I'm writing the long paper that will, with some prodding and goodwill, become that thing you call a thesis that might earn me a certificate that says I've mastered the discipline it takes to be a member of this little field of Canadian Studies. Isn't that a better sentence than saying "I'm currently on chapter one of my Master's degree thesis"? I don't like the personal pronoun "my". It feels too possessive. All this quibbling aside, I do like writing and reading and looking things up, and sometimes, the looking-things-up yields funny asides... Take this injunction from 1900 when bicycles in St-Boniface were so new they were called "velocipedes"...
The Archbishop, writing one of his circular letters, notes that while bicycle-riding is not prohibited, its use should be restricted to those who have gained permission. I shared this with my husband, my kids, a friend... just to marvel at how foreign these rules feel 122 years later and everyone has a different reaction. The kids thought it was funny, like I had. Christian wondered why and this prompted me to look up how priests dressed in 1900. I suspect their long dress-like cassocks must have been encumbering. And my friend mocked the rules-y-ness of the institution. But there were rules for everything! There were rules for welcoming the bishop in a parish, for belonging to secret societies and for fundraising events. There were rules for getting married and fees prescribed for the customs you had to follow, and tariffs paid for dispensations for marrying a cousin funded the archdiocese's expenses for priests.
Reading these circulars makes me feel like I should worry that my clothes are too comfortable.
All that above made me want to draw a priest on a bicycle in 1900, or find a picture of one, and drawing is still for now, a spare 10-minute hobby. I laughed when reading (via Ngaio Parr's newsletter Some Things) Vanessa Varghese describe learning how to draw as "what a bowl of humble pie that's been" in part because, yes, that's how I feel, but also, the description sounds awkward to me, just as the attempt to draw is awkward. Did she mean it that way, I keep wondering...
Shepherd's pie, well executed, might be a sloppy rectangle of meat topped with mashed potatoes. Sure, you could eat it in a bowl, where it has no shape at all. Same with triangular shapes of fruit or berry or pumpkin desserts with a crust... So often you set out to draw something on a page and it barely resembles what you want it to be. (But maybe I'm just used to serving pie on a plate.)
I'm happy to listen to other people talk and usually I can avoid the awkwardness of having to talk by just asking questions. As a bonus, most people like it when you are interested in them, but, thanks to these guests on the Ten Percent Happier podcast, I've learned that asking questions can be a subtle way of controlling the conversation... (From Episode 494: How to Speak Clearly, Calmly and Without Alienating People.)
(Dan Clurman) Sometimes people think that asking questions is the same exact thing as reflecting, and there is a difference, and I think that's important to understand, is that questions are very useful and can be certainly a helpful part of conversations. We distinguish reflecting from questions in that questions often contain what the person who's asking the questions think would be valuable for the other person to talk about. So in a certain sense, questions in their own way direct the other person who's speaking down a particular path that the listener thinks would be useful to talk about, which might be the case, or might not be the case.
(Mudita Nisker) Yes, they're both ways of getting information, of soliciting more information, reflective listening often has a gentler feel than questioning. Questioning can sometimes seem like interrogation and people might not like that and it might have the opposite effect on them, they might close up rather than open up.
Winter's coming... We've had glorious fall weather so far, but who can deny the delight of those magical snowfalls? (From The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, p 60)
The world was completely transformed: snow had been falling furiously for more than three hours, and still was. Drifts were piled high along the sidewalk, the air was dense with flakes, and Rush felt happy: this was the best snowstorm of the winter. He pushed his way past the people who were waiting for cars and taxis, turned up his collar and went out into the blizzard. In no time at all his feet were soaking wet and he loved it. He took a long time going home and made a great many detours. In the side streets the air rang with a noise of scraping as men cleared the sidewalks. All other sounds were furred with quiet by the snow; the hoots of boats came muffled from the river, cars passed noiselessly, and people walked without a sound in the feathery dusk.