Learning to love the ennui of release

My book, The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman, came out 6 months ago, and I’ve been struggling with finding the words to describe the days since. No one can really prepare you for it, really, the ennui of release. Maybe this is a Me Problem, and potentially it’s one of those “talk to a therapist” things. I worked and stressed and edited and stressed again and cried on the bathroom floor, and then it was done. I wrote emails about how the cover wasn’t what I imagined, and we workshopped numerous ideas, and I said hey I really liked the first cover after all, actually.

People kept asking what I wanted to do to celebrate the book, and in hindsight this is where I failed myself. I have never felt that I deserved any kind of celebration, least of all for my ability to write and think and have ideas worth sharing. This is a very funny problem for someone with my job to have, but here we are. I have no real education, I went to trade school. I worked with my hands for most of my life.

Once, years ago in another life, while surveying final details and running diagnostics on the front entrance to a Walmart I had designed and installed, an older man walked up to me and said, “having problems?” I nodded, murmured, and ignored because older men will always want to talk to Construction People about what they should be doing differently despite their not being covered in the same dirt and blood as us. He followed up despite my lack of interest, “I’ve got the fix for you,” and when I gamely said oh yeah? he smiled and said, “should have graduated high school!” Then he just walked away, laughing to himself. I think about that interaction every single day. In a lifetime of being perceived for a great many things, the worst I have ever felt about myself is about what intelligence and skill I might have beyond the blood and dirt on my skin.

Celebrating my book felt like celebrating something I don’t deserve and never earned. I wasn't raised to believe I was allowed to be a graceful thinker, someone who could be insightful and worthy of attention. This is a Me Problem in a river of Me Problems, swift and unrelenting. I wanted to release the book, but I didn’t want to make a fuss. I would rather not seem cocky and boisterous because it didn’t feel earned. I am always waiting for the man in the parking lot who can see and give name to my anxious flaws. So, I did it all as simple as I could. I went for breakfast with Lysh at my favourite spot, we went to the CBC where I chatted on air with my dear friend Elamin Abdelmahmoud (buy and read his book Son of Elsewhere , it’s every bit as warm and thoughtful and engaging as he is). I smiled and laughed and reposted on social media, and searched for the man in the parking lot around every new corner. I panic ordered a sheet cake from the grocery store to have at the book launch later that evening because it all suddenly felt real, as if I was halfway through a birthday party and forgot to unlock the door.

The launch was beautiful. I had taken Another Story Bookshop up on their generous offer to host me, and when they asked “how many people do you think you’ll have in the room” I said 5. They laughed, and I laughed, the way you do when you’re telling people about the things you’re most afraid of. Elamin was also my in-conversation guest at the launch, and I couldn’t have asked for a greater host. If you’ve ever listened to his show Commotion on CBC, know that he is like that in real life. Generous and thoughtful, funny and disarmingly charming. I felt better knowing he was there because I continued to think I did not deserve to be, despite my book being the one on shelves people came to see.

Lysh, my eternal champion, made sure the sheet cake was in a good spot and the shirts I made that say GIRLS INVENTED DAD ROCK NOT ENGLAND— a riff on a shirt made famous by Kim Gordon — were in a good spot by the door. She made sure I was relaxed and comfortable and ready, and then suddenly the night was happening, and then it was over. I read a bit from the book, we chatted, people asked questions. The room was filled right to the door. I nervously looked at my phone when I stood up to read and saw I had been tagged in a post by a legendary multi-talent— writer, musician, artist. My anxiety, fully in control of my body, made a joke into the microphone to disarm my tension I just got tagged in a post by Vivek Shraya, then I saw her wave from the back of the room.

Thanks for being there Vivek, it meant the world to me.

I thanked everyone in the signing line, did my best to chat with everyone for as long as they wanted, then went home and collapsed into bed, entirely unsure of how I was feeling.

The days around the release are a blur now, six months later. I did interviews for magazines and blogs and podcasts, reposted photos of to-read stacks that tagged me in the spines. I did my best to sound articulate and smart and graceful. Like I had been working towards this my whole life, as if it was all so natural. But I could not shake the feeling that this was unearned. That my life before this one did not give me the right to spend my day talking into a microphone with a coffee cooling steadily in my hand. I am an uneducated woman with dirt and blood on my hands, and I did not earn the luxury of this life.

It is impossible to overstate how much I love and appreciate everyone who has written me kindly about the book. People have posted about it on social media, read the book in monthly book clubs, have written reviews on the big review sites I don’t let myself read anymore. I have always felt like a fraud waiting to be called out, but you have all found something in my work that was real and genuine and told me how much it meant to you, and that means the world to me. If there has ever been the antithesis of men in parking lots telling me my life of labour is the price paid for my lack of education, it is people who read books with care and patience and share how it made them feel. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me feel like the work I have done has been of some importance. It helps me see myself in ways I never knew possible.

Releasing the book allowed me to travel and visit cities I have never seen. Lysh and I went to New York, a first for us both (I'm a country mouse), and I got to see and spend time with friends I have never met in person. I read at Rough Trade with my friend, the brilliant author Maris Kreizman (buy her latest, I Want To Burn This Place Down). Lysh and I celebrated her birthday at a pizza place with a 80s basement retro theme and I burned the roof of my mouth on Detroit style pizza in Brooklyn. We drove to Boston, where I got to read at the Harvard Bookstore with one of our greatest writers, thinkers, posters, and conversationalists Luke O’Neill (read Hell World and his latest book, the stellar We Had It Coming). I answered a question from an Australian guy studying Astrophysics abroad at Harvard. I wish I knew who the man in the parking lot was so I could send him a photo of Luke and I sitting at our table at fucking Harvard.

We drove home, and Lysh had been struggling with time on the road so we opted to postpone the next few days in Philly, where I was going to read and chat with the legendary Sadie Dupuis (who is a dazzlingly brilliant poet in addition to fronting the all-time great Speedy Ortiz), and New Jersey, where I was excited to ask countless questions about Bruce Springsteen, and corroborate evidence on the time my friend Brian Fallon (The Gaslight Anthem) tried to guess which Canadian city was the most Jersey-ish and said Hamilton. I promise I will come to Philly and Jersey soon, maybe in the new year. Plans are boiling on the stove.

I made it to Washington, DC, and spent time with my friend and inspiration, the legendary Rax King (read Sloppy, cmon you guys). We read and chatted on stage at the Black Cat, then hung around for Liberation Weekend, which was a much-needed balm for so much existential dread. I had been feeling the weight of being a Canadian trans woman traipsing around America and how fraught everything felt in those early days (little did we know what was still to come). Then I watched queers and transes make circle pits together, watched someone carefully jump into the pit and smash their guitar on the floor of the Black Cat, and thought that possibly things were always going to be okay as long as we had this. Shoutout to Lib Fest weekend, organized by many including Jael Holzman of Ekko Astral (who have a new single, “Horseglue”, that is so fucking good you guys). They’re already planning the next one, put it on your calendar.

Then I went home again. Wandered the DC airport hunting down safe places to pee around the giant “celebrate your PRIDE” signs. Everytime I went for either the women’s or mens room, someone made it a problem, so I scoured the airport looking for the loneliest family WC possible and got yelled at by a tired mom with a stroller when I emerged. I cancelled the in-person events I had planned in other cities after that, and moved them online instead. San Francisco with beautifully transcendent writer Carvell Wallace (put Another Word for Love on your to-read pile) and LA with the queen of all media Yasi Salek (everyone already listens to Bandsplain but come on, listen to Bandsplain).

I did more interviews for magazines and podcasts, I rested. I posted. I wrote more. I did readings when asked, went and signed books at stores when I could, and suddenly time was gone. The 6 months anniversary was weeks ago now, and I am still processing it.

The other day, someone was asking for advice on a launch for their project, and my advice was the same given to me that I did not take. It is okay, and important, to celebrate yourself. Make it big and beautiful and a spectacle if the situation calls for it. Have a band. Have a sheet cake. Have a thousand sheet cakes. Buy an outfit you’ve thought about for months. You have worked so hard and done so much and the least you can do is stand and say I have done this work that I am so proud of, look at the dirt and blood on my hands after all this time, let us celebrate together. I wish I had done that. I wish I were able to tell myself it is okay to feel proud of the things you have done that no one ever imagined you capable of.

After the deluge of “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” posting earlier this month, someone asked if I would put an essay about it in whatever second pressing of the book I do, and it made me think that, if I am so lucky to do a second pressing or a paperback version or anything, that I will celebrate its release with a bolder vision. That I will learn to celebrate the work that I have done with the people that love it and me, and feel good about it when I get home. Maybe by then, someday in the far future, I will have learned to love myself enough to push back on the man giving names to my anxious fears in the parking lot. May we all learn to allow ourselves the careful grace of loving ourselves in the light of the work we do in this life.

I've been thinking a lot lately about something a fried of mine mentioned to me a while back. That he makes a point to take photos every day of things he will never post about or show to anyone. There's just snapshots of a life, in celebration of the days that come and in memory of those that have left, and I think that's something to hold onto. I wish I took more photos, not to post and promote and share but just to have. Just to cherish. The lesson learned in all of this is that I need to work harder on allowing myself to celebrate the victories and the little things, that I'm allowed to be here living this life. That a life and its labour are worthy of celebration.

Thank you to everyone who reads, shares, comments, and more about my work. Thank you to everyone who helped teach me that it's okay to celebrate myself, a lesson I am still learning. You have all helped me in immense and immeasurable ways. I love you all, talk soon.

-Niko