Stories that stay

I love dark stories.

When my husband and I were dating we’d go over the border to Detroit Michigan and he’d bring me to the biggest rare bookstore in the city. It was called John K King, it was a four floor warehouse of rare and used books. It’s still there, so if ever you’re in Detroit it’s worth the visit.

https://www.johnkingbooksdetroit.com

Over the years we visited a number of times and I built up a small collection of books. Grimms Complete Fairy Tales, Dracula, Edgar Allen Poe’s book of poetry and short stories, several copies of Shakespeare plays, and Frankenstein. I have always favoured dark stories, I think we can relate to them as humans, it’s the reason why they’ve stuck around and have been retold for ages. These stories, especially the ones about monsters have their own unique way of speaking to the challenges of being human, and how we see ourselves.

The story of Frankenstein has been retold several times over. I love that the original Frankenstein story was written by a woman, you can feel it when you read the book, it is not just a gory horror, there is humanity in the monster, and it forces you to relate to him. He longs for human connection. This is true in many monster stories, you end up relating to the monster. I definitely related to the monsters I read about in these books, I have felt like an outsider longing for connection, not knowing what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t be part of what seemed “normal” and easy for everyone. Monster stories with all their gore are also meant to speak to the heart.

Last night I stayed up and watched the latest movie version of Frankenstein, I’ve watched several different versions of Frankenstein on film, as most people have. I liked this version. This films depiction of the monster finding family with the blind old man was beautiful. Frankenstein’s monster wanted to be seen, he wanted connection and to be loved. We all long to be known at our core, and to be fully accepted even when the ugliest parts of us are revealed, the relationship with the old man was a beautiful depiction of the love we all wish to experience, one that is not seen with the eyes but felt with the heart.

It’s moving how the woman who wrote Frankenstein understood humans deep need to be seen and loved at our worst. When at our worst we often have the very human urge to hide ourselves away from the world and bury our ugliness in shame. She captures the internal tug of war between isolating and connecting in response to being hurt by others, especially those we’ve trusted. She also captures the reality of love being found in the darkest of circumstances. Mary Shelley was deeply insightful when depicting rejection and connection, and anger, and suffering. Frankenstein himself is also a relatable character, his need to fully understand death because of his own loss, the reality of failure when trying to control things that are not ours to control. Frankenstein’s monster is a deeply human story, and I don’t doubt it will be told several more times.

I loved this movie adaptation, visually it was stunning. I rarely watch anything twice….but I’ll be watching it again tonight 🙂

If I could make a wish

Photo by me

My kids and I have these little talks based around a question, one of the questions recently was “if wishes were real and you could make one, what would you wish?” I always love hearing what they come up with. I had to think about my own answer, and my wish would be that I could take them back in time to my high school bedroom for a day and they could lay on my floor with me and listen to my 90’s girl music and chat with teen me, then go downstairs and have a cup of tea with my mom and me. These questions are just for fun, they get us chatting and laughing, but this time it inspired me to make a playlist of all the music I listened to by women in highschool. I don’t often get nostalgic, but the thought of my kids meeting teen me was kind of healing. I think teen me would have loved them and I think we’d be friends and I love that. My kids have all wondered what I was like as a teen, I often have just said quiet and awkward, but when I look back at photos I can see now I was cooler then I felt at the time, I didnt fit in with others well but I was being myself. I try to look back on myself with a bit more kindness. Below is the playlist of 90’s girl music I listened to as a teenager, and a few photos of teen me 🙂

Maybe you could pose the wish question with your people, it’s actually very interesting to see what people would wish, you learn a bit of their heart.

👇🏻90’s girl playlist

https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/90s-girls/pl.u-g6bxtW5Jlmr

90’s girl 🙂

Things that connect us

Being a mom has been my happiest thing. My daughter recently asked me what if feels like to become a mom, and I said it’s like falling in love in many ways, it’s just this beautiful overwhelming love. My kids childhood was like magic, I miss those days sometimes. But then there is the beauty of now, with them growing into adults, of course there are many challenges, but I love having talks with them. They wonder about family origins, and I love sharing with them stories my mom told me.

My daughter will often text me for recipes, and we have these little chats about where the recipes have come from, and how some recipes just feel like home. How beautiful it is that a simple thing like a recipe or a song can transport our hearts home, and that we carry these threads of family with us through simple common things like a recipe.

I think the most notable recipe in my family is Chicken Slider soup, my fathers mother made it, and she taught my mom, and taught many others in our family how to make this recipe, and every time I make it it’s like I’m home. The chat with my daughter made me realize that it really is women who are the centre of these family traditions. Most of the recipes I use for Christmas are things my mom taught me, and her mom taught her, or an aunt or grandmother taught to someone a long the way. Women have perserved these recipes and now my kids enjoy them. Women in my family history have made these things as an act of love for their families , and they keep getting passed along. I don’t think we ever stop missing people we love who have died, It’s these things like a recipe for a beloved soup or cookie that remind us of home and keep loved ones alive in our hearts.

My two grandmothers, and my lovely mom ❤️