time breaks down...

I am at then end of my "week of morning" photography venture this week. I thought about taking it into the weekend but seems how today is the last day of the month, I decided it was fitting to end today. However, I was inspired by a new idea this morning while I was sitting with Mike and Heather. They both said things this morning
that made me laugh and then I was inspired to take phrases my friends have said that make an impression on me and spend a day trying to capture that idea in a photograph. My ideas for quotes so far:

"teach your child how to spell in a world of broken words" - Mike

"if I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be called research" - Heather via Einstein

"full body punctuation" - Arlette

"Something happened to me at 10 pm too, I was waiting for my bus, and it didn't come" - Jamie

"ah shit. it's not really a big deal, it's just a little homonym issue" - bethany

"make amends with gravity it will get you in the end" - patrick

the damage and ruin, man the things that we're doing...

I've decided to make myself take photos every morning this week. Now, anyone who knows me knows that this isn't a hardship I've put on myself, but its more tricky than you might imagine. Monday was all well and fine, I woke up inspired. Tuesday I went out for breakfast in a beautiful light, so that wasn't too hard either. But this morning I woke up, laid in bed and had to spend some time thinking about what I would shoot. I don't know how it came out. Not as good as the first two days, thats for sure, but I'm trying to train myself to shoot under pressure. To be inspired by something mundane and ordinary, when all I really want to do is watch another episode of TinTin and put my hair up. I want to learn how to notice the everyday morning sun creeping along my wall, my tipped over books and the ice on my window as moments of photographic inspiration. My motivation in this is two-fold. First of all, if I can create moving images from everyday things, then it only follows that when I am confronted with something of unusual beauty, I should be that much better prepared to capture it. Also though, I've lately been compelled to believe that there is great beauty in living a life that takes special notice of what is around you. I think that some people are called to perform acts of great, global significance in their life, but I don't think I am one of them. I think I am intended to live a life of intentional attention and awareness to what surrounds me, and I am content with that.


well, mostly content.

Allur heimurinn óskýr nema þú stendur ...

now today i really should be marking papers instead of being on the internet, but this morning I took a self portrait that I really liked. I don't think I can explain why. Its just that when I saw it, I felt like I captured more of myself than I actually know of me. See, I told you I couldn't explain it. I feel like I'm either becoming very deep or very ineloquent because I've used this quotation twice this week now...

"It all means more than i can tell you. So you must not judge what i
know by what i can find words for." - from Gilead by Marilynne
Robinson

but you don't regret a single day...

So, I leave home to work because I am easily distracted by the tv and internet. I settle down at Remedy in one of the beautiful window seats and the place is dead because everyone is watching the Grey Cup at home. But I still find myself completely distracted by the people around me.
First there were three university girls sitting at the bar right beside my chair and one of them started talking about a pizza party she was having. She said that she got a Pizza Hut flyer in the mail advertising great quantities of pizza for a minimal price. She went on to say that she thought it looked delicious but thought it was gross to order 13 pizzas by herself, so she was going to host a party. My favorite moment was when she said "I don't think I've ever been so excited about something so mundane, and without the promise of any alcohol!"

Then I managed to mark a few papers before I saw an old man riding past on an old bike with an old school bell, wearing a neon yellow hockey helmet. I think there are very few places in the world where neon yellow hockey helmets substitute for bike helmets. Yay Canada.

A little later it started to snow. Not the boring small flakes that look like heavy frost, but thick wide flakes that seem to take forever to land and follow the least linear pattern to get there. They were falling on to the sidewalk and melting almost as soon as they had hit the ground. Just as I was watching this, a little Chinese girl and her mother walked up to the street corner. They both had toques on and their hoods up. While they waited for the light to change, the mother tied the girl's hood tighter around her face while she stood there with her square backpack on and mittens pointed straight down with the tags still hanging on the side. I wondered if they were new to this kind of cold.

Just as I was thinking about packing up and changing pace, an attractive man came in and sat down just beside me. (nothing like an attractive man to keep you loyal to a place!) He found a penny on the floor under his chair as he was taking off his jacket and held it out to me, saying it was my lucky day. I laughed and he pulled out his work and started studying. He was wearing a great pair of jeans and just the right kind of brown knit sweater. It was then I noticed his feet. He was rockin' some knitted purple and green socks in a pair of sport sandals. It made me like him more. A touch of awkwardness in a person is so important.


And now I am back home, watching the weather change yet again. From snow to brilliant sun and now back to clouds and the promise of more winter. I should go work. Whether in another cafe or at my kitchen table, but the light in my living room is so perfect and its just starting to snow outside again and I can't tear myself away.

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us...there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been given up into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm" (Gilead, Marilynne Robinson)

There are times that I need to capture beauty. I see it as a photograph. I see the moment, the emotion, the essence of it that I want to convey and I need to capture it with my camera.

But sometimes, just noticing it and feeling the magnitude and mystery of it is honor enough.

I am listening to Sigur Ros "Von" right now, and I think you should too.

holding up horizons with her hands...

The clouds are strange this morning. They're dark like rain clouds, but smooth like snow clouds and from behind them, the sun is shining so brightly that it still seems like a beautiful day. I think I may go outside and explore this strange weather. Or perhaps my time may be better spent in a window seat at the Sugarbowl or Remedy waiting for the snow to come while I mark first year papers.

Yes, that is what I'll do.

laying low...

"Look Up" - Stars

Your friends hold the lullabies
They watch the way the night lies
Soft sounds, heads like a radio
Hearts wrapped in blankets, laying low
Hearts wrapped in blankets, laying low

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

Your boy is like a memory
Some sense of touch and a melody
Your girl, she's a renegade
A hurricane that keeps you there, safe
A hurricane that keeps you there, safe

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

(And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose
And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose)

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love

may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten...

I've been "angsty" lately. Sometimes, or rather most times, when I get this way, i can't quite put my finger on WHY I am feeling the way I do. Usually I have a pretty good self-awareness, but there are times when I get this feeling of unease that festers inside me and I can't figure it out. Sometimes it reveals itself in the most unlikely of places, about the most unlikely topics. Today I spent some time at Karen's. I didn't intend to get all intense about things. I mostly came because I had some extra time and her house was close to where I needed to be later and I like hanging out with her. But suddenly, somewhere we started talking about some really intense things and it just all came pouring out of me. I realized that all of these things I had been thinking about independently were all linked in ways I hadn't realized before they came spilling out of my mouth. Now, I'm not sure I'd call myself a verbal processor because when something like this happens and I end up ranting on something and jumping from idea to idea, I'm not so much working things out, as I am actually realizing that I'm thinking about all these things. And today was no exception. I'd be talking about one thing and then something else would come up in my mind as related to it and I'd jump on that idea and try and work it back into my first idea before another new idea popped up to complicate things. Well, that sounds confusing now. And it was. And Karen sat, listening to me and taking it all in, interested, asking me questions, giving me opinions and ideas even though I was going through extreme non-linear thought processes.

But beyond the process, what has come up in my mind now is the overwhelming question of..."IS IT ENOUGH?" Is it enough to live a life of ordinary, quiet love for humanity? Is it enough to pursue what you love? Is it enough to actively care about the world around you and do what you see yourself capable of in the way you see as best working out that vision? Is it enough? Or is there so much more? Should we be pushing ourselves to work out a vision larger than ourselves? Should I be putting more of myself, my energy, my resources into venues that have potential to see worldwide justice? In this global community we all exist within, should we be actively caring about the issues that affect the whole of humanity? Should I be doing more?

I don't know.

Is it enough to live life passionately with integrity, aware of injustice and in awe of the beauty that surround us?
(Who's version of passionate? Who's definition of integrity? Which injustices? Is beauty enough?)

signed, sealed, delivered...

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up, had a nice moderately warm shower (which is about as hot as our shower gets) and played around with photos for a while. Then I got in my car and decided to make a trip to Vivid Print (probably the best print shop I've ever been in) and then go to one of my favorite little restaurants for a solitary lunch. By chance, I ended up meeting some of my friends there and had a fantastic meal. Then I picked up some beautifully textured paper from The Paint Spot, bought a Tim Horton's lunch for a drug addict woman who was crying on the street because her joints hurt and made it to King's in time for my group tutoring session. It really didn't turn out to be a group session, so much as helping one student put together plans for a paper, but I enjoyed it and we had a good time. And now I'm putting together photos for an art event on Saturday and then I'm gonna go meet my friend Jackie for a drink when she's done her evening class. And though I'm sitting at home alone watching a movie and getting stressed out about photos....listing the great parts of today makes me feel better about it.

the second i stop, the sleep catches up....

Last night some of my friends and I were having a discussion about how we refuse to wear our "winter coats" yet because it is not quite winter. The weather is still bearable, there's been no staying snow, and we don't have to scrape our cars yet in the morning. And though the long term forecast gives hope that this will last for a while (saturday is supposed to be 1 degree still), today I woke up to -8 and the promise of -16 before the day is through. In my opinion, if it's gonna be getting cold, it might as well snow.

Seriously!

tear men down like Roger Moore...

I'm wearing a dirty shirt today. Its a hoodie actually. A gray one. The edges are a little dark, and there's a spot of icing sugar on the right pocket. I'll be wearing my puffy brown vest over it later today when I go out to meet Jamie, but the truth is, I kind of like wearing clothes that are a little "lived in". Especially this gray hoodie. The sleeves are too short and I bought it for about $10 a few years ago, but I love it. Today will be a good day. It is always a good day when I wear it.

I can't help you anymore...

This morning I woke up to beautiful sunlight streaming into my room and I thought I'd watch some cartoons. Sadly the only network that really carries Saturday morning cartoons anymore, is the french channel, so after watching some French Tin Tin, I decided just to listen to music and put together a list of clients/publications of my photography. Who knows when I might need to present something like that, and well, this morning was as good a time as any to do it. As I was sorting through the past two years of photographing, the images reminded me of the time and place that I had taken them in. They reminded me of the space I was in at that time: what I thought I wanted, where I thought I wanted to be, who I through I was working towards being. And I remember being really serious about doing graduate work at The University for Peace in Costa Rica. Still not an idea I've let go of, but something I realize I have plenty of time for. Well, I remember loving the idea of this place, its programs, its ideals. And how, slowly, the practicalities of going there put it in perspective that maybe I need more time to become me before I take on such an impressive place. As I was thinking about that time in my life, I came across an e-mail I had forgotten about. It came about 6 months after I had decided the University for Peace was not in my relatively near future. It was from the University for Peace, asking permission to use some of my photos in one of their publications. Life does run in circles. Sometimes it feels like futile circles when you're in the middle of it, but from the larger perspective,they are very strange and fulfilling cycles.

in a time, occupied and invaded, can’t tell what’s right, better hit the ground running...

I've been wearing pretty thin these past few days. Things that I wouldn't usually let get to me, have been finding their way under my skin and festering. Lately, comments about my finances, my image, my hometown, my car and my intelligence keep piling up where I'd usually shrug them off. The worst are those backhanded comments people make as though out of concern or interest, but in reality their just trying to put you down to put themselves above you. Ripping away your armour so they can set themselves up for a clear shot. And i know this is what they're getting at, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow or to act as though it hasn't affected me. It seems so difficult to find a safe space.

A "flickrFriend" of mine recently posted a beautiful photo with this caption:

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain, and remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solicitous86/1918649607/

instrumental interlude...

You know that moment in "Roman Holiday" where Gregory Peck is walking out of that gorgeous hall after the press conference and all you hear is his feet on the marble floor, and then just as he reaches the pillars at the end, the music comes in? You know that moment? Or that one in Napoleon Dynamite, right at the end, when Pedro has won the election and is cutting the cake with his whole family and there's no dialogue, just that music? Or how the guy in The Life Aquatic just sits and plays his guitar on the boat most the time while the movie goes on around him? Lately I've been thinking about how great it would be to be the person who decides...yes! that is the song for that moment. I have this habit that when I listen to music, when I hear a song, I think about where it could be used...for what kind of event...for what specific moment in life. Lately, this habit has gotten so intense that sometimes when I hear a song that I just KNOW is perfect for whatever moment, I can't get it out of my head. Today it has been "Si, Paloma" by Sun Kil Moon (a band I picked up in Bangladesh of all places).
I wonder what kind of training you would need to do that for a job.

trust me you're in deep, its no good...

songs to listen to while driving away from home:

He Lays in the Reigns - Iron and Wine
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
Let Him Fly - Dixie Chicks
Northern Sky - Nick Drake
9 Crimes - Damien Rice
Heartbeats - Jose Gonzaleas
Razor - Foo Fighters
16, Maybe Less - Iron and Wine
Tragedy - Damien Jurado
Redford (For Yia-yia and Pappou) - Sufjan Stevens

Thought that I saw you in the oncoming cars...

I'm supposed to be in Japan today. Instead I'm sitting in front of the tv playing with photos and watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I'm trying not to think about the canceled trip, so I'm laughing too loudly at a flower in a bundt cake. Yesterday was a good day. Bethany took the day off work and we had a nice brunch, visited friends at King's and just hung out at home. It wasn't until about 5pm that I realized it was the day I was supposed to be on a plane, flying across the ocean. Today though, I remembered when I woke up. So this morning I'm watching tv, eating boterkoek that I picked up at a Dutch bake sale and waiting for Karen to be done her classes so we can drive to Parkland to get a Husky hotdog.

And while we're on the subject of things I had forgotten about until today:

- Joey Fatone, formerly of N'sync, has an acting role on My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- 1% milk is gross
- 100 Huntley Street is the only clear channel when you want to watch something good in the morning
- Julia Stiles is a cool person (Columbia English Lit degree and all)
- sleeping in only makes me feel more tired
- Savage Garden was really good in its era

knock knock knockin' on heaven's door...

Today I watched people. I want to say that it wasn’t in a creepy way, but to be honest, I think it sometimes came across that way.

As I was driving to yoga, I saw a woman ahead of me, standing at the corner waiting for the light to change. She must have just come outside because she was still putting on her coat. As she flipped the bottom of her jacket, two pigeons flew out from behind her. From my perspective, it looked as though she was shaking birds from the sleeves of her coat.

I stopped in at Remedy to sit with my friends, Beth and Joel, who were working on some homework there and when I came in the door, I saw a couple sitting at a table with a vase of flowers and tin cup full of markers. There was a little “reserved” sign and an unfurled green ribbon laying on the table too. She had her hair tied in braids and the ends of his hair stuck out from underneath his cap. She laughed and played with her earrings a lot. He adjusted his glasses and rocked his feet back and forth on his chair.

After, I sat down across from Joel and Beth, a woman came in wearing a cream coloured, knitted wool cap, a nose ring and a big wooden necklace. She had her little girl strapped against her back in a kind of backpack/sling style. When she got to the counter, she crouched down so her daughter could get out. The girl looked about three years old and stood in front of the cake display with one hand to her mouth and one finger tracing the outline of the deserts. Her mom stood beside her looking at the drink menu, brushing the girl’s hair back with her fingertips. Then she leaned down, kissed her hair and pointed at the cake her daughter was eyeing.

There was a woman sitting in the corner talking on her cell phone, typing on her computer and drinking her chai all at once. She looked professional, sleek. Like she wanted to make an impression of importance. She was wearing a stripped blue and black shirt; the blue was so dark that you could hardly tell the color difference. I liked it and smiled at her. She smiled back.

A university guy came in then and sat at an empty table…waiting. He looked at his watch twice but didn’t go up and order. He was holding a brown canvas and leather bag, worn and ripped with snaps that didn’t work, but wearing brand new black Oakley shoes. A blond haired friend came, said he was going to get Chai and they went together to the counter. They stood by the tea selection for a while chatting before they came back with a coffee and a milkshake. Then they grabbed the chess board and while they set it up, talked about Xbox.

where the wind takes you, it takes me too...

Tonight, after my massage and haircut, I went and had a lavish supper by myself at The Sugarbowl. I sat at the bar because there were no tables. I read my book, for over two hours. Eating pan-fried salmon and bernard callebaut chocolate souffle with 10 year port, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The bartender asked what I was up to tonight and I couldn't bring myself to admit I was celebrating by myself, because although I was completely content and happy with the evening, I thought it might be a point of pity for someone else. I ended up telling him I was reading because I was teaching an English Lit course at a University in town. As the words came out of my mouth though, I started to think about how that revelation about myself would allow him to make generalizations about me. And then I thought about the other things I could have said in reply to him and how it would have totally changed his perspective of me.

A.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "I'm celebrating tonight because I'm done a busy season of landscaping. I've been a foreman for a local landscaping company for the past 6 months and now things are settling down for winter"


B.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "I'm planning the photos I'll be using in my upcoming show at the cafe across the street. I'm currently setting up a photography business and thinking over what to call myself"


but tonight I chose option C.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "Well, I'm an instructor for a first year English Lit course at the university, so I'm doing some reading for that because I teach again tomorrow and we're just getting into our novel studies."


Its so strange to me how people's views of me would change with any of those replies. It also makes me wonder, when they first see me, what they imagine my life to be. Certainly not an English Lit instructor, I'm too young for that. Not a landscaper, I look to girly and un-muscled for that. A photographer? maybe, but I'm not sure my outward appearance would naturally be ascribed such creativity.

In the book I was reading tonight, a phrase jumped out at me:

"Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we all struggle to live." (Marilynne Robinson, "Gilead")


....

Also, tonight I managed to stumble across many beautifully written phrases in Gilead that made me think of something else I had found recently. My roommate owns this book called "Misfits" by Jon Rosen. One of my favorites that has been popping up in my head constantly this past week...



the caption reads: Suddenly he felt happy. He did not know why. He tried to capture the feeling in a net."

As I sat there by myself sipping my port, i felt this way. And then I read these words from Gilead - "There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient" - It was beautiful, and I'll stop writing now because my eloquence looks weak in the face of these thoughts.




***postscript***

my roommate just came home, and upon hearing what I did tonight said "oh, thats such a 'bri' night"

I'm still deciding if thats a good thing or not.

it's that pivitol moment...

After 6 months with Cutting Edge landscaping, I am done for the season. Today I am celebrating. I have a massage, a haircut and plans for an evening of reading and working on photos at my current favorite cafe/pub in town. And of course I'll be home by 10pm for Grey's.

So far this morning, I've eaten cake, had my first christmas orange of the season, watched a movie while I took a bath.

Also, on another high note, there is a crazy wind today. The house is creaking and the trees are bending almost horizontal. Its beautiful.