Observables #57

on bookclubs, fall sweaters and cats doing yoga

Leach McClaren’s memoir Where You End and I Begin, about her fraught relationship with her mother.

In general, I’m interested in reading about mothering journeys that have been complex because as a mother I have had a multiplicity of feelings around the whole thing. Yes, I love my children, but mothering has also been excruciating. And the strong feelings of worry and fear stay with me. Leah’s epigraph sums it up perfectly: “Because I love them, the realization that I have let them down again and again is too much to bear.”

(You won’t be surprised to hear that Violet’s protest action around getting another Covid booster—no hugs for a week—hurts! )

This week I also read The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. This one was for my book club.

It was not a hit for the majority of the group but it was for me. Not that we really dove too deep. As a group we are easily distracted by the need for more wine and other topics outside of the book. So I’m left wanting about everyone’s favourite lines. (Ladies?)

I listened to the book through the Toronto library app (Libby) and found it exquisite and meditative to have the author relaying it in her voice—this flawed protagonist Tookie who did a bad thing and then has to live with that error in judgement for the rest of her life.

Fall sweaters.

I got excited and wore a version of this yesterday when it was 30 degrees. And my sister-in-law had to distance herself from me because I was making her so hot. Speaking of sweaters, I joined Pinterest because all the suggestions around social media promotion for podcasts say to pick one or two platforms. So Nat and I picked all of them. I don’t know what I’m doing and it seems like a stretch that posting pretty photos of dresses and duvet covers will lead people back to our socially conscious self-help podcast, but what the hell? A bonus Pinterest discovery: Ian Snow, selling ethical fabrics for “bold, irrepressible individuals.” Um, whoever wrote that tag line has got my attention. Consider this duvet cover pinned!

All the normal sounds coming from Coco: the purring, the trilling, the meowing. She’s back. In celebration I offer you pictures of cats doing yoga.

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