steal my records...

I went with my parents to our friends' house tonight for supper. In junior high, their oldest daughter and I were inseperable and because our parents were good friends, their house and family were so familar to me, it was almost as though they were my own. Over the years we've keep in really good touch, even working together one summer. However, its been years since I'd seen some of their other kids and even longer since I had been at their farm. I showed up early, and played Apples To Apples with my friend and her sibilings. At first it was a little awkward. Its strange to come to a place that was so much a part of you and to people who knew you so well, but to be a different person. I didn't really know how exactly to act and how to relate to the sibilings who, though they were now in college, my last real interaction with them was when they were still in junior high. Somewhere in the first hour though, I settled into the rhythm of the place - as though I had never left. It was so comfortable and warm and familiar and it felt like home to be with them.

I left a few minutes after my parents and turned my normally 15 mintue drive into 25 just slowing down and taking in the moment. Cruising down the oiled country road in the dark, not a single other vehicle on the road the entire way home, listening to Ryan Adams as loud as the speakers would allow, every farmhouse lit up extra bright with their christmas lights that reflected off the snow drifts in the ditch...it was one of those moments that you can actually feel yourself, your soul expanding to encompass it.

she said she loved me but she had somewhere to go...

Lately I've been looking into sending in submissions to different travel magazines. For years now, just under a dusting of paperwork on my desk, a copy the writer/photographer guidelines for submissions to National Geographic Traveler has taunted me. Arlette, who found and copied them for me, continues to encourage me to put something together for them. I have yet to bring myself to do it, despite the fact that I think on it often. Its not laziness, I like doing writing and photography better than pretty much anything else in life. Its not a fear or rejection. I'm not deluding myself, I know that it takes numerous submissions before one even gets looked at critically. I know I will be turned down over and over again and working through that wouldn't be all that bad. And yet, I still can't put my thoughts to paper. I can't choose the portfolio to submit. I thought maybe I was trying to jump too far, too fast. National Geographic is my dream. It is the pinnacle of my goals and aspirations. What if I submit and, worse than getting a letter of rejection, I get ignored? What if I submit and by some strange miracle, get accepted relatively early? I'm not sure I could handle either of those two options. If I got ignored, it would probably stop me from ever submitting again. If I got accepted, how could I comprehend that and how, if I was asked to do more work for them, would I be able to assure them the same quality of work?
I started to think that maybe I should aim a little lower to begin. So today I spent an hour in Chapters, pulling out all manner of travel magazines jotting down websites and photo editors names and e-mail addresses. I rejected magazines on either side of the spectrum. I couldn't see myself reviewing 5 star hotels for the rest of my life for "Life of Luxury" and I'm not the kind of hardcore extreme hiker/climber/snowboarder/scuba diver that Adventure Travel Mag is looking for either. I came across quite a few interesting options though and now that I've researched them back at home, I sit here immobile again. I have seven websites in front of me with detailed submission guidelines for photography and writing for excellent, interesting travel magazines and I still can't take the next step. I don't know what to do. If I submitted to these magazines and got ignored, I think that might be it for my attempts in the travel magazine world. If I submitted and got rejected, I might get lazy and convince myself that I didn't really want to work for them anyways. If I submitted to them and got accepted, I might be content with their publication and never make a run at National Geographic. None of this helps me.

Some days I believe I am going to be pretty good at a lot of things and never great at just one thing. I will be a good writer and photographer and landscaper and teacher and waitress and whatever else is in my future, but I will never be world renowned for any of these qualities. I will never be the expert in any one area. I have friends who I firmly believe will be KNOWN. People who will be talked about and of whom I can say "Yeah, I know them. We're friends." and people will look at me in astonishment. I will not be one of those people and I am content with that.
Sometimes though, I will be walking down the street and for a moment, for a tiny glimmer, I feel the most intense potential and I feel as though, if I really pursued it, things like National Geographic are within my reach.

I read a quote from Angelia Jolie this week and it struck me as interesting...

"If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart."

It makes me wonder if we (as a collective race) settle for what we don't really want to do or if we choose things that are beyond our grasp so we never have to think about what to do once we've achieved them.

the clouds up above openned up and let it out...

In a Town in Germany

"Isn't this an interesting monument?" says Robert. The late autumn sun is beginning to set. We are in a town in Germany.
"I can't see anything" I say, "Just an empty square"
"The monument is beneath our feet" insists Robert.
I look down. I see only plain slabs, all of them the same. I don't want to disappoint my friend, but I can't see anything else in the square.
Robert explains: 'It's called "The Invisible Monument". Carved on the underneath of each of these stones is the name of a place where Jews were killed. Anonymous artists created this square during the Second World War, and continued adding slabs as new places of extermination were discovered. Even if no one could see them, it would remain here as a witness, and the future would end up finding out the truth about the past."

- from "Like the Flowing River" by Paulo Coelho


I think this is beautiful.

As in olden days...

I had a bad day. Mostly because things didn't turn out the way I wanted them too. Usually I can roll with the punches pretty well but today, I was unimpressed. The biggest disapointment of the day came in the form of UPS. (please do yourself a favor and ship with FedEx...this is the second time this month that UPS has caused major problems in this household). Anyways, the package I was promised on Wednesday got waylaid and so I was guaranteed delivery today. That was, of course, until they forgot it in Calgary this morning. Now I am "guaranteed delivery" tomorrow. right.
After my fourth call to UPS trying to track its whereabouts, I let Mr"i'm sorry mam, thats just sometimes the way it happens" know that I did not appreciate the company he worked for and would no longer ever be using them for my shipping needs (or something along those lines). Now I'm not usually the type of person who lets the man/woman in the call center have it because really, its not their fault and not only are they are not personally responsible for your misfortune, but there is nothing they can do. Today though, I was mad. Really really mad.

In an effort to burn off some angry energy, I went for a walk because it really was a beautiful day outside. By the time I got to the far end of the farm - in record speed - my ears were frozen and my feet were wet. I then realized I had to walk all the way back. As I was blowing into my mittens and turning around, the sun hit that point as its going down where it just peaks through the very top branches of the trees and hits you full in the face. I just closed my eyes and breathed for a while, enjoying the blinding sun on my eyelids. The walk back was much better after that. An old man was pushing an old school baby buggy that, when I got closer, his tiny dog was sitting in all wrapped up in sweaters and blankets. The wind from yesterday had whipped little caps onto the snow drifts in the ditch and I found one of Bethany's mittens that I had lost off the roof of my car last night...this gives me hope that the other one is just enjoying the lightness of the snow and will soon come around to letting himself be found as well.

the lonely light of morning, the wound that would not heal...

I spent a good portion of my day reading Angelina Jolie's "Notes on my Travels". Its not an easy read. You can tell she's not a writer, but she cares passionately about what she's discussing and the people she has met. There is an honesty in her words that reveals her sincerity. What really struck me was the way in which she described some of the situations she encounters as a Goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR. There were moments that I was reading her words and I could see it, I could feel and smell and taste the poverty she was describing, and it came to me that it was Bangladesh. I could see the naked children running through the alleys filled with excrement. I could taste the dust of temporary housing on my tongue, dulling my taste, choking my throat. I could smell the well of contaminated water being pumped over clothing and cooking alike. I could hear the noise of vehicles and children and bartering in the markets. In Jolie's description of buying appropriate clothes in Pakistan, I saw myself 12 months ago standing in Mohammudpur bazzar. The beggars who press up against the windows, the gender barriers, the bright colors and strange foods, it all swept over me again in a wave of strange emotions. Most of the time, Dhaka sits in my brain barely covered by my conscious thought and in moments like today, I can still close my eyes and be back there in an instant. I'm still not sure what to make of Bangladesh. It was almost a year ago since I've been there, but I still cannot make sense of it. A year before then Honduras stole (and when I say stole, I mean I willingly gave it) a piece of my soul that will forever stay in Varsovia, but Bangladesh and I have been somewhat at odds since I arrived there. I would not exchange my experience there for the world, but while Honduras made me feel as though my heart expanded to encompass what was new, Dhaka ripped me open and left me raw to deal with adding this perspective. But I am coming around to believing there is power and passion in the violence by which Bangladesh impressed itself upon me.

and this makebelieve will get me through another lonely night...

I've been watching a lot of movies lately and I've noticed a trend. It started with romantic comedies and to be honest, I wasn't surprised, but then it showed up in action movies and thrillers and even the marvel comics films. And well, this may sound a little ridiculous, but LOVE is a major factor in all of the plots. Of all the movies I've watched in the past month, I think maybe only Kill Bill does not overtly use love as a motivating force. Now, I've thought about this for a while and at first I was super cynical. Its so cliche that "love has power" and "all you need is love". Maybe I'm being too harsh on love, but I just don't think that it can pull off all its given credit for. When I was watching "Ghost Rider" today, Nicholas Cage gets told that "a man who has the guts to sell his soul for love can change the world". I'm not sure I'm convinced, sorry Johnny Blaze. But then I started thinking about some very un-Hollywood versions of love. Despite the fact that its produced by a big name movie company, I thought about Love Actually. I think its a brilliant film about the nature of love and the human experience, and though I've already dissed the cheesy cliches, that "love actually is all around us". I thought about the movie Water and how subtly the idea of love gets worked out through the relationships there. And I thought about Amelie in all its quirky beauty and how the movement of the plot is pulled through all these twists and turns with such a lightness. Which in turn made me think of Closer and how it is so heavy and painfully broken but full of a rich kind of love that rips through the character's lives. Love is so ubiquitous and persistent in so many forms that its no wonder all of these movies are so focussed on it. Its such a same that it is so often relegated to being simply an emotion.

strawberry wine seventeen, hot july moon...

Tonight Beth and I were listening to her iPod on shuffle and "Strawberry Wine" by Denna Carter came on. Spontaneously, the two of us broke into song. Neither one of us laughed about it or commented on it, but continued to sing on and off between chatting about the pros and cons of putting her hair up. I really enjoyed it.

I see it comin'...

"Improbably and when you least expect it....the world rights itself again" - Grey's Anatomy


I feel like I should have something more to say about this. Like why it jumped out at me, what I think about it, where I'm coming from. But I don't. This is all for tonight. Maybe I'll have some great wisdom about it tomorrow

and when you kiss me on that midnight street, sweep me off my feet...

I bought a christmas tree last night. A live one. About 6 feet tall. I put it in my room. Right in the center, between my piles of clothes and my bed. I have tree sap all over my hands still from cutting the bottom branches off. But it smells beautiful. And last night while I stood in the IGA parking lot, looking at the smallest trees the guys had to offer, it was lightly snowing and I felt like I didn't mind Christmas. Not that I hate Christmas or anything, but it is not my pick when it comes to holidays. Now, I'm getting off track though, because what I really wanted to say was how beautiful it is to sleep under a Christmas tree.

its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Its snowing great big flakes today. Lots of them. So far probably almost a foot.

And though it may not be connected, I think you should watch this

all of my friends fall from the sky now...

Today I went for supper with Jamie at "Churros King", one of my favorite Chilean places in the city. Now, I haven't been at Churros in about a year and a half, but they make some real good roast beef and green bean sandwiches and rellenos. Its a family run business and they have about 9 tables. The mom and dad cook in the back and the son runs all the table service. When I have come before, he used to chat with me a bit about speaking Spanish and traveling.
Well today he came over to the table with water glasses and menus and said, "Hey, you haven't been in here for a while, and you are wearing contacts instead of your glasses! How have you been?" I was blown away. Its been at least 18 months since this guy had seen me, and before then I had only come to eat a handful of times, but he not only recognized me, but remembered details about me!
Human interaction amazes me.