a letter from the editor

welcome back. or, perhaps, sorry i abruptly put the blog in lockdown for a couple of days.

my apologies if that alarmed anyone – there was a sudden influx of traffic mid-week, and i closed up shop while i tried to figure out how to handle it and, more importantly, while i thought about what i really want this blog to be, and how public i want to make it from here on in.

as many of you know, i’ve struggled before with issues of privacy. namely, that (despite what keeping a blog might suggest) i’m a pretty private gal, and i’ve wondered in the past about using this space to share introspective, personal stories and such, especially given that, you know, it’s on the internet. as much as i’ve tried to limit its exposure, the same question keeps arising: how much do i want to share, and with whom do i want to share it?

as the blog has evolved in tandem with my own evolution – especially in the past year or so – i’ve started to feel much more protective of it, and of what i write. though it occasionally features frivolity and nonsense, it’s also like a diary, and (as a writer) writing out my thoughts is frequently very therapeutic for me. but, as would be the case with a therapy session, it’s not something to which i’d invite a slew of strangers. partly because i’d feel very exposed, and partly because it would, on some level, inhibit what i might say. while i have no problem with friends, or friends of friends, following along (i welcome it, in fact), there’s something that’s always felt mildly unsettling about the possibility that people i don’t know at all are wandering in and peering through the proverbial curtains at my life.

i’ve had a few friends say to me, “but you’re a writer... don’t you want lots of people to read your stuff? isn’t that a good thing? don’t you want a big audience??”

and my answer is: in this case, no.

if i were using this blog as a way to promote myself or my work, or if it was somehow a commercial site geared towards selling my writing, then sure. bring on the masses! the more the merrier.

but that’s not what this blog is.

and that’s not why i keep it.

i already have outlets where people can read my published work... the work i do with the full intent of having it read by thousands of strangers. that’s the stuff i put out there for public consumption, and it’s written knowing that a big audience is not only a possibility but a much-desired result. no problem.

what i write here, though, is more intimate. much more personal. the entries, and the thoughts or feelings contained therein, aren’t things i’d want published or advertised to the world at large. yepimawriter-theblog is intended for a much smaller audience... and, as much as possible, a familiar one.

to use a fitting analogy: it’s the difference between a singer playing a stadium concert and performing at a private salon. though the singer (and sometimes even the song) is the same, what you would experience in one venue isn’t necessarily what you’d get in the other.

so, i’m once again pondering how to proceed. this week reawakened old concerns, and forced me to examine what this space means to me. i want it to feel like a “safe” (for lack of a better word) environment for my own personal expression, one where i feel free to write openly and honestly without worrying about who might be hiding in the bushes, as it were.

i’m not yet sure what i’m going to do, but i didn’t think it fair to just shut ‘er down – or move ‘er to a new home – without letting folks know what was going on.

for now, i remain undecided.

a question

in addition to being an eye-opening experience, sunday’s exercise also raised a question within me, and one for which i have no answer. so, i thought i’d open the floor to discussion.

how do you cultivate belief?

or, perhaps, how do you maintain a belief in the face of mounting evidence against it?

be it belief in yourself, or in a dream, or in destiny... or that you will some day have the pony you’ve wanted since you were four?

how do you hold onto a belief, and keep it alive, and nurture it, and keep believing if the world seems to be telling you, “it’s not gonna happen, kid...”?

i’m not speaking in the abstract about the “how.” i mean practically. realistically.

and i’m asking sincerely... how do you do it?

"flight"

it seems the universe isn't quite done with my flight path. it continues to lob messages and metaphors -- and now, music -- in my direction. earlier today, a friend of mine shared the following video and i was so struck by the lyrics, and how fitting they are for me at the moment, that i joked i should adopt it as my theme song.

the song is called "flight," and it was written by a fellow named craig carnelia. i encourage you to hit *play* on the video, and then scroll down a bit to read the lyrics below.

i found the song unexpectedly moving and, by the time it got to its final verse, there were tears running down my cheeks.

not tears of sadness, but of appreciation and recognition.

and, of course, tears of "i am a giant sap and songs like this always make me cry."

(thanks to ned for this link.)
Flight
by Craig Carnelia

Let me run through a field in the night
Let me lift from the ground til my soul is in flight.

Let me sway like the shade of a tree
Let me swirl like a cloud in a storm on the sea.
Wish me on my way.

Through the dawning day I...
Wanna flow, wanna rise, wanna spill
Wanna grow, wanna grow
on the side of a hill.

I don't care if the train runs late
If the checks won't clear
If the house blows down.

I'll be off where the weeds run wild
Where the seeds fall far from this
earthbound town.

And I'll start to soar!
Watch me rain til I pour out!
I'll catch a ship and it'll sail me astray
Get caught in a wind and I'll just have to obey time
Time flying away!
Flight!
Ahhh...
Ahhh...
Ahhh...
Let me leave behind
All the clouds in my mind
I wanna wake without wondering why
Finding myself for a burst for the sky!
Flight!
Flight!

I'll just roll!
Let me lose all control
I wanna float like a wish in a well
Free as the sound of the sea in a shell.

I don't know
But maybe I'm just a fool

I should keep to the ground
I should stay where I'm at
Maybe everyone has hunger like this
And the hunger will pass
But I can't think like that!

All I know is that somewhere in a clearing (somewhere)
There's a grain of sunlight on a river long and wide...

And I have such a river inside!
Let me run through a field in the night!
Let me lift from the ground til my soul is in flight!
Let me sway like the shade of a tree!
Let me swirl like a cloud in a storm on the sea!
Wish me on my way! (wish me on my way)
Through the dawning day I...
Wanna flow, wanna rise, wanna spill...
Wanna grow on the side of a hill....

Wanna shift like a wave going on
Wanna drift from the path
I've been traveling upon
Before I am gone.

* * *

well, there you go, then...

on sunday afternoon, i attempted an exercise meant to help focus positive energy... the goal being to better direct your thoughts towards achieving, accomplishing and acquiring the things you most want by enhancing your awareness of the what and the why.

the instructions were as follows:

1. get a piece of paper.

2. across the top of the page, write one thing you want... be it material, emotional, physical, whatever.

3. then, below what you want, write “these are the reasons that i want this” and write all the reasons you can think of, no matter how big or small or seemingly silly. keep writing until you run out of reasons or fill that side of the paper.

4. then, flip the page over and write “these are the reasons i believe i will have this” and repeat the process.

side one was easy.

but when i got to side two, i went blank.

i couldn’t bring myself to write a thing.

nothing that, deep down, i truly believed.

i just stared at the empty paper before me, every reason in my head feeling like a lie.

and, in that moment, it was like someone had suddenly flipped the switch to an enormous floodlight pointed squarely at the root of my problems.

tetraptych?

(thank you to linda for this link.)

a walk in the quiet

it was a beautiful sunny day here today, with a cloudless blue sky, cool-but-not-cold air, and i really needed to go for a walk. just to clear my head, get myself out of my apartment for a bit and maybe absorb a little vitamin D.

i decided a good chunk of my walk would take me wandering through mount pleasant cemetery and its 200-odd acres of quiet. the grounds are sprawling, the roads almost always completely empty and, with its deep insulation of trees and emotion, the sounds of the city just outside its borders are almost completely silenced. it’s very peaceful.

as i walked, i tried to put as much energy into appreciating the day and taking in my surroundings as i was in gently working out the knots in my brain. to help take my mind off my mind, i kept a running list of the cool or interesting or funny or moving things i saw.

long stretches of winding road with the last remnants of snow melting along the curbs.

tangles of pockmarked top branches on an enormous old tree, where woodpeckers had left their marks after feasting back in warmer weather.

the bright red flash of a cardinal swooping across my path.

the piercing caw of a blue jay sitting somewhere nearby.

the gleaming, perfect orb of burgundy marble on a tall tombstone.

an older man, clearly out for some exercise, taking dramatic, extended strides, his pants tucked into his socks.

the epitaph on the tombstone of a 19-year-old girl that read, “if i knew nothing else, i knew love.”

a large mound of dirt next to a fresh, empty grave that was fully set up for a funeral to come later in the afternoon.

the one thing i didn’t see, however, were the two workers on their lunch break, sitting about 20 feet away as i stopped for a moment to talk to a trio of very fat squirrels who’d been scavenging at the side of the road and who scampered towards me. i didn’t notice these men within earshot as i stood there and chatted with the surprisingly friendly squirrels about their collective girth (“wow, you are FAT. but cute. what are you eating that gets you that fat?”).

then, as i turned to carry on, i instantly spotted the workers and realized it was pretty likely they’d not only seen me but overheard the entire “conversation.”

so it goes.

the up-in-the-air triptych, panel three: up in the air

as i mentioned in the comments section for panel one, i realized after i posted that entry that i’d mis-ordered the panels.

panel two really should have come before panel one.

falling before amelia earhart.

catharsis before inspiration.

swapping the two posts around also would have suited the triptych motif better, since the balance would then have been movie-fortune-movie and today’s metaphor would have made for a better-structured arc.

because after catharsis and inspiration comes the more challenging metaphor, and the one i know best: searching.

last night, when i posted the placeholder entry, i’d already written a massive chunk of text for this third panel post. it was LONG. but i deleted it all today. i realized that, in trying to pin down everything i wanted to say, i was actually rambling endlessly and saying nothing at all. so i started over.

the inspiration for panel three remains the same, though, and actually came from the movie (Up in the Air) that inspired the triptych. i saw it a few days after falling in the hole and the timing couldn’t have been more appropriate in terms of where my head was at, the mood i was in and the fact that the prior two flight metaphors had already flown into my awareness.

anyway...

yesterday, as i worked on the previous incarnation of the panel-three blog entry, i tried earnestly to identify and examine all the messages that came leaping off the screen at me when i saw george clooney’s metaphor-laden film. so many to choose from, so many that seemed to speak to me. i thought if i foraged long enough, and scrutinized them all carefully, and extrapolated everything i could from each one, the process might eventually pull together a sharp, tidy set of answers for me. answers that would bring the triptych to a soaring, triumphant conclusion and me to an improved sense of understanding.

so i turned each message and metaphor over to peer at it and dig around its innards and search for helpful, insightful meaning... but wound up with an endless stream of increasingly confusing pondering instead.

it was at the moment when i slumped in my chair to reread the epic prose i’d written that i let out a very frustrated, internal, “i have no idea what the f**k i’m writing about...” and suddenly realized i’d overlooked the biggest, most obvious message of all.

that i am up in the air.

that these flight metaphors have manifested themselves and resonate with me because “up in the air” is how i so often feel. confused. uncertain. lost. indecisive. and i am constantly searching.

that, whether i’m flying or falling or floating, it’s often like i’m that butterfly in the intersection, tumbling around in the up- and downdrafts of a vast, bewildering sky.

that i can hypothesize and theorize and poke around in my own head all i want, but the answer i keep finding is: i don’t know.

and that, despite all my searching for guidance or direction or solutions or grounding, and all the metaphors about butterflies and doors and drops and mountains and islands, i remain up in the air and have not yet figured out how to reconcile that within myself.

how to know i don’t know, and how to be okay with it.

how to embrace it and not be afraid of not knowing.

after all, surely even amelia earhart had moments of fear or hesitation or anxiety or “i have no idea what i’m doing” as she rode out swooping parabolas... but it didn’t stop her. i know the key is for me to do the same, steering my plane, seeing through the clouds and flying instead of dropping to earth like the mournful refrain of country song.

maybe if i do, i’ll find the ground i seek.

so, for now... for me, up there in the air... that search continues.

and the flight, however turbulent or smooth, goes on.

the up-in-the-air triptych, panel two: falling

the second flight metaphor arrived back on the day i wound up falling in the hole. unfortunately, despite its power, this metaphor had a decidedly different effect on me and was, in many ways, the complete opposite of my amelia earhart fortune.

to recap, that day was not at all a great day for me. and, that morning, i reluctantly hauled myself to a screening of Crazy Heart. though i so wished i’d be seeing something funny or uplifting (or, even better, that i didn’t have to see anything at all and could just stay home), i was obliged to attend.

Crazy Heart is the jeff bridges drama about a once-great country-music star, who’s fallen so far from any kind of grace that hitting bottom might be considered a step up. he’s an alcoholic and wildly self-destructive and yet, while battling his demons, he struggles to build a relationship with a much-younger “good woman” (maggie gyllenhaal) and revive his career. it’s a textbook redemption story, and one that, despite its many accolades, is not without its flaws.

but at one point in the film, bridges’ character, bad blake, croaks out a song that contains the lyric:

“sometimes falling feels like flying... for a little while.”
and as soon as i heard it, the words were seared into my consciousness. there was something so poignant in that simple line, so sad but so knowing, and it struck a chord within me.

its context in the film is specific, but i think its meaning is curiously eloquent regardless of the interpretation.

sometimes, things that turn out badly can still possess moments of beauty and wonder along the way.

sometimes, what may hurt now felt amazing at some point.

sometimes, it’s easier to close your eyes and believe in magic than open them to the truth.

and, sometimes, traveling through life is confusing. sometimes perilous, sometimes thrilling.

so, as i sat in the dark theatre on that equally dark day – feeling emotionally delicate, already fighting back the tears that had welled earlier in the morning, and with a good 40 minutes of film-watching privacy to go before i’d have to head back out into the world – i let myself cry.

remembering the flying, feeling the falling.

the up-in-the-air triptych, panel one: i am amelia earhart

as i’ve mentioned a couple of times in the past week, there were a series of metaphors relating to flight or flying that manifested themselves in my life over the course of a few days recently. they were alike in theme, but vastly different in terms of message, tone and interpretation.

as i continue to try to understand myself and my life, i look to curious metaphors like these for guidance or meaning. i will be the first one to admit that, most of the time, i feel like i’m wandering through the world without a map, never speaking the local dialect, and possessing a killer knack for wrong turns. sometimes, it’s a profoundly solitary journey, so if there’s a chance that a book or a conversation or a horoscope or a coin flip might provide me with any kind of helpful direction, then i take the time to explore it. it doesn’t have to be anything mystical or supernatural or dramatic. in fact, it’s often the smaller, quieter messages that make my ears perk up and my heart and head pay attention.

i received one such message in the form of a fortune.

it was a forecast for my future, as read by a seven-year-old girl.

my friend lou’s granddaughter, R., had recently been given a “crystal ball” (a large gemstone purchased at a swap meet) and had declared herself a budding fortune teller. for 25 cents, she would tell your future.

when i heard about this, i thought it was very cute. then i figured maybe i should see what she saw for me in her magic crystal. what might my future hold if i asked her?

so, i asked and then awaited my fate. lou was nervous, since R. is unpredictable, and no one knew what she might say. her fortunes are straightforward and honest, and (from what i hear) kind of freaky in their specificity. so, you know, what if she was about to tell me, “vickie, i see you wearing red shoes and being hit by a bus on wednesday...”?

after she’d finished her supper, R. got down to business. she peered into her crystal and gave me my fortune.

unprompted. uncoached. this is what she wrote, exactly as i received it:

”vickie--in your future I see you flying in a plane.
You are the pilot. You are flying all around the world like Amelia Earhart.

That is your future.”
well.

my first reaction was one of relief that my fortune wasn’t something eerie or dire or negative.

then i began to examine what she’d written. not at face value because, let’s be honest, the chances of me taking flying lessons and hopping in a cessna for a transatlantic expedition are slim to none.

but, rather, as a metaphor, with my life as the proverbial plane i’m piloting.

as i said, so often i feel like i have no idea where i’m going, but maybe i need to remember that i’m actually in charge. that i’m the one at the controls. that, wherever i wind up, good or bad or confusing or whatever, i’m the one who got me there. so, maybe i should start steering more carefully and deliberately. it can get gusty up there in the sky of my experience, and visibility is sometimes zero but, as the pilot, it’s my responsibility to keep my “plane” on course.

just as encouraging, though, was R.’s vision of me “flying all around the world.” it just sounds so... positive. hopeful. upward, forward momentum. misadventures. she didn’t, after all, say “crashing all around the world” or “getting lost in the clouds” (a hazard with which i am more than familiar).

she said flying.

and, of course, there's being likened to a woman like AE. courageous. adventurous. daring. ballsy.

i thought that was pretty cool.

i’m not sure from whence R. pulled “amelia earhart,” or why she applied it to me (we’ve never met, never spoken and never really communicated previously), but maybe that’s not important. even if she meant it literally, and thinks i really am going to fly a plane, it doesn’t matter. because what started as a lark – “let’s get a fortune from a seven year old!” – actually turned out to be an unexpectedly insightful message. at a time when i was careening towards the ground at full speed, i was handed the ripcord to a parachute.

and it only cost me a quarter.

a toy story

i’m not sure if the weather was to blame, or if there was some freaky misaligning of the planets today, but YB and i encountered one rude person after another everywhere we went this afternoon. store employees, shoppers, drivers on the road... rude, rude, rude. entitled, self-absorbed and seemingly in one gigantic, collective bad mood.

what follows is an almost-verbatim transcript of one such encounter, which took place in, of all places, an old navy.

i was wandering through the women’s department, and spotted what was very obviously a lost toy belonging to a baby or small child. it was about the size of a baseball, and appeared to be a little fuzzy creature of some sort, with wings and a little strap that might go around a tiny wrist. possibly some kind of fabric teething toy.

i looked around to see if its owner was being wheeled around in a stroller anywhere, or perhaps waddling alongside a shopping parent, but there wasn’t anyone under 12 to be seen anywhere.

so i decided to find a store employee, turn the toy in and hope that whoever lost it would come back to claim it later.

standing by some pyjama bottoms in the sleepwear section, straightening the rack of pyjama tops, was an old navy employee. she was maybe 19, had a headset on and was dutifully attending to her task at hand.

VICKIE
(to the employee, henceforth to be known as surly sue)
excuse me?

surly sue continued what she was doing.

VICKIE
(repeating, slightly louder)
excuse me?

surly sue turned towards me, but said nothing. just stared at me. i figured i might as well continue, since waiting for a friendly greeting, or any greeting for that matter, from surly sue would probably be an exercise in futility.

VICKIE
(continuing)
hi, i found this toy lying over there, i think someone dropped it by accident...

i held out the toy so surly sue could have a look. i thought maybe the toy’s owner had, only seconds before, described it to surly sue in the hopes of someone having found it, so i wanted her to see what it looked like.

VICKIE
(continuing)
... and i thought maybe you guys have a lost and found or something.

surly sue looked at me, then down at the toy in my hand, then back at me as though i had just tried to shove a warm, steaming diaper full of poo in her face. for reasons unknown to me, she was apparently disgusted... either by the toy, or by me, or by the notion of a lost and found department.

SURLY SUE
(in the most apathetic tone in recorded history)
we don’t have a lost and found.

VICKIE
oh.

SURLY SUE
(said as though issuing an order, not a suggestion)
you can bring it to the front.

not “you should” or “if you wouldn’t mind” or “why thank you for rescuing this toy! allow me to shepherd it to further safety for you!”, she actually said, “YOU can.” stress on the “you.”

i stood there for a second, wondering what could be so pressing in the sleepwear department that surly sue wasn’t taking the toy and bringing it to the front cashiers herself since, you know, she was actually an employee of the store, paid to work there, and i was not.

VICKIE
(hoping she’d realize the above)
the front of the store?

SURLY SUE
(as though she was having to restate the obvious)
yes. the cashiers.

VICKIE
(completely amused and taken aback by her apathy)
so, *i* can just bring this to the front myself, can i?

SURLY SUE
yes.

VICKIE
(super-sarcastically)
wow. thank you SO much for all your help!

wait for it...

SURLY SUE
(sincerely, as if she'd just done me a huge favour)
you’re welcome.

fin.

please hold...

i'm staying over at the chateau beatrix this evening.

we've already had the homemade asian-portuguese stir fry with coconut rice, and the chewy chocolate-chip cookies (also from scratch) are cooling as i type. shortly, we're going to make ourselves watch Four Christmases, because it was free and because, despite everything, i love vince vaughn.

as such, this is about all you'll get for a blog entry today.

but i am still ruminating on the flight/life metaphors, and will post those ruminations tomorrow or monday.

or tuesday.

depends on how much i ruminate.

perspectives

when january 1st rolled around, i thought i’d be doing a lot of looking back over the past decade... but i haven’t really.

it wasn’t until this afternoon that i actually began reflecting on that chunk of time, and all that's happened or not happened, and the contrast between then and now became, in its simplest form, somewhat tangible.

i was chatting online with a friend of mine, and we were discussing the fact that we’re starting a new decade (note to matt: technicalities over decades notwithstanding). it was one of those “where do you think we’ll be ten years from now?” conversations.

she theorized that maybe, over the next decade, all things i’ve hoped for might finally happen. that, ten years from now, my dreams will have come true and my life will be everything i want it to be.

and, in that moment, i flashed back to ten years ago.

because, ten years ago, when my life was rock-solid stable, when i had a full-time job with a salary and benefits and four weeks of paid vacation and a tight-knit family of colleagues, when i'd newly moved into my former apartment, when i'd just come out and when life seemed filled with wonderful possibilities... i thought all of those things were going to happen in the decade to come.

yet they did not.

but before i could plummet headlong into a gloom spiral, i was reminded that, even though the dreams i had (and still have) weren't realized over the past ten years, the possibility of them happening in the future hasn't gone away.

at least, i hope it hasn't.

because sometimes i'm scared that it has.

it's been a while...

* the golden globes are on sunday. i'd actually forgotten until this morning.

* i have been finding many curious flight/aviation/aerial metaphors popping up in my life over the past week. i plan to write about them in the coming days.

* last week, my apartment was very cold. tonight, it's so warm that i've opened all the windows and it's still hot in here.

* today, i went to my parents' house to clean it. my mom, fed up with cleaning up after dad, has actually hired me to do it. fine by me.

* i seem to have developed a mild addiction to jarlsberg cheese.

* my thursday-night meditation group is sometimes a great source of comfort and levity.

* i've decided to shift my focus for 2010 from "feel creatively fulfilled" to "earn money." enough dream-chasing, time to buckle down. no more waaaay-below-the-poverty-line income.

* LOST returns in less than three weeks.

* i have not gone on a vacation in more than two years.

* has anyone ever had a cripps apple? (edited to add: nevermind. i just looked it up and discovered it's just another name for a "pink lady" apple, and i've had plenty of those.)

the fridge miracle (or: why i am a moron)

last night, just after 8:30, my fridge died.

or so i thought.

i had just finished making dinner and was getting ready to sit down to eat it with a side order of a LOST rerun, when i opened the fridge to take out a container of freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese. i mention that detail for no other reason than it adds colour and sounds much fancier than “i needed the parmesan.” moving on...

when i opened the door, the fridge let out what i can best describe as a sputter and a sigh, as though someone had just unplugged it and it was releasing its last gasp of breath.

given that this refrigerator has made plenty of strange, often loud, incident-free noises in the three years i’ve lived here, i wasn’t overly concerned... until i noticed that it was no longer running. it was silent. still.

dead.

normally, if i hold the door open for more than about 30 seconds, the fridge clicks into gear and starts running in order to cool the inside temperature. but, this time, i stood there with the door open, waiting for something to happen... and nothing did.

uh oh.

i tried lowering the fridge temperature.

nothing.

i quickly closed the door to conserve whatever cold air might still be inside. unlike the days earlier this month, when my apartment was trapped in the big chill and i could easily have stored ice cream right on my counter without it melting, it’s been quite hot in here of late. with the windows open, it was still 23ºC... so any perishable food items in my fridge were certainly in peril and at risk of perishing.

i checked the freezer and, as soon as i looked inside, i knew something was amiss. it wasn’t cold. what had once been tiny ice crystals on a bag of bagels were now droplets of water.

panic set in.

with my once-hot dinner now the only thing actually cooling down, i hurried to the phone and called the super. she said she wouldn’t be able to get anyone here to look at the fridge until morning at the earliest, so i quickly called YB to see if she – and several cooler bags – could drive downtown to rescue the endangered contents of my recently restocked fridge full of food. (since i don’t really know any of my neighbours, it’s not like i could knock on someone’s door, my arms laden with groceries, and ask if they might spare some shelf space for my milk and cheese and ice cream.)

trix said she would grab some coolers and swing down immediately, then hung up the phone to head out.

in the meantime, i began dismantling the massive collage of photos and magnets from the front of my fridge. if the fridge was dead or broken, a repair guy would no doubt need to maneuvre it around for examination, and there was far too much stuff on it for that to be done easily. so, in between bites of dinner, i began picking off one magnet at a time, trying not to drop anything under the fridge in the process.

then, after about 10 minutes and a third of the way through the de-magnetizing... the fridge went back on.

wait. what?

suddenly, without warning, the motor was running again, the cold air was returning to the fridge interior, and i’d done absolutely nothing.

somehow, in some magic way, the fridge had been resurrected!

i waited a few minutes to make sure it kept running. when all seemed to be well, and the freezer was back to being cold, and the fridge appeared to be normal again, i quickly called YB on her cell and said she could turn around and head back home. she hadn’t driven too far yet, but was relieved that a trek to my place was no longer needed.

then i phoned the super to let her know she could cancel the service call and that the refrigeration emergency was no more. i explained that i hadn’t done a thing, but that the fridge seemed to be A-OK again, and theorized that maybe it had just been a weird glitch.

when i hung up, i was flummoxed. what had happened? how did the fridge spring back into action? there was no logical explanation.

it had to be a miracle!

then i googled.

and, as soon as i began looking online for answers, the internet provided them in spades.

much to my chagrin, i discovered i had not, in fact, witnessed a miracle. it wasn’t divine intervention from the appliance gods or some kind of cosmic, karmic act of greatness that restored chilling activity to my seemingly dead fridge. there hadn’t been some mysterious electromagnetic shift that temporarily sent it into cryo-sleep, nor had my desperate, fonzie-like hip-bump to its door actually managed to do a damn thing.

no, no. a logical explanation for my fridge’s weird, inexplicable on-again/off-again/on-again “hiccupping” most certainly did exist.

it was the automatic-defrost cycle.

and i am a moron.

confession/compunction

sorry.

i fell into a hole at the end of last week and have spent the past several days trying to find my way out of it.

it was a delayed, amplified response to my end-of-year melancholy, and one i thought i could just shove down inside and pretend away. but i couldn’t, and it all came bubbling up to the surface, unexpectedly and randomly and somewhat embarrassingly, on friday. i spent the day treading water in tears i couldn't seem to regulate, and the next few days struggling to sort things out for myself.

as such, i didn’t feel like writing. not anything. not anywhere.

the e-break also happened because i knew if i did force myself to write something, it would probably wind up being depressing and sad and extremely self-critical. i didn't want to indulge that insidious part of my brain more than i already had, or slap its self-destructive musings up for the world to read, so i decided to step away for a spell.

i apologize if anyone worried while i was offline. i know from an email or two that a couple of you did, so i’m sorry about that. and, just FYI, i’m okay. i’m not out of the hole completely, but am certainly feeling better... back to carrying the mountain away pebble by pebble and all that.

...

today...

... was weird and sad.

visitations

i believe that, on occasion, we’re visited by the spirits of friends or family members who have died. for me, it usually happens in dreams.

i remember once, a day or two before my grandmother died, i had a dream about her (late) best friend, mrs. D, who had died a few years prior. i had never dreamed of this woman before, and haven’t dreamed of her since but, that night, there she was.

my grandmother’s health had been failing for some time, and she’d taken a turn for the worse in recent days, so we all knew her life was slowly, laboriously drawing to a close. she was no longer lucid, didn’t speak and could barely breathe. it was just a matter of time.

that’s when i had the dream.

mrs. D and i were in the small front living room of an old house (possibly hers, because i only have the very faintest memory of where she lived) and, based on the décor, it seemed like we were in the past... maybe the 1970s. mrs. D, whom i’d always loved when she was alive and who was my grandmother’s oldest and dearest friend, was happily puttering around, fluffing pillows and tidying. i was standing in the doorway, watching, confused.

i asked her what she was doing, and she said with a smile, in her thick german accent, “i’m getting ready!”

when i woke up, i knew what the dream meant. and i felt strangely comforted.

today, in writing news...

i dug out my portfolio. it still has my hell house address on it. that's how long it's been since i updated it.

i will be going through all my clippings from the past three years to pick out new material to add, and i will purge some of the older stuff.

i pitched a humour essay to one of my editors, and will likely pitch another before week's end. fingers will remain crossed in the interim.

i'm looking into possibly creating a website as a way of marketing myself better and expanding my options.

i need work.

[edited to add: wow. sorting through a mountain of *all* my old clippings -- and there have to be at least a thousand, long and short and culled from 14 years of work, sitting here -- has been revelatory. there are cover stories i forgot i wrote, interviews i forgot i did and some really solid writing i forgot existed.]

“i really don’t know life at all...”

recently, i sat down for my annual viewing of Love, Actually.

it’s a film i adore, one i’ve seen at least a dozen times and one which always seems to air around christmas. it’s so jam-packed with talent and fantastic writing and perfect little moments and heart-swelling wonder that i find something new within it each time i watch. sometimes, it’s a line i missed. sometimes, it’s a detail i’ve overlooked. and it’s always interesting to me to see what i pick out that i’ve never before noticed.

but there is one short scene that remains my favourite regardless of the number of viewings or the countless hidden gems i discover. it’s brief and it’s heartbreaking and it's terrifically nuanced and it’s beautiful and it’s set to a song i have always loved.

it’s the moment emma thompson’s character opens her christmas gift from her husband.

then, with joni mitchell’s “both sides now” playing, she just... cries.

dialogue is unnecessary because everything you need to know about what she's thinking and feeling is right there on her face. it’s maybe a handful of seconds of screen time, but it’s one of the most powerful moments in the film, and part of the reason it works so well is that music bed.

the version of the song used is one recorded in 2000 and time has changed it. joni’s voice is much lower and the arrangement has been tweaked, but the words also seem infused with richer meaning and the entire song is possessed of a depth and groundedness that make it resonate that much more. it’s anchored in experience and truth, and it grabs onto your heart in a way that the original 1969 recording (which is also lovely and moving and wonderful) does not. it’s sadder. heavier. less wistful and more pained.

“both sides now” is one of the few contemporary songs (i.e., not a hymn or piece of classical music) that somehow makes tears spring up in my eyes before the end of its first few bars, as though its precise combination of notes magically triggers an involuntary reflex in my brain. and i’m sure it will surprise no one at all that, like many others, i connect with it on an emotional level. its lyrics have always spoken to me, and it sometimes feels as if i could have written its words myself. that its dreamy idealism and melancholy and regret and revelation are my own... which, i suppose, is the measure of a great song – feeling like the story it’s telling is yours.

and when emma thompson's character breaks down, emotions swirling and her world upended, it just fits so well with her story.

i’ve embedded a video below of the version used in Love, Actually, and i encourage you to watch it and to then watch this version from 1970.

juxtaposed, they’re extra-special, i think. because, though the words are the same, and the same woman is singing them (admittedly, some 30 years apart), it almost seems like two different songs... both perfect and poignant and beautiful in their own way.

the big chill

it’s rather brisk inside my apartment today.

it’s warmer than it was last night, but i’m still sitting here typing while wearing multiple layers and a toque.

and my toes are cold.

see, i spent a few days staying with YB and, before i left, neglected to close and drop all my blinds, and to draw all my curtains shut. as i’ve mentioned in the past, i have a giant wall of windows in my living room, and another one in my bedroom. both face due north. this is normally wonderful for someone like me, who prefers to be cool rather than hot, and it’s especially nice in summer when i don’t have the sun blazing into my unit and turning it into an oven. plus, the view is pretty sweet.

the heat in my apartment (and the entire building) is controlled by the super so, in winter, it’s usually so warm in here that i have at least one window open most, if not all, of the time. the temperature still manages to hover between about 21ºC and 24ºC, and i can putter around in a tank top and pyjama bottoms and be quite comfortable.

however.

once or twice every winter, when the temperatures outside plummet and the north winds blow particularly forcefully, my place gets cold. normally, this means a drop to about 16ºC and some extra sweaters, but last night it hit a new low.

when i returned home just after 5:30pm, i could feel right away that it wasn’t very warm. i knew the winds had likely cooled things down considerably, but when i checked the thermometer i actually gasped.

it was 10ºC. that’s 50ºF. and, because night was falling, it would only get colder. the wind chill outside was already nearing -23ºC (-9ºF). uh oh.

there are radiators that run under all the windows and, normally, they do a more-than-sufficient job. but when the winds come from the north and slam into those enormous windows, the rads are no match and can’t keep up with the dropping temperature. keeping the blinds closed and down, and the curtains sealed up tight, usually helps to insulate the apartment and keep out the cold but, as mentioned, i hadn't done that and the weather had been having its way with my windows for two days straight.

i immediately sprung into heat-‘er-up mode and implemented the tricks i taught myself at hell house, where every radiator malfunctioned in some way that left my unit consistently veering uncontrollably between sweltering and freezing.

the objective: repurpose appliances then humidify the air, because moist air holds heat better than dry air.

so, i turned on the (electric) oven, plugged in my rice steamer and filled the bathtub with searing hot water. when the oven reached its preheat temp, i opened its door to let some heat out. i repeated this process off and on for a few hours. i turned the oven off for about a half hour in between, letting it cool completely as the residual heat escaped. meanwhile, the steamer and the bathtub did their jobs, making the air a little more receptive to the oven’s output.

all this work raised the temperature to near 14ºC (57ºC) by the time i went to bed.

i’d taken out a microfleece blanket and put it on top of my duvet for added warmth. i was also wearing thermals under my pyjamas, a pair of thick socks and the toque i still have on right now. thankfully, i love sleeping in the cold, and always sleep better that way, so my slumber was cozy and sound.

unfortunately, being asleep for eight hours and not manning my posts meant that i woke up to 12ºC again. so, i’ve resumed my rudimentary heating today, have dressed accordingly and hope to be enjoying 16ºC or even 17ºC by nightfall.

the weather is supposed to get a bit warmer by thursday, as well, which should mean i can strip back down to more appropriate dress within a few days.

in the meantime, i continue to shovel coal into my proverbial furnace...

... um, now what?

it’s january 3rd... almost january 4th... and i find myself staring blankly at 2010, as though it’s a mountain someone’s asked me to move and i now need to figure out how.

starting out a new year with a clean slate is a nice idea, in theory. but what if your slate is so clean that the slate itself seems to have vanished?

even though there’s been plenty of reflection and introspection over the past couple of weeks, none of it has provided me with insight regarding what’s yet to come. which makes sense, i know, because i was looking back instead of ahead and because, you know, i’m not psychic.

while the world’s been on a collective holiday over christmas and new year’s, i’ve felt like i’ve been on hiatus. cocooned. like i’ve held myself in a protective stasis, not really facing life or reality, because i could distract myself with watching DVDs or making cookies or doing lots of laundry.

as 2009 wound to a close, though, i was scrambling to find something concrete to anchor myself in the new year. but the more i searched, the more confused i felt and the more i feared i was just grasping for random, inauthentic (for myself) branches. so i tried to stop thinking altogether, and hoped some answers would magically come to me if i simply curbed my obsessing about the questions.

yet the holidays are over, the world resumes turning tomorrow and any answers have evidently been waylaid by the universe. my hiatus is over and, per the island metaphor of dec. 31st, i have to start swimming again.

i know i have a lot to work on in the new year, personally and professionally. but i feel like i have no clue where to go or what to do.

so, for the immediate future, i’m going to start with little things i know i can tackle quite readily, the completion of which will also allow me to check items off a to-do list with a sense of modest accomplishment. just some small stuff that probably needs doing – like polishing my resumé and updating my portfolio and brainstorming ideas about what i might do with both – as a means of continuing forward movement, even if it’s only in negligible increments. limping is still walking, after all.

and, as i walk (or limp), i’ll hopefully be packing a pocket or two with a few tiny stones.

because, and i’ve cited this analogy before but will drag it out once again: a mountain the size 2010 can only be moved by taking it one pebble at a time.

the cards don't lie

my friend YVL practices reiki. she also has a box of cards (which i refer to as "the magic cards") from which, on occasion, she divines guidance, inspiration, motivation and suggestion for herself and others.

every now and again, i seek the advice of the cards. YVL lives on the other side of the country so, when needed, i send her an email and ask her to consult them on my behalf. say what you will, but when you're feeling confused or in flux or down, sometimes it helps if you can get a random hint from the universe in the form of a horoscope or a fortune cookie... or a message written on a magic card.

YVL has been pulling cards for years. there are 75 different cards in the box and, before pulling one (which is a blind pull), she poses a question. the card pulled will be the answer/response. please know: there are many more complexities and nuances to the process, but that's the most basic explanation of how it works.

anyway...

i have asked for the cards' advice a few times, always as a way to help me climb out of an emotional hole of some sort. i don't give YVL any specific information on why i'm asking, or what exactly is going on in my life when i ask, and i try to keep the questions fairly general so as to leave the door open for whatever answer might walk through.

and, each time YVL has pulled a card on my behalf, always first asking that the answer be for my "highest good," the result has been eerily accurate and telling.

whenever the cards have been consulted, they have provided me much food for thought. sure, their guidance might be somewhat vague and easily interpreted or adjusted to suit different scenarios, but there hasn't yet been a card-pull that's been "off" or confounding or seemingly out-of-sync in any way.

i mention all this because, just before christmas, i emailed YVL and asked that she please pose one final 2009 question to the cards (and the universe) for me:

"what does vickie need to focus on in order to find happiness and contentment in 2010?"

on christmas eve, she emailed me and told me this is what was printed on the card she pulled:

CONNECTION
You are never alone. You are never separate - separation is an illusion that you use to give yourself a hard time! All things are connected, nothing works in isolation - you are no exception! Feel the connection to Universal Oneness, Cosmic Energy or God, and you know this is a bond that can never be broken.

and i took note.

a small new year's day thought