Kiana Khansmith
Jules of Nature
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@nothingbythebook
Life hack: Counting blessings, continued
1 One kid is in Vancouver, one is sick and contagious and in bed at his dad’s, but the third comes over for Sunday supper with his partner — and my partner — and I make mashed potatoes, Polish salad (my culture only has one salad), and Brussels sprouts with bacon, and reheat the lazy kotlety (aka meatloaf) my mom dropped off earlier in the day. After supper, we play two rounds of bullshit. I am…
How can I be so tired, explained
1 It’s 8:15 pm on a dreary, cold February evening and I’m beat, in bed with Murder in the City, a one-season BBC murder mystery, but it has Kris Marshall in it, so of course I watch. I feel a little guilty. I don’t particularly want to watch the show. I want to, dare I tell you, turn off the light, close my eyes and sleep. I’m exhausted and tomorrow’s another full day and OMG, it’s just 8:15 pm,…
But should you let the light in?
1 You know the song, right? If you don’t, here it is. You’re welcome. You can play it in the background while you read the rest. 2 I’m cracked open. This can be a good feeling. It’s not a good one today. I feel — well, I already named it. Cracked open. No, I don’t like it. But I’ll probably do it again. At least occasionally. I have done so, intermittently, for years. Leonard Cohen would…
Why do we feel guilty over resting?
1 It’s a lazy sunny Sunday and I’m resting. But expanding some energy feeling guilty about it. I could — should — clean. The floors are hairy and I haven’t given the bathrooms a proper clean for weeks. Or I could go out. It’s a sunny, relatively warm winter day. I could spend it in the mountains or stroll along the river in the city. Or I could call a friend I haven’t seen in a while, catch up…
Valuing the creative in the ordinary
1 I met someone the other day (it doesn’t matter which one) whose career it is to study creativity. I asked him if he thought of himself as a creative person. A creative, because we’ve started to use the adjective as a noun sometime in the 21st century. He paused. I wish I knew what he had thought during that pause. It would have been informative. “Of course,” he said. I’m not so sure. 2 I…
Counting blessings
1 The couch is furry. It’s also purple and velvet, but today, the dominant theme is furry. The fur is evidence of Bumblebee’s disobedience. The giant furball is laying demurely on the bare parquet floor, eschewing the small (real) sheepskin rug on which she’s permitted to lounge. Her eyes are guileless. “Hair?” they whisper. “What hair? I know not of what you speak, I’ve been lying here on the…
But what if I don't want to be a brand?
1 I’m a human, a mother and a writer. Roughly in that order, I think, because one must be human first, right? If we all agreed on that, we’d have world peace and all that. But whatever. Maybe you’re not a human first. Maybe your first label is narrower — you’re an American or a yoga instructor. Maybe it’s broader — you’re a primate, a vertebrate, an animal. I don’t want to pick a fight about…
It's the most difficult time of the year
1 Many years ago, I lost a baby at Christmas. What a stupid euphemism — like I misplaced him. I didn’t. I know exactly where he is, exactly where he isn’t. It’s been more than 20 years. I don’t think of him often, not really. Every once in a while. Always with pain. And always, always at Christmas. It doesn’t start as thoughts, you know. My body, it just remembers. And I wish it wouldn’t,…
On regulation, desire and discipline
1 I’m in Toronto for the third time in two weeks. Living out of a suitcase. Disregulated. Frantic, overfull days. I counter by creating mini-rituals. I leave the hotel room dressed to the nines — my version of, anyway — but not bundled up. I carry my winter coat down the creepy generic hallway, down the elevator, all the way to the lobby doors. Put it on just as I exit. Walk first on this side…
Think-not-think: A tip for burnt out creatives
1 I hit Friday fried. By my last two meetings on Thursday, I can’t language. You know? I open my mouth and my tongue struggles to form the syllables that need to become the words that will give voice to the thoughts I want to express. I’m crossing into the zone where I’m about to start making stupid mistakes because I have no bandwidth left for thought. The cure, for me, is pretty simple. I…
Anatomy of a week
Monday I move between bed, bath and couch, book, audiobook and my show on Amazon Prime, occasionally eat leftovers, nap often. In the evening, I’m picking up my lover and his lover but not my son and his father — one set of travellers is due to arrive nine’ishs and the other after midnight. I’m supposed to pick up the earlier arrivals and not the later ones. But stuff happens, and I end up…
Donut delivery
1 I’m driving back to my house in the rain to pick up a donut I forgot to deliver to my eldest baby — wait, I’m telling the story wrong, because now it’s Monday, and the story starts on Saturday, when I drove 150 km to get what are supposed to be the best donuts in Alberta. This, by the way, is an Alberta thing. I may live in a 1.3 million-person city, one of the largest in Canada, but let’s be…
Permission to be
1 It’s a low energy day — I have a lot of those these days* — and I’m in bed at 8 pm feeling I’ve done nothing, nothing. I sleep for 10, almost 11 hours. I crawl out of bed feeling rested but also very aware my well is about a quarter full, maybe less, and that quarter is quickly depleting, in no small part because I’m feeling I pissed away yesterday and I’m going to piss away today and so, why…
Yelling at strangers and other cautionary tales
1 There’s a terrible commercial Amazon Prime is inflicting on me every time I watch my current binge fave — Bones, based on the books of Kathy Reichs, not unproblematic but decent brain candy for tired evenings — and the result of that commercial is that I will ever ever use Skip the Dishes, so, commercial AND commercial saturation fail. Have you seen it? It’s the one where an extremely…
Soul-searching, writer style
1 “I’m not sure how to examine my soul. I tried to do it by looking in the mirror but it made me feel all queer when I looked for too long. Hav you ever done that? Looked in the mirror and felt all queer?” Elizabeth George’s character, Hadiyyah, age 8, in Playing for the Ashes 2 I most often examine my soul while looking at my toes. I’m sitting, on a sofa, the floor, a chair with a…
But see, we're all doing it all for the first time...
1 Today’s view: a sun-baked Cairo street, which I’m observing from a shady, cool Cairo cafe. I’m drinking Turkish coffee and smoking double apple sheesha as payment for electricity and wifi. The mid-day prayer is on the radio in the background. One of the waiters refreshes my coals, the other unobtrusively prays. The hostess leans against the front door, scrolling through Instagram. Me, I’m…
Writing is easier with a view
1 In On Writing, Stephen King describes how, after he faced up to his alcoholism, he rearranged his writing room, getting rid of the massive desk that used to dominate it, and replacing it with a smaller one, which sat in a corner of the room, while a couch and armchairs, where his kids could hang out, took centre stage. It’s been a while since I’ve read On Writing, and the person I lent the…
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