the life cycle of a hope

there was a time when hope unexpectedly sprang to life within me like the determined punch of a spring crocus through the armour of winter snow.

there was a time when i felt renewed. a time when the stark, vast canyon of what came before was instantly eclipsed by the lush meadows and vibrant colours of what might be to come.

there was a time when i lurched forward. a time when my legs, awkward and clumsy and with tentative steps, stumbled then suddenly found their footing in discovery and surprise.

there was a time when there was absolutely no question. a time when my heart glowed, its beat certain, illuminated by a million twinkling lights of possibility.

there was a time when my answer would have always been yes. a time when i would have said it immediately, gleefully rushed to say it, tripped over myself with joy at the rare opportunity, thrilled at the question, grateful for the chance.

there was a time when it didn’t take much. a time when a smile, or a laugh, or a fleeting glance was all i needed to feel that warm, hopeful flush of excitement and potential, and the tiniest glimpses of magic held more promise for me than the grandest of gestures.

there was a time when i would have done anything. a time when i happily turned the world upside down, reached farther than i ever had before, ignored my own doubts, pushed my own limits, mustered the courage i needed to leap headlong into the unknown... all for the precious, evanescent bliss of a single moment.

there was a time when i paused each night to wish on every star in the sky. a time when i set myself free to stroll through the moonlit fields and enchanted cityscapes of my imagination, to softly offer my most tender secrets to the universe.

there was a time when, buoyed by hope, i believed the unbelievable could really happen.

there was a time when i knew it was slipping away. a time when i felt every cell in my body clinging to hope so tightly that i feared i might suffocate from the strain... only to realize my breath was slowly disappearing on the wings of faint sighs.

there was a time when i waited. a time when i embraced patience as a means to the end that i prayed would still come... only to realize this was a dream being dreamed only by me, and that my longing was to remain mine alone.

there was a time when i tried everything. a time when i wrung myself inside out, left myself spent, and thought i was screaming so loudly the heavens could hear me... only to realize that my voice was not registering.

there was a time when i had to decide. a time when i held my face towards the mirror and forced myself to stare into the unsympathetic eyes of reality, to scrutinize as objectively as i was able, to really see... to realize the hurt i was causing myself, to acknowledge that hope had metastasized into an unyielding anchor, and to make a choice that broke every corner of my heart.

there was a time when i had to give up. a time when i needed to surrender, when i understood that my reach was not enough, that my desire was not enough, that i was not enough... with the realization that, sometimes, hope itself is not enough.

there was a time when the dull ache of acceptance settled quietly into my soul. a time when my heart and i wept as i whispered goodbye... realizing the time had come to let this hope go.

the official SYTYCD (summer) 2009 entry... because it had to happen eventually...

* next week is the finale. alas.

* i love So You Think You Can Dance. it’s one of the few things i actually enjoy about summer, and it’s one of my very few must-watch TV programs. (as a complete aside: NBC will be rerunning the best midseason show there was -- Southland -- friday nights at 8 starting tomorrow. watch it if you missed the first time!)

* sweet holy hell, mia michaels makes me happy.

* see also: cat deeley.

* i think tabitha and napoleon, while cute, are overrated as choreographers. i feel like they’re running out of ideas and are turning to gimmicks in an obvious bid to create some kind of apparatus-fueled routine that (they hope) will become a series favourite/classic. so far, no such luck. chains? meh. boxes? no.

* l’il C needs to get to the bloody point or get off the judging panel. good grief, can that man blather on and on without making an ounce of sense. use fancy $50 words if you want to, that’s “stupendous,” but at least string them together in a way that’s coherent. my favourite pearl of wisdom from one of last night’s epic, convoluted post-dance comments: “when you see with your ears, there is no darkness.” seriously. i wonder how bitter shane sparks is that he abandoned ship and then lost his third-chair seniority when he returned to the show this season.

* i am sad that melissa not only landed evan as a partner for the penultimate episode, but that one of their assigned dances was the quickstep. she’s a beautiful dancer, and deserves to be in the final four, but i think these two factors may cost her a slot.

* speaking of evan, like tabitha and napoleon, he’s cute and impish and charming... but kind of one-note, i find. sliding through on his personality instead of his ability. my final four picks would be: ade, melissa, kayla and brandon.

* joey dowling simultaneously fascinates and terrifies me.

* sonya tayeh simultaneously confuses and entertains me.

* why no benji schwimmer numbers this year?

* why don’t i get as excited by SYTYCD: Canada?

* and why am i slightly worried that FOX’s decision to run the next season of the show this fall (instead of next summer) is a mistake? fingers crossed that i am wrong, wrong, wrong.

anti-matter

every now and again, a word plants itself in my brain and just loops around up there, dancing and twirling and biding its time, waiting for me to clue in and use it somehow. the word bounces unhurriedly from side to side, turns itself inside out and, with enough time, quietly reveals to me its permutations and connotations and potential.

sometimes, the word begets another word, and those words inhale and exhale and multiply until they transform themselves into a title or a verse or lyric or a line. sometimes, the word gestates and mutates and eventually congeals into a theme or a concept or a feeling from which some piece of writing (that doesn’t actually contain the word itself) will spring.

and, sometimes, the word just stands there. alone. stark and plain and direct. written in boring block letters and lacking any sentiment. those words are always the hardest ones to figure out and embrace – just because they are pedestrian, doesn’t mean they are any less stubborn or determined to be seen. so they wait and, admittedly, sometimes i just spit them out for the sake of releasing them. or, more to the point, as a way of releasing myself from them. (not surprisingly, those pieces of writing are sometimes just as bland or lifeless or problematic as the seeds from which they grew.)

most of the time, i don’t know or remember how the word came to land in my head, or what passing moment might have dropped it into my consciousness. maybe it was a song i heard, or a person whose presence skimmed through my daydream, or an incident – upsetting or funny or moving – i experienced, or just a random, fleeting thought i had. the word is not there one second, and then exhausting itself running laps in my mind the next.

allowing the word to realize its full potential isn’t always an easy or immediate thing. there are false starts and scrapped ideas and, on occasion, enormous chunks of writing that, despite being pored over at length and with much consideration, are erased in an instant with a slow sigh of disappointment or frustration or cowardice... and one quick click of the “delete” button.

though these words don't manifest themselves all the time, i’ve found that the ones that do arrive in my line of sight have appeared for a reason, and it’s usually in my best interest to explore them in some way... however clumsily.

i mention all this because, for the past couple of days, the word “matter” has circled around and around me. what matters, who matters, do i matter, does what i do or say matter to anyone, what happens if i feel like i don’t matter, what do i need to make me feel like i do matter, and does any of this really matter?

matter, matters, mattered.

as i write this, i still have no idea what i’m supposed to do with that word. at first, i thought maybe i was supposed to pour out my thoughts on the questions in the above paragraph as some sort of therapeutic exercise. then i remembered: i sort of already did that back in march. so, i wasn’t about to rewrite a four-month-old post.

and yet, amid the confusion, “matter” did wind up spawning a piece of writing, however indirectly.

because in my pondering of the word “matter” and its layover in my brain, i have actually written an entire entry about words instead. and i think that matters.

note: lest anyone think i might have missed it, i did see this news story on matter today, and had considered (in trying to tie it in here) writing about how the bliss of feeling like you matter, as with the new state of matter discovered by scientists, may only last for 40 femtoseconds... but i thought that was a little too forced a metaphor, even for me.

sinus pain and pressure

i've had a rather unpleasant sinus headache for two days now. off and on. forehead pain, cheek pain, eye pain, temple pain. sometimes throbbing, sometimes just achy, as though someone smacked me in the upper part of my face with a frying pan.

the cold medication and pain relievers i took last week did a number on my stomach (and my sleep patterns), so my choice over these past 48 hours has been: live with the headache, or take something for it and live with the prolonged intestinal upset.

after 24 hours of plan former, i caved for plan latter. my headache seems to have lessened in intensity at the moment, and i hope it's on its way out for good. i'm also hoping that all the lactobacillus acidophilus i've been taking since yesterday will be enough to ensure harmony on my insides.

fingers crossed.

the entry that wasn't...

i had initially planned to write about my slide back down the slippery slope of summertime reality TV today -- a slope covered in Big Brother slop and the sweat of jackie warner -- but a number of things stood in my way:

i could not sleep last night because i spent much of the night with weird stomach pains.

i awoke very groggy.

i felt queasy all morning.

i had an interview to do. (it went swimmingly.)

i had laundry to do. lots.

i had a screening to attend. (it was charming.)

i had more laundry to finish.

i still have stomach cramps.

the laundry's still not finished.

it's now 11:11pm and i'm very tired.

so, perhaps tomorrow. if not the slide, then at least something a little more interesting than the above list.

a musical interlude

sometimes, i wish i lived in the UK just so i could see nerina pallot perform live. she has yet to break through in north america, but i've been listening to her for years, and she's constantly playing clubs and smaller venues across the pond. this is one of my favourite songs of hers, and one of my favourite songs, period. i love the tenderness in the words and the music...

the rain

when it rains like it’s raining right now, some deep part of me stirs. the part of me that drinks in beauty. the part of me that longs to find magic. the part of me that is nourished by wishes and hopes and dreams.

the rain falls slowly and steadily and calmly, like an unending procession of shimmering beads against a misty backdrop of shadows. there’s no wind, no interference, nothing to send the droplets anywhere but straight down. rhythmically cascading from the heavens in sheets or waves or momentary bursts of chaotic showers. perfectly united and divided. perfectly wonderful.

for me, this rain conjures thoughts of candles and fireplaces and warm tea and bach. of slippers and books. of getting lost in memories and reveries. of a soothing embrace. of someone to love.

with the windows opened wide and the rich green of the neighbourhood's satiated treetops laid out before me as far as i can see, my mind lets me imagine that i’m standing inside a folksy cottage. that the cool air curling in through a crooked screen door might afford me the luxury of wearing a sweater on a july afternoon. that i can sit at a quaint kitchen table instead of my desk, gaze out at the rain, open a composition notebook, sharpen a fresh pencil and confess every secret in my heart.

with a gentle hand, mother nature carefully fine tunes the volume on her downpour. at times, its voice is nothing more than a whisper, punctuated by a car horn or a barking dog. other times, its unbroken, comforting din crescendos as the drops grow robust and hurtle to earth more passionately. cars flying past on the wet road slice through the sound like streaks of white clouds across a clear blue sky.

everything is quieter under the insulating veil of this rain. except my thoughts, which get louder.

there is no sound in my apartment, save for the click of the keyboard, the rain falling outside and the hushed tones of a world kept indoors on a saturday.

this rain is romantic.

and it makes my soul sigh.

a note from home

to the whoms who dropped in for today's post,

i excuse myself from writing a proper blog entry tonight because i have a cold. as such, and because i've already spent the week eye-deep in melancholy, my brain just wants to write sad things... and, really, why add fuel to that kind of fire by giving it air? lord knows it doesn't need any help to grow in my presence.

so, instead, i invite you to peruse past entries in lieu of reading a new one. (yes, i realize that this post, by its very nature, is technically "new," but it lacks a little something content-wise.)

pick a month at random from the sidebar on the left, and then just scroll until you see something that catches your eye.

you might revisit, or visit for the first time, entries like this or this or this or this or this or this or this or this.

i did. and, in doing so every now and again, i remember that, for all its frivolity and inconsequential navel-gazing and videos of TV shows and ramblings about rambling, this blog does have some good stuff in it.

fingers crossed for a less germy tomorrow,
vickie

things on my mind as i sit here with a summertime cold

* germs SUCK. not only that, it seems that i was similarly afflicted at almost this exact time last year. while there’s no fever this time around (knockonwoodknockonwood), i have – in just a day – developed the world’s most annoying dry cough. apparently, i cannot detach myself from emotion or cooties.

* i think i can speak for my whole family when i say: we are all sick of leftovers from YB’s housewarming. i do not want to eat any more orzo salad. i’m tired of vegetable sticks. and if i see one more meatball i might just scream.

* earlier this week, i started watching Torchwood: Children of Earth. i was super-excited about it, even though i’d never seen a single episode of the show. after two and a half nights, i’ve given up. i feel like i need to revisit it after i’ve actually watched the series.

* i continue to be grateful to mother nature for keeping temperatures bearable so far this summer. i love it.

* i have finished the first draft of the new project and have just revised per the first set of notes. so far, so good... but the process of writing it has left me feeling a bit like one giant, exposed, raw nerve... so that the emotion in everything is amplified a thousandfold. so, if you run into me in the next few days, and i suddenly burst into tears, don’t panic. it’s not you, it’s me.

* if you’re not watching SYTYCD, you’re missing breathtaking work like this. when i watch things like that, i’m reminded how important emotional investment is to the creative process, and how every tear is worth it.

* sometimes, emailing a company with an inquiry about their products results in free-product vouchers. yay!

* it's thunderstorming right now.

* being all cootie-filled means i get to take nyquil tonight so, if nothing else, i should sleep very soundly.

cultivating detachment

last night, i started thinking about how life is probably much easier for folks who are emotionally detached. people who can remove their hearts from a given situation and just follow their heads. people whose objectivity and rationale always supersede their sensitivity and feelings.

for them, i would guess, life is a little less complicated. a little less difficult. a little simpler in terms of navigation and maneuvers.

and they probably sleep better.

i am not one of those people. i lead my life through my heart, and my head only gets the floor every now and again. this means i am frequently emotionally spent, and my heart often feels kicked around. despite my foray into meditation and the books and i’ve read and the teachings i’ve tried to follow, i have not yet cultivated the art of detachment. i have barely sowed the seeds, in fact.

i mention this because i’m currently working on a new project, the content of which has, quite literally, made me cry every day because the subject matter about which i’m writing, while beautiful, is also sad. love and loss. even though the story itself is far removed from my own experience, it also isn’t. in its specificity, it is universal.

and, as i write it, i catch fleeting glimpses of myself through the mirror of someone else.

if i was better able to remove myself, emotionally, from the process, maybe my eyes would be less red and my heart would feel better. at the same time, maybe – in cases like this – the “attachment” and immersion in emotions are precisely what’s needed to create something special.

we’ll see.

snapshots

i love it when tourists or visitors to the city stop me on the street and ask me to take their photo.

usually, it happens in front of something unique or historic, like a famous building or landmark, or near an interesting piece of architecture or art or bed of flowers, and i always say yes.

it happened last night, as i walked through the campus of the university of toronto. there was a young guy, maybe early 20s, standing on the sidewalk in front of one of the historic, ivy-covered faculty buildings, holding a camera and sort of glancing around at the people passing him on the sidewalk. i knew he was looking for an impromptu photographer, and i suppose he knew i knew because, as i approached, he smiled a wide smile and said, through a heavy accent, “excuse me, can you take picture of me?”

“sure!”

very politely, he asked that i please get the building and the faculty sign out front into the photo, then he positioned himself accordingly and unleashed a huge, braces-covered, toothy grin. standing proudly.

i wondered if he was a foreign student, sending a photo home to show off his campus. or whether he might be someone from abroad, who admired the school. or if, perhaps, he was simply a guy who really loved ivy.

after i snapped the first shot, he started to come back over to me, but i stopped him and said, “i’ll take one more, just in case.” so i did, and he seemed thrilled by such a simple gesture. “thank you very much!” he said as i handed him back his camera. i said, “you’re welcome!” and continued on my way with this odd little happy feeling in my heart.

because, for that brief moment, when someone hands me a camera and then scurries a few feet away to stand, grinning, in front of whatever they’d like captured, i feel this tiny connection to a stranger. that i’ve become part of their experience and, in taking the photo, that i’ve stepped into their life story for that instant. in that snapshot.

hibernation

late every autumn, all manner of animals stuff their bellies, prepare their homes, yawn and then take one last look around before hunkering down for several months of sleep to hibernate through winter. it’s a chance to curl up in relative solitude, rest, escape the harsh weather and, for lack of a better term, recharge. the world goes on without them for a while, but they’re fine. and the world’s fine.

and, even though the leaves won't be turning anytime soon and summer is still young, lately i’ve been feeling the urge to hibernate. metaphorically. to pull back into myself, close the door, draw the blinds and rediscover the parts of me that seem to have fallen between the cracks of expansion these past couple of years. a great deal of change has gone on and, along the way, some of the old bits of me – some of the good things or unique things or loopy things that make me who i am – have gone dormant or been drummed into silence. hibernating, or driven into hibernation, perhaps. i catch glimpses of those missing parts sometimes. i remember things i held dear or routines i’ve abandoned or just ways in which i lived, and i feel sad and embarrassed that i let them wither.

it’s not a melancholy sadness, like longing for your childhood summers or dreaming of the one that got away... but a bittersweet sense of having perhaps sacrificed some fragments of my own core being in the process of riding the waves of change. we’re all unique but, sometimes, i feel like i’ve hammered out some of my own unique quirks in the name of being homogenous in a new way. that, under the guise of embracing change, i’ve simply conformed to a new set of standards that belong to someone else. that i’ve lost some of me, and that i need to get it back because i’ve forgotten that it’s okay to be “different.”

when i’m at events like the housewarming yesterday, surrounded by people who have known me for decades, within an environment where i just kind of fit and am allowed to be me – with all my quirks and foibles and flaws, but without any judgment – i’m reminded of some of those lost pieces of me. i sink into the loving arms of comfort and i start to realize how often that isn’t the case, or how often i’ve ignored who i am for the sake of who i think someone else might want me to be.

don’t get me wrong, change is good and necessary. but i know, for me, sometimes i throw the baby out with the bath water. in this case, right now and for the past month or so, i've felt more and more like i’ve done that with these intangible little parts of myself. parts of my personality. parts of my heart and my head. simple, silly things that used to make me happy and that i realize i’ve missed when i unexpectedly encounter them again. simple, silly little things that make me me. simple, silly little things that i’ve nonetheless unwittingly eschewed in order to build vickie v.2.0.

and, when i think of this, my chest tightens and my stomach knots. i feel anxious. confused. uncertain. lost.

so, i think it might be time for some metaphorical hibernation. just some time to sort stuff out. some time to be alone and quiet. some time to explore, without interference, what works and what doesn’t. some time to take a break, rest, and recharge so that i can figure out my place in the changing world.

most importantly, some time to tap back into myself to find a better balance between the me that i was and the me i’m becoming, so that the end-result me is truly who i am.

house warmed and vickie worn-out

young beatrix had her official housewarming party today.

preparations have been going on for days.

it was a huge success.

but i am very, very tired.

so that's the extent of the update you'll get tonight.

apologies. i promise tomorrow will bring a more substantial word count.

i am your destiny, and i am not broken

sometimes, when i dream, my subconscious writes music.

because, sometimes, in my dreams, there are songs that i have never, ever heard in my waking life.

sometimes, it’s just a simple instrumental, like a lone piano or plucky guitar playing pretty music within the tapestry of my imagination.

other times, it’s a full orchestral score, as though my dream has its own composer.

and then, on rare occasions, my subconscious actually creates music and lyrics and makes a song.

these songs are always beautiful... but they are almost always completely forgotten within a few minutes of me opening my eyes. i remember that they happened, and i remember how much i enjoyed hearing them *in* the dream, and as soon as i wake i try, in that halfway-alert state, to cling to some fragment of them – a melody, a bit of phrasing, anything so that i might recreate them somehow in real life – but inevitably they just gently dissipate like thin plumes of enchanted vapor. gone. forgotten. lost.

until this morning.

just before i woke up, i was having a dream that i was inside some huge, opulent hotel somewhere. i was tooling around the cavernous, gold lobby, weaving through well-dressed fancy people and looking for the washrooms. (in dreams, as in life, i frequently have to pee.) someone directed me around back, towards the hotel’s meeting rooms, and i found myself walking along a spectacular, ornate marble hallway.

as i walked, i could hear a men’s chorus singing from somewhere, and i remember thinking how beautiful their song was. it was a ballad being sung from the point of view of someone professing their love to another, and describing the depth of their feeling. that much i remember -- its concept and how it made me feel. and the words were so moving that i felt myself tearing up as i went. i remember that, too.

i turned a corner that led to another shorter, but still gorgeous, stretch of hallway with the washrooms at the far end. and, when i did, i came upon the source of this truly lovely choral music – a collection of about a dozen guys in their mid-20s, all standing in a tight huddle facing inwards at each other and all dressed in exactly the same dark-but-classy uniform. singing. with passion.

as i passed them, i kept listening. and, as i entered the washroom and they disappeared from my peripheral vision, the last thing i heard them sing was:

“i am your destiny, and i am not broken.”

in the dream, i stopped, for some reason struck in a profound way by the power of their words.

and i started to cry.

then i woke up.

but even though the rest of their song has, as all the subconscious songs before it, slipped through my grasp, clear as day i remember that single line and the precise way in which it was sung.

and i’m not sure why. but it played over and over and over in my head as i lay in bed in the moments after i woke, like a skipping record, as if it was meant to be stamped into my memory for a reason. and it continues to play.

“i am your destiny, and i am not broken.”

maybe that’s what i’m meant to say to someone some day. maybe someone will say it to me.

or maybe it’s simply the universe sending me a message about my future: that my destiny exists and that, no matter what obstacles i might encounter or how lost i might feel, it is not broken.

it’s still there, waiting for me.

i don’t know. but i figured if my subconscious is bestowing this odd morsel on me and i’m actually able to remember it, i’d best write it down.

and now i have.

this had better not suck...

compression/expansion

"life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."
earlier today, my friend p-lo sent me the above quotation, credited to anaïs nin. and i love it. mainly because it's true, but also because that ebb and flow of life and its experiences, and the fact that i am often the architect of my own circumstance, is something with which i frequently struggle. to dare to be brave or to sit, inert, in the comparatively safe-but-stifling rut of fear. sometimes, on rare occasions, i feel a sudden burst of courage and the world seems to magically open up before me; other times, and more frequently, i am paralyzed by fear and my universe seems to extend no further than the reach of my own fingertips.

i hope to change that ratio.

because even when i suck up every ounce of courage i can muster only to take a chance and then fail (sometimes spectacularly), for a few brief moments my life expands. i catch a glimpse of something new and exciting. a taste of the unknown. a whisper of growth.

and, when the dust settles and the tears dry and the fists unclench, i know i am changed for the better for having made the attempt.

this just in: cherries rock

who knew?

when i was a kid, summertime always signaled the arrival of fresh cherries. big, dark, juicy, sweet cherries, served cold from the fridge and always glistening with water droplets like something out of a food magazine. and, sometimes, my mom would slice them over vanilla ice cream. so good.

i loved cherries.

but, over the years, cherries kind of faded from my diet. once i moved out, i never bought them for myself and, eventually, i just stopped eating them altogether. (as an aside: don’t get me started on that repulsive goop known as “cherry pie filling,” which is gross and unappealing and makes my stomach turn. literally.)

anyhoo...

this summer, for some unknown reason, i rekindled my cherry love. after years without having anything more than the odd cherry garnish here and there, i started eating bowls of cherries.

and i was instantly reminded of why i used to enjoy them so: they’re DELICIOUS!

as if that wasn’t enough, it turns out cherries are really really amazing for you, health-wise. i just finished watching a TV news report on all the wonderful benefits cherries hold at the end of each stem, and suddenly have the urge to head out to buy another bag.

i also now know why the sleep monster has been hanging out here so regularly lately: in addition to everything else and their inherent tastiness, cherries boost your melatonin!

awesome.

thinking on thinking

further to yesterday’s entry, and to clarify: i love writing, and will always write, but i’m starting to wonder if i need to be doing something in addition to my writing. something that gives me those regularly scheduled, psychologically satisfying, tangible results i seem to crave.

(suddenly, i feel like i better understand why i lurrrrrrrrrve cleaning so much – it’s a clear-cut task with definitive results and blissful satisfaction at its conclusion. every time.)

anyway...

for years, when i worked at the office, i had two major deadlines every week – wednesday and friday. i had a set amount of work that had to be finished by wednesday at 6pm, and another set that had to be done before leaving work on friday afternoon. it was (generally) a finite, sizable workload, with a process and procedure and a set structure. do this, then do this, then do these, then finish that, then move on to the next task. lather, rinse, repeat. and there was a certain sense of accomplishment in meeting those deadlines every week, especially when they were met under pressure. as well, the results were always tangible: printed week in and week out.

now, there was definitely a monotony to that work, as well. i recognize that. i also understand that, after a couple of years, i’d peaked. i was really really good at my job... but it was no longer a challenge. and, while i loved some aspects of it (things i still miss today), one day i realized i was quite happily and comfortably entrenched in a rut. so, i packed it in and went rogue (translation: buh-bye full-time gig, hello freelance!).

and i do love freelancing. LOVE it. i don’t think i’d ever want to go back to any kind of office-set, 9-to-5 job. i’ve been doing this for almost eight years and i’ve come to love the freedom i’m afforded. sure, i make almost no money (at the moment), have no benefits and often find it extremely difficult to stay motivated, but my days are basically my own.

and therein lies the problem. more and more, and with the dwindling amount of work i’ve had over the past nine months (read: the dramatic increase in free time), i’m slacking. my days may be my own, but i don’t seem to be doing much with them. not nearly enough, as far as i’m concerned. and i fear that, without a little bit of structure and some tangible results thrown in, i may settle into a new kind of rut.

that’s not what i want or need.

so, i guess maybe what i’m currently working through in my brain is how to find something that fits into this gap (?) i’m experiencing. something that i enjoy, somethng that’s not writing but somehow creative (even if it’s as tangentially “creative” as baking or painting or vacuuming), something flexible enough that i can take it on when needed and put it down when the writing gigs pick up, and something that, at the end of day, makes me sigh a satisfied sigh as i drift off to sleep.

monday heartsong

i spent the entire day baking cookies with my mom.

five different kinds.

for YB's housewarming shindig next weekend.

we just finished now.

it's 9:20pm.

and i am pooped.

but the cookie-making process, and how much i enjoyed it, and how satisfied i feel right now, made me realize something:

i need a purpose.

i need to have something -- even if it's baking cookies -- for which i get up every morning.

something that's fulfilling.

a dream to pursue.

a goal to achieve.

something with a tangible result.

so, at the end of each day i can say, "today i accomplished something."

because i often feel like writing is intangible.

that i don't accomplish much, if anything, on a daily basis.

that i can't say "oh, i spent today thinking about leaves or flowers or clouds or chicago or cake" and actually feel pleased with myself.

in fact, most days i don't feel pleased with myself.

and i think that's part of where this strange, disconnected, directionless panic has come from.

the fact that i can't legitimately say that i have a clear direction.

the fact that if someone were to ask me what my goals are, or where i want to be in five years, or what i want to do with my life... i really have no answer anymore.

the fact that, most days, the only tangible, complete piece of writing do is the entry i write for this blog.

ergo: adrift.

but filled with cookies.

untitled cloud poem

see "weeds"

when i turned on my computer this morning, i saw this news item about invasive kelp in san francisco bay.

and, as i read, i realized that the story of this sinister seaweed makes for a great analogy about negative thinking and its similarly destructive effects on people.

both creep in mysteriously and unexpectedly, maybe just a little at a time, and sometimes their source is unknown.

both nonetheless possess the ability to reproduce rapidly, growing bigger and stronger and more problematic the longer they go unattended.

both can spread quickly, taking over their environment, choking what’s healthy and blocking out the light.

both are capable of becoming completely overwhelming in a short amount of time.

thus, both need to be eradicated the second their presence is detected.

and both can be kept in check as long as someone’s paying attention.

a summer-evening stroll through mother nature’s unexpected city splendor

the sun exhaling in deep golden breaths through empty office towers and crowded streets.

bulging ears of fresh peaches-and-cream corn being roasted by the dozens.

a flopsy, beige poodle-cross puppy manically chasing a put-upon pug through cool, overgrown grass.

undulating clouds of gnats. united they’re seen; divided they’re invisible.

an enormous mulberry tree dropped amid the urban landscape, its branches covered in ripened bounty and its surplus turning the sidewalk deep purple.

a tiny and tame sparrow perched on the rim of a cement planter, hopeful about dinner.

a portly bumblebee bouncing up against the underside of an overpass.

a lone, velvety, blood-red flower of indeterminate nature standing proudly next to a cluster of withered brethren.

squirrels.

sandy, broken sidewalks speckled with lime-green blossoms.

the sickly sweet smell of sumac.

a spectacular botanical kaleidoscope for sale by the bouquet.

feather-like brushstrokes of faint white clouds sweeping across the sky.

a meaty carpenter ant lumbering to safety.

one vibrant, pink pansy peeking out from the cavernous shade.

the oft-walked path to my front door tonight.

paved with beauty.

whoa: epilogue

further to yesterday’s entry...

i spent some time thinking about why this otherwise benign oversight was having such a profound effect on me. as various people hypothesized, maybe it’s a door closing. maybe it’s a signal that i’m going from observer to participant. or maybe it’s just liberation from something that had, in recent years, become more oppressive than enjoyable.

all valid interpretations, and all probably true.

but i think i was so surprised and knocked off kilter because my love of TIFF has been, for almost 20 years, something that has defined me. (not the only thing, but certainly a definitive one.)

it’s been a part of me just as much as “vickie loves cake” and “vickie thinks gnomes are creepy.”

and yet now? not so much.

so, for me, yesterday’s revelation was a bit of an identity-crisis moment. i mean, imagine if i suddenly said, “know what? i’m kind of off cake and don’t want any anymore.”

that’s what this is like for me.

i’m not saying it’s a bad thing, this shift. just a meaningful one. more meaningful than simply omitting a date on a calendar.

and, as i attempt to understand and embrace this change rather than over-scrutinize it, i’m also pondering what it means to let go of a defining aspect of myself at a time when i already feel like i’m not sure who i am, and what might become the new thing that takes its place in my life in the future.

whoa

this morning, i experienced a profound, somewhat unsettling and rather surprising moment of revelation:

for the first time in perhaps 17 years, i had missed the opening of the TIFF box office, and the day tickets and passes go on sale.

i know it sounds inconsequential or unimportant, but it’s a huge thing, this omission in my brain.

every year until now, without fail, i would get TIFF’s mailing in late-may, with its carefully outlined list of important dates – when the box office opens, when tickets go on sale, when the schedule will be released, when orders are due, etc. – and i would mark those days down on my calendar. then, with gleeful anticipation, i would wait... and wait... and head to the box office or pick up the phone to place my festival order as soon as it was possible.

but this year... none of that happened.

sure, i got the mailing, just like always, but i didn’t make note of any dates. the arrival of the TIFF calendar wasn’t met with the same level of euphoria as it had been previously, and i glanced at the schedule before putting the information pamphlet in a pile.

where i forgot about it.

until this morning.

i don’t know what made it spring to mind, but i was en route to the kitchen when i suddenly realized it’s july 8th today. and that the TIFF box office always opens on the monday of the first week of july.

i can’t properly articulate the feeling that washed over me, but it was combination of anxiety, sadness, confusion and loss. could i have really forgotten all about this day that used to be so important to me? and, if i had, why? i’ve had all kinds of anxiety dreams over the years, where i forget about the fest until it’s underway or scramble to get to my movies because i’ve overslept or what have you. but to have it actually happen... could it really be?

quickly, i pulled out the TIFF pamphlet and, sure enough, the box office opened this past monday. tickets have been on sale for two whole days already. this may seem minor – two days is nothing – but, in the scope of my life for almost the past two decades, the fact that i forgot is a really big deal.

now, admittedly, my experience at TIFF 2008 totally BLEW, and i made all kinds of proclamations last september that maybe i wouldn’t even go to TIFF 2009. i stomped around, talking about what a crappy time i had and how the festival had changed and how i didn’t need the hassle anymore.

but never did i think i would actually absorb those sentiments to such a degree that this dramatic a shift in mentality would happen less than a year later.

maybe it's because 2008 really was awful. maybe it's because ericanddan aren't coming up this fall, so there's a further decline in enthusiasm. maybe it's because i've had almost no work in 2009, so dropping a few hundred bucks on the festival simply isn't in the budget.

or maybe i've just changed.

on the one hand, it’s very sad. what once meant the world to me and brought me so much joy, no longer does.

but on the other hand, in the context of my life and changing and doors... it’s a kind of inspirational.

tuesday junk

* i am about to eat some dead salad and i am afraid. you know dead salad, right? it’s a pre-made salad that has died because it’s been sitting in your fridge (or on a store shelf) for a day or two too long... so that the lettuce is limp and translucent, with brown edges, and you kind of wonder if its newly slimy consistency is a sign that perhaps it should be sent to a compost pile instead of your stomach. nonetheless, i am soldiering on.

* i have one hostess sno-ball left from buffalo. i fear it, too, may have passed its best-before date and may be a rock when i revisit it for dessert tonight.

* baths at three in the afternoon, on a breezy and cool summer day, are wonderful.

* a coupon for a free herbal essences product arrived in the mail today. any product. free. i will soon begin a quest to find the most overpriced HE product in the city so that i may use said coupon with a disproportionately profound sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

* i’m working on a story pitch.

* mother nature has been so wonderfully good to me this summer. knock on wood, repeatedly and with much passion, the temperatures have been blissfully pleasant. i sleep under blankets, it’s that temperate at night. i really hope it continues through august... though, really, any day that it isn’t 27ºC or more is a fantastic one as far as i’m concerned.

* on thursday, i have a dentist appointment. please send out good dental thoughts for me.

* a while back, i mentioned that i wanted to buy some large canvases to paint. i have yet to do that. but i do now have a $10 off coupon for the art-supply store, and it expires on july 31st, so the clock is ticking. at least as far as discounts go.

* today i began my day with affirmations. i’m going to try to keep those up every morning for as long as i can. they may change over time, and the sentiments and statements may morph depending on what’s happening in my life, but there you have it.

* i’m about 10 pages away from finishing Writing Down the Bones. i’ve loved it. when i’m done, because i still have a week before it’s due back at the library, i’m going to read it again.

* on sunday, i wore a pair of shoes i haven’t worn in almost two years. it was a curious experience. they felt different. not as i remembered them. (and i’m not speaking metaphorically – it was actually a pair of shoes from my closet that i put on my feet.)

* sometimes i daydream about taking a month and visiting all my faraway friends, one after another.

* i’m very much enjoying the gilligan & o’malley pyjama bottoms i bought in the states. especially because i love saying “gilligan & o’malley” in a thick scottish accent.

* the annual outdoor art exhibition takes place this weekend. i’m excited. there’s something meditative and magical about wandering through row after row of works of art by imaginative, creative people.

* this just in: i dumped the dead salad onto a plate and was going to eat it. then i smelled it. sour. newp. it will be disposed of tomorrow.

the doors

remember a couple of weeks ago when i recounted that analogy about life and doors?

it’s something i’ve thought of often since. rolled it around in my brain. tried to hold it in my hands and stare at it.

am i closing doors that need to be closed, and closing them completely? or am i just leaning them shut and leaving them open a crack?

i suspect it’s the latter. i know it is.

and, per the analogy, i also know that new doors cannot open as long as that remains true.

for me, there’s a finality to closing a door that really scares me. in closing a door that i've kept open, i feel as though i’m somehow rejecting possibility – the possibility that something wonderful might suddenly slip through at the last second. or the possibility that whatever i’ve waited for might finally arrive if i just give it a little more time. that i am the one slamming the door in the face of "maybe" and shouting "no!"

at the same time, i also recognize that holding onto those notions prevents myriad more possibilities from materializing, and that the cosmic drafts resulting from an unshut metaphorical door can do more harm than good. i get that. i also understand that sometimes i do need to slam a door shut and say no. even if it’s scary to do it.

today i was reminded of the importance of definitively closed doors, at least in terms of my life and me.

and i learned that, even though i might not be able to see the doors ahead of me just waiting to be opened, or believe they exist, or know for sure that magical things lie behind them, other people can and do.

pursuing perspective

pretty

pensive

the cottage

i remember taking out my child-size suitcase and sitting it on my bed, then pulling open dresser drawers to pick out my own shorts and T-shirts for the week ahead. it made me feel grown-up.

i remember my parents packing the cavernous trunk of the red plymouth early on a saturday morning. mom always took a large cardboard box filled with grocery staples and canned goods and toilet paper and tin foil.

i remember sitting in the backseat with trixie, windows rolled down, trying not to think about the seemingly endless drive north and staring out at what seemed to be the same trees, the same rocks, the same farms, the same country roads for hours.

i remember pit stops at middle-of-nowhere gas stations, where the “restrooms” were often little more than a closet with an ancient toilet and even more ancient spiders tucked in corners, weaving webs and watching.

i remember my own quickened heartbeat when we’d finally begin driving along the winding, heavily wooded gravel road towards the property. dust kicked up in our wake and the sun poked through the dense leaves to welcome us.

i remember the old, rickety wooden staircase leading to the cottage door, and the year we discovered a giant hornets’ nest under the porch.

i remember the bristly feel of the brown and green woolen blankets on the twin beds where trix and i slept. the mattresses were like giant marshmallows and it always took a few nights before the uninterrupted, peaceful sleep of two pooped little girls arrived for either of us.

i remember the tidy furniture, already a couple of decades old at the time. the patterned vinyl chairs around the chrome-trimmed dining-room table, on which our bare, sun-kissed legs always stuck; the firm edges of the long sofa, where many a nap was enjoyed; the writing desk hidden behind the tall cabinet doors on the built-in shelves... its annual revelation always feeling like the discovery of someone else’s summer secrets.

i remember the smells. bacon and eggs. toast. wet leaves after the rain. skunk. sun-tan lotion. insect repellent. fresh cookies. my skin after a day spent outdoors. baby shampoo. adventure. childhood.

i remember walking barefoot, very slowly and stepping carefully, along the dirt road to the beach, trying to avoid the pine needles and small rocks and sharp chunks of gravel.

i remember the gorgeous, shallow, crystal-clear lake water, so unspoiled that you could stand waist-deep and still see your own toes resting on the soft, sandy lake bottom.

i remember crayfish... and fleeing when i saw one.

i remember collecting snail shells and mussel shells along the tiny shoreline and thinking they were evidence of exciting, exotic marine life.

i remember being afraid of dragonflies. and horseflies. and wasps. and diving under the water when i spotted any of them... only to remember my fear of boat-loving leeches.

i remember swimming for hours and hours on end. floating on rafts. rowing inflatable dinghies. climbing onto docks and jumping off, over and over and over again. running as fast as i could from the beach into the water until the water became too deep in which to run and then just flinging myself into its waiting embrace.

i remember countless transient friendships with the children of other cottagers, and the excitement of making a new summer friend... even if we’d only know each other a week.

i remember spanky, the resident dog, who was some kind of border collie/corgi cross. black, with stumpy little legs and long, delicate hair. tail always wagging. nose growing more white with each subsequent summer.

i remember looking for toads.

i remember playing card games and board games, and always wanting to play one more whenever we were done.

i remember the creak of the door to the general store, with its wood frame, hook latch and screened windows that led to a tiny space packed to the ceiling with the most eclectic mix of things. cans of beans. sunscreen. milk. eggs. chocolate bars. antacid. soup. bug killer. soap. T-shirts. postcards. and the most delicious homemade pastries from the on-premises restaurant next door.

i remember ghoulash night.

i remember playing shuffleboard and ping-pong, and the thrill of checking out the equipment like a big kid would.

i remember the rec hall, nestled in the woods and almost always empty, save for its dozens of card tables and chairs, and a decrepit, out-of-tune, upright piano on which we spent many hours plinking out wonky music and pretending to perform shows.

i remember wanting to be kissed on that piano bench.

i remember the sounds of motorboats and speedboats on the lake, the sounds of waves in their wake lapping against the shore, the sounds of small children splashing, the sounds of dogs barking, the sounds of a rogue mosquito circling the bed menacingly in the pitch dark of night, the sounds of beer cans being opened, the sounds of hellos and goodbyes.

i remember the one cold day that always happened, no matter when we visited, that meant we could wear our autumn clothes – long pants, socks, sweatshirts – and play outside... but we couldn’t go swimming.

i remember the tennis courts and the feeble tennis “matches” we’d play, where no one would ever keep score and the sole purpose was simply to volley the ball back and forth over the net until we grew bored or until some adults with zippered racquet bags showed up to shoo us away.

i remember my mother contentedly reading by the lake, and my father always taking photos of us all.

i remember big, hearty meals consumed at breakneck speed so as to maximize outdoor fun before sunset.

i remember beachside campfires and burnt marshmallows and the lingering smell of smoke in my hair.

i remember violent thunderstorms that made it feel like the entire cottage would be lifted off its foundation and flung into the forests nearby.

i remember stillness.

i remember green.

i remember sunlight sparkling on water.

i remember blissful exhaustion.

i remember beauty.

i remember joy.

i remember the cottage.

simple acts of unsticking

getting nine hours of sleep.

feeling rested.

enjoying cookies and milk over email and Live With Regis & Kelly.

finishing the gardening piece.

a good phone call.

feeling lighter.

accepting a dinner invitation from my mom.

a lovely, shady, breezy walk to the subway.

reading about the zen of writing, and absorbing some inspiration.

witnessing a near head-on collision and marveling at the split-second difference between life and death.

feeling grateful.

exercising my artistic side with a camera in hand and flowers in its crosshairs.

calling a truce with the sunshine and allowing it to kiss me.

experiencing nature at its most gorgeous, and tolerating it at its most buzzy.

feeling contented.

a perfect banana and a glass of orange-tangerine juice.

freshly laundered pyjama bottoms and fluffy yellow towels, clean and ready.

editing.

chicken schnitzel, home-fried new potatoes with coarse pepper, mixed vegetables and cranberry jelly.

a truly beautiful email from a truly beautiful person.

spending some quiet time alone with a purring mr. poo.

feeling connected.

inhaling cool air.

looking across the subway car in the evening to see an elderly asian man, sitting in his cap and tidy clothes, holding a canadian flag in his stubby fingers, smiling ever-so-slightly.

feeling moved.

a homemade whoopie pie on a funky patterned plate.

tuning in to SYTYCD and seeing mia michaels on the panel... for the whole two-hour show... in glasses.

feeling swoony.

sitting on my big red sofa tonight, in the dark save for the glow of the TV, and turning my head to look out through the open windows so as to accidentally behold a stunning fireworks display a little farther north... then wading into a comforting pool of peace and wonder.

a sweet and special sentiment from a sweet and special friend.

writing this blog entry.

ready for bed by 11pm.

feeling happy.