Glorious Frazzled Beings

 (I'm really not sure how I'm gonna hit my goal of 30 books)

After Big Summer, I intended to read another work by the same author but the one that had the most interesting premise isn't available in Toronto's public library. Instead I went down a recommendations list by the library and ended up with a whole bunch of holds. The first one is this collection of short stories.

The few that I enjoyed the most are:

• "The Town Carmen Found"
• “The Teeny Ghost People and Their Garments”
• “Understanding Groceries”
• “The Pregnancy Test”

I was drawn to many of the stories around the theme of motherhood, I suppose its a bit of a sensitive theme to me as the conflict over wanting children was reason for my break up with Jeff. It's quite interesting to see the complex medley of emotions that accompanies motherhood.

Favourite quotations:

The town Carmen found was always ravelling and unravelling itself, and in this it was like Carmen, who was like all living creatures: a continuous compendium of death, regeneration, joy, fear, waste, and fury. She longed for things and when she was not longing, longed for longing itself. Unlike those of strong faith, she was not content to serve others, to continuously give in service of an ideal. Spiritual fulfillment did not come for her from the crevasses of humanity. Carmen's spirit was filled in the dream world, in her forest wanders, and the town Carmen found was rife with the stuff in which spirit could flourish, embedded thickly in the divine.

There is a little bit of fear, it licks the borders of elation.

[Hot fear] tenses the body to pounding and sweaty palms. Sometimes there is cold fear, which tenses the body differently. Hot fear rages. It builds out and wants to clack against things loudly. Cold fear shrinks the body in, a worminess wanting to crawl itself inside. Warm fear is not so raucous. Warm fear can be a little bit glittery, a little bit compelling. A little bit warm. Comfy fear. That's the kind of fear Tina works for. Tina's little girl would call it trickle-rainbow-unicorn fear. It's like when you get mad and scared and you're not sure which comes first and you have to fight about it, then you start to feel less mad but you're still a bit scared and your face wants to love again but

your body isn't ready yet. Trickle-rainbow-unicorn fear is when you want to resolve yourself back in to love but still feel shaky about it, all tossed up and vulnerable, but there's a bit of light in it so the colours get all hoppy and refract off your sad madness and you think of unicorns to help you remember magic. Magic helps. It makes you feel real but not crazy.

The writing style is also quite unsettling, perhaps better described as uncanny in a very matter-of-the-fact way.