Kali J Desautels

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You know that dream that you hold in your heart but aren’t sure will ever come true? Here‘s mine.

I am 37 years old and I published my first book. I know that I still have a lot of life left before me, but I began to think maybe I had missed my chance and that my scattered nature and intense anxiety would leave me feeling regretful that this dream would never be more than that.

I thought I had missed my chance and that I would be able to see this through.

But then I thought – why? Why can’t you see this through? What is stopping you? What are the physical barriers to you doing this?

I didn’t have a good answer, other than me. I was standing in my way. I was keeping myself from doing what I wanted to do. I was the one who dreamed it, so why was I waiting around for someone to come make it true? No one else cares whether they see my name printed on the spine of a book. No one else cares if I write a book that people can actually hold and read. No one else was going to sit down and tell me how or what to do.

Only I could do that.

So I did.

P.S. the mug on the cover is by @onecraftykeeper purchased locally at @townandcountryvintagehome

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Familiar and foreign, the small black squares gave way under her the tips of her fingers. She felt butterflies in her chest, nervous, as a ballerina about to take center stage. Her lip turned in a sardonic smile and she shook her head slightly at the notion. Her laptop was her daily companion, searching, and reading, working, but today was the first time, the first time in a long time, that she intended and wanted to write.

Not the emails and correspondence and spreadsheets and reports of her quotidian life, but the ephemera of her soul. The words that had so long escaped her were within reach, and she uttered a silent prayer that she would be able to grab them and wrangle them to do her bidding on the page that was not a page. The black cursor blinked at her and she tried to ignore the desire to correct and edit herself as she typed. That had been her downfall. That had stopped her from working the last time. That time years ago when she first tried to be Joan Didion. The spare, minimalist beauty of Didion was her aspiration, but the mellifluous anti-minimalism of her mind could not conform. She had given up that time, stymied by her need to fix and perfect and adapt. She had typed and deleted and typed and deleted and typed and deleted for hours and could never find the words that she wanted. She had given up.

She had given up and been blocked and from that moment, the typing that her fingertips craved was reserved for the grit and banality of forms and letters and simple comments. She could not bear witness to her failing and had decided that it is better to fail in the quiet of her mind than to fail in the face of the world.

But her mind was never quiet, was it? It was a thing that needed an outlet. It needed to be shaped and manipulated so that she could see what her soul was trying to say. She knew now that whether she was Didion or a mere pulp fictionist, all that mattered, all that she needed was the keyboard and the bright white screen where the black letters could march from left to right and left to right and left to right, line by line. If she could get the soul words out of her mind, and she could see them on the page that was not a page she could make sense of the thoughts that swirled and sputtered and smoked and shouted behind her eyes.

Her fingers raced across the keys now, tapping and clicking, and her eyes chased the marching letters, trying to ignore the sentences that trailed behind the blinking cursor. She felt the tightness in her chest that only the writing could relieve gather below her collar bone. She would write until that familiar tightness abated, and then she could rest and read and make sense of the soul words. She tripped now and again, typing an O where there ought to be a P, but she would not stop for anything. She feared that she would fall against the old block if she tried to correct the words before the feeling dissipated. She told herself that all she needed was to get the words out of her head and then she would feel better. Her eyes flashed brightly as she wrote a feeling or all the feelings and no longer worried that the genius of Didion would not be there when she read the pages at the end.

Didion would of course never be there because she wasn’t Didion. Only she could be her. She was herself and her soul words were not spare and haunting and beautiful and dark. Her words were hers and all that she could do was be in this space, with the page that was not a page, and the bright light and the marching words. She bit the tip of her pink tongue between the teeth on the right side of her mouth, gently, but intently, as she focussed on the feeling, on the tightness in her chest. She could feel it loosening.

Her fingers slowed, as she relaxed, knowing that she had beaten the stopping time. She had freed the soul words and they were safely on the page that was not a page. She took a breath and allowed her eyes to trail across the brightness of the screen, noticing the red squiggles that had affixed themselves to the now-still words. She didn’t mind now. She knew what she would find. She remembered.

_{Maple Ridge author Kali Desautels has blended her blog into a book, and in doing so touched one reader with her words and insight. (KaliDesautelsRead blog)}

Easy-reading style and wisdom make published works compelling, according to new fan

• Jun. 13, 2020 10:00 a.m.

Dear Editor,

I have just finished reading a newly published book by a woman from Maple Ridge, and I found it so well done and interesting.

I think readers will enjoy it especially during this time of coronavirus restrictions impacting everyone’s lives.

“You know the dream that you hold in hold in your heart forever, and are kind of afraid that it won’t ever come true? Well, you’re holding mine.”

That’s how Kali (pronounced Kay-Lee) Desautels – married in her late 30s and living in Maple Ridge with husband, Dave, daughter, Shaeli, and son, Liam – introduces her just published book How not to Blog, Finding Myself One Post at A Time.

The book is a compilation of blogs posted online over three years, under the title KaliDesautelsReads.

It’s available in soft cover from Amazon.ca books – and if you are a mom, a wife, a husband, grandparentm or great grandparent, it is a worthwhile read for its insights into the issues most of us face on a daily basis.

As the jacket blurb explains, Kali has worked through depression, anxiety, marriage, an ongoing obsession with books and “a rather hippie-dippy style” of parenting.

Her writing style makes it easy to read and provides wise comments on such topics as mental health, feminism, coping with illnesses, and being a mother.

UNRELATED AUTHOR: Inspiring book by Maple Ridge author, now a movie

A few examples that caught my attention: After describing cuddling in bed to comfort her young son for an extended period one night, she wrote:

“I am gathering these moments and imprinting them on my memory, hoping that they will stay here, so that 35 years from now I’ll be lying in my bed and will be able to pull this out, dust it off, and be with the seven-year-old who needed his Mama in the middle of the night.”

One chapter is titled: I might be a weird Mom… but I’m your Mom.

“If my kids learn anything from their weird mom, I want them to know that they can be themselves and that they need to speak their truths and they need to stand up for their beliefs,” she writes.

Kali writes of different reactions to physical and mental illnesses. In the former, you might avoid her to keep yourself from getting sick until she recovers; in the latter you might be avoiding “the irritation of my ‘whining’, but I will continue to get sicker.”

“Depression lives in a vacuum. Isolation makes it worse…” She asks what might you have done to discourage thoughts of suicide? “Most of all maybe you could have tried to feel more comfortable with my anxiety than you are with my vomiting.”

In comments about International Women’s Day, she writes “If the last few years of chaos on this planet have brought anything of value to the world it is the new wave of feminism that is rolling through.

“We are organizing and activating and advocating and marching and suing and standing up and shouting and writing and photographing and supporting and believing and encouraging and dedicating and making and breaking and baring and singing and letting ourselves be seen. We are holding hands with our sisters and are mad as hell… “

She remembers her own personal battles with Hashimoto’s Hypothyroidism and fibromyalgia and the family living through Dave’s colorectoral cancer and its so-far successful treatment, and she takes readers into the COVID-19 pandemic, then lists several things she’s learned in quarantine:

– I still have all four members of my family, safe and sound…

– Texting my friends and family keeps me sane and smiling.

– Dr. Bonnie Henry is the most calming person in the world, even when sharing bad news.

I’m not trying to sell this, simply to give your readers a heads up about the easy reading style and the wisdom contained in this book.

Jim Peacock, Port Coquitlam

https://www.mapleridgenews.com/opinion/letter-blog-to-book-maple-ridge-author-inspires-reader/

Thank you, Jim Peacock, and The Maple Ridge News for writing and publishing this beautiful review of How Not To Blog: Finding Myself, One Post at a Time!

I have two beautiful kids. My oldest is a funny, clever, kind, creative, empathetic little girl. My youngest is a quiet, sardonic, clever, logical, sweet little boy. My daughter, let’s call her Plum, was 25 months old when my son, whom we’ll call Bop, was born. For over two years Plum and I were alone together, notwithstanding my husband coming home, or us going to visit family, or my grandparents coming to visit us. Plum was 11 months younger than my nephew, let’s call him Buddy. Buddy was, and is, as smart as a whip. By 6 months old, he was calling for his Mama by name and meant it, not just making sounds. He was actually speaking. I absolutely adored and adore my nephew. When he was born, it reiterated my sincere desire to have a baby of my own. I loved to snuggle him, and talk to him and smell him (especially his breath! There is something about that newborn, sweet milk breath that I find intoxicating!). My sister was amazing. She is a natural mother, and seemed to know what to do, and what babies were meant to do at different ages, and what they loved, and what was over-stimulating. When I became pregnant, I was over the moon. I would have a baby close in age to Buddy and the kids would be close cousins. My pregnancy did not go as well as I had hoped – my daughter was healthy, but my body did not take to pregnancy at all well. I am not sure why I expected a body that does not take to simply existing would sail through the production of a whole other human, but that’s what I had expected. I would work til just before the baby was due, I would look adorable in a perfectly curated maternity capsule wardrobe and I would “glow”. It would be amazing. 

The amazing part was how delusionally I accepted the fantasy fiction of maternity – I did not glow, I boiled; my wardrobe was not perfectly curated, unless curated means “what does not tug on my belly?”; I did not work until the last, as my body could not tolerate the natural function of maternity, and I spent 6 months in sincere discomfort, laying on my mom’s couch, feeling like a miserable nuisance. Thank goodness for my Buddy, who kept me company while I could barely function. When it was time for my Plum to make her arrival, 10 days late (thank goodness! She was due on Christmas!) I could not have been more ready for my girl to make her appearance. I was so worn out, and ready to have control over my body again. A ludicrous thought, in hindsight, as I can not remember ever having complete control over my body at any time of my life. 

Sleeping is hard. To be asleep is magical but sleeping is hard.

To be asleep, you are inside your own mind, filled with fantastical and grotesque imaginings. Sleeping, or to fall asleep means that you must battle the fantastical or grotesque imaginings that stand in your way.

Sleeping is hard. To sleep, the tension must slip off, and the thoughts that interfere must fade into dust. To sleep, you must close your eyes and breathe slowly; breathe deeply. To be asleep, your breathing naturally slows; breathing becomes shallow and measured.

To be asleep is magical, but sleeping is hard. To be asleep, you process your life in ways unfathomable to the waking mind. To be asleep, your panic or fear manifests itself in terrifying ways, but not traumatically; never traumatically because you will wake up and the terror will fade to dust.

Dr Bonnie Henry is the most calming force of 2020. Leading BC through the ongoing COViD-19 pandemic, her calm, clear, and kind leadership has been a force that has flattened the curve in our province more quickly than anyone could have anticipated.

She has been working for nearly 200 days straight, providing daily press briefings live on air, with both statistics, facts and an overall sense of both urgency and understanding. She has avoided fear mongering, resisted calls to police social distancing protocols, and has made this unusual life event less surreal and more understandable than anyone I have seen or read.

For that reason, in addition to her lifelong experiential bank of knowledge and skill, in addition to her killer sense of style, I have developed the biggest woman crush on Dr Henry. She is a role model for leadership, strength, resilience, and quiet sense of humour.

I hope that when history remembers this insane time in our lives, Dr Henry is more than just a footnote. She will go down, at least in my book, as one of the leaders that helped reduce the spread of this virus, and has joined the pantheon of women that I hold as role models.

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