Friday favourites, brought to you by Benedict Cumberbatch and more

Here are some things that have made me happy lately:

The Sunday New York Times in general, but this copy of the New York Times in particular, because my friend Nikki brought it in specially for me from Ottawa after my somewhat desperate call for newspaper culture. Thank you!

This quote from Flaubert, which I got out of a previous edition of the Sunday New York Times (you’re sensing a pattern here, aren’t you?), from an interview with the actress Julianne Moore: “Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois so that you may be violent and original in your work.” Apparently, this is how Moore structures her own life. I’m thinking there’s some merit there.

Knitting! I am re-ravelling, slowly and gleefully, my unravelled guilt-blanket. So far, I’ve made this:

And I’m onto a second one, and a third one (because multiple projects on multiple needles, yo — I’m going to learn how to do cables this time round). On the Monday of the Thanksgiving long weekend, I spent a blissful couple of hours on the kitchen floor, sorting and untangling and colour-coding yarns, which are now propped up on one of my office bookshelves for inspiration. 

Come on over and make something. Yes, that is a double-dog dare.

Inspiration is contagious: Rachel is now knitting a scarf, and Isaac is getting in on the action with some gods-eyes (is there another name for that craft with the popsicle sticks? If so, let me know).

This post by my friend Elizabeth Jayne Liu, which combines stunning writing with stunning beauty:

I’m not a fan of hard work, but very occasionally, I can force myself to do it. So at the end of June, when I made the commitment to get real and work through the ugly shit I’ve kept cordoned off in dark corners, I thought that a monthlong break would be enough time to address my demons, and I would come back, like, perfect. Allotting 36 days to clear away debris like addiction and anger and depression seemed pretty generous, and I actually made a list of things I might try in case I finished a few days early. I watched a tutorial on how to make an owl zipper pull using the Cra-Z-Loom, and of course that bitch was #1 on my list.

I’m not sure how 36 days turned into 102, but I just want to take this opportunity to mention that if any of the coping mechanisms you use to stay functional involve pushing down grief and pain and rage about your past or your present, and you unlatch the gate that’s been corralling those feelings and they all escape in a mad rush and you have to chase each one down to see if it really belongs to you or it can be returned to the wild, um, you’re not going to have time to make that owl zipper pull. Yeah, I know, it was a surprise to me too.

Letters — as in, letters handwritten (or typewritten, but only on vintage typewriters with no connection to the Internet) on paper and sent via the post. When Ello came out, something visceral twisted in me. I don’t need more online social networks and status updates — I need deeper, one-on-one, social connections; long, meandering, run-on paragraphs. Ink on paper. The New York Times. I’ve sent a few missives into the world in the last few weeks, and several have found their way (or are on their way) to me. Alexandra sent a bunch of clothes, including this greased-lightning belt, for Isaac.

He wouldn't stay still for a picture, but he loves this thing. We had to take it to the cobbler to get it resized. He's worn it almost daily.

Brent sent a bunch of pig-themed notecards. I’ve sent chocolate, and books, and notes and letters out into the world — and I’m sure some knitted projects are going to find their way into envelopes and to the mail in the not-to-distant future (see how I tie that up so nicely there, bringing it back to the knitting?). Write to me. I'll write back.

Benedict Cumberbatch — yes, yes, I know I’m very late to this party, but on Wednesday evening I saw his 2011 performance as the monster in Frankenstein, piped in via satellite from London’s National Theatre. And man, he was brilliant. He and Jonny Lee Miller traded the roles of Frankenstein and the monster each evening — and now I can’t decide if I want to see Miller’s version of the monster or whether I just want to hold on to Cumberbatch’s brilliance. For reasons beyond my control, I can't embed the link to the preview, but it should be playing at various theaters in North America next week. You should go see it, and we can compare notes.

Have a good weekend, full of things that inspire.

An open letter to my son, on who gets to be safe on our streets

– Hey Isaac?

– Yeah?

– How did you feel about walking to B’s house all by yourself yesterday?

– [Two thumbs up]

– Did you feel like you knew you were doing?

– Yes.

– Like you knew where you were going?

– Yes, but I had to stop and smell some of the roses along the way.

In my post this week on Today's Parent, an open letter to Isaac about just which of our sons get to be safe on our streets:

[,,,]

You probably could’ve taken this step—this series of steps—earlier. You’re seven, starting second grade. But we’ve held off  for several reasons, chief of which is fear. Not fear that you couldn’t do it. Not fear that you might be abducted, hurt, or worse. We were scared of what people might think of us for letting you walk down (not to mention cross) neighbourhood streets alone at age five, six, seven. We were scared that we might get arrested, or cited by the Children’s Aid Society.

 Which is ridiculous on so many levels. Statistics Canada reports that Canada’s crime rate is the lowest it’s been since 1972, both in terms of absolute numbers and severity. Child abduction by strangers is astonishingly rare here, too—overwhelmingly, children who go missing are taken by family members and close “friends.” In other words, our kids may be better off playing alone or with their peers in the park than under close supervision by people they know—although you wouldn’t know that when police in the United States lock up parents of seven-year-olds and nine-year-olds for walking by themselves to or playing alone at the park (things I did freely at your age, by the way, Isaac).

I resent that fear. I resent its effects on your own freedom and independence, as well as on mine. I resent the warped view it gives us both of society and its relative safety. I resent the misplaced focus on this so-called well-being of our children, of the misguided reliance on police involvement to keep them safe—and I resent it these days especially in light of the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the police shootings of so many other young black men in the United States. Sure, lots of people are not safe on North American streets, Isaac, but (and this is entirely unfair) you’re not one of them, at least not on our street. And I deeply resent, on behalf of society as a whole, the sharp racial and class divides that make going to the police unthinkable for some people and entirely too easy for others.

You can read the rest here. Have a peaceful weekend, everyone.

You know what's awesome about Mother's Day? The Internet.

If you know me at all well, or if you’ve been reading here for a while, you know about my ambivalent relationship to Mother’s Day. I thought I was done with the story, but you never really done with those kinds of foundational stories, are you? Here’s one more version, for the Mother’s Day edition of Today’s Parent.

My ambivalence about Mother’s Day, though, is changing, in large part because of that whole Interwebs/social media thang. I know, it sucks up your time when you should be focusing on writing the novel rather than reading about attack cats and Solange, but the thing about the Internet is that it can create visibility and communities where before there were none. Which is what I blogged about this week at Today’s Parent:

When Mother’s Day isn’t a Hallmark holiday for you, it can be a very lonely time. You sit there, quietly smiling, and wishing that other people knew about the grief and complicated feelings that accompany—or eclipse—the joy for so many of us. It used to be that those of us with complicated relationships to Mother’s Day dealt with the day on our own. But with Facebook, and Twitter, and texting and Instagram and any number of other technologies, we can do it together.

So thank you to everyone on my various feeds who came together on Mother’s Day and made me feel like part of a community. That’s what real nurturing is all about.

Thanks to Alexandra, Cheryl, Dresden, Elan, Joan, Laurie and Tracy (oh, yeah — and my kids), who — like so many of you — have helped to redeem Mother’s Day for me.