I have stopped writing my lighthearted blogs just for myself, conjured out of flashes of thoughts and images, tapped out when I have a moment, free and easy, sometimes funny, often emotional.

The mama, the writer, the daughter, the sister, just saying her piece and giving it away free. Sometimes with typos.

I haven’t pursued a book review or freelance article this winter (for which I would be paid about a quarter of what I was paid ten years ago).

I haven’t written a play since the covid mandates madness and poems have kept their head down as well.

I am assuming the exuberant writing will come back, I am just giving it time. Anyway, I am here at my desk right now, aren’t I? But I am still looking for that elusive joy.  

I have lost too much time and energy in circling the black hole of ‘news’. This is something we all struggle with, not too little news but too much. We are overloaded with information, bloated and gutted.  

I have begun to look away from the orchestrated news to focus on what can be done locally. When I lift my eyes from the bleak, rumoured realities, I find I am still in this world with my loved one and visiting crows and children that look sharply into my eyes.

Occasional supply teaching work is keeping me honest (and tired) and puts my heart in the right place. I know that children and teens look to us for guidance and their existence concentrates my mind on the joys of the world.

Instead of writing, I am resting and re-setting. I am reading and thinking, adjusting my calibrations and expectations. I am even dreaming.

I have decided I am having an Alysa Liu moment! A sensible break and a re-think. Time to re-charge and reconsider.

If you missed out on Alysa Liu, let me catch you up. She is the young ice skater who won over the crowds with her breezy confidence and top-level skills when she won gold at the Olympics. She stole everyone’s heart on the ice, and in interviews, with her calm confidence.

After a life of disciplined figure skating training (started at five years old), Alysa made the bold decision to retire at the age of 17 years old. She took a break, lived a regular life, went to college, had fun, felt young and free.

One day she was out snow boarding with friends and it reminded how much she loved ice skating, and she decided to train for the Olympics again, but on her own terms this time.   

Alysa had conditions! She was only going to compete if she had complete control. She made all the decisions regarding her training routine, her diet, her costume and the music. As it turns out (big surprise), when Alysa hit the ice, she was better than ever.

Alysa is evidence that taking control of your life, accepting responsibility for your own expectations, and living under your own agency, is a power move.  

I want that power, who wouldn’t? But it is clearly a mindset more than anything else. She says that she was not out to ‘compete’ or ‘win’, but just to participate. Lighthearted and positive, Alysa said that she likes connecting with other people and sharing her art.

I’m with her. I started writing this blog because I like to connect with others and share my experiences and ideas. Creating a shared understanding, a moment of connection is everything to me. I enjoyed writing for newspapers and the theater for the same reason.

During the fallout of the covid mandates, when I found that my convictions about bodily autonomy and freedom of speech had made me into a heretic, I lost my ability to connect with others, but I continued to blog because that is my Alysa Lieu space, free and loose with no one managing it but me.

During those dark times, and even now, it was clear that voices like mine were not being published in the magazines and papers, on screen or in the theatres. As a freelance writer I kept trying for work and I even had a prolonged email exchange with an editor of a big, glossy magazine.

I had her attention, which is gold for a freelancer, but I could not sell her on my idea of a story about my son, a gay trans unvaccinated youth. I encouraged her to be the first one to give him a voice, but it was too controversial.

Now that the covid experience is somewhat muted by time, and the world has moved on in terms of ways to divide us, I am ready to calmly let the past speak for itself. I am hungry to be an active participant in the world. I want in. But I will be true to myself.

I am thinking about how to live life to the fullest as my pure self. What role do I want to play, what rules will I follow? What will I no longer accept? What are my personal objectives, goals and boundaries? What do I want from life? As a woman, a wife and a writer?

I know I want to achieve more, be more, and have more experiences. I want to improve. I want to be stronger. I want to work towards making a good living. I want to make new friends. I want to work towards a goal and achieve it.

I have expectations and I am more demanding than ever. Oh great, says my loving and loyal husband!

I have been prepping my mind for the start of my graduate studies in Creative Nonfiction this spring. I have tapped into King’s College instructor Kim Pittaway’s excellent Substack, I Have Thoughts, and she has inspired me to gather and read books that she has discussed on memoir writing and nonfiction narrative structuring.

I am also reading about Home Economics in honour of my grandmother, who encouraged me to continue with my studies, and whose exciting globe trotting career began in my local university with a Bachelor of Science in Home Economics in 1932.  

I am thinking about the conditions that created the birth of Home Economics in the late 1880’s. I am thinking about the history of eugenics. I am thinking about feminism; what I once studied, who I once was, and how the world and I have changed in the last 40 years.

And personally, I am also thinking about how much more confident I am then when I was 20, or even 50 years old. I am in perfect shape for the challenge.  

I expect this adventure to be challenging, but mostly fun. I am thrilled to be given another chance to be a student. My personal aim is to embolden my voice, be even bigger, be even more me. As if anyone asked for that!