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.

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.

i've got you under my skin...

Today I brought my MacBook, also refered to as "my baby" into the local Mac dealer to have a power problem checked out. I left half an hour later with the assurances that they'd take good care of it for the weekend and call me to let me know if its missing me on monday. This will be a tough weekend for me without it and I am currently trying to plan ways in which I can keep myself busy without using the internet or photoshop. It will be a little tough I think. Maybe I'll clean my room.
How did I ever complete a 4 year BA without a computer?! ridiculous.

For the benefit of Mr Kite...

It was a beautiful day this morning when I woke up. The air was warm already at 8am, which is pretty unusual around these parts in late October. But this afternoon, a wind came up that was of southern alberta proportions. It was beautiful, I walked out to my car after school and stood there in the parking lot letting the wind whip my hair around and freeze the ends of my fingers with my yak wool jacket, zipped up to my chin.

As I mentioned before, I've renewed my love for Edna St Vincent Millay and yesterday I came across a poem of hers that I had not read before, but that I now love:



Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

she's so heavy...

I have to get a blood test tomorrow. So I can't eat for the 12 hours preceding it. I realized this at 8:45pm tonight and I had yet to eat anything since 11am. So I hurried home from the cafe I do my marking in and had to come face to face with the reality that I have no food. Not in the, I have nothing to eat, category, more like "none of these ingredients go together to make food" kind of realization. So tonight for supper I am having icing, a carrot and a few pickled peas. time to go shopping.

i'll tell you something, i think you'll understand...

I watched Across the Universe with Jamie yesterday. It was AMAZING! One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Usually when I go to the theater, I come out feeling like I spent far too much money on something that wasn't really worth it. Well, if I had the time, I would have turned around, bought another ticket and watched it all over again. Natasha bought the soundtrack last week and now its pretty much all i'm listening to.

This week has been fairly crazy full of things to do and places to go and people to catch up with, and yes, i am aware it is only monday. tonight i went out for korean with Stefan who was just in town for a few days. We found this little hole-in-the-wall place with amazing bbq and it is just across the street from one of my favorite pubs. I'd never seen it before. who woulda guessed.

I've been wearing my blue shirt, doing lots of marking and drinking lots of chai from Remedy. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the amount of caffine in their chai makes me sick. Really really sick. Its sad, because it tastes so beautiful and warm and now even one full mug has me regretting it an hour later. They do have a tamarind cider though that I'm curious to try out, so not all is lost.

Well, I needed to mark at least 3 papers tonight and I'm at paper #1 still, so I should get off the internet, but instead I'm wasting time on the internet.

Yesterday I was reminded of my love for Edna St. Vincent Millay. So I will leave those of you who have managed to follow this random line of thoughts with a poem from her tonight...

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

i'm gonna love you, like nobodys loved you...

I feel like I bought a lot of stuff this week...

- a double disc Billie Holiday album
- a murder mystery game box to be played on October 31
- a madeline peyroux cd
- 3 chais and a lot of hummus from Remedy
- a new battery for my computer...only to find out that it is the power cord that needs to be replaced
- a power cord
- two rolls of love hearts candies

all this over and above my usual food expenses. maybe its knowing that i'll be out of a job in two weeks that has me feeling like i have spent a lot of money, or maybe its the loan that still looms over my finances needing to be paid. But all in all, I am happy with it.

Mostly, I'm really happy with Billie. I put her on Wednesday night and with a glass of wine in my hand, danced around the kitchen to her while I made my supper, did the dishes, marked more first year papers and chatted with Bethany about her broken foot. It was a good night.

and fell asleep in his brand new winter coat...

I am sitting at joel's house. I am processing photos and he is cooking. well, sort of baking actually. making pizzelles. wrapped around amazing filling and icecream and wine sauce. he is talking about how, when he is an uncle some day, he will have his nieces and nephews over at his house and make these pizzelles and call them breakfast tacos. he is also saying that generic RAM doesn't cost too much and that we have disjointed conversations sometimes. he has been referring to my musical tastes and saying that its like we're in a movie and he is john cusack and i am joan cusak. and he is giving me speeches that he thinks john would give to joan in this situation. he is burning maple syrup to his pizzelle maker and calling it an experiment and then sighing loudly and giving me a play by play of the "girltalk" concert last night.

i like my friends.

And when tomorrow gets here, where will yesterday be...

Yesterday I canceled my trip to Japan. I then bought myself a large Mexifries from Taco Time, followed by a dozen greasy wings at the neighbourhood pub. Giving myself no time to think, i ran off to the Weakerthans concert (which was fantastic) and then had a 12-hour day of work today. And now I am sitting here sorting through photos and my friend brittany - who is living in Tokyo - sent me a facebook message wondering when i am coming. And I think, for the first time, it really hit me that I am not going. That, in 3 weeks time, instead of boarding a plane to Osaka, I will be sitting at home. waking up to face two weeks of unemployment, boredom and winter. I have a bad cold. And crying only makes it worse, but as I sit here under my covers, listening to The Waifs, I can't help myself. I know that this money from the intended trip will come in handy in the next few months with all my living and planning, but right now, my heart longs to be preparing for a trip to see my friends.

In so many ways I feel like I'm coping out. If I really wanted to go, I would not have canceled. That if I were living life like I want to, I would throw caution to the wind and jump on that plane. I feel like I might just be letting my fear overpower me by not going.

But at the same time, I have so many other possibilities that open up for me in the next year by not going right now. How in the world will I ever balance these priorities when I want to do everything? Which dreams, which plans, which goals will I sacrifice for something else? Will it be worth it? And how in the world do you learn to sort out which decision is the right one when everything has both drawbacks and benefits?

I think I need to go to bed.

with your eyes closed, close your eyes...

If you own the Amelie soundtrack, please turn it on and put track 4 on repeat to provide a background to this blog post...




Things I have seen while driving this thanksgiving weekend:

...a line of bare trees so full of tiny birds that they looked as though they were covered with leaves

...a full grown moose breathing wisps of heavy steam into crisp autumn air

...rooftops dusted with snow

...the night sky devoid of any light pollution for 20 miles

...kids in a park tossing piles of yellow leaves into the air

...dust clouds swirling off gravel roads behind my tires and high into the air

...trees bent almost horizontal with wind

...white-blue factory smoke at dusk

...the streaking lights of highway traffic in the dark

...the vast emptiness of fallow land against the long blue horizon

encircle me i need to be taken down...

I have so many things going on in my head right now I can't even try and put things straight enough to write a coherent blog. I'm trying to prepare for a class I'm teaching tomorrow and feeling a little leery about. The last time i taught this group a class, I felt like I was swimming through quicksand. I'm nervous and unprepared. And also procrastinating because I fear that if I actually sit down and try to get something planned out for tomorrow, I will realize that I have nothing to say, nothing to share, nothing to teach and then I will have to deal with that realization. And so instead, my head is 1,000,000 places at once. Here is an excerpt from my mind in the past 10 minutes while I've stared at the open text in front of me...

Oh, i like this song...that book should be returned...is it out of character for me to alphabetize my cds...who am i kidding, i'd never get that done...i should go buy a nice bottle of wine tomorrow...i haven't played guitar in a long time...where did my piano books go...I wonder if Norah Jones will ever tour to edmonton again...I think I'd like to see her in Europe...How long would it take to lay all those cobblestones in the streets of Bath...I should check ticket prices...did i pay rent...I wish jeans were cheaper...west Ed is a tourist trap...i place my cheek against the glass and i can't see you in the light...the next time i take the bus i think i'd like to dance while i wait inside the stop that would make someone's day...remember get together the camera stuff....remember to pack...remember to eat...remember to breathe...my mind is falling apart...but my hair looks good today.

i just want back in your head...

I don't have much time before the premiere of "The Tudors" on CBC tonight, so this blog will be short, but I felt I needed to write.

Tonight I downloaded Tegan and Sara's new album. It's really good, but wasn't quite what I was looking to listen to tonight but one song was pretty much perfect. It's called "Back into Your Head" and when I read the lyrics, I loved it. I almost got choked up about it. Usually this happens when I feel like I'm at a place in my life where a particular song really speaks to my situation. But sometimes, regardless of what it has to say, I get overwhelmed by songs. This is one of them. Imogene Heap has a song that ends with "Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry".

Inside this song, tonight, i found space to breathe and that's a precious commodity these days.

leaving nothing else to chance again...

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church -
I keep it, staying at Home -
With a Bobolink for a Chorister -
And an Orchard, for a Dome -

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice -
I just wear my Wings -
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton - sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman -
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last -
I'm going, all along.

- Emily Dickinson

slow dancing in a burning room...

its getting earlier and earlier, that moment when my kitchen and living room erupt in a blaze of setting sun light. Two weeks ago, it was as I settled down after supper, last week it was as I was eating and now I barely make it home from work in time to see it. I can't wait until daylight savings when I can catch it again in that extra hour. I didn't go in to work today under the pretense that: #1. it was saturday and i shouldn't have to work every weekend and #2. i had a lot of other work to get done before next weekend. and its true, i did have a lot to do and i shouldn't have to work every weekend, but really, when i woke up this morning, looked at my clock and made the decision to stay home, I was thinking about this moment. When I can sit at my kitchen table with that strong, beautiful sunlight on my back before it runs its way across the row of trees out my back door and sets to some other place in the world. I will miss it come wintertime.

nothing is like it seems turn my grief to grace...

I'm going to a Tibetan craft sale today and I've been trying my hardest not to put too much pressure on it because I have to be realistic and know that it will not be the same as spending an afternoon with Tibetan refugees on the shores of Lake Phewa Tal in Nepal.
A year ago tomorrow, I got on a plane to Bangladesh, not having any idea what I was going to do, where i was going to live, how it would all turn out. And thinking back on it now, it seems like a lifetime has happened between then and now. I have seen some of the most beautiful places in the world and in the same breath, have been confronted by the most difficult, poverty and disease stricken places in the world. But it's not just about where I've been. What I've seen and experienced has deeply effected me over the past 12 months. I have have been surprised and delighted in the resilience of my spirit and in the power my mind has to notice and appreciate beauty, but I also have been to some of the darkest places i ever feared existed inside of me. When I think about it, this past year has been such a journey both around the world and inside myself, but it is only the beginning. I feel like I have spent so many years waiting in the airport for my journey to begin. Waiting as my foundations and character have been building. Waiting for the right moment to walk through the gate, and somewhere along the way this past year, without even really realizing it, I have already moved beyond the first leg of my journey. I can only sit here and wonder now about what I will have to say a year from today. What I will have experienced, how I will have transformed and changed.
I am full of anticipation.

And the ground is removed underneath...

“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality . Wake Up and Live!”

-Bob Marley

Like a warm drink it seeps into my soul...

Today I was in second cup, as per usual, and i noticed they put out their fall drink specials. Which kind of made me laugh. I mean, i know it is only a few days into september, but I feel as though it has been fall for a while now. Each day I wake up for work, the sky is darker and at the end of this last week, I still felt the chill of night as I walked down my front steps.
What really gets me though, is the changing colors. Well, edmonton isn't really known to be the most colorful fall city. Its no Ottawa or Halifax, but I've been cutting grass in the same places every week for the past 5 months and I've been watching it happen. The bushes turning from lush spring neon to deep rich summer green to the yellows and reds and oranges that are coming out now. Whatever else this job has been, it has been good for me to watch this season. Last year this time, life was moving so fast for me I hardly noticed any of this at all. But this time around, I've almost been forced to. Forced to slow down. Confronted with the signs of the season changing all day long. I feel like I've become a part of this change around me. I feel it inside me. Slowing down, thinking, listening, prioritizing. I am making a study of myself. What I want to know about me. What I want to uncover, what i want to keep hidden. I feel as though I'm not moving into a new phase of my life, but rather, my body is simply catching to where my mind and soul have been for some time now.

will i do any of these things, the answer is probably no...

I woke up and saw that it is -5 degrees right now. And yet, saturday is supposed to be +23 again. How is this possible? I am so cold. And it is only September 13th.

i know you've come to take my toys away...

This blog post is for karen...who recently confessed to me how many times she checks my blog for something new. So here is something new.

While I was moving last week, I received these fantastic wine crates from my friend Dawn. They are beautiful and cedar and the perfect shelving for me. They now house my books, my mom's canning, my videos and cds, photos of my friends who are far from me right now, a 100 year old flask and a clay plate. There is still room for so much more. I wonder, as I sit in my new room in the glorious morning sunshine, what I will experience here. What I will cry about, laugh over, be witness to, get angry about, fall in love with, while I live in this room, in this house? There is so much potential I don't know what to do with it. And when I wake up in the morning -even though I may be going to the same job, in the same familiar clothes, talking with the same people- I can't help but think about how this day is brand new. It's nice to be reminded of that. Not just to know that something new could be around the corner, but to wake up and feel that potential as an energy inside you. As a newness about yourself.

I like living here,

that's all.

its the way you love me baby..

I saw Faith Hill perform on the Ellen show tonight. I thought my love had wained over these past few years, but has not.

sitting silent wearing sunday best...

I am watching as a noisy flock of Canada Geese land in the field across the gravel road behind my new house.
The sun is falling behind a row of beautiful trees. The kind of trees that look as beautiful when they explode green as they do in when they when they turn yellow as they do with snow on their bare branches.
I'm sitting on the steps beside the hammock, under the tree that holds two birdhouses.
While I drink my tea, Badly Drawn Boy is playing inside the house. I like their music a lot and I think that Cait would too. I will try and send her a cd of them in the near future.
A pencil is holding my spot in a new book that I'm reading. It is excellent so far. The kind of excellent that makes you want to read it very slowly so that you don't finish too quickly.
I want to light the lanterns in the backyard tonight and have a fire. Maybe I will.
I hear Bethany coming around the corner so I will leave off here to talk with my new roommate about her weekend in the mountains.

if you want your things, they're on the front step...

I am moving. I hate moving. All the boxes and organizing and collection of your life into compartments and fitting them into vehicles to be transported across the city. But there is something exciting about this move for me. I already love the house and I know one of my two roommates very well, and the location is perfect. Kind of like the country inside the city. If you saw the place you'd know what I mean. There is something calming about the place itself. I feel myself relax when i walk up to the door. I have loved other places I have lived and other roommates, but for the past four months, I've been living in a state of transition. Living out of boxes and my car and a tent in the backyard. I have really enjoyed the summer, but at the same time, this house, this place, has not been a place of shelter and peace for me. For most of the summer it has been Jamie and myself in the house and for the past few weeks, well, more like the past two months, I've been living in a tent in the backyard and she's been sleeping on the couch. I think that this is an interesting phenomenon. I was thinking about it on my way into work this morning and I think for both of us, we've been having a hard time finding our own "space" this summer. Sure we both have rooms inside the house, but neither of us choose to use them. I think this says a lot about what is going on subconsciously. Now both of us are packing to move to places that we already love and are excited to be in and that makes me very happy because it is much needed. I know I'm not explaining this very well, but when I looked at my new room last night I thought about what will all happen to me there. How many phone calls to loved ones, how many nights spent writing and photographing, how many of my cries and laughs will these new walls hear. It is a beautiful thing to be moving into shelter. I am excited.

The ones that get to your soul...

This will be a two-fold blog entry I have decided. First of all, I want to talk about the Parkland area of Edmonton and make mention of a certain woman who lives there. Every week I am out in the Parkland subdivision cutting parks and boulevards and pipelines. And more than once now, Karen and I have been driving off or on to the Anthony Henday and an asian woman is driving through that very same intersection. Now, normally, that wouldn't be too memorable. I'm sure we have encountered many of the same people in the same places at the same times, but this woman is different. She drives wearing a full visor over her face. Almost as though she is on her way to weld something, but not quite so hard core. Each time we've seen her now, she is never without that full face visor...rain or shine and it brings a fantastic amount of joy to Karen and I's day.
Also, a mention of Parkland would not be complete without bringing attention to the Husky hotdogs. They are quite possibly the best hotdogs in the entire city and the condiments, the likes of which have never been seen before, include not only the usual but banana peppers, sauerkraut and often fresh, finely chopped onion. The other day, when I was in there having my 9am hotdog, I met a man who works on the North East end of the city, but drives all the way out to Parkland Husky (on the far west side of the city) to get a hotdog everyday. mmmm. Thursday here I come.


Now, on a totally different note, I'd like to share with you some lyrics from the fantastic Xavier Rudd. Its a song called Message, and I really like it.

So come sit down
Will you talk with me now?
Let me see through your eyes
Where there is so much life
We are biding our time
For these myths to unwind
These changes we will confront

So peace be where
With every place that you had
Look to your soul
For these things that you know
For the trees that we see
Cannot forever breathe
With the changes they will confront

You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things

This sacred land it has
Seen many hands, it has
Wealth and gold yet it is
Fragile and old and all the
Greedy souls just don't care to know
Of the changes it will confront

So speak out loud of the
Things you are proud
And if you love this coast
Keep it clean as it evolves
Cos the way that it shines
May just dwindle with time
With the changes it will confront

You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things
You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things

So hold nice and close
The ones that get to your soul
So that when it is cold
You wont feel so alone
Cos the roads that you take
May just crack and break
With the changes you will confront

With each gift that you share
You may heal and repair
With each choice that you make
You may help someone's day
Well I know you are strong
May your journey be long
Now I wish you the best of luck
Well I know you are strong
May your journey be long
And now I wish you the best of luck

and the wheels just keep on turning, the drummer begins to drum...

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways, truer answers, or more beautiful, promising potentialities."

- M. Scott Peck

it just takes some time little girl, you're in the middle of the ride...

Last night I was sitting by a fire and I was asked to play a song on the guitar. And as I declined, I realized that I haven't played guitar in such a long time. I stared at that guitar and couldn't think of a single song that I would want to play. This sort of disturbed me. I have come to think of myself as a musical person. I have played piano and guitar and sax for most of my life. And its been months and even years since I've picked these instruments up. I am slowly allowing myself to become un-musical, which is odd, seems how I always have music playing in my life. When i'm home, when i'm at work, when i'm cooking supper, when i'm showering, when i'm reading...I'm always listening to music. But never any music coming from myself. I used to love playing music. It never sounded as good as the original people performing it, but there was something in the feeling of playing it for myself that really captured of piece of myself.
I think I will pick up my guitar again tonight and see what comes of it.

miss almost, miss maybe, miss halfway...

I went for a walk with Jamie in the rain tonight for 2 hours. She always has so much going on in her mind and when we go for walks, it seems to just spill out from her and take shape and form and its incredible to just sit back and listen to and watch and let it wash over me.
There is so much faith and hope and beauty and passion in what she says that I am so challenged by it. On days when I begin to feel as if the human race is becoming ridiculous and stupid and so self-centered, there are moments that she says something and I am forced to step back and see the hope and beauty in humanity and the love and potential that exists in this world.
It makes me realize that there is so much more that I could do with my life and at the same time, that there is a real simplicity in just loving and respecting the people around me.

And as it continues to drizzle rain and the temperature drops, I realize...I have enjoyed this summer.

tell me about the sunsets in sweden and the laws of eden...

I don't think anything hurts so bad as to be separated from someone you love. Tonight my heart hurts for people who live far from me and who I cannot hug or go to breakfast with or be obnoxiously loud together.

Here are two poems for you tonight that I would share with you if you were here with me sipping tea at 11:21pm on Thursday night...

The first is by Hafiz, and it is beautiful.

I Have Learned So Much


I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.



And this one is written by Lawrence Raab. I hope you can hear my voice in it.

Since You Asked

Since you asked, let's make it dinner
at your house - a celebration
for no reason, which is always
the best occasion. Are you worried
there won't be enough space, enough food?

But in a poem we can do anything we want.
Look how easy it is to add on room, to multiply
the wine and chickens. And while we're at it
let's take those trees that died last winter
and bring them back to life.

Things should look pulled together,
and we could use the shade - so even now
they shudder and unfold their bright new leaves.
And now the guests are arriving - everyone
you expected, then others as well:

friends who never became your friends,
the women you didn't marry, all their children.
And the dead - I didn't tell you
but they're always included in these gatherings -
hesitant and shy they hang back at first

among th blossoming trees.
You have only to say their names,
ask them inside. Everyone will find a place
at your table. What more can I do?
The glasses are filled, the children are quiet.

My friend, it must be time for you to speak.

those LA lights never shine quite as bright as in the movies, do you still want to go...

Today i took a road trip through the country with some friends...we became tourists in our own province. Taking in the museums and towns we would normally never take the time to pull off the highway for. But today we did, and it was beautiful. A gopher museum, an abandoned rail car, and old blue church on a hill...today was full of beautiful randomness with my friends.

However, I took two moments to myself today. One while the girls were eating supper in Subway. It was raining outside, but was still so warm. I took a stroll in the rain down the street, just listening and smelling and watching and not thinking. It was so restful and beautiful. I love the way rain just carefully settles things into their place.

Later I made us stop on the side of the road by a field of hay bales. I jumped the barbed wire and climbed on top of one. I just stood there for a while watching the sunset against the clouds, watching the other few vehicles on the road whiz past, watching my friends chat in the van. I stood there and smelled the humid alfalfa and felt the hay under my feet and breathed in everything I could about that moment. It was also beautiful.

I will remember this tomorrow when I am working, when i will need it to sustain me.

There's a perfume burning in the air, bits of beauty everywhere...

Two great moments this weekend. First, I was talking with Jamie about life and other things. I got to thinking about how I used to think that I had to always be following where god wanted me to be. Always worried if this next decision will steer me off the path that has been laid for me. More and more though I've let go of that idea. I had a moment this weekend where I finally came around to completely, 100% feel comfortable in a theory that has been flying around in my head for the past few years...if you do what you love and make your own path, God will follow.


Another great moment this weekend...

I was playing in the backyard with my nephew this weekend and he says to me, "Auntie Bri, all over the world people speak a different language, right? But they all have the same laugh"

the streetlights all burn out...

It is 6:43.
It is already 19 degrees.
It's supposed to get up to 34 today.
I am running out the door to go work outside all day in this record breaking heat.

Sick.

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

usually when things has gone this far, people tend to disappear...

Someone involved in "Jacob's Well" (http://jacobswell.ca/) in vancouver came to talk at the Mustard Seed here in Edmonton. My roommate happens to work there and passed this on to me. I am still thinking through what she means by some of these claims, but I think she's on to something here. Something very worth thinking about:

1. Justice embodies mercy, but mercy does not encompass justice

2. The biblical mandate is that we love others, not save others

3. Intervention=mercy; Prevention=justice

4. The Year of Jubilee should be the governing principles of church embodied justice

5. The church has abdicated her responsibility for the marginalized by paying taxes to the government and thinking that's enough

6. Justice cannot be relegated to a department of the church but rather should be the function of everyone who claims to follow the way of Christ

7. Guilt massaging does not satisfy the poor or the heart of God for the poor

8. The kingdom of God cannot be confined to a program

9. True Christianity always includes care for the marginalized

10. Serving the marginalized is not a special calling or gifting for some Christians, it is God's requirement for all his people

11. God calls us to participate actively in the redemption of all of His creation which includes care for the earth and all that is in it

12. Culturally implicated understanding of spiritual gifts lead people to think in hyper-spiritual terms and in personal benefit/consumptive ways

13. The gospel is way more that Jesus dying for our sins

14. The church has predominantly taugh both verbally and in praxis that it's your church participation that matters to God, not your participation in the world

15. The enlightment led us to individualism that is rampant in the church and completely contrary to the Kingdom of God

walked a mile just to find the edge, some place low enough to step right in...

Thoughts while cleaning my room at 10:41 on a saturday night:

"Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as its going to get." - anne lamott

I kept quiet so you'd think my heart was tough...

I spend most my days lately with some sort of lawn mowing device, headphones and my own mind. I was thinking today about how I can't really say that I think a lot while I'm at work. I mostly just listen to music, watch the height of the blade, avoid rocks, gravel and hidden ruts, sleep in the truck or lay on the grass in the sun during lunch, listen to more music, go home, snack on something, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. The thing is, I can't really say I've been thinking a whole lot in the past while. Usually my mind races so fast that I can hardly keep up with it, and not that it has stopped doing so, but I've found that nothing its rambling on about inside my head is really compelling or interesting or of great importance. Maybe that's it maybe I'm realizing that it never was all these things. I don't know yet. I'm still thinking on it...so I guess I am thinking every once in a while these days!

no more left and right, come on take my side...

Sometimes time stretches out in front of you like it will never end. Standing on this side of the May Long weekend, I work 10 of the next 11 days...10 long days. Its not that I dislike my work, in fact, I usually have a lot of fun with it, but its hard to swallow 10 days of probably over 10 hours each that lie in front of me. Not that I'm complaining either. I just spent the past 5 days taking off work to be at my best friend's wedding. She was stunning. And I know lots of people describe brides that way, but she really was stunning, even with kneehigh stripped socks under that wedding dress. Its strange to have two of my closest friends married within two months of each other. But in both Amy and Cait's case, I am so excited and proud of them because I respect the men they married so much. As Mr Bennet replies to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice: "I couldn't have parted with you for anyone less worthy!"

I know we've all had a bumpy ride, I’m secretly on your side...

I sometimes have these overwhelming moments when I realize that I have really REALLY great friends. Here are a few of them:

My legs fail me the ground hails me, distant lights are calling...

I feel like I haven't really been keeping up my blog lately. other than the odd quick post here and there with a promise to write more, write better, write later. Its still before 7 am and I'm sitting eating my breakfast of lemon pie filling, reading the paper and wondering what today will bring. Well, I know in some senses what today will bring. I will chase a weed whacker around new subdivisions in Southwest Edmonton, but I don't know, in a larger sense what awaits me today. and that is a wonderful feeling of open potential. I'll hold on to that as I trim grass today.

And I know it's easy to say but it's harder to feel...

I've only been working landscaping/maintenance for two days now, but already my body is falling apart. If I were to list all the muscles in my body that are sore, no, more than sore...seizing, the rest of this blog would be full. I have pulled muscles that I was not aware I would ever use in my lifetime. But on the up side, I've been seeing a lot of the sun and my skin is losing that pasty sheen and taking on a more complimentary glow (despite the fact that it's a little more reddish than brown per se). And regardless of the fact that in this moment it's falling apart, I know that this is only the beginning of my body rebuilding into a fantastic muscle machine!

That's right, two days in and I'm already on my way to being tanned and ripped.

You fall, feeling like it's just begun...

I'm lying on the front lawn in the sun with all my roommates. Its kind of funny to see...all these older people on their sunday walks enjoying the sunshine, strolling past our house and seeing 6 girls laying out on the lawn suntanning. And in this moment, this perfect moment of early summer weather, I realize just how easy it is to lose it. I'm reminded of this poem I once read by Charles Simic, called The Altar. It ends with the lines:

An alter dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful , it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost.

Depressing? maybe. Compelling? without a doubt. I like this poem because it reminds me of timing. of young men in wars. of that split second between the gas and the brake. of Romeo missing the friar's letter by that chance moment.
I think about my cousin training to go to Afghanistan in February, I think about Nathan all the way over in Kelowna, I think about my aunt dying of ALS the day I flew home from Bangladesh, I think about life and it overwhelms me because life, like comedy, is all about timing.

wake up its time, we need to find a better place to hide...

Its already may! How in the world did this happen? Time is flying past me. The intensity of that thought makes it impossible for me to say something intelligent...I will post again later.

I'm a slow motion accident, lost in coffee rings and fingerprints...

I feel like lately I've had a lot of moments that make me stop and think about what my life would have looked like if I had made different decisions...small, seemingly insignificant decisions that felt like they only changed the moment I was in, but looking back...have changed the entire course and landscape of my life in the past few years. As of this morning, I have finished 5 years of post-secondary education, and the person I am today is so very different from the person who began at TKUC all those years ago. Would I change the way things have turned out? The way I have turned out? No, I really don't think so. But at the same time, I find myself thinking about how my life would have taken a different turn at certain crucial moments. Choosing my major, my roommate(s), the men in my life, my friends, the movies I've watched...everything down to the musicians I've been exposed to and have connected with. At any given moment in the past 5 years, i feel as though a slight change in the decisions I've made would have had radical, long-term effects upon the person I am now. (This knowledge, by the way, does not in any way decrease the pressure I feel at the moment to make decisions for my future!)

When the most important things in our lives happen we quite often do not know, at the moment, what is going on.
- CS Lewis "Mere Christianity"

empty my heart, i got to make room for this feeling, its so much bigger than me...

Today marks a momentous occasion in my annals of ridiculous head-in-the-clouds academia. I got locked INSIDE the University of Alberta library. yes. I had decided I was doing some last minute desperate research in Rutherford SOUTH, so I simply ignored all closing announcements for Rutherford North. As it happened, at 6:15pm, all the lights went out, except for the "EXIT" signs. It was then that I took out my earphones, looked around at the study area around me (moments earlier absolutely FULL of students) and realized that I was indeed in Rutherford NORTH. - For the record, I am not usually so directionally challenged - I managed to quickly collect all my things (and unable to check out my research, left it on the table) and ran down 4 flights of stairs only to find the main entrance already locked. So not cool. I stood there thinking about how creepy a library looks lit up only by exit signs, deciding what to do. Luckly, a "guard" had just come out of the back and saw me and let me out with only a brief lecture on listening to announcements...I nodded and pretended I was excessively sorry...but seriously, who closes a library at 6:00pm during exams?! Ridiculous!
So I now have two FULL papers to write tomorrow...oh, i'm so screwed.

i'm hiding out for good, runnin faster than I ever thought I could, run run away now...

Late last night, while I was finishing off a paper, I noticed it had started raining. The first actual rain of the season - not hail, not snow, not freezing rain - but real, actual soft, make the air smell of earth, kind of rain.
I sat on the front step just listening and watching and basking in it for a few minutes before I picked up my camera and started playing around...before I knew it, I was in the median of 50th street with my tripod taking photos of traffic and lights flying past me on both sides. While I stood there, waiting for the shutter or the perfect moment of light and movement, I was thinking about poetry; about the way it pulls at language, doing something irreverent and new with something so stiff and structured. Sometimes it really surprises me how much I love poetry. I always considered myself someone who could understand and appreciate poetry, but was definitely a prose girl, but lately, I've been starting to admit to myself that maybe I am more into poetry than I'm aware. And then the shutter goes, or the light turns green and I set it up again, shooting more to the left or from lower down...and standing there in the first rain of the season, in the middle of the night, I thought to myself, THIS is what I love. THIS is what I want to do. THIS is what lets me be me.

So, anyone wanting to pay me to sit in the rain and take photos and think about poetry, give me a call...I'll be needing a patron.

inside a poem, the only words i ever knew

I know, I know, more song lyrics, but its worth it. Imogen Heap is my newest musical addiction and well worth it. Probably one of the best I've found in a very long time. The music is so good, simple piano solos, cascading string sequences, incredible, distinctive vocals. And the lyrics - able to express the most difficult to articulate and reach beyond that to tug at the completely inexpressible deep within you.

You can find this song on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F56kCh_Sso0 set to a collage of Gilmore Girls Luke/Lorelai if you want to take a listen...

Candlelight "Imogen Heap"

I am alone, surrounded by
The colour blue
Inside a poem, the only
Words I ever knew
Washing my hands, of the
Many years untold
For now I am banned, my
Future is to unfold

Would you take my
Candlelight
Would you take my
Candlelight
Would you take
My candlelight
Away from me

I am blind
My eyes
Are
Covered
From
The
Outside
For I have lied, now all
There is left for me
To do is hide
Take in a deep
Breath, I lift
My head
For I am a new man
And I arise from my bed

This is all there is, I can see that now
I have to be careful with it, now it’s been found
So fragile, but powerful, this is the light
Of my destiny stay with me, through every night

what am I supposed to do? there are too many of you...

I am sitting in the sun listening to the Be Good Tanyas. Their music haunts me, that whispery bluegrass accented by harmonicas and slide guitars. The song "Its not Happening" came up and as I listened to it, it reminded me of coming back home from work in Dhaka, sitting on the couch, eating pineapple and singing along to this song. Its frustrating to me that I sit here now, thousands of miles and three months away from that time and place and still I feel as though this song is knitted into my soul...maybe even more deeply than it was back then.

"The way your mind works
Travels so fast
Carving your way
Through the city

And you can tell me
You get what you want
You figure it out
And you're just fine

Cuz you're talking to yourself
Don't hear a thing
Now history unfolds before you
You just shut your eyes
You just shut your eyes
It's not happening

We all go up, down
Fend for ourselves,
Or fend for each other
Fend for each other sometimes

But you keep on racing me
Like something's chasing you
Like something's gonna get you
Something's gonna get you
One day

And you're talking to yourself
Don't hear a thing
Now history unfolds before you
You just shut your eyes
You just shut your eyes
It's not happening

And you're talking to yourself
Don't hear a thing
Now history unfolds before you
You just shut your eyes
You just shut your eyes
It's not happening

You just shut your eyes
You just shut your eyes
It's not happening
No, no, no, hmm...."

- Be Good Tanyas "Its not Happening"

push'n and pullin' at me as I fall deeper and deeper in...

Its been a year since I wrote my last research paper for University and this week I'm sitting here looking at the three that need to be finished (or even started) in the next week and it is completely overwhelming and daunting.
I am planning to probably take next year off of school to do some work and whatnot, but I feel that if it was this hard to get back into school now, how in the world could I jump back into school after an entire year off?
The idea of having to do more school again makes me anxious, but the thought of not returning to school ever again makes me sick to my stomach and afraid for my life. What do you do when you've done what you're good at, come out the other side of it and still don't know what to do?

baby sees the elephant like she sees the steam rising off her plate...

Today is my second last day of undergraduate classes at King's. Yeah, I know, I said that last year this time. But I think it is actually true this time around.
And what a way to end it. I spent 4 hours in class today and will spend the rest of the day writing papers that were already due. Classic.

wait! they don't love you like I love you...

This one is for Hailey, who insisted on my keeping up my blog when I started slacking.

So my oldest sister printed off all my blogs and e-mails to her during my time in Bangladesh and put them all together in a book which she gave to me this weekend. I read parts of it this afternoon and it made me laugh and think and understand some things about myself that I wasn't aware of before. I came across one blog entry from November when I asked the question: "is it possible that someone's idea of who you are could be closer to the truth that what you have believed about yourself?"

This made me think. Think about my frame of mind when I wrote it, think about all that lead up to that point, think about all that has happened since then. It reminded me again that sometimes we need to listen to what others say about ourselves to remind us who we are, who we can be, who we must continue to be and what we need to get rid of. I came across an old Christmas card this weekend from a friend who had written to me about who I was in her eyes back then. I had forgotten some of those things, I had forgotten that I still have them inside me and I need to fight to bring them back out.

In one of my blogs in October, i included this excerpt from DH Lawrence's "Lady Chatterly's Lover":

"Our is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataciysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen."

so carry me around like a picture in your purse, and pull me out when things are at their worst...

a little something lighter than often got me out of bed in the morning this summer...