Light Balance 014—Ode to Canaries

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted. Nearly two years. An old me would have literally collapsed in a heap of shame and self-criticism. But I’m a new me. A Jessica who gives herself grace, who flows with the seasons of her life. As with seasons and cradles of time, I recognize, too, the importance of milestones. Maybe because I was born on the autumnal equinox, a time of equal day and night (which could also be why I yearn for balance in all things and feel off-kilter in its absence). We’ve just passed the summer solstice, another earthly milestone. And today, dear friends, is the exact middle of the year. The fulcrum.

I have to say, I do feel like I’m at a fulcrum in this season of my life as well as at the fulcrum of the Gregorian calendar. And at this hinge point of before and after, I like to look around me, front and back, down and up, not just six months in either direction but as far as I can see. The past reflection and future envisioning is especially poignant when canaries come singing and flying their way into our lives, always unexpectedly at first and then inevitably at last.

Probably the most well-known symbolism of canaries is their association with impending danger. But I like to associate them with positive change, transition, and new beginnings.

I have one canary—let’s call him Sam—who recently fluttered back into my life. I hadn’t seen him in three years, when I was on the precipice of quitting my corporate job and transitioning to working full-time freelance writing and photography. Before that, I hadn’t seen him for five years, when we first met on a blind date. It wasn’t a romantic connection. One of the most salient things about him was that he was the first person I ever told about my novel, Julia’s Orchids. At the time, in 2017, it was barely more than an expository paragraph about a character named Jim who inherited an adult superstore and is in the black market for rare orchids. (Only two of these things are still true.) But the idea, the nugget of the story was there and just needed sluicing.

On that blind date, I told Sam about my book because, I think, it felt very low stakes. He was a stranger who happened to also like art and writing (he’s an illustrator and works in graphic novels). And I just decided to tell someone, to say it out loud, that I’d like to write a book and this is my idea. It kind of felt like that moment in The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais where something changes in his character’s head, some random altering of his brain’s biochemistry, and he decides to lie. There was seemingly no causal event for him to make his first lie in his world of truth. He just does it.

So I just did it. I told Sam about my idea for a book. And it remained pretty much that—a rough idea, a paragraph here or there, some character details. That was it since 2016, until the fall of 2022. I was flummoxed at seeing Sam earlier that summer and really took it as a sign to actually write the thing. To write the full book, start to finish, messy first draft, what have you. And I did! I wrote the whole first draft in 30 days, as part of the November 2022 NaNoWriMo. I didn’t see Sam again—until this past Sunday.

I went to a live figure drawing event, which I’d never done before and loved it. (I loved the perspective change it provided: observing the form and shape of a thing. And observing light and shadow and combining this visual observation with the tactile act of drawing to convey one’s perception of an object in space.)

Lo and behold, Sam, my canary of change, sat front and center, next to the check-in table and free drawing supplies.

Still no romantic chemistry. I wish this story also had some meet-cute/star-crossed lovers vibes, but I know this is not that kind of story. He’s my canary of deep transitions in my life, particularly with this novel. For me, his role in my life is to get me to gather and shape the novel from my imagination and put it out into the world for others to experience—to have the guts to say the idea aloud, to actually write the thing, and, now, to finish it. To complete the revisions I’ve been sketching out for two years and to just get the book published already. A season of imagining, a season of writing and revising, and finally a season of publishing. A beginning, middle, and end. A story, of the story.

I know I will have more canaries for more seasons, but he’s been mine for all these, the seasons within the season of writing my first novel. And I’m heeding the call.

Who’s your canary of change?

☽

Lately I’ve been:

Reading: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, The Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman, and Best American Nature and Science Writing 2024

Writing: Revisions to my novel, Julia’s Orchids, my latest short story, The New Moon, and a flash narrative, The Curtain Lifts in Seattle. I’m also doing some playful writing through the London Writers’ Salon’s Summer of Creative Joy! I became a member of LWS a couple months ago and it’s such an amazing community—it fills my heart and soul. I highly recommend checking out their daily writers’ hours held at different 8ams across the globe: London, New York, Los Angeles, and Auckland.

Photographing/Photo Editing/Painting/Drawing/Crafting: Portraits (and an interview) I made of local Miami artist Smita Sen, a talented dancer/movement artist, illustrator, and 3-D sculptor, in her studio at the Bakehouse Art Complex in Wynwood. Coloring in a ‘Stress Relief Bold-Easy Coloring Book.’ Sketching during live figure drawing sessions with RAW FIGS. And I’ve been collecting vintage photos of couples in love <3

Watching: Love Island USA and Love Island UK -_-

Listening to: Surf rock and cumbia blends, i.e., LA LOM, Dick Dale, and Los Mirlos. And the Pen Pals podcast! I love them so much. They each approach writing differently, which I appreciate. And they’re just funny and down-to-earth which is always fun. Also, the killer psychedelic-funk-soul DJ set by this guy at Dale Zine.

Xo,

Jessica ♾️