Author Archives: lydias

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, secular saints, poems and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From Softly, Play Me via Fumanchucat:

I am the harp
in your hands

be schooled
be gentle

softly
play me

Our Lady Of… Secular saints for geeks of all ages.

Depression, Exercise and Twitter. The same could be said for so many other diseases.  I really try to never judge other people’s lives based on the small slivers of information I’ve collected about them, and sometimes I actually succeed at it. 😉 Remember, what you find extraordinarily easy to accomplish or overcome might be one of my biggest hurdles (and vice versa)!

Trapped in a Bubble via StoryRoute. Cathryn has such a heartwarming blog. This particular link is actually a guest post by a man named Rick Hardman, and his final line is a must-read.

In Which Dippy Does Not Make New Friends.  My family once had a dog named Cubby who loved gnawing on carrots and rubbing his butt on the carpet.  Occasionally us kids would be attacked by a nefarious enemy that disguises itself as ordinary bubbles. Only Cubby could save us  every time they tried to lure us into their soapy little spaceships. Little did we know that his teeth were the only object in the universe capable of penetrating their destructive vessels.  😉 If reincarnation were real Cubby would almost certainly be living it up as Dippy the antisocial cat.

I’m a Trans woman and I’m Not Interested in Being One of the “Good” Ones. An interesting essay about the conflicting expectations society has of Trans women.

From Slender Man – We Made Him and His Family What They Are Today:

But the curious thing I heard about Slendy is that he may LITERALLY be created by the mind. That is, his popularity in the public consciousness is so great that he has become a thoughtform, a tulpa, that he was imagined into existence and now he is REAL….

Nope, I don’t really believe this fantastic stuff but the tales grow taller on down the line. Is it a case of an evolving creature that draws life blood from our minds? Sort of. He’s a meme(Dawkins, 1976, yes THAT Dawkins, invented the word ‘meme’), he does change to suit the environment. Thanks to existing mostly on the web, where he has replicated and been passed on, Slender Man has traveled all over the world.

This week I’m thrilled to recommend Daphne Purpus’ new book, A Year of Haiku. Daphne beautifully captures the small triumphs and setbacks of daily life. While a few poems deal with death, grief, chronic illness, and other serious topics, most are about living in the moment. I particularly loved her descriptions of the slugs and other animals that visit her yard.

Daphne gave me permission to print one of her poems here. I chose this one because it made me laugh:

the cat

stealing raw spinach

nearly a full moon.

What have you been reading?

This isn’t the same patch of grass, but it’s a great illustration.

It was an ordinary patch of grass, but as soon as I read the sign asking passersby not to walk on it I felt a sudden urge to take off my shoes and socks and run around in circles.

One of the few advantages of maintaining a field of something that cannot be eaten, worn, or sold for profit is that it’s an ideal place to spread out a picnic blanket, sunbathe, fly a kite, or play frisbee.

I was going to add picking dandelions to that list as well, but this particular patch of grass was sadly flower deficient.

I’m sure the people who maintain the grass and paid for the sign had good intentions. The lawn might have been recently sprayed with pesticides, or there could be gopher holes that have caused other pedestrians to sprain their ankles.

Maybe they don’t want their grass to be trampled, or they’d rather not have to pick up after irresponsible pet owners. Or maybe that little, unassuming patch of grass is actually an ancient portal to fairyland.

In any case, reading the sign made me want to do the exact opposite of what I’d been instructed. It’s human nature to balk at rules that don’t make sense or serve a useful purpose.  Several years ago this was actually my response to an even more authoritarian sign that ordered us to keep off of a different lawn. I only touched one toe in the forbidden zone in quiet protest of a nonsensical rule.*

If they wanted to dissuade visitors they could have planted a row of hedges or built a little fence around the perimeter of the park. Either one of those options would communicate the same message without erecting an unfriendly sign or making me want to disobey it.

*Yeah, it’s probably good that I’ll never have children. They no doubt would have inherited my contrary streak.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

The Girl and the Flower. A fairy tale about a woman who would do anything to save her dying husband. Prepare to suddenly need to wipe something out of the corner of your eye when you read this.

Closer to the Sun via @jtvancouver. A poem that sent chills down my spine.

Great Graphic Novels for Seniors. This is actually a great list of recommendations for anyone who isn’t interested in traditional superhero tales but likes the look of graphic novels.

Cabinet Containment. If only all politicians could be humanely given away this easily. One of my college professors once warned us that most readers don’t pick up on satire. Her words echo through my mind every time I read this blog.

Kindness in a Cruel World. I love this.

Excuse Me, Can You Leave? It’s Just That I Was Studying First. An amusing story about a student who really doesn’t want to share “his” bench. This exchange reminds me of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.

From Food Bank:

“Look,” he said, pointing to the buildings, “A food bank! If you want, we can drop off those leftovers so you can withdraw them later.”

“Um, I think food banks give your food to other people.”

He feigned shock. “Then that’s a horrible bank!”

Between 1854 and 1929 abandoned children in the U.S. were sent out west in an attempt to find new families for them. Back then there were no social workers or foster homes as we know them to protect neglected or abused kids, and orphan trains were basically the only  alternative mistreated children had to growing up homeless on the streets.

Orphan Train is a novel about an Irish girl eventually (re)named Vivian Daley who experiences the best and worst of this social experiment. Eight decades later a biracial teenager named Molly slouches from one home to another. Her foster father claims to love her, but Molly has long since learned the hollowness of that word. When they meet under unusual circumstances in 2011 old secrets are revealed and painful memories finally laid to rest.

This early bird stayed up reading past midnight because I was so enthralled with the vivid descriptions of the worlds they lived in as well as how many similarities there were between Vivian and Molly’s childhoods. I wanted to dive into the pages of this book and bring both girls home to live with me.

Fair warning: a few scenes describe physical and (attempted) sexual abuse from the child’s point of view, but these experiences are not the crux of Molly and Vivian’s stories. If anything, this book is about how beautiful life can be after you’ve acknowledged that something really shitty happened and vowed never to perpetuate the cycle of abuse.

What have you been reading?

Photo by Mr. Seafall.

This might only make sense to fellow writers, but the characters in After the Storm have begun leading me into plot twists I was hoping to avoid. Many years ago I had a similar issue with a character in another story. I was so invested in finding a way around who she kept turning out to be that I ended up aborting the project. In retrospect, I should have paid more attention to where she was taking me and less to my preconceived ideas about the kind of protagonist I wanted for that tale.

I won’t make that mistake again. As I follow Daphne and her friends and family into new territory here are some of the things I will be asking them as I write.

No, the subject matter of these questions should not necessarily be interpreted as foreshadowing. I can guarantee with 99.99% certainty that there are no pterodactyls in Daphne’s world, but how she reacts to them may be similar to how she’d behave in other settings.

It would be fascinating to see how my readers answer them, though!

1. A flock of hungry pterodactyls are attacking your neighbour’s sheep. If the sheep are destroyed your neighbour and their family will face a high risk of running out of food over the winter. You do not have any weapons with you, and if you leave to warn your neighbours their animals will almost certainly be destroyed. To what extent are you ethically obligated to protect the herd? 
2. How would your daily routine change if you knew the exact date, time and cause of your death? Would your answer to this question change if you believe you could influence your expiry date?
3. To what extent are people capable of changing? At what point is it too late to atone for a terrible choice you made many years ago?
4. Is it worse to beat someone nearly to death once or to spread malicious lies about them for a decade?
5. Would society crumble if everyone stopped believing that free will exists?
6. Could karma work in a world that only had limited free will?
7. Are all secrets harmful? Is there ever a good time to hide something important from someone you love?
8. What would it take for you to have an honest change of heart about your most fervently held beliefs? (e.g. registering as a member of a political party that endorses something you currently find deeply unethical.)
9. Martin Luther King once said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Do you agree or disagree with him? If you agree with him, is there anything we can do to slow down or speed up its arrival?
10. If you could resurrect one person from the dead and interview him or her, who would you pick and what would you ask them?

This video is well worth the 10 minute investment. A few quotes from it:

“None of this stuff is really about morality or religion or dogma or big fancy questions about life after death.…”

“The alternate is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant, gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.”

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four,  five and six of this story.

Ephraim had always taken after MacArthur’s tall, pale, and stocky frame so Daphne was quite surprised to see how tanned and muscular the boy had grown during his studies. Doctors were expected to cultivate their own herbs and have a well-stocked medicine cabinet throughout the year. She wondered how her son had found time to do anything other than study, grow herbs and learn how to make  salves, poultices and medicinal teas.

Isaac was as quiet and content as ever. He’d come back much darker and thinner than his childhood self, but nothing Daphne said could convince him to speak more than a few sentences about his apprenticeship. He insisted he was happy and that he looked forward to building more furniture and houses in the fall.

It wasn’t until Ephraim challenged him to a push-up contest while Daphne washed the breakfast dishes that Isaac’s face cracked into a genuine smile. Even he couldn’t resist his brother’s boisterous taunts or Lemon’s enthusiastic barks and playful pouncing.

“You’re going to break something,” Daphne said, swallowing her laugher. “Out of my house!” There were vegetables to harvest, water to gather, and a few holes to patch in the roof now that the rainy season was more or less finished. She gave her sons the list and warned them not to come back with Lemon until it was finished.

Just before lunchtime Nevaeh appeared at the front door for lunch. It had been over a week since her last visit, and Daphne had been beginning to wonder if Nevaeh was angry with her for some reason. It was rare for such an extroverted woman to stay away for so long, especially now that Daphne had a front row seat to the latest community news. Daphne wasn’t sure how long it would take Nevaeh to realize that certain information was confidential, and she wasn’t at all interested in churning the gossip mill.

“I’m here for lunch and bad news,” Nevaeh said. She carried a jug of cool water and what was probably her first radish harvest of the new year. Daphne added a few pieces of fresh cornbread to their simple meal. At this time of year everyone was earnestly waiting for their gardens to finish ripening before summer began.

While they ate Nevaeh spoke quietly about all of the families who were nursing this strange illness: the Eversons, the Reeds, The Grabers, and even Nevaeh’s own daughter and newborn grandson.

The Harris family had been struck particularly hard. In the last day and a half three of them had died of this strange disease, and two more were at death’s door. Naomi Everson also seemed to be loosening her grip on life, although Nevaeh understood if Daphne preferred not to pay her respects in that particular sickroom.

“They aren’t having a wake,” Nevaeh said in a puzzled tone. She had been brought up to believe that anyone who didn’t hear the story of their life or death was bound to repeat all of their mistakes when they were born again. “Their daughter-in-law and sons will be buried tomorrow morning, but the family is looking for volunteers to help bury the bodies. I thought you and your boys might be able to help with that.  I’d go myself if my daughter wasn’t ill.”

Daphne nodded. Like many of their neighbours Nevaeh avoided the dead and dying out of fear of catching what had killed former friends, but Daphne had stopped worrying about death a long time ago. It would find her when she reached the end of her days, and in the meantime there was nothing she could do to entice it or keep it away.

Death could be a mercy for someone in labor for three days like Daphne’s mother, or when an infection spread to the bloodstream after a hunting accident like her father, or even for those  as arthritic and confused as her grandfather in his final months. She had expected to die when her sons were born and was pleasantly surprised that all three of them survived it. The gods must have been been in a happy mood when they wrote that chapter of her life.

“We’ll go,” Daphne said, suddenly realizing that her jumbled memories had thinned out the conversation.

The hike to the Harris’ land was the quietest hour Daphne had known since her sons came home. Even Lemon sensed the heavy mood and for once he stuck to the path and left the rabbits alone.

Daphne wasn’t surprised to see that she and her sons were the only guests at this event. Half of the Harris’ were too sick to attend this funeral themselves. Normally a clan of nearly 20 men, women and children would be bustling with activity at this time of day. It was eerie to see how few of them were still healthy enough to walk.

The body of a woman in her late teens was being wrapped in elk hide as Daphne and her sons walked up the stone staircase to the main house. From the scorch marks on the hide Daphne could tell that the woman had been married and had one child before she died. Two of the daughters-in-law fit that description, and Daphne wondered if she was looking at the shell of  Lola or Casey.

Two smaller bundles beside Lola or Casey had already been prepared, but Daphne could tell nothing else about them because children were clean slates. Nothing they did counted for or against them in their next life unless they were born with more than one soul. When they died, then, they were returned to the gods with no record of to whom they had belonged.

The blind underworld was coming for the dead ones now, and it was best not to speak until the mission was complete. No spirit could take you before your time, but they had been known to follow some mourners home and spook the animals or move household objects when no one was looking.

A numb processional carried the woman and children to their grave. No sooner had the bodies been deposited than the weakest family members began the short trek home.

Isaac held the dog at a safe distance from the dead as Daphne, Ephraim and one of the Harris grandfathers began shovelling dirt over the shallow trench.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, a brand new message board, flash fiction and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

From Silencing Techniques:

Have you ever had an entire conversation that was not about the thing you wanted to talk about, but about why you needed to stop talking about it?

It’s called silencing.

Silencing is when rather than addressing the substance of whatever it is being talked about, someone tries to dismiss, trivialize or derail the conversation, so that the topic, whatever it is, stops getting discussed.

Five Easy Steps for Talking with Children about Art. The advice in this blog post can be applied to so many other scenarios in life. Almost any topic becomes more intellectually stimulating when you ask open-ended questions and don’t expect everyone to know the “proper” terminology or agree with you.

The Leaving the Faith Project.  I’m so excited to share this link with you! My friend Bruce Gerencser is starting a private message board for people deconverting from Christianity. This site will be a safe place to figure out what you really believe with support from volunteers who know exactly what you’re going through.

The Boy Next Door. Flash fiction from my new Twitter friend, KD_Rush.

Why We’ll Never Meet Aliens. Who else wants to sit down and pick this blogger’s brain? Aliens have never been a subject I spent much time thinking about but this argument tickles my fancy.

Places That Shiver via CGAyling. I tend to believe that places that shiver can be understood without the use of religious or supernatural explanations, but I’ll never stop loving good ghost stories. 🙂

What I’m Reading Now. Jenna is looking for book recommendations.

If the dead could speak what would they tell us? Faces from the Past reveals some of the secrets of a Buffalo Soldier, about a dozen slaves (most of whom died as infants or children), a French Sailor, and 19th century Chinese miners among others.

This book is written to appeal to middle and high school students. The language is simple and repetitive. I would have preferred detailed, scientific explanations of how these individuals died and what tests were performed to determine what little information we know about them.

But the pictures in this book that show what these individuals looked like when they were alive gave me goosebumps. Almost everyone experienced severe health problems that could easily be treated or prevented in 2013. When I stared into their reconstructed faces I could see glimpses of the lives they might have known with better nutrition and access to modern medicine.

What have you been reading?

Last week, during a conversation about her upcoming wedding, @lindsayrobins asked me for marriage advice. This is what I have learned over the last 7 years, 10 months, and 29 days of my marriage. 

1. Relationship Books Are Useless. Read them for comedic purposes (if you must), but don’t forget that people are complex. Of course gender can affect certain relationship dynamics for some couples, but it can never be boiled down to all men are X and all women are Y. Not everyone labels themselves with one of those identities, not all relationships are comprised of one man and one woman, and even folks in opposite-sex relationships will not always act the way these books insist men and women are “supposed” to behave.

Seriously, people are complex. There’s no such thing as a one size fits all approach to us.

2. With That Being Said, Go Read “The 5 Love Languages.“ This book applies as much to your relationships with friends and family members as it does to your significant other. It’s all about discovering what each person actually need to feel valued and learning how to communicate your needs to one another. Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation are my love languages. When I’m running low on them I find it much easier to blow things out of proportion or take offense where none was intended.

3. Don’t Fight Dirty. You know (or will soon figure out) your future spouse’s weak spots. Never take advantage of them, especially when you’re angry. Yes, you will get really pissed off at them sooner or later, but it’s important to communicate all of your emotions with kindness. It’s better to table a heated discussion or admit you don’t know how else to word your argument than to say something you’ll regret in thirty seconds.

4. Start a Family Calendar. I don’t care if you’re planning to remain a party of two or have 10 kids in the next 12 years. Write down the events that matter, and always check the calendar before making plans. Good communication makes every other aspect of your relationship much more likely to run smoothly, and writing down the important stuff makes it less likely to be accidentally forgotten.

5. Remember, Rules Are Flexible. What works for one family might be an unmitigated disaster in another. It doesn’t matter what I or anyone else thinks about your relationship.  So have a stay-at-home spouse or don’t. Have 0 kids or 20. Split all chores 50/50 or assign them all to one person only. Outside opinions don’t matter because how you arrange your marriage isn’t anyone’s business but your own.

 Readers, what have I missed?