Smile More
The city is so beautiful right now; all the flowering trees are in bloom, and every day is a little bit more colourful. When Rex stops to sniff, so do I.
We came across a little painted rock on the path the other day.
We both obliged.
It was funny to find that rock as I had just finished reading a chapter in Radical Acceptance about Unconditional Friendliness, and the importance of smiling to one’s spiritual health. Buddha, the book noted, is always portrayed with a smile to illustrate this concept of Unconditional Friendliness, which means to accept and meet feelings, people, and situations with openness.
In recent years women in particular – for good reason – have bristled at being told to smile, but honestly? Smiling is pretty great when it’s on your own terms.
I was in Costco last week and it was pure chaos – this may break the already well-established record for futile statements – but I made a conscious effort to smile amidst the pure mayhem that is endemic within that store. I will tell you that while it did not make the people blocking the aisles to get their free samples of sausage slices move out of the way, it did make the entire experience better. I welcome you with Unconditional Friendliness, I thought while maneuvering around them, I say yes to this experience. My Unconditional Friendliness was challenged in the dairy section, and wavered a lot in produce, but I kept my probably-low-level psychotic smile as I breathed through it. By the time I got to the checkout, there were no lines, and so I am going to conflate correlation with causation for my own purposes.
Science, Bitches
Typically I listen to podcasts while walking with Rex, and most of the time those podcasts are as frivolous as can be, but occasionally I will listen to something serious about economics, history, or science. I was listening to an Ologies podcast about Salugenology, the science of social prescriptions that increase health and well being, the categories of such being nature, movement, art, service, and community. It was a fascinating interview and I immediately put the author’s book, The Connection Cure, on hold at the library. I haven’t been reading much non-fiction lately, but I feel sure that I will love this, and you can be sure that I will report back.
On the topic of non-fiction, I have been approached more than once in the past several months by people asking about my newly-written, but not yet ready for publication, book. Strangely, the conversation immediately pivots from I heard you wrote a book to I never read novels, only serious non-fiction. I read to learn. Which, well. There is a lot of subtext to unpack there, and a lot of opportunity to practice Unconditional Friendliness.
Bad Bad Bad Bad Books, You Make Me Feel So Good
The great thing about books and literature is that there is something for everyone; there are countless books of all subjects and genres. On yet another walk I was listening to yet another podcast, this one by two women who have a romance publishing company. One of the hosts said something interesting: when it comes to books there is a subset of people who consider a book “bad” if one of the characters makes a decision that the reader disagrees with, or if the characters are not likeable.
I don’t belong to that subset. Three of the best books I read in 2024 had extremely unlikeable characters, or characters who made dubious decisions. Sometimes those characters were in both categories. Long Island Compromise was a work of art, it was so smart and so funny and such a great commentary on our society, and every single character was absolutely atrocious. Margo’s Got Money Troubles concerned a very young woman who becomes pregnant via an affair with her professor, and opens up an Only Fans account in order to make money. My Last Innocent Year also concerned a professor-student relationship that could never end well. I guess I’m part of the subset who really enjoys ambiguous endings, unwritten backstories, and layered stories. This is not to say that I don’t occasionally enjoy a cheery, predictable romance or bouncy celebrity memoir or even a serious non-fiction tome that increases my personal font of knowledge! But the only way I will consider a book bad is if it bores me, if the writing is poor, or if it doesn’t make sense. And yet, books are so subjective, one person’s I’d give it zero stars if I could is another person’s five star winner. It’s an interesting distinction: is the book objectively bad, or did you just not like it?
Taking It Personally
I saw a quote on Kari’s blog (HI KARI) that really resonated: If you understood how frequently people cope by projecting, you would learn to take nothing personally. I feel like we all should remember this all the time, both in our interactions with others, and our own responses to situations.
I’m a Creep, I’m a Weirdo
Speaking of responses to situations, a couple of days ago I had a notification of a comment on one of my Facebook posts. I looked at it, and then looked again.
This post was on the Calgary Yoga Community page, in response to a request for studio recommendations, and was written by me in November 2015. The commenter, John R Evans, says I was wondering if we could be friends, I already tried sending you a request, but it didn’t go through. Accept my sincere friendship, and please add me up if you don’t mind. THANKS.
First of all, Unconditional Friendliness does not extend to robot men on Facebook. Second of all, I’m sure the request did go through, but I would have instantly deleted it after seeing that the poster in question “works at US Army Fort Knox” and is “widowed.”
Of course I know this is not a real person, but still, it feels creepy. I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. Fun fact: until only a few years ago, I thought the lyrics were I’m a creep, I’m a winner, and I always thought that’s so strange, it makes no sense, I guess they’re being sarcastic? Maybe I’m the weirdo here!
Weekly Reading
Caroline. This was a reread for me, first having read it in 2018, but it my friend Laura (HI LAURA) who, I have mentioned many, many times, runs Melissa Gilbert’s Modern Prairie book club, told me that this was their latest pick. So why not? It retells Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, from Caroline’s point of view, with a few interesting and notable changes – those that were based on actual census data and not from Rose Wilder Lane’s libertarian editing. The wider story is about manifest destiny and fear of the indigenous people who they were displacing, which is hard to swallow these days. Still, I found it was such a thought-provoking read about what an incredibly difficult struggle daily life was back then. It must have been terrifying to be a woman – pregnant, no less, with two small children – riding into the unknown in a covered wagon and trying to figure out how to just make do with what she had. Imagine being pregnant and unsure if there would be a woman to help you with the birth! The reliance on good neighbours and how the very few that they had literally saved their lives is fascinating as well, and is something that is glossed over in the original books to reinforce the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps, be indebted to no one” theme.
Death By A Thousand Cuts. Last summer when my friend Jen was visiting (HI JEN), we went to Mosaic Books, and I picked this up. Then I had a flood of library books, forever, so I put it on my shelf. Friends, I forgot about it! When Jen was here last weekend, she was perusing my shelves for a book to borrow while she was visiting, and found it, still with the receipt. Didn’t you buy this book when we went to the bookstore? I had to right my wrongs and read it immediately after she left. And wow, wow, wow! It is so good! This collection of short stories is compelling and moving, and I devoured it. Every time I’d finish a story I’d think okay, just ONE more. Incredible! And the author is Canadian! You can bet I’m going to read everything she’s written now.
Three Days In June. This author is hit or miss with me, and this book was definitely a hit. I really enjoyed this tiny slice of life that concerned a woman attending her daughter’s wedding, with the day before and after. There was so much humanity in this little story, I loved it.
I wish you could smell these photos! You’ll just have to imagine – they are glorious! I hope you have a beautiful week, friends. xo
Awww, the painted rock! Middle Child painted quite a few and left them in parks during Covid. It was so fun when people found them and responded to the hashtag. All the blooms are stunning! I love this time of year.
I consider a book ‘bad’ if there are grammatical errors or if it’s written at a third grade level. But I have to say, if I truly dislike the main character, I do not like the book. I actually liked Margo in the money problems book. I also dislike preachy books or ones that use an inordinate amount of swearing for shock value.
I also loved Three Days in June! I went into it with without super high expectations- I’ve read a lot of Anne Tyler in the past and figured I would like it just fine- I didn’t expect to love it. I found the ending to be very touching.
To your “friends” who only read serious non-fiction: reading fiction is actually important. Studies show that it increases empathy, and maybe you could tell that to the next person who subtly disses your fluffy fiction book.
Thanks for the Rex photos! The one of him smiling (wait- I think he’s smiling in every photo) made me smile as well.
I took a look at Kari’s blog- she’s a treasure trove of wisdom!
Such gorgeous pictures!
I laughed at this: “My Unconditional Friendliness was challenged in the dairy section, and wavered a lot in produce, but I kept my probably-low-level psychotic smile as I breathed through it. By the time I got to the checkout, there were no lines, and so I am going to conflate correlation with causation for my own purposes.”
I don’t think I have it in my soul to manage Costco. THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY PEOPLE. I mean, I like people. But Costco takes it to a new, unpalatable level.
I have Three Days in June on my holds list.
Love all the walking pictures <3
I understand the appeal of identification, but I think only liking books with protagonists who act as you would in a given situation is a pretty restrictive way to read. Part of what we get from reading is insights into other ways of being, even if we would never embrace those ways, right?
Speaking of people making questionable choices, Caroline sounds interesting.
Such lovely pictures to close the post. What are the purple flowers?
Oh, and I get so many friend requests from the Robot Widowers of Facebook…
I love the title of this post! I love the painted rock and how it made Rex smile! I’m so jealous of all the beautiful lilacs and flowering trees you’re enjoying. We don’t have any yet. It was so beautifiul for a few days, but it’s raining today and calling for snow. Boo.
Caroline sounds like an interesting book to me. I tend to enjoy books written from a different character’s perspective. You inspire me so much with your attitude of unconditional friendliness. And that it doen’t extend to creepy guys on Facebook. I’ll add that to the list of things I don’t miss about Facebook!
I do know people who either:
1. feel guilty if they aren’t reading something “enriching” (probably a hangover from the Victorian Era)
2. have very little time but do want to be informed on things [often various domestic or international current or past horrors so they can be more informed on voting and donating, which I think is Probably A Good Thing]
3. got graduate degrees in the humanities and have never actually come back to reading for anything other than work after that (some of them who do not have to read for work just don’t read *at all*), although they used to read for pleasure (so. many.)(I mean, this is partly because probably 75% of my ‘circle’ has graduate degrees but STILL so many former-voracious-readers among the grads.)
4. (this is a weird one to me) *Can’t visualize anything* and therefore stop reading fiction when they’re no longer required to, because they read a few too many books that relied on lush description and… well. It’s still a blank grey wall in their minds and that was a lot of words and *why* do people enjoy this? (I also know someone who can’t visualize anything but still enjoys, like, the Shopaholic books, so it’s not that lack of visualization eliminates book enjoyment, but I can *totally see* how some books it’d be hard to come back after?)
5. are aware there is a stigma against Women’s Fiction or participate actively in that stigma and want to make it quite clear that they of course Read as is proper but they don’t read *That* (and these are the ones I want to smack, generally, as well as wanting to smack the culture that thinks women’s experiences are not of value or worth empathizing with or worth finding out more about)
As an almost-sixth item, I am a voracious reader but I could also see having terror of being asked if you would like to read Friend’s Book because sometimes books are *terrible* or are just absolutely not your thing, and if they ask you if you liked it and whether you’d post a facebook “buy this book, it comes out in March!” thing and whatnot, going… “uh. I’m sorry, I need to inspect my carpet lint collection, I won’t be able to do that…” (I used to happily proofread fiction and poetry for people, along with nonfiction, but then stopped for fiction and poetry because too many people did not, in fact, want to hear what they had misspelled, they only wanted more people to read it and gush and… sometimes I am not going to gush? some things are not my jam; some things are poorly written even if they are my jam; and it is not worth the risk unless people are really okay with me not responding “this is the most amazing thing I’ve read all year!!!”)
But I’d bet most of it is 5 and I hate that.
(separately: I am a “I need to at least not-dislike enough of the characters” person 95% of the time, with the 5% being mostly composed of Wodehouse and similar. I also dislike it when the *author* endorses Bad Things, but a *character* can endorse and do bad things and as long as the author isn’t making it look like that was actually a good thing [“oh, look how *romantic* stalking is!!!”]. But if I feel like someone is likely to come away from a book going “oooh, yeah, it’s actually SO GOOD for teenage girls to have sexual relationships with men decades older than they are and Quite A Triumph for the teenage girls as well” then I will want to smash the book, with vigor of desired smashing being dependent on 1. how much I loathe the message and 2. how much I think the author might have in fact manipulated people into Ayn Rand-ian thinking or worse-than-average-racism or whatever the particular garbage is and 3. how much of the book that is.)
Also as an adult, the Little House books from Caroline’s point of view: it is so Obvious that she wants to be back to the East Coast where she’s from and where her daughters can get a really good education and where her whole house can be a shrine of cleanliness rather than only having a couple small china figurines, and that her husband wants… the exact opposite. Always moving on, always starting from scratch, never knowing what she can rely on in their next location, never quite making it financially, wanting to keep the kids safe and alive and bring them up Ladies to some degree and this being a… challenge.
Also the sheer number of times that, as a child, I did not realize “oh, they just *almost died*” in those books where it is evident as an adult: yikes. And the racism, although I do very much appreciate that she had Laura in the books think that what her Ma was saying didn’t make much sense; as a child, I agreed with Laura, which I think was what she was aiming for, to be able to represent the racism and fear as it was *but* to make it really unconvincing and unappealing?
Anyway! Hooray for smiles! When willingly entered into!
That fourth picture, I think it’s your garden? Your view, everything—it’s absolutely dreamy.
I love your smiling experiment. I’m going to try it the next time I’m at Costco. I love Costco, just not the experience. Maybe smiling will help.
Your take on books sounds like something I wrote for an upcoming post. If I get one good takeaway from a book I didn’t totally love, I consider that a success. I think people often treat reviews like it’s either a complete fail or total win, and they don’t always consider the value of takeaways. Maybe this applies more to non-fiction, but I see your point with fiction too. I also enjoy reading about characters who are nothing like me or if I dislike them.
I got very excited that my name was mentioned—you made my day! 😘💜
And I thought the lyrics were “I’m a winner” until this year. “Weirdo” makes so much more sense. 🤣