A Cat's Forehead

A small space will do. Image by Midjourney.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.
— Virginia Woolf

Woolf wrote these words particularly about women, arguing for a woman to be able to create any art, visual or literary, she needed both the space and financial independence to do so. That space wasn't just a physical one, but also a mental and societal one. Obviously, at the time of Woolf's writing, this was much more difficult for women than men. Yet, without trying to appropriate an argument made for female independence, the same is true for any artist. To create something, you need a place to work, time to think and freedom from obligations. I don't just mean financial obligations, but things like familial ones, taking care of kids, cleaning, laundry, buying groceries, cooking, worrying about rent and all the stuff that takes up so much of our time. While Woolf articulated this argument so well, she wasn't the first, nor the last to talk about creativity in that way. To do creative stuff, you really do need the freedom to pursue it. Freedom from errands and tedium of everyday life and from other people filling your time with their opinions. You need the freedom to explore. The freedom to get bored and let your mind wander the way it might in the shower or on a run.

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Not So Fast

How many clothes do you really need? Image by Midjourney.

On another chilly minus-umpteen centigrade February morning I donned a thin, red fleece that is one of my most worn and cherished items of clothing. It cost $19 USD. That was 25 years ago. That means it has cost me about 76¢ per year or put another way, about less than a fifth of a penny per day. It is from "fast fashion empire" H&M. I bought it in New York City before the brand had any presence in Canada.

This isn't the only item I have from retailers like Uniqlo, Old Navy etc. Many of them over a decade old. Mind you, I have on a occasion purchased some items from shops that are either long gone, or should be. A summery short-sleeved cotton shirt from "Jean Machine" comes to mind. As I recall, it was dirt cheap, I wore it about a half dozen times and on one sunny day, the back of the shirt went from dark gray to a bleached out pale colour. Additionally, the fabric had become closer to dust than fibre. The cloth was even too weak to be used as a rag. It had to be tossed. I have never been back to a Jean Machine location, and am now even wondering if such a place actually existed. Is it a machine that made jeans or one made from denim? So yes, I have bought super cheap clothing that couldn't withstand a single washing, but most items I have purchased, outlasted my interest rather than their usefulness.

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Riparian Diversions

Now I lay me down in green pastures, but preferably the ones near rivers. Image by Midjourney.

Humans are terrestrial creatures, but inexplicably are drawn to water. Maybe it's not that inexplicable. We do need water to live. Aren't we mostly made up of the stuff? I often attribute it to my island upbringing for my fascination with water, but it isn't necessarily true. So many days I've started a bike ride with no intentions to go anywhere but still find myself drawn out to the Leslie Spit, a purpose-made headland created from demolition rubbish. Out on the point of broken concrete and brick, you can feel like you're out in Lake Ontario. Standing out looking over the water is one of my only ways to see the horizon in Toronto.

Being near or out on the water is the best way to forget about the city but it's not always about leaving things behind as much as finding new things. Probably the most surprising part of Toronto is the amount of nature you can encounter thanks to the Ravines. You have to go pretty far to completely leave the built world behind. So many Saturdays I would ride 50-60 KM away from my house and still never leave the city, never leaving its sights, sounds or smells behind. One summer we went kayaking on the Humber River. You can ride your bike or just take the subway to a parking lot where a company rents kayaks and canoes. At the launch point you can paddle beneath the bridge that carries the east-west subway leaving you in the curious position of being on a lazy river looking up at a subterranean rail line. Once, while floating past the shoreline, I thought I spotted eggs nestled in the grass but on closer inspection they were really just faded golf balls. I guess I wanted them to be eggs, even if it made no sense. That paddle was full of surprising encounters. Gliding in and out of inlets thick with water lilies and tall marshy grasses, we met swans, ducks, spied fish below, spotted hawks floating above and saw egrets walking in the shallow water or perched in a willow. Those sleepy, slender white birds, lazing about on an equally slim branch seemed like an image from a Japanese wood block print. The image is still in my mind. Later in the year, we returned to the Humber to watch the salmon run and their attempts to jump the weirs in the river.

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Not Good in a (Fake) Crisis

City of Toronto Archives. Snow storm, King Street West at John Street. Photographer: Alexandra Studio 1961

Toronto has been absolutely sacked by two or three large snowfalls. 10cm of snow here or there never hurt anyone, but follow that with 20cm or more, followed by 15cm, another 20cm of snow and you will quickly bring a city like Toronto to its knees. Which, if I'm being honest, is fine with me. The first of these onslaughts had the noticeable effect of quietude. The heavy snow was like a weighted blanket that calmed the city and dampened the sound of traffic. Yet it wasn't a sweet silence but more of an eery one. Similarly, the snowpack filtered light through the skylights of the house and gave a sort of igloo effect as if the snow had actually piled up three stories high, blocking us inside. It was on days like this in my youth, that my father would essentially sound the alarm and command his sons to man a shovel and get digging. I always wondered what the rush was? When I would ask about the sense of urgency, his answer lacked what I would refer to as logic. "What if there's an emergency? We'll need to be able to get out of the driveway." he would say as if it made perfect sense. I still wondered what my father was imagining. If there was a medical emergency, how would being able to get to the end of the driveway suddenly clear many kilometres of highway to the nearest hospital? Those first few metres would be a dream of clear asphalt, but unfortunately, the following 10-15 kilometres would be passable only by snowmobile or dog team.

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Return to Analogue

Listening to music used to look as good as it sounded.

About ten years ago when I moved into my current home, I discovered a box full of unused sketchbooks. I decided rather than open a store or a museum for such items that I should either use them or lose them. The most satisfying answer was a bit of both. I’d use the ones I could and give away everything else. I’m in my tenth year of regularly creating comic book journals that are a personal joy. Around the same time, I had really wanted to volunteer some design time to organizations that I thought could use some help. The only problem with that was it meant that I started doing stuff in my spare time which was the same thing I did in my work time. The unintended consequence was adding about 25% more time in front of a computer, which in some small way (or big way?) was crushing my soul.

Spending more time in front of paper than screens is increasingly important for me. I sketch more, I read more and I cook more. The odd thing is how it actually takes a bit of effort to avoid watching television, listening to streaming music and audio or reading on your phone because it's so easy to do it. Try following the news with newspapers and magazines and I'm guessing you'll have trouble. Toronto at one time, not that long ago, had newspaper boxes everywhere. Three of the most-read papers in the country were found in this city, and one of them was in Chinese. When I first came to Toronto, there were three free papers: Now, Eye and Metro. The Toronto Star, Globe & Mail and National Post duked it out at the entrance and exit of every subway station. Now, I'm not even sure where to buy a paper. Shoppers pharmacies sometimes have a rack, but not all of them. Remember when you'd have a drawer or a stack on the fridge of take-out menus? It's so easy to order delivery, that you have to remind yourself you still have leftovers.

This holiday we spent time doing a puzzle while listening to music inspired by something we had just heard while watching a show. When I finally connected a turntable to some old speakers it was a real pleasure. I thought it would be mostly a buzz of nostalgia but the music sounded better and it was interesting to just take more time, be thoughtful about choosing what you wanted to hear and then simply listen to it.

Doing these analogue things like cooking, repairing my jeans with some visible mending, keeping notes in longhand, listening to a record, sketching or painting all take a bit more time and thought. There’s no “undo” shortcut in the real world. Even an eraser leaves a mark. You have to take a moment to thread a needle or drop one on a record and those moments aren't a waste of time but are the very point of time spent well. If schools have had to add a break in the morning for mindfulness maybe that’s a sign kids need a bit more time to get started in the morning (I know I do). We should all have the privilege to slow down a titch and maybe the easiest way to make more time is to take more time.

Malingerance

Remember me when I'm almost gone.

I naively thought the archaic term "malingering" meant that a sickness, a malady or something malignant was lingering. It does not mean that. In fact, it means something different altogether. It's basically a term meaning faking an illness or feigning sickness as much worse than it is to get out of some obligation, usually work. I haven't done that sort of thing since I was about eight years old. I recall complaining my stomach hurt, which I thought, "How would you know if I was fibbing?" In those days, your mother might call the local physician who would just pop by (Dr. Natashan? I think? I remember his daughter was in my class and was quite pretty. I knew the doctor had left town when she didn't show up to school). I hid under the covers, which made me quite hot and after when he saw me, I remember hearing him say to my mother, "He seems fine but he's a bit hot, probably nothing serious." Then mom made me eat two bananas to "glue my insides together" (a common way she would refer to stomach troubles), and told me to stay in bed, which went down in history as the biggest waste of a day off school that I ever experienced.

From then on, the fear of getting caught "faking sickness" seemed like too big of a risk. Our mother wasn't much of a poker player and would always call your bluff or entirely ignore you. If you skinned your knee, "psh, that's nothing." followed by some ancient and incredibly burning antiseptic, Mercurochrome (no longer in use due to alleged toxicity). If you twisted an arm or knee, my mother would ask if you could move your fingers or toes, and when you did the reply was, "Nothing broken. If it's a sprain, it'll heal well enough." It got to the point where you pretty much had to have a bone sticking out of a limb to get noticed. Even then I imagine my mother saying, "Oh stop making such a fuss, stick it back in and get a band-aid."
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