine's novel of the same name (only followed by lots of exclamation points). Sara's main character seeks to emulate the life of adventure found in the classic novel by concentrating on the qualities she feels she lacks:   BOLDNESS, RESOLUTION, INDEPENDENCE AND HORN-BLOWING.

Living in Calgary I have the horn-blowing down pat as I jockey for position with other aggressive drivers in the 24-7 rush hour. But, I think she meant horn-blowing of a different nature. I like to think I'm learning how to toot my own horn, but I think I need to embrace brashness like Sara Levine's protagonist without getting fired. How can I flex my self-awareness and self-actualization muscles without offending those around me who like my diplomatic ways? Maybe I need to say what I mean and mean what I say and let the consequences rain down. So, if I don't say anything to you it's because I don't have anything nice to say. Don't go away mad, just go away.

BOLDNESS. Hmmmm, let's see....Last year I bought red lipstick, got boudoir pics done and took up boxing, plus started a writing group. Check.

RESOLUTION. At the start of every new year I resolve to spend less and save more, to eat less and exercise more. I seem to stay the same in these areas, but at least I'm not sliding into the abyss of greed and sloth! I always resolve to write more and to get published. Last year I managed to work on more projects than ever and send more out plus got another story published.

INDEPENDENCE. Really, at this stage in life I doubt my father would take me back. So, yay, mission accomplished.

So I seem to be doing ok by Sara Levine's standards, but I aspire to the brashness of her anti-heroine. I need to be selfish and oblivious to the feelings and needs of others. I need to do more horn blowing and less listening. Perhaps I  need to buy a white peasant blouse and a flowing velvet skirt plus a large black hat with a colourful plume and randomly shout 'shiver me timbers'.

I need more adventure in my life, more anarchy. Although living with 5 boys, an entrepreneurial husband and a dog, I often feel that I am surrounded by pirates, just not plank walking, gun firing ones. The only plank I have in my life is the ab exercise I employ to outwit the hands of time that pull on my middle-aged midsection.

Maybe I can engage in small acts of adventure to spruce up my otherwise stable middle class, working Mom existence. Maybe instead of sorting the laundry into darks and whites I will mix the two and give all the boys pink socks. Maybe I'll elbow the brasher little old ladies (who time has allowed to say 'I don't give a crap anymore') out of the way to squeeze the canteloupes first and with more gusto than they can muster. Maybe, just maybe I'll be the heroine in my own life and provide comic relief to those around me.

In the end, I think it boils down to living with exclamation marks; to boldy resolve to be an independent horn-blowing heroine in an adventure of my making. I hope it's one worth starring in and one that others will enjoy watching.

The day the internet went dark...

This one's from the Advocacy Committee I belong to through the Writers Guild of Alberta. I'm all for free speech AND for protecting my work. Seems the States is having the same struggle with copyright that Canada is.

http://advocacywga.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/can-we-have-copyright-in-the-internet-age/

The importance of others and of being selfish.....

That sounds mutually exclusive, but it's not. Think about it....as a mother, popular wisdom tells me that in order to be a good one I need to first take care of myself.

 

Case in point, over the holidays, the kids were off school for 19 days. That's a lot of quality time together with too much sugar and not enough to do. My kids headed to their Dad's for a weekend and my husband and his boys had a pizza, chicken wing, boy-movie Friday night that left our house looking like a garbage heap. I found myself in need of an escape on the Saturday as I couldn't imagine a repeat of me climbing into bed with earplugs and a pillow over my head only to awake the next day to a kitchen that looked like a Febreeze commercial.

 

At first I felt guilty for abandoning my husband, but I thought that was a much better solution than slamming around the house like a bear with a sore paw or hiding out at my all-female gym for the next 24 hours. So, I packed up the dog (love him as he doesn't watch tv, eat pizza or speak), headed for the Wendy's drivethrough for an apple pecan salad and a Diet Coke and then hit the open road. Think Thelma and Louise only my dog is hairier and I'm not a redhead. Alas, there was no Brad Pitt hitchikers either!

 

I drove to our cabin at Gleniffer Lake, 90 minutes north of Calgary. In summer, the resort is packed with families sitting on the deck of the Landing Restaurant, boating on the lake and swimming in the pool. But in winter, with the snow blanketing the golf course and the water in our phase shut off, there are only a handful of the 700 or so lots occupied.

 

I pulled in at 5 pm, just as the sun dipped towards the lake. I turned our outdoor Xmas lights on and let the dog roam free where he marked my neighbours' lawns and the green space as his territory. The Canada Geese have migrated south and the golfers too. There was one other lot in my phase with their Xmas lights on too, but no car in the driveway. I was finally alone!

 

I spent some time writing and some time snuggled on the couch with my dog's head in my lap as I watched reruns of the Big Bang Theory. I went to bed late and in the complete silence of a few acres of farmland on the dammed Red Deer River, I felt truly peaceful. I had left the city and a house full of dishes behind and I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Of course it did occur to me that the poor saps in horror movies are usually alone in a secluded place when their brains are eaten by zombies, but I was too tired to care.

 

I awoke the next morning enveloped in the absence of sound- no traffic, no kids, no boats zipping about. As I made my breakfast, the whine of a plane wafted across the frozen water.

 

The dog and I headed out for a walk to the dog park at the edge of a ranch. In summer he runs straight for the lake and plunges in looking for sticks. But in winter, the sticks are hidden by snow and the lake is a little harder to wade into with abandon, so he charged at the horses leaning on the fence and I watched as they jumped from side to side not sure if they should be afraid or amused.

 

At noon, I packed up the cabin and headed back to town. It was time to get back to my husband and our family, our messy house and intensive schedule. I'd missed my husband, who is my usual roadtrip buddy, but I know he appreciates it when I take care of myself so that I can then take care of others. The dog doesn't care, he just wants to go back to the lake.

 

2011 - the Year of the Canadian Novel

I've read many of the 'best of' and for most of the rest I'm stuck in a long lineup at the library. Just finished Half-Blood Blues and found it hauntingly beautiful and satisfying.

I agree with all the insights below and was especially surprised to put Marina Endicott's third novel The Little Shadows down after 50 pages and not pick it up again. Good to a Fault was just that - so good!

Here's hoping 2012 is another banner year for Canadian Lit.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/by-any-measure-it-was-a-banner-literary-year/article2285317/

Adventures in Boyland

Boyland is not nearly as exciting as adventures in toyland and a whole lot louder, more cacophonous than even the clashing cymbal windup monkey toys.

 

It occurs to me that when I said time and again as a teenager and young adult that I like boys, someone was listening, but got their wires crossed. I didn't mean I wanted a gaggle of boys to watch over. I meant I would like one good one to date please.

 

My husband and I have five boys between us and his three are older and, well,  louder. They are physically bigger with deeper voices, so when they talk their voices boom through our cathedral ceilinged foyer and right into the room where I'm trying to sleep. Oh and they're nighthawks who play video games until the wee hours of the morning, 7 days a week, and if there's a problem with the internet for said games they come knocking on our door (like last night at midnight). They watch movies where things explode and play video games where they have to kill everything with large guns and explosives. And, they watch tv at full blast.

 

Dinner time is also an adventure where they discuss the latest Jackass movie or tell off colour jokes, or threaten to duct tape each others' mouths closed, or kill each other in their sleep. My single and childless girlfriends are soooo jealous of me!

  

When I tell people that I have five boys, I quickly add, three borrowed and two are mine. Otherwise people look at me like I'm too simple to know how to use, or have religious leanings that preclude birth control.

 

I am mad. Madly in love with their father, so I signed up for this adventure. Yes, maybe I'm crazy, but if I can survive five boys in one house, without going deaf or developing a twitch then it will only make me stronger right? Some days I think it might lead to early heart failure.

 

I won't be the tallest in the household or the strongest physically, but I am the only one who isn't afraid to have emotions and I know how to use them. When I feel like I've stepped into a Lord of the Flies nightmare and suspect there may just be a head around the corner on a stake, I ask my husband, nicely at first, to get a leash on the raging testosterone monster that is loose in our living room (the one that ripped our leather couch by barrel rolling over the sides). He obliges and relative calm is restored briefly. He also keeps me in red wine which helps.

 

When adventures in boyland become too much, I do what any woman would do, leave the house for the gym, the mall, the bar..... I consider driving until I run out of gas and/or credit, then sending a plane ticket for my husband to join me. Maybe the children won't follow. Why did we teach them to read and a few how to drive?

 

This Christmas we only have my two, so my husband will miss his and we will again have a full and lively house for New Years. Maybe after enough time off work and enough quiet nights of uninterrupted sleep, I'll get rid of that twitch, or maybe my husband will buy me new ear plugs and let me guzzle the champagne at New Years.

 

In boyland, you have to be careful what you wish for because you might get more than you imagined or can handle!

Late on a school night....

 

Twas twelve days before Christmas and not even a mouse would've been caught dead in the Rose and Crown, but my writing buddy and I snuck out of our domestic jails (kidding I love my family, I really do) and headed to the Writers Guild of Alberta Holiday Party (cannot mention Xmas for fear of roving bands of the pc police). We imbibed, nibbled appies and listened to Jeramy Dodd read his lyrical cowboy poetry and Barb Howard poke fun at the grant process and writers alike (only dogs came out looking good, well-groomed that is).

 

When I moved to Calgary 15 years ago I didn't enjoy the vibrant writing community because I didn't think one existed in cow town. Now I belong to the guild and enjoy all their events, workshops and even sit on one of their committees (granted I don't do much, but I'm learning and networking and getting my money's worth from membership).

 

I recognized a few familiar faces last night, even though I sat at a table with my 'date'. After the readings and door prize draws, of which I won exactly none, people mixed and mingled. I met a few new people and discovered I was one of a number of Susans there that night.

 

Despite discovering I am not at all unique, I also discovered that I feel a kinship to these writers, even though I've only published a few stories here and there. Someone asked me what I write and for now it's mostly grocery and to do lists, but I answered fiction. So now I have a place in the writing community, albeit a small one.

 

Cow town has come a long way and dragged me with it in the pursuit of progress, maturity, self-expression and fulfillment.

 

After two drinks, a few laughs and introductions, I left with my 'date'. She even drove me home, but not before my curfew. My boys were waiting for me and were just as rambunctious as I was tired.

 

It's good to escape on a school night ocassionally if just to remind myself that besides a wife, mom and working stiff, I am also part of a pretty fun group of people who just happen to have a way with words.