13-19 October 24 QOTW

featuring my birthday!

Image description: I’m standing in front of a metal fence, made up small squares and polls. One poll has a graffiti heart face in red. There are trees in the background in full green leafy goodness. I am wearing a red and black checked vest, a red leather jacket,black and white horizontal striped tights, black shoes, one pink and one purple glove, and glasses. My pink-gloved hand is balanced on the rail. Photo credit: Charles Earl . one of my fav photos he’s taken of me a few years ago on my b-day.

Sunday

For the last few months, small joys have been my sustenance… Often these small moments fade from view with the passage of time. What makes it into our memory banks are the bigger things—either the zeniths or the nadirs—but what we end up longing for and leaning on in hard times are the little quotidian comforts and delights; they lift and carry us from day to day. Noting these joys is a muscle I’ve been consciously trying to exercise: training the eye to see them and training the mind to hold onto them.

From The Isolation Journals with

Suleika Jaouad

, Back Again & An Update

Monday

Good Lord, Joel, you're only a doctor.  Do you reproach yourself when winter comes, when the grass dies, and the leaves fall from the trees.  Nedra died because it was her time, and she died well.  She died with all her wits about her, with her loved ones by her side.  She said all her goodbyes.  You and I should only be so fortunate, Joel.

        - Ruth Anne to Joel, Northern Exposure, 5.10

Tuesday

Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver, The Summer Day

October 15 is my birthday and I couldn’t think of a more apt quote to share with you. My life, all our lives, are wild and precious. I do not waste time on bullshit. I want to be surrounded by kindred misfits, working together on our art, and finding ways to share it. My birthday gift to you today is to remember that we have only this moment, we may be gone tomorrow. Find and cherish love.

Wednesday

I raise up my voice—not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. … We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.

Malala Yousafzai

Thursday

This is Alice, this is fucked up.

Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014; Invisible Publishing, 2019)

My first poetry collection came out with Chaudiere Books ten years ago this month with its launch at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. This line is one that helped me to be able to write the opening section of Kiki, her diary. Kiki wasn’t a pleasant woman, she was loud, inappropriate and vulgar. She was erased in history even though she was a talented cabaret singer, an artist and the model for Man Ray and other well-known male artists, who are well-remembered. But Kiki was the Queen of Montparnasse, beloved by her community and known for her daring art and escapades. She had to overcome poverty, deal with her addictions and somehow live. This is Alice, this is fucked up because Kiki had a fucked up life. Because like so many women, she was erased and people need to know about her. And as a woman, I’m fucking sick of being told to be silent, to be kind, to know my place.

Friday

I think people are just sick of hearing stories about men.

Megan Park on coming of age films CBC, The National Sept 30, 2024.

Saturday

If I stray away too far from you,/Don't go and try to find me./It don't mean I don't love you./ It don't mean I won't come back and stay /beside you./It only means I need a little time,/ To follow that unbroken line./ To a place where the wild things grow,/ To a place where I used to always go./ I want to know the touch of my own skin,/Against the sun, against the wind.

Lucinda Williams, Side of the Road, one of my favourite songs.

If you have inspiring and intriguing quotes to share, please reach out. I’d love to include them here.

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