October 1 mash up
Celebrating the ordinary; the documentary "Secret Mall Apartment"; and a Thank you for staying with and supporting the Unschool when I drop a ball!
First up: A note about WORKSHOPS.
If you are a paid subscriber, you can take part in workshops. The picturebook workshop runs the most frequently, as it gains the most interest. But we’ve also shared poetry and nonfiction.
Currently, there’s some interest in a novel-writing workshop. To make this happen, I need at least three people. (My own writing group has only three. Each of us take the group seriously and honour our commitments, both to our own work and others’. That’s all it takes—but it IS a commitment.)
Please email me if you are interested. This might mean monthly postings of chapter-long excerpts, and if sufficient interest and dedication, zoom meetings. No, I won’t be able to read and offer full-on comments. But I would host such and ask questions and guide from the sidelines.
This is SERIOUS interest only. Maybe you already have a manuscript or it’s half-written. But you are as interested in working with others’ works as your own; this is KEY.
Questions? Leave in the notes or email me: alison@alisonacheson.com
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The pumpkins photograph was taken in the neighbourhood where I used to live. Every Halloween, a friend would host a pumpkin-carving afternoon, and set up tables and tools and a wonderful meal to share. We would bring pumpkins and carve out in the back yard, and it was a time of laughter and shared stories and seasonal cheer.
This year Canadian Thanksgiving is on October 14, which is “late” to my mind. And that kicks off the coming months of many holidays.
Thoughts on creating extraordinary, and the ordinary; making sacred. And a prompt…
Take what is supposed to be an ordinary day in the coming week. And do the unexpected.
This might take some effort on your part. You might have to find out what is happening in your part of the world… and then go out and do it. That gallery exhibit you’ve meant to see, but put off. That venue… ditto. Fall colours in a particular park. Or you might create an event of your own.
Or walk down a street you walk every day, looking for “new.”
New. Unexpected. Surprising.
If you find yourself thinking, “I wonder…” about something, then follow through.
In writing, people speak of that phrase, “What if…?” and fill it in, but we can forget to do this in our own lives.
This past week I was reading about a Medium writer who says she writes 24/7, computer always close by. I understand that too well, and find myself doing similarly. But I also wonder… there we go: I wonder… how she finds material to write about.
If we aren’t living and exploring, our material and questions begin to shrink or to go in circles.
Write about this: the unexpected piece that you added to your day. I’m hoping this prompt sets this in motion. There’s no need to wait for particular days and celebrations. It’s enough to note each day that we are alive. “Celebration of life” should happen while we are still here.
And the next time a story is stalled, a character might do the same—the unexpected.
Can you do The Unexpected without feeling and experiencing some new knowledge or even just a sense of satisfaction or peace or simply “new”? Growth comes of this.
As a child I loved the idea of a very merry Unbirthday, as sung about in the music of the old film Alice In Wonderful. But how do we make ordinary days into something else?
This morning, making breakfast, I thought about how—with the crack of sunlight showing on this autumnal day, it’d be good to remove my propane firepit from where I put it just two days ago in the crawlspace for winter. And light it, and sit by it with my mug of coffee… but then I let the thought recede and crawl away as the effort seemed to be too much. But is it?
It made me think of the backyard breakfasts my mother used to fry up for us. Back in the day when you could have a backyard fire. She would circle it with rocks big enough to place a rack over, and she’d use a cast iron fry pan, and make eggs and bacon. And we’d eat out there. The weather didn’t even have to be all that good for her—it could have the odd raindrop.
Rain has never stopped her from having a good time. If it begins to snow—rare here, really—she’ll go outside and do two things: make the world’s smallest snowman, and then go inside to heat and melt brown sugar for snow taffy.
When I was in Bryce Canyon last year, I took a photo of another small snow-creature, created by someone, to send to her. I knew she’d appreciate. My mother doesn’t lose opportunities to make days special; she doesn’t feel that the effort’s too much.
She comes up with ideas that seem strange to me at the time; most recently, the idea that she needs to turn the wood-shed (that my father built to house all the logs he split), into a place where she can sit outside in the rain, hear the sound of it on the roof, and just be.
She told me what she needed done to make this happen: clean up the wood, and pile to create one wall. Set in place a rough hand-made table that she’s had for years. A few chairs. A tarp on the ground to cover the dirt.
I honestly couldn’t see the point; this is a woman who has a huge old rancher with two patios. But no, she needed her wood-shed just so. I followed directions. She did as much as she could.
She created a place. When I see the evidence of what she had in mind, when I take the time to sit with her there—yes, with the rain sounding on the roof—I understand her vision. It’s evidence of her creativity.
So why do I not make the time to pull the propane fire out and sit with my coffee as I want? Why am I not following that urge? Why do we let busy-ness get in the way?
It’s Vancouver International Film Fest time of year, and the first film we went to was a documentary called Secret Mall Apartment. The description intrigued me—especially with the current housing crisis.
Did you ever wish you could live at the mall? In 2003, that’s just what Michael Townsend and several of his friends did, creating one of the most original guerilla art projects of the 21st century, building and furnishing a hidden 750 sq. foot apartment — complete with couch, cabinet, even a TV and PlayStation — inside the Providence Mall in Rhode Island. It remained undetected for four years. As a small cohort of artists who had been displaced due to the mall’s development, the initial act of living in the mall evolved from a practical joke to a personal act of reclaiming space from real estate moguls and developers.
Stitched together from camcorder footage from twenty years ago alongside interviews with the original participants -– many of whom are only revealing themselves now for the first time -– Secret Mall Apartment strikes a balancing act between the absurdity of its story and surprisingly profound questions about gentrification, the nature of social art, and what truly makes a home. (from VIFF website)
Creating a homey and welcoming space in a windowless, cinderblock ‘nothing’ rather defines the idea of “celebrating the un-celebratory.” Holy-daying the ordinary-day, making it sacred.
In particular, I appreciated the “main character” of the artist Michael Townsend. He’s an artist you’ll never see or hear of if you don’t see the documentary. There is nothing about his creating that connects with the grasping quality of social media/platform/the need-to-be-seen-and-heard that is so much a part of our lives. There is nothing of “influencer” about him. But he’s not filled with false humility either; he’s genuine. He’s a creator, and he sees creators in others. For 15 years he’s made “tape-art” murals on the walls of children’s hospital, and showing the young patients how to create with him. The word “with” is what he’s about. His way of thinking about art and being an artist stood out for me.
If you do see the film, please leave a note and your thoughts, and what stands out for you. In the link above it looks like it’s possible to stream it.
(And here’s a review: https://hyperrealfilm.club/reviews/secret-mall-apartment)
It’s worth seeing, too, for Townsend’s collection of mannequins in a watery semi-underground setting—a sewer. (He lives in Rhode Island.) This is something that was—like the secret mall apartment—hidden away, a place one can only stumble over, or easily missed. His work is thought-provoking.
And I’m left thinking about the small, even secret, things we do and create: our journals. The stories that continue to grow long after we’ve decided to stop submitting them to editors. What we work on with children. What we create when we decorate the corners of our homes.
I remember reading John Bayley’s memoir of caring for Iris Murdoch in her last years of Alzheimer’s. He shares how when they walked together she would gather bits she found—buttons, cigarette foil, coins, leaflets, acorns—and return home to put them together into miniature sculptures. And he wouldn’t touch them. They brought her such pleasure, that he simply left them, all over the house, testament to her mind, her imagination, her inner world. Inner and outer connecting.
Celebrating the most ordinary.
There’s the so-called Ordinary Days of the liturgical calendar—days designated as such. But doesn’t a designation make special? Or to stand out?
Such days shouldn’t pass unnoticed. I often long for an “ordinary day.” Or days to putter; puttering, to my mind, is sacred stuff.
Wow—this started as a prompt of one paragraph, and then took its own corner. Let’s see what’s there, and where it takes us.
Post a story of making an ordinary day otherwise. Or your joy IN the ordinary! Deposit thoughts…
I had to add this below photo of my mom in her “shed” … you asked!
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Thank you!
I feel very grateful for your patience with me not posting as I usually do in the past couple of weeks, while dealing with my mother’s health. I had to set aside some responsibilities. All is mostly stabilized at this point with her. We adjust to age, health, needs. We write through such times, and learn when to pause or change it up.
I did lose a few subscribers, but almost all of you hung in there, and that means a great deal to me!
Merci beaucoup!
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I regularly read Karen Davis’s Life in the Real World. I find her posts to be slowing moments in my days. In this post, speaks directly to slowing, pausing.
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Re-cap of September
It’s been a strange month with dealing with my mother’s health and mini-stroke, and taking a late-night train and bus to the emergency room and such. Surreal moments in fall rain and full moon…
But it started out all so normally, the first-of-the-month post with a hiking Q&A with one of the Unschoolers writing-on-the-trail,
The next piece was on writing cairn-by-cairn, a way of moving through the process as if on a path. This is how I write, almost always. But it may be a way out if you’re stalled. It might serve as a visual way to work, to find your way.
A piece on reading aloud—so important, but easily given up when time presses us otherwise.
And then the update on where I was at:
I appreciated reading about what you are reading—such a breadth of work. Don’t hesitate to continue to share. The list grows.
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Happy fall writing—do post any questions and writing issues you might be dealing with—
Alison
Below is like the billboard area, driving into town. My apologies…
I love the picture of your mom in her special place. I'm glad to hear she is doing better. Look after your self as well. xo
Love the shed photo. A picture's worth a thousand words.