From a Spiral Notebook: Dreaded February Finally Over

Hi all,

First, a few notes:

• This Saturday March 16 is the Sidney Drop-in for Writers at the Sidney Library. Tea provided – bring your own mug. Prompts provided – bring your own pen. More information here.

• On Saturday March 30 my friend Monika and I will offer workshops at the Cook St. Village Activity Centre in Victoria. Mine will be at 1:30 pm. Called Deep Forest, Green Woods it will have forest-related prompts. I can’t wait to wander in the woods with you. More information on my workshop page here.

Second, you may have noticed I didn’t send out a newsletter last month. This is because last month was February, which is for me the worst month there is. February is when I run out of everything: Gumption. Energy. Momentum. It seems to happen every year. Thank goodness March comes every year too and takes away the awful aftertaste of dreaded February.

As proof that February is over, the forsythia has bloomed.

So I’ve been thinking about comfort and, because I’m a writer, also books. Do you have a comfort book or a comfort author? You know, the book you go back to when you’ve got the sniffles or it’s February or your heart has been broken… the book that’s also a security blanket. The one you keep on your shelf for emergencies. The one that gets you through?

I have several comfort book authors. Possibly my favourite is Dick Francis. My dad had some Dick Francis books way back in my young years and I read and loved them, and they have now become essential in February.

Dick Francis is an ex-jockey. All his books have horses somewhere in them, usually racehorses. They star very British men who are usually smart and always brave. They get beaten up at least once in every book, and bear the pain with great fortitude. They are polite and dashing. They usually get the girl. When they don’t get the girl, they bear up with great (you guessed it) fortitude. I think, in the midst of February, part of me wants to be those Dick Francis characters: I could always use more fortitude.

Another reason I find them so comforting is that I first read them in grade school. Ask most people for their comfort books and at least one of them will be a book they read in childhood. Back when things were simpler (or at least that’s how we remember them now). I have a very clear memory of reading a big hardcover copy Dick Francis at my desk at lunch, sandwich in hand.

And they end happily, which is possibly the most important part of a comfort book. I know that it will be okay at the end, no matter how beat up the hero gets in between. Good guys will win, and bad guys will be put away. Especially in February, when it feels like that doesn’t always (ever?) happen in real life, I need that.

Now, the real reason I’m writing about Dick Francis: Dear Reader, what are your comfort books? Please tell me in the comments. I could use some more comfort books to add to the emergency shelf.

FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK

This is kind of an old poem, and I’ve been making tiny changes for a while. It’s time to call it done.

Cougar

after "Sunlight" by Jim Harrison

The cougar in Banff—
he blinked and there were roads
and fences. What are fences
he must have asked.
A man was fined for throwing stones
at that cougar, with a slingshot.
The cougar who has learned his lines well
must have wondered who this extra was
who thought he had a speaking part.
We are too young, us humans,
to be playing with stones.

NOTES

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• And thanks, as always, for reading.

Yours,
Kelsey