how do you dream when you can't fall asleep...

There are some moments that I am struck so forcefully by the need to write that I can't think about anything than what I would put down on paper. How I would say it. Why. To whom I would be writing. But usually those moments happen when I am riding a lawn mower, or having a drink in a pub with friends, or in the middle of yoga. And so often I return home, continue with the normalities of day to day life and forget about them. Today is one of those days. This week I've felt the insatiable need to write more than usual, but every single time I am unable to grasp the opportunity to its fullest potential. It makes me dream that this week would have been a very productive week for me if I were to quit everything and become a writer right now. Who knows...perhaps the world has missed out on a great work of our age because I am choosing to landscape this summer.

But how does one live through not so productive weeks when you're a writer? Or a photographer for that matter? How do you decide to jump in over your head into a life, a career that you may or may not drown in?

i still find pieces of your presence here, even after all these years...

I have lived in edmonton for 5 years now. Five years in which I have changed and formed and stretched and grown so much so it is difficult to relate to the person I was 5 years ago, but I love my life here. I love who I am, how I live, the friends I've chosen, the life I've created. But sometimes I find it terribly difficult to continue in this life I've begun. I woke up to rain this morning and had the day off. I have a busy weekend ahead of me...friend's parties and birthdays and concerts and I thrive on such a social weekend. It was then I called home and found out that two of my sisters and their kids are heading out to my parents' farm for the weekend to celebrate my nephew's birthday. I wanted to be there so bad, it physically hurt. Sometimes I miss my family and my life with them so much I can hardly continue in my life up here. But I know that, if I were to go down to the farm on such a busy weekend for me up here with my friends, I know that though I would love being with my family, I would miss out on parts of my life up here. So once again I find myself torn between two worlds. The world I've made for myself and the world that will always be my home.
Cait once told me that I have the gift of being discontent, and I think thats a very interesting and diplomatic but I fear this tendency to live in dichotomy will follow me the rest of my life.

she gets splashed in rain and turns away, leaves me standing...

Its midnight. I am awake. Lying in my bed. Listening to the thunder and rain against my window. There is nothing quite like a good edmonton thunder and lightning storm. The rain has picked up now and its so heavy and strong, it sounds like a thousand horses stampeding past my room. The clouds are streaked across the sky tonight and so when it lightnings, (i am now making that a verb...lightnings) I don't see the individual bolt, but rather, the landscape of the clouds.

I am tired and I should be sleeping, but this wind and rain and power of nature is worth tomorrow's early morning.

why you are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here...

I hung out with my friend Christa tonight, who is leaving on Wednesday to spend a month in India. I really like talking with Christa, but I always come away from hanging out with her with my wheels turning and feeling such...anxiety - for lack of a better word. But anxiety in a good way. When Christa and I talk, I get glimpses of what I really want to do with my life. Where I really want to be. How I really want to live. And how much potential I have inside myself to do so.
Lately I've met a few people who don't really have a drive to travel. To be honest, I didn't really believe those people existed, but they do. And its been strange to interact with them and talk about traveling because it usually ends with them saying something like, "Yeah, thats nice that you really like to travel." But its so much more than that. Some people like to travel, but I feel it as a tangible ache inside me. Since I first stepped onto Honduran soil two years ago, traveling has been inside my soul like a virus. Feeding off of my very core, demanding more of me. it won't let me sleep or eat or think or work without thinking about it, without planning for it, without feeling the soul wrenching ache to travel inside me.
And the thing is, I love Canada. I love edmonton in the summer...the long days and the sun and the trees and the festivals. And I love my home at harvest time, endless fields of wheat and mustard waving in the wind. And I love the people who live here. I love being grounded by them and having them as part of my daily life. But all this love of being grounded and in continuous community is contrasted with my desire for the fluidity of travel and movement and experiencing new places and people and culture and food and landscape.
Maybe that is why I come away with my talks with Christa with such anxiety. My heart lies in two places, in two lives, in two ideals and I don't know how I will ever learn to balance the two. Or if it is even possible. But choosing one over the other would be settling for something that wouldn't make me quite whole. Either way.



So what do I do?

to find the water to quench the fire that burns in her spinal cord...

There is something so incredible about the smell of earth after rain. I love it. I wish I could be bottled, but I think that would negate some of its beauty and intoxicating quality. I would be content to feel (yes, feel because it has a very tangible sensation, emotion, feeling attached to it) to feel the smell of earth after rain for the rest of my life.

Lately this week at work I've been seeing a lot of storm fronts moving in and out. Not much rain, but the beautiful dark clouds and angry winds. I take that back. I love wind and I have experienced many different kinds, and I don't think these winds have been angry. At home, we have a wind called the Chinook. It comes over the Rockies in the middle of winter with incredible warmth and melts all the snow on the ground in only a few hours. I love this wind I love that it is named I love its personality. When I was a kid, my parents, especially my dad, used to call me chinook. I think maybe that is why I love the wind so much. Growing up with almost incessant wind, I know a lot of people who not only detest, but HATE wind. But not me. And lately, when I've seen these storms moving around Edmonton, I always feel it in the wind first. Picture it in your head, like a cheesy Pocahontas moment...I'll be standing behind the mower and all of a sudden, I feel the wind coming. Like it pulls at my soul before I feel it on my face.
Maybe its because I feel so connected to wind that I want to name it, to give myself a way to interact with it. And maybe its because I've been watching too much Pirates lately, but when I think of this wind, when I feel it, when it hits me...the only word I can think of to describe it, is Calypso. I realize that using a sea goddess' name to describe a wind in land-bound edmonton is pretty ridiculous, but I can't help it. Like the Chinook, it is compelling and pulling me into itself, but this one is more seductive and whispering, more dark and mysterious. The Chinook whips open your soul and becomes part of you, but Calypso draws you down into itself until you become part of it. And like Odysseus, I cannot resist.

So when I am mowing and a sense the Calypso coming, I switch my iPod to play "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" by Sufjan and I wait and I watch.

turn up the music and pray that she makes it through...

I got out of the city last night and went to hang out with some friends I rarely spend time with to celebrate some birthdays. It was probably the most fun I've had in months. A fire, some beer, good conversation, a few rounds of fris-beer...it was fantastic. I love those times when I walk away from the evening and my soul feels lighter. I have incredible friends and even as I get to know each of them more and more I realize that I am exceptionally blessed to be surrounded by an extraordinary amount of people who are thoughtful and kind and passionate and confused and over and above that, in love with life.

Happy birthday Elly, Hans and Jon.

On another note - related but different - you know its been a good night when it ends with everyone in the car laying in the middle of a dark country road listening to Josh Ritter and talking about the length of the yellow dotted lines...which are for the record, almost twice the length of my 6 foot frame - I know it doesn't look like it, but its true. Go lay on one sometime.

not necessarily need, but qualities that i'd prefer...

The lotto this week is set for $30+ million. I've been thinking about buying a ticket...I mean, someone has to win don't they?? And since that thought has crossed my mind I can't stop thinking about what I'd do with that amount of money. I don't want a new car or a mansion or an extravagant luxury cruise. I want to fly to Belize, buy a hut on the beach, string up a hammock, listen to music, write, photograph and just live. I would shop at local morning markets, drink local beer, sing and dance late into the night with my neighbors...I'd learn Spanish quickly and read Latin American literature. I'd lay in my hammock and be inspired by the sand and sun and sea and stars and move in and out of the culture, experiencing what it has to offer and examining my own. I want all of this and so much more. And I think....do I really need $30+ million to do this? The answer to that scares me even more.

Two quotes come to mind for me in this...

A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

and

I never intended to be a run-of-the-mill person. - Barbara Jordan