Sue – Page 3 – A Roaring Good Yarn

Background Music II

October 3, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

The Early 80s : Forever Young

“Dearly Beloved, We are gathered here today, To get through this thing called Life.”

~ Prince “Let’s Go Crazy”

I mentioned in my previous post Background Music Part One that it was great fun to be a kid in the 1970s. To be in your late teens and early twenties at the start of the 80s, and to be in love with music and dancing, well, it was a whole other level of fun. It was totally rad! That window of time right after high school graduation is both exhilarating and frightening: What do I want to do with this thing called Life? I attended one school from grades eight to twelve where I gathered a very close network of friends and left with a small peer-voted scholarship for the many years I dedicated to writing articles for our school newspaper. It seemed most everyone but me was convinced I was going to be an investigative journalist, setting the world on fire (or at least our community) with truth, integrity, and flowery prose by way of my electric typewriter that I named “Dylan” in homage to both Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas. Just recently I learned that Bob Dylan named himself after the poet. Now I’m wondering if perhaps I already knew that. No matter, I still carry deep feelings about their individual writings.

Big love for the two Dylans. Fun fact: my mom ran a leather goods shop during my youth and I think of her when I catch the scent of leather. Couldn’t resist a candle that smells like leather bound books.

My graduating class picked up diplomas and our freedom in the school gymnasium to the wistful “Time” by The Alan Parsons Project drifting in the background. While I struggled to figure out which college classes I should take to become an important writer, my mature parents were already at the age where they were talking about taking early retirement from their jobs. They were around the age I am now, which in my mind meant they were really old (longtime grandparents, for crying out loud!) and completely out of touch with what it meant to be young and idealistic. Never mind that on the brink of eighteen my dad enlisted in the RAF and headed off to years of war. This was all about me. So what if I was the last bird to leave the nest? I was eighteen and nowhere near ready to soar! Hell no, I didn’t want to make writing a nice hobby. I certainly did not want to find a “good secretarial job” in order to support myself, just so they could finally retire and leave for parts unknown. So I lived at home, worked a part-time job, and attended a local college full-time, while my parents begrudgingly stayed put and held on to their jobs for a couple more years.

Two of my high school girlfriends attended a different college that was a little further away from where we grew up. Together they decided to rent an apartment that was close to their campus. It was a dump, but a glorious dump because it signified freedom from parental interference. The building was ancient and three-stories high with about eighteen units in total. Their one-bedroom top-floor no-elevator apartment was fairly spacious and we turned it into the best damn hangout in the whole world. There was a narrow hallway from the front door to the main living area. The first thing we pinned to that dingy hallway wall was a floor to ceiling black and white poster of James Dean with his finger pointing in the direction of the living room because that’s where all the fun began. Here it is –and it’s how much now? One more thing we should have hung onto instead of just the memories. But, oh, those memories.

*Big hair, big dreams*. *I still love polka dots!*
Some snapshots from the early 80s taken with a poor quality camera of high quality fashion.
I see now that I inherited my love of houseplants from my parents. Suntanning on the hoods of cars while blasting music was “a thing” back then…but on a mountaintop parking lot Après Ski? Crazy girls!
(Yes, that’s me striking a pose on some dad’s poor old car)

MTV had just made its debut and for the first time we could actually see our favourite musicians instead of listening to them on the radio. There they were as if playing live in the living room, lip-syncing their lyrics, dancing provocatively, and acting out random movie-like scenes that often made little or no sense. Still. There they were! And there we were in that crummy apartment with MTV on in the background, dancing and singing and rightfully earning thumps on the walls from irritated neighbours. Saturday nights were for boyfriends or restaurant jobs, but Friday nights, at least in the beginning, were reserved for our highly sacred girls-only sleepovers. We’d show up to the apartment, anywhere from three to six of us, with bulging overnight totes, sleeping bags, and just enough pooled ingredients to make dinner and to inexpertly mix terrible drinks like Screwdrivers or the cheapest rum available to water down with ice and Coke. We thought we were so grown up and sophisticated. Ha!

We danced along to the Go-Go’s and sang our hearts out to Queen and Journey. Sometimes we’d make it a theme night and wear the clothing to best represent it. I remember two of those themes: come dressed as the first place you want to travel to when you have some money and your favourite song today. In the middle of winter I wore a flowered shirt, shorts and a plastic lei to the first party and to the latter a thrifted cat-print dress made out of faux fur and black pointy ears because “Stray Cat Strut” was my rockabilly jam that week.

Eventually things changed, as they always do. Some of the girls began making plans to marry their high school or college boyfriends, while a few more, like me, broke up with ours. The singles quickly grew bored seeing new stacks of wedding magazines every Friday night, so we’d leave the almost-newlyweds to walk several blocks to a college area night club. We just wanted to be young and dance the night away to really great music. I couldn’t imagine myself settling into marriage so soon because I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted to be. I’d seen my older siblings shoulder some pretty heavy responsibilities with wildly varying outcomes. The odds already seemed stacked against me, even while the expectation for most young women then was to figure it all out quickly and smartly. We grew up hearing we could have it all if we worked hard enough and made the right decisions. Problem was, my young adult life felt more like a multiple choice magazine quiz and the circled answer was always D: none of the above.

If I couldn’t afford to buy a drink I’d volunteer to drive us to the college night club in my first car that someone named the “Blue Bomb”. I think I was one of the first to have my own car. Most of the girls were still driving their parents’ vehicles. Mine was an early 1970s Datsun that I bought with graduation gift-money ($1,000 cash; it pays to have a large family) from a friend’s elderly neighbour, who was probably in her sixties. Everyone recognized that car for a few reasons: it was ugly, it was an electric shade of blue, and a bright yellow and black bumble bee stuffy hung on the rearview mirror, gifted to me by those same girlfriends who called me Sue Bee throughout high school to distinguish me from all the other Susans in our classes.

The highly visible Blue Bomb became a dilemma for us single girls. If we took it out then so-and-so (usually someone’s ex-boyfriend or annoying sibling) could easily spot it in the parking lot and come find us. I’d try to park my car as far away as walking in heels would allow. Inevitably we’d return to find a note stuck under a windshield wiper. Usually it was from other friends telling us which Denny’s to meet them for a one a.m. coffee or fries. One time there was a long, rambling (nobody recognized the handwriting) love letter to me from an anonymous writer that was stuffed inside a bouquet of pink carnations. I had no idea who left it on my car and, honestly, right then I couldn’t have cared less. However, my friends were convinced I had a stalker or maybe a romantic secret admirer, who knew me well enough to know I loved carnations. My argument was who doesn’t love them? Dying of curiosity, they hatched all sorts of ridiculous maneuvers called “operation flower boy” to flush him out of hiding. The plan only resulted in a bad case of road rash for one friend when she tripped while chasing down an innocent, and probably terrified, teenage boy out walking his dog, who made the mistake of stopping to tie his sneaker right next to my car.

The mystery was never solved and the ridiculousness ended there, thankfully. I didn’t receive another love letter or more pink carnations until I met my future husband, but that’s a story for later in the 80s. And no, he wasn’t the mysterious flower boy, although that would be the perfect meet-cute in a rom-com. Speaking of cute, while on our first date we discovered that we went to neighbouring high schools and moved in similar social circles. It’s even likely we were in the same local clubs at the same time. There weren’t many back then and they were always overcrowded with twenty-somethings. He was more likely shooting pool and causing trouble while I was trying to Moonwalk, which probably explains why we didn’t meet-cute off the dance floor until five years later.

When it wasn’t in the shop for repairs, the Blue Bomb kept motoring along, and was often spotted at local beaches, windows rolled down with the one and only Prince blasting, while we girls suntanned on the blazing hot hoods of our cars instead of more sensibly on beach towels in the sand like everyone else. At that moment in time I wasn’t interested in serious dating or anything that got in the way of weekend dance parties. I was like Cyndi Lauper in “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, kicking up my heels in party dresses with big costume jewelry earrings. The original video for your viewing pleasure, in case you haven’t seen it. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” album was also huge and guys started putting in a little more effort to woo the ladies by dressing up in oversized two-button pastel blazers with shoulder pads and baggy pleated trousers. As much as I liked to dress up, for some reason it was always the witty, untidy boys who first caught my eye. If my young life was an 80s John Hughes film, then it would co-star messy Judd Nelson instead of preppy Emilio Estevez with a soundtrack by Queen or Joan Jett because according to me and Billy Joel, “new phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways…It’s still rock and roll to me.“

A couple of years into the 80s, I’d finally saved enough money to take that longed for spring break vacation to Hawaii. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Aloha! The Hawaiian-themed dance parties were for real this time. I spent days walking on sunshine and nights dancing in the dark. I cut my long, layered hair to look like Olivia Newton-John in her “Physical” years, only minus the headband because I just wasn’t the sporty type. Upon my short-haired, suntanned return, my parents announced they were giving me six months to get my life in order so they could retire and move far away. That moment was the metaphorical needle scratching across the record for me. In their defence they’d already given me more than enough time to get on track and I can see how they thought I was wasting most of it. Still, it wasn’t the way I saw it then. I felt ambushed. My bank account was now down to single digits thanks to the vacation and there was barely enough time to build it back up. The Blue Bomb had to be traded for a newer, more reliable sedan with a hefty parental co-signed bank loan. I put college classes on an indefinite hiatus and I went in search of full-time work, which ended up being the dreaded “good secretarial job” that I hated with the same driving force that Aqua Net hairspray was to big hair.

I searched for weeks to find an apartment I could barely afford on my own while also having to make monthly car payments. I collected cast-off dishes and furniture from family members and newlywed friends, and for the first time in my life I was about to live alone. I wouldn’t admit, least of all to myself, that I was terrified about this big life change. Still, I was going to prove that I could make it on my own and I didn’t need anyone’s help doing it. Hand me an ultimatum and I’ll respond by digging in my heels wherever I land. I’ve always been too stubborn for my own good.

Hit the pause button for now–the late 80s years are coming soon!

Below are Youtube links to the songs or music videos mentioned (or thought about) during the writing of this post. Feeling groovy? Check out my previous post Background Music Part One: the 60s and 70s.

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince

Forever Young – Bob Dylan

Time – The Alan Parsons Project

Our Lips Are Sealed – The Go-Go’s (The best video for early 80s young women style!)

We Got The Beat – The Go-Go’s

Under Pressure – David Bowie & Queen

Don’t Stop Believin’ – Journey

Tainted Love – Soft Cell

Stray Cat Strut – Stray Cats

Electric Avenue – Eddy Grant

Girls Just Want to Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper

Billie Jean – Michael Jackson

I Love Rock N’ Roll – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me – Billy Joel

Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves

Dancing in the Dark – Bruce Springsteen

Physical – Olivia Newton-John

Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds (The Breakfast Club movie version)

music

Background Music

September 1, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

“Music is the soundtrack of your life.” ~ Dick Clark

September! It’s been a minute since my last blog past. I didn’t plan on taking a break. Lately I’m feeling the drive to write and research a novel I’m working on, so much of my attention has been wrapped up in that. Most of my current research is concentrated on the music industry, primarily from the 90s through the early 2000s. I feel less informed about this specific time period because back then I was preoccupied with babies and then busy school-aged children. That meant the background music was often Disney soundtracks and pop hits. I still remember the words to Spice Girls and a few boy band songs. And my grown children joke about remembering more 80s lyrics than they care to. Fair is fair.

While I’m not ready to share the plot specifics of the novel quite yet, I will say I’m having fun revisiting classic rock favourites and discovering fascinating tidbits of music trivia along the way. If you follow my Instagram stories, then it might make more sense now why I keep sharing music-related posts about rock band crushes and singer-songwriters I’ve long admired. I suppose, like many people during these troubling times, I’ve been living a little more inside of my head. Reflecting on and listening to music has kept me feeling grounded and warmly connected to memories of more carefree days.

My generation (and I feel about a hundred years old as I write that) forged tight relationships over sharing new record albums and dance moves in basement rec rooms. I’ve mentioned before that I’m the youngest in a large family. My eldest brother was sixteen when I was born, and the rest of my siblings all fall in line behind him, a year or so apart in age, with the closest to me being ten years older. My brothers used to tease me about being left on the doorstep as a baby and how they so generously took me in so I wouldn’t freeze to death because it was February. I went crying to my mom about it once and I still remember her response: “Do you really think we’d bring another kid inside this crowded household if you weren’t ours?” Point taken. So it meant I naturally entered that well-established and chaotic household of primarily teenagers by way of surprised parents, who were older than my friend’s parents. I didn’t know it at the time, but that broad age range greatly blessed me with a plethora of music experiences.

Before the older kids started moving out, I shared a bedroom with two sisters who were vastly different from each other, yet agreed on one important factor: The Beatles. Some of my earliest memories include giant wall posters of John, Paul, George and Ringo and the absolute conviction that their eyes were following me, so I’d better get dressed quickly behind the closet door! They were Team Paul and I was Team George because (wow those expressive eyebrows!) and he had the cheekiest smile. I spent many nights falling asleep to my sisters whisper-arguing while also harmonizing to Motown hits until our mother eventually stuck her head in the door to tell them to “cut it out”.

Down the hallway, my four brothers were squeezed into one bedroom with two sets of bunk beds that were so close together it was possible to jump from one top bunk to the other, which I did frequently and gleefully. They fascinated me because they were so much louder and wilder than my sisters, and their record collections clearly reflected that. I’m positive my deeply-rooted love of rock band music began in that very small room while listening to The Stones and hearing them trade insults, punch each there and then laugh it off. One brother with a gentler soul used to play Cat Stevens on repeat, and to this day hearing “Morning Has Broken” instantly lightens my mood.

My second eldest brother died when he was nineteen and I was four years old. The music and the laughter in our house disappeared for a very long time after that day. My memories of him are hazy, but I do remember his kindness and how sometimes he’d let me curl up with him on the mornings he was too sick to get out of bed to go to school. Many years later I heard “Unchained Melody”, The Righteous Brothers’ version, and my mind instantly connected the dots to my lost brother. At the time of his passing he was deeply in love with his high school sweetheart, and I wonder if perhaps that was their song, or maybe just his alone. It’s a tender, melancholy song. Today is his birthday and he would be turning seventy-three.

During the early 70s our household began to quickly downsize until only three of us kids remained. It was then that my parents decided to get rid of the ping pong table in the basement and turn our rec room into a more glamorous adult-friendly hangout. My dad built a very elaborate bar with mirrored shelves and colourful lights to illuminate the hard liquor bottles that lined them. Padded bench seats were built-in along the walls and speakers somehow got wired meticulously into posts and ceilings, long before surround sound existed. It was a rather strange thing to do because both of my parents rarely drank and Dad was the most unsociable one in the family. Regardless, for awhile they were downstairs until late most Saturday nights, laughing with friends, drinking out of cut glass crystal tumblers, smoking endless cigarettes and playing card games.

Dad spent countless hours taping a wide variety of music from our records onto his reel-to-reel tape recorder. Sometimes on weekend afternoons he’d play current hits like The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” in that basement barroom so that me and my friends could hold our own Kool-Aid dance parties. Ah, it was a great time to be a kid! Mom, who really loved to dance, finally had more free time to teach me how to jitterbug and hand-jive. I get my swooning fondness for crooners from my mother. She adored the Rat Pack, big band music, and she hero-worshipped Streisand–all of Barbra’s music and movies. My dad introduced me to the kind of country music that’s considered old-school now. The likes of Dolly, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride, just to name a few of the greatest country singers who ever lived.

Me at 13 with my parents at a brother’s wedding, rocking the 70s vibe! I clearly inherited my dad’s dimples and my mom’s smile. My dad was 6’5″ so his head was often in the streamers at parties. Someone once paid me the sweetest compliment about me being the very best of both of my parents. Oh, how I miss them.

During my early teen years, when I always seemed to be at odds with my dad because either my cut-offs were too short or my makeup was too heavy, music magically kept us connected. I would roll my eyes at his 8 track country cassettes and he’d ask me, “what good is music if the volume’s so high you can’t understand the words?” Still, we firmly agreed on this: ABBA and Fleetwood Mac were (and still are) sublime. I credit the iconic Rumours album for getting me through the painfully awkward junior high years.

The first concert I was allowed to attend with a group of friends and without a parent in sight was April Wine. I’m a Canadian girl, so I feel pretty nostalgic about April Wine. The most memorable concert of my youth was Supertramp’s 1979 Breakfast in America Tour at the Empire Stadium in Vancouver. I was sixteen and hadn’t even gone on a real date yet, but I reluctantly agreed to let a friend set me up on a blind date (double date) with her boyfriend’s cousin who managed to score four concert tickets. All that trouble, just so I could see Supertramp and hear “Take The Long Way Home” live with about 40,000 other people. He turned out to be a nice enough guy, but by then I already had my eye on someone else…a broody, sharp-witted boy of Scottish descent with long feathery layers in his dark hair, just like mine. He ended up being my first love, and in my mind he still looks exactly the same as he did when we broke up three years later at nineteen for the second and final time. That day I ran a very long way home after stubbornly refusing a ride, while trying to lose him as he followed me in his car until the moment I breathlessly reached my front door. For hours I played “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” over and over and over until I felt completely, irrevocably done with him.

That first serious boyfriend introduced me to Pink Floyd, punk rock, and Scottish singer Gerry Rafferty. (What an eclectic mix!) Hearing “Right Down The Line” immediately stuffs me back inside a time capsule along with Bonne Bell Lip Smackers (root beer was my favourite and always the hardest to find), Love’s Baby Soft perfume, Seafarer high waisted flares, and the even higher drama of angst-fuelled teenage love. If you ask me, the rock band that readily springs to mind from that era is Nazareth, and only because I swear every girl I knew at one time or another sobbed out her poor broken heart to “Love Hurts”. My personal blast-it-until-you-get-past-it rock anthem was Heart’s “Crazy on You”. The ah-mazing guitar intro to that song still makes my heart race in anticipation.

Dust off your shoulder pads because here comes the 80s! To be continued…

In case you fancy a listen, here are Youtube links to the music mentioned (or thought about) during the writing of this post. Have you ever noticed that back in the day song titles could be very long? I hope watching and listening to the videos is an uplifting experience. Please leave a comment to share some of your memorable classics!

I Want to Hold Your Hand – The Beatles

Stop! In the Name of Love – The Supremes

Paint It Black – The Rolling Stones

Morning Has Broken – Yusuf / Cat Stevens

Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers

Sugar, Sugar – The Archies

The Way We Were – Barbra Streisand

He Stopped Loving Her Today – George Jones

Dancing Queen – ABBA

Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac

You Won’t Dance With Me – April Wine

Take The Long Way Home – Supertramp

Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me – Elton John

Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd

Right Down The Line – Gerry Rafferty

Love Hurts – Nazareth

Crazy On You – Heart

reading

July & Joni

July 8, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

I’ve looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose and still somehow, it’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life at all. ~ Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now.

The first song that springs to mind when I think about life in the early 1970s is “Both Sides Now”. Originally recorded by Judy Collins, the song was written by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell and, in my opinion, should only ever be performed by Joni. If you listen to it now, then listen to Joni sing it and you will hear the clear poetic difference in how she feels her own words.

The meaning of this song for me represents childhood slipping away. Hearing Joni sing it always makes me teary, and it shifts my mind back inside long ago summer days spent zipping along the streets of suburbia with neighbourhood friends. Black Cat gum and brand-new white Keds, grass-stained within hours of taking them out of the box. A pocket transistor radio strapped with hair elastics to the plunging handlebars of my sparkly purple Mustang banana-seat bicycle, tinnily blasting the top ten CFUN summer hits in my wake. The earthy tar smell of hot black topped pavement melting in July. Hopscotch, kick ball, and red rover. Flimsy roller skates that tighten around shoes with a special key that I wore on a string around my sun-warmed neck. For me, all of this nostalgia and more are in the lyrics of Both Sides Now. Even the opening line “rows and flows of angel hair” is a tender reminder that I’d first misinterpreted it as bowls and bowls of angel hair. Perhaps I’d been hoping pasta was on the supper menu that evening.

Although Both Sides Now is Joni’s song of my childhood, my longtime favourite has always been A Case of You from her iconic album Blue. It’s rumoured to be written about her break-up with either Graham Nash or Leonard Cohen. I like to think it’s about Cohen because it doesn’t get more Canadian than that. The opening verses are heartbreak wrapped in biting savagery and I adore it:

“Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, ‘Constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar’

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh, Canada
With your face sketched on it twice…”

Recently I came across an article written about a new novel that’s loosely inspired by the early rise of Joni Mitchell’s career and her love affair with singer James Taylor. Of course I had to read it! Songs in Ursa Major by Emma Brodie (publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021) begins in the year 1969 at a fictional folk music festival where we are first introduced to local singer Jane Quinn and her band the Breakers. Jane and the band are the last-minute replacement performers on the main stage after the headline performer, folk singer Jesse Reid, is injured in a motorcycle accident on his way to the festival.

“James Taylor” by Joni Mitchell from her book Morning Glory on the Vine

Jane and Jesse develop a relationship while he is recovering from his injuries that first begins as a shared love of songwriting and quickly develops into a passionate, often torturous love affair that spans many years. The story follows Jane’s rocky ride in the 1970s music industry and her deeply personal relationships with Jesse, her band members, and her family. All of this unfolds around her desire to be recognized for her talent and still remain in control of her career at a time when women’s opinions were the least heard in a room of male executives.

The heart of this novel is a love story, but the backbone for me is a young woman’s search for the illusive balance between self-fulfillment and obligation to loved ones. I read Songs in Ursa Major in one day because I had to know what becomes of Jane from the first pages when she steps barefooted onto the stage and her life instantly changes. I related so much to this feisty character and her determination to remain true to her young self.

I kept thinking about Joni Mitchell’s country-inspired hit You Turn Me On I’m A Radio while reading Jane’s story. Music industry execs want Jane to write catchy hits for the radio instead of honest music inspired by her life experiences. Joni’s response to the same request in her career famously mocked her recording label manager with these lyrics:

“I’m a broadcasting tower
Waving for you
And I’m sending you out
This signal here
I hope you can pick it up
Loud and clear
I know you don’t like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don’t like strong women
‘Cause they’re hip to your tricks
It’s been dirty for dirty
Down the line
But you know I come when you whistle
When you’re loving and kind
But if you’ve got too many doubts
If there’s no good reception for me
Then tune me out, ’cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head…”

The complete lyrics are here.

Untitled (and my favourite drawing) by Joni Mitchell: Morning Glory on the Vine

Another book I enjoy immensely is Joni Mitchell’s Morning Glory on the Vine: Early Songs & Drawings (publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). In 1971, as her groundbreaking album Blue became a commercial success all around the world, Christmas came along and Joni struggled with what presents to give her nouveau riche friends. In the end she decided to give them each a handmade book filled with a collection of her songs, poems and drawings that she called “The Christmas Book”. The edition remained private amongst friends until it was recently published, a present to all of her fans.

There have been many creative influences in my life and sometimes hearing a song or reading passages from a poem or book reminds me to be thankful for those brave souls who put their whole hearts into words, even knowing that some might not understand a single word of it.

Joni Mitchell says it best in a letter to her friends, “Well I know you can’t really knock something till you know it–inside and out–all sides. And I find that then, when you understand it, it’s hard to knock it. You just feel it–laugh or cry.”

reading

The Feel of a Book

June 18, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

“Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.” ~ Virginia Woolf

Call me old fashioned, but I love the feel of a book in my hands. I also love the scent of new paper, so maybe that’s where the story starts for me, with fresh paper and an invested grip. I aways begin a novel hoping that it will draw me in immediately and keep me thinking about it long after the last page. Sometimes, depending on how I’m feeling, it’s enough just to draw me in, providing hours of pure escapism and not a lot of required thinking to fully grasp the concept.

In April and May I read a lot of different types of books because I suddenly found myself with spare time and only enough energy left to turn pages and absorb words. There have been many periods throughout my life when I’ve stuck my nose in a book to escape the reality of what was happening around me. There have also been times when I’ve felt so much sadness that I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything more, not even someone else’s lighthearted imaginings.

Lately I’ve been showing up every day for the escapism. I haven’t liked all the books I’ve read, but I did finish each one and took time to ponder all of its parts; plot twists that worked for me and the elements of the story that left me feeling meh. A long time ago, before the days of internet and massive bookstore chains, I wrote a book review column for a small local newspaper. Publishers would mail books or galleys to me. I would read them all the way through, whether I liked them or not, and then I’d take the time to reflect and write honestly about them. Nothing more was expected from me than my honest opinions.

I had a toddler and then a newborn during the time I reviewed books. Life was busy, but for this I dug deep and powered through my exhaustion. I read while my children napped and I wrote at my kitchen desk for hours after they went to bed. My editor was a woman and she gave me the opportunity after I brazenly walked into the newspaper offices one day, carrying the toddler on my hip, to tell anyone who’d listen that the paper needed a book review columnist and I knew I could write it. To her credit she not only listened, she invited me and my child into her office to look at samples of my writing. I’m not sure where I found the chutzpah to do something like that. Could I do it now? Doubtful. It was at a time when face-to-face interaction was the norm, and I possessed just enough steely determination to search out a comfortable balance between new motherhood and personal fulfillment.

I was paid very little for my column and I loved every minute of writing it. Occasionally I would receive via my editor typed or hand-written letters from a disgruntled author or a vehemently disagreeing reader. I never received any positive fan letters, which stands to reason because often people only let you know what they’re thinking when those feelings are so strong they cannot be contained. I learned a few things about how to read while reviewing books:

Being in a certain frame of mind can mean the difference between holding a book lovingly for hours after reading it and wanting to hurl it across the room in disdain part way through.
Sometimes a book needs to sit with you before you can form an honest opinion.
You will learn at least one thing about yourself from every book you read.

My Reading Notes: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid is my favourite recent read. Evelyn Hugo is not a particularly likeable character and yet I liked her very much. Evelyn is flawed and ambitious, and driven to succeed to the point of carelessness. Even at times while I questioned her decisions, I still found myself rooting for her and hoping she’d find her one true love. The old Hollywood glamour took me back to comfortable childhood afternoons spent watching classic movie reruns with my parents. The many plot twists are surprisingly believable and thought-provoking. A captivating story that I find myself still pondering weeks later.

writing life

Tell Your Stories

June 8, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

“…What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools or oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.” ~ Anne Lamott

I rediscovered this quote recently while I was working through some hard decisions. I’m happy that I did because I’ve long admired Anne Lamott’s work and it was something I needed to see at just right the time. It’s interesting the way that happens sometimes. One moment you’re minding your own business, just trying to work through a nagging problem, then out of the blue someone or something speaks directly to your heart and it helps to prompt change.

The first book I read of hers, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, was recommended to me years ago by a writing instructor. Every creative person should read this book. Anne has a way of cutting through the murk and mess we create as humans to help uncover the hard truth of what’s really holding us back from doing what we want to do. I’m sure the reasons are different for every person.

I decided right there in the middle of a stressful time that I had to read Bird by Bird again. Not surprising, I couldn’t find my old dog-eared copy from the early 90’s so I ordered a new one. Rereading it I discovered that while many references are outdated, I still find it to be profoundly inspiring, and that some thirty years later one of my reasons isn’t the same because I no longer fear telling my truth.

When I was younger and I wrote a lot, at the far back row in my mind sat the audience. I could even visualize them; some had blurred faces because I didn’t know them well, while others came sharply into focus because I knew them too well. I was careful to the point of rewriting myself into a corner whenever I plotted fictional stories, just on the off chance someone close to me might catch glimpses of themselves in my characters. To this day I’m not exactly sure what I was worried about. Perhaps that I might inadvertently hurt or offend someone I love with the sharp edges of my writing? It seems rather silly now, as do most fears, given time and maturity.

Maybe it’s my age or maybe it’s life experience, but I’ve come to understand that the truth as I see it will never perfectly match someone else’s recollection. With that knowledge also comes the freedom to unfold my version the way I believe it happened. It’s impossible to create without adding the flavourful seasonings of thoughts and experiences collected, bottled and stored in our minds every day. It doesn’t matter if the “audience” is kind or not, or even if they wag a finger in disapproval from the back row. It only matters that we take what we need from storage, all the messy bits and pieces, and shape them exactly as we wish. Recently I’ve started writing a novel. It’s not a memoir, it’s purely fiction. But yes, some parts of the characters do resemble someone I know well: me.

I’ll leave you with a photo of “radical silliness” taken by my daughter in January 2020 while we were swimming in the ocean at Turtle Bay, Oahu. And another favourite Anne Lamott quote: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better”.

life

The Merriam-Webster Definition of Yarn

May 31, 2021May 25, 2023 Sue

1: a continuous often plied strand composed of either natural or man-made fibers or filaments and used in weaving and knitting to form cloth.

2: [from the idiom spin a yarn “to tell a tale”] : a narrative of adventure: a tall tale, a roaring good yarn.

Well, hello. Welcome to my first blog post. Glad you found your way here. Truthfully I’m not sure what I’m even doing here, but it’s not unusual for me to jump into something and figure it out as I go. So here goes….

I should probably start by telling you a little about myself. I won’t get into the entire history of my life thus far because I’m a woman of few words unless I’m comfortable chatting with you or I’ve enjoyed a few sips of wine or approximately half a beer. Since it’s early morning as I write this, one or two cups of coffee is as strong as it gets.

My name is Susan and I’m known mostly as Sue. I used to be a writer, a book reviewer, a bookseller, and until about a month ago a yarn shop owner. Yes, somewhere along the way I got off the track of books and tangled up in the wonderful world of wool. As mentioned earlier I’ve been known to jump in and out of interests. Only this time my business owner preoccupation stuck around for a solid fourteen years.

I’ve had many other paying jobs since the first babysitting gig. Most of them were terrible and just a means to pay the bills. None of them are worth mentioning. I was really never good at working for other people. I suspect that growing up the youngest of seven children gave me a strong dislike of being told what to do. It’s also the reason I discovered early on that books, paper and pencils can provide a comforting escape from the chaos and conflicts within large families.

I attribute my early love of reading to my literary-loving paternal grandmother who lived with us until I started school. Mostly she was there to help take care of me because I came along later in my parents’ lives when they both had full-time jobs and all the other kids were many years into school. Some were even senior high students. I was definitely a surprise baby, but fortunately a welcomed one.

Childhood favourites shared with Grandma

My British-born grandmother read with me children’s classics only and my parents didn’t care much about what I read, as long as I wasn’t out in the neighbourhood causing trouble. My mom, however, read almost everything I wrote from an early age and fully accepted my fictional friends as being as important to me as the real ones. She was my first captive audience and she died far too soon. I lost the creative drive to write along with her, but that’s a long story for another day.

Now I’m the grandmother. Which, of course, means that I’ve raised children of my own. Not alone, thankfully. I’ve managed to muddle through all of that married to their dad for over thirty years. There comes a time in your life when you realize you’ve actually done the most growing up right along with your children. Being completely responsible for human lives keeps you standing on high alert at all times, ready to slay dragons with a spatula if necessary. It can be exhausting and frightening and exhilarating all at the same time.

Becoming a grandparent is the blessing for those years of heavy lifting. I know that sounds greeting-card corny, but I can imagine all of you grandparents nodding because it’s true. In my mind I don’t look like my grandparents did. Dare I say old? Certainly all of mine were well into their senior years by the time I made my late debut.

Fifty-something is not old. Still, I don’t seem to know as much as my grandparents did. Or maybe that was an illusion and all along they were just like me: curious enough to keep learning. That thought provides the perfect segue to why I’m attempting to write this blog.

I’m here to find my writing muse again. I feel that I have much to say about being creative and curious. Recently I’ve been closing one chapter of my life and starting another, so it seems like as good a time as any to jump into something new, yet old and familiar. I’ll probably talk too much about books I’m reading and projects I’m knitting. There may even be some waffling about the trials and tribulations of finding my elusive writing voice while I try to plot a novel. Eventually I’ll figure out how to properly add photos.

If you’re still here reading this to the end–thank you and I hope you’ll visit again. If I lost your interest way back at the start, well, that’s fine too. No hard feelings.