Commentary

A trail of crumbs

October 8, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Anthony Carnovale

Please, indulge me. Just this once (Okay, I know it’s not the first time). Like, seriously. You see, if you don’t, I may never write another column again. Cue: eyeroll.

Now, I know this might sound like I’m playing with you, but I’m not. It’s just that this is a column, and these are words, and words are, as a rule, read by other people. So, please be patient.

I’m sure you know what it’s like to want to say something but can’t find the words. Well, for me, at this stage in my writing life, all I can do is try. So, this is me trying to work this column out in real time. My mind in real time. This page. These keys. These words. These thoughts. I have ideas.

Like this: From here on in, when I start to write a new piece, I have to see it through to the end. I must, I must. But there’s so much work for me to do: the kids’ closets need fixing; grass needs to be cut; my car needs to be cleaned. There’s always another lesson to plan, another paragraph to mark, a meal to cook; there’s soccer games, training. I’m not complaining. I’m just trying to work it out the best way I know how — in writing.

Like this column. And the time that I need to see something through to the end. And because I can’t focus on one thing for too long, I tend to think about the same things over and over, and that thinking got me thinking about the repetitive nature of everything that we do. I can’t lie — I think I’ve written this column before. I had the same feeling while trying to write my last three books (all abandoned).

I keep telling myself that the key to get out of this mess is to find a way to say something a little differently each time you write something. And the joy, oh the joy, of finding out that I’m not the only one who thinks this. I’m not losing my mind. The joy in life is to be insistent and persistent and devoted to something.

Maggie Nelson writes: “The pleasure of recognizing that one may have to undergo the same realizations, write the same notes in the margin, return to the same themes in one’s work, relearn the same emotional truths, write the same book over and over again — not because one is stupid or obstinate or incapable of change, but because such revisitations constitute a life.”

See, you were thinking that I was having a breakdown in real-time. Well, maybe, I thought so too. Turns out, we were both wrong. Instead, I’ve been living. With devotion, with a sense of obligation and pleasure. Repeatedly. That’s what we do. If you’d like to purchase this item, again, please press 1.

I recently taught Virginia Woolf’s ‘The Mark on the Wall’. A story where Woolf sits and stares at a mark on the wall. And waits. Waits to see where her mind takes her, and records where it goes.

It doesn’t take much for her mind to blow up. The difference is that she paid attention to her wandering mind, recorded where it went, put it into words, and shared it with her readers. This is the mind. This is how we think. Why should it be any other way? Does it need to be any other way? In the end, we are what we pay attention to, give our attention to. The big. The small. The in-between. Have a look around. In today’s world, we’re all suffering from whiplash.

Big picture: people are hurting. The economy makes no sense. War. Gas prices. Climate. Inept leaders. Everything is something to be wagered on. The world is imploding; Musk is trying to colonize the moon, AI execs are building bunkers, and people have stopped paying into their pensions.

Small picture: A local election. Ghastly signs. Is that a piece of tape? Familiar faces. Old faces, too. Taxes? Food bank experiencing shortages. The time it takes to get things down around here. Why so many consultants? How much more development? Tony Rose, anyone?

Intimate portrait:my son, at my desk, working on his homework. He wakes up on his own for school; comes home from school loving school. My daughter and her latest school project; the way my wife plays with the dog; the way the dog sleeps at the bottom of the bed wrapped into the back of my legs; the writer’s group at OPL. My wife speaking to my daughter in French. If I wrote about those things, would you pay attention? Would you read it? Did you read the one about my student shot and killed? Or the one about my student stabbed? I’m not mad if you didn’t (a little sad, but not mad).

And this: A poem by Mary Oliver. Poetry? A way of fighting back, a sense of hope, of possibility. But where? In what? Oliver writes: “It could be anything/ but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the/ case. Anyway, whatever it is/ don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” Crumbs. To fight that feeling that we’re powerless because we’re left with crumbs. We’re not powerless if we’re conscious of the beauty that surrounds us. I see it (it might take some work). Write it. Share it. I try. In the end, it’s all we can do.

It’s all there. The answers. To every question you’ve ever had. Ask. Wish. But realize that closing your eyes and making a wish means not seeing that most of the things you’ve wished for in life are already in front of you. And then find the language to share these things with friends, lovers, community (Dance? Words? Touch? Silence?). Or not.

Yeah, so that’s me. I think. Like, I thought I was writing a column about crumbs and words; you thought you were reading a column about a middle-aged man in the middle of a breakdown. No, I’m just trying to live. And to share a bit of that life with you.

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