all things something else

i have been avoiding talking about all the feeling stuff for a while; my life's evolution, my purpose, my level of satisfaction about all things not dumpling. most of my life i have found value in processing my emotions, but right now i am finding value in the opposite. i feel better keeping busy. i do have time now to "figure something out" but i would rather not. i'm not sure it's the most valuable way to spend my time right now. i don't think i would benefit from mulling anything over right now.

or maybe i am just avoiding facing something. either way, i think i have tended to err on the side of dwelling for most of my life, so whatever. let it go for now. if there's an elephant in the room, it will probably still be there.

when the awesomes left last weekend and the smoke cleared, i discovered that a little bird left four squash in a bag for us. i roasted them last night; two to be blended up for the dumpling, two went into a nice soup last night with beef, onions, mushrooms, cumin, s&p, some freshly grated nutmeg and a touch of molasses. our sudden spring snow yesterday evening made it a good day for a stew like that.

snow was still falling this morning, making spring seem like a dream, or today like a nightmare. not a terrifying wake-up-screaming dealio, more like the depressing, repressive kind where you eat grey food and wake up feeling like you've been taken by the borg. but even with all this greyness, i can't keep still. i'm going to wash the basement floor and bake something with these seriously brown bananas. i've already unpacked my summer shoes because i DON'T CARE IF IT'S SNOWING IT'S STILL SPRING. WINTER IS NOT ALLOWED. thank you.

sistasage ages.

feeling better. well, feeling okay about not feeling great.

my folks visited today, and mom found my high school grad dress. it's deep burgundy and mildly medieval in a gothic, vampire-y sort of way. perfect for costume party adornments, and mom suggested it as a possibility for a wedding dress. her own dress is another alternative, an ivory long-sleeved relatively classic dress with ivory beading, or embroidered with something in some way... i intuitively feel like it's too fancy for the kind of wedding we'll have. i mean, a hostel is booked, we'll be staying in hank, people will be camped and the 'ceremony' will be in a meadow. that sheds light on our style. i want to mark the occasion with adornment (what is that, anyway? this method of expression we have evolved, taped onto the back of the necessity of sheltering one's body from the elements through clothing ourselves), but it needs to fit in with the outdoor world. if we got married in the evening, that might work more for burgundy. hey, that's kind of an interesting idea - sunset ceremony. then we can get right to the eating and drinking and hot-tub-lounging.

weddings are making me think about the future, about my values. values. yeesh.

my mom's husband and the queen traded childhood farm stories, often involving the harm one of the siblings wrecked on another (my favourite was the pitchfork thrown like a spear in revenge for being driven over with the tractor (and into the manure pile). although the story of two broken noses holds a special place too). mom and i were sitting there with our tame-ass kiddie stories, realising we never would have survived such darwinian upbringings.

the peanut - cute as ever. more knitted goods have arrived, and storybooks... i feel very loved by my friends and family. i feel like we, as a family unit, are loved by a larger community (a community based not in geography but in time and experience and choice). it's a new feeling, my heart holds it warmly.

even morleans

wow.

so, pixie is house/dog-sitting for a couple she knows. their dog is a beautiful akita, and their house is an eco-sustainable mansion. seriously. on the one hand, you have solar panels and water cisterns. on the other hand, you have a private, heated pool in the backyard, antique furniture and incredible paintings, most of which are painted by pixie's friend (almost each one i look at becomes my favourite). don't even get me started on the bathtub. we all know that would descend into drooling.

so we're feeling a little spoiled. of course, being loyal hankists, we go sleep in hank every night. but we come back here for showers and cooking in the large, handy kitchen. the nicest thing about the place is that it manages to be comfortable. how they manage to make me, little me, comfortable in this house where each item is more expensive than all my items put together, is amazing. it isn't a museum, it's a home.

speaking of making me comfortable, the gnostic mass did that too! normally ritualized spaces trigger me (i don't belong to any, i fear doing the wrong thing, i get flustered and feel like i don't belong, and i don't generally get anything out of the rituals). for example, the vodou ritual triggered me, even though it was really casual (there was a kid of about ten going around trying to actively disrupt things because he was bored and his mom was leading the choir. anything i could have accidentally done wouldn't do as much to mess up the vibe as this kid accomplished. i was glad to have him there). but the gnostic mass we went to the next night felt really warm and inviting, even though we came in the wrong way and there were participatory things we messed up on, and i usually hate participatory things anyway. but i felt really good about being there. my impression was perhaps it was this particular chapter that created the inviting, accepting feeling. still, i wish there was gnostic mass in edmonton i could go to. vancouver or toronto are currently my canadian options.

the mass was gorgeous. i enjoyed participating, i enjoyed saying "there is no part of me that is not of the gods" and "love is the law. love under will."i appreciated how they spoke of it as a mythology, and how there was an info bit in the missal that explained you didn't have to renounce or participate in any belief system to be a part of the mass. the symbolism used in the mass resonated nicely for the most part (still a bit heavy on the white man, but hey, aleister crowley was white and male; what are you gonna do).

today pixie was modeling, so the queen and i went to a park nearby, so he could do some running and i could lazily wander around and photograph the many birds. later, we made stuffed peppers, and tonight we're going for sushi, after which i might swim in the pool. it's a rough life, as a friend of mine likes to say.

have i mentioned how nice it is not to be driving?

two things about new orleans: there's an offence called "driving while black" in which you are pulled over because you are black, even if there is no visible infraction you are performing; also, i noticed today at the "whole foods" grocery store that most of the shoppers are white, and most of the staff is black. that's not cultural integration, folks. a brown friend of mine in edmonton says she is tired of having to explain to "nice white people" how they should work on their racism. they come to her, wanting to be re-educated. but it is not her responsability to educate white people out of our racism. that is our own responsability. we do not get a bone for simply wanting to try.

subtlety, eggs and ham

my first day off since moving in that i was able to spend at home. quite by accident, too. the original plans were to go out to the folks' place, an hour out of town, for my mom's husband's fiftieth birthday. i wanted to go with the queen, but he had to work again on his only day off. my sis helped me plan another ride, but then other people's plans changed and suddenly they showed up at my place two hours early. two very important hours early, that i was spending finalizing an annual report thingie that had to be delivered tomorrow for the non-profit i volunteer with. specifically, i needed to finish the thing and send it for the quickest approval period in the world (24 hours) before i delivered it to interested parties. they had worked on the majority of it with me, so i wasn't feeling too bad about leaving it late, but i did feel strongly that i needed to give them at least a token amount of time to register any feedback. and the party wasn't going to return me until after six this evening. i really needed to get it done.

which meant i couldn't go. so i scrambled and got the food and card i was going to bring, sent them off with my sis, tucked the bathrobe back around me and went back to work. one of three moments a year where i wish i drove. so often it has no impact on my life. today it did.

given the freedom of time, however, i finished the report and caught up on that orgainzation's email. i cleaned and tidied, finished small tasks, retrieved almost all of the last of my stuff from the good witch's house, and am now less behind on my walrus reading. one of those days where the tasks are all little and accomplishing them feels immensely satisfying. i think it's all in the details, somehow. when i feel happy about the tiny bits of lace-edges in life, that's when i feel the most... well, harmonious, i guess.

another non-book i read today: the original radioscripts for the hitchiker's guide. they were great. there are characters in the radio that never show up in any other format. also, marvin gets some good airplay. he has great one-liners (that link leads to book quotes, but you get the idea).

food: berries, specifically. little farm strawberries that remind you grocery strawberries are more straw than berry, because these are the real thing: melt in your mouth succulent love. wild saskatoons, tart and tiny. blueberries til you can't blueberry no more, with cream and just by the mouthful. bring it on.

see ya later, crock-a-gator

one more for some random numbered year!

other blogs i read seem to think they should have a special entry for their last 2009 post. my reaction: "huh?" i still think it's october AND i don't care. i'll be leaving the gnomal environs soon, back to the doghouse, to read and drink warm irish drinks. this, to me, is a regular weekend.

i got the greatest hug ever today, from a will-be shaman. just thought i'd mention. then i had a nap with my buddy c-light. it's interesting how differently physical contact feels when one is not in a physically intimate relationship. it's all "whoa. are you really touching part of my shoulder near my armpit? that feels really awesome." i find relationships often leave me feeling physically drained. i'm not going to analyze that statement, as tempting as it is.

i visited my sweet kitten today. she smells awesome, and looks adorable, and still loves me. can you hear the small church boy calling from the steeple tower? "allll's we-ellllll!" in my world, anyway.

i am thinking about trauma, and trauma in the lives of others. do we help just because we can? i always helped, my ability to do so being the only prerequisite. then i added "they are already, in some way, helping themselves" to that list of necessary conditions. now, having just finished another short story, i wonder. maybe there should not be a list of defining occasions in which i shall help others. maybe i should just leave it up to the decision of the moment.

i think the moment is, in a way, the only time and place we can actually make a decision. so why steal that choice from myself, by enforcing a set of behaviours? i hate the dogma of others. why create my own?

one might say "well, this isn't dogma, it's my values." indeed. and what is the difference? values are guidelines, open to interpretation, whereas dogma is concrete and unbending, an extreme and rigid application of values. there is a difference. still, i now see values as a gateway drug. i think they can get in the way of being honest about what we need in the moment. i think people use 'values' as an excuse to be self-effacing, and to give themselves nightmarish realities.

most people i know don't err on the side of 'not enough values'. maybe not enough understanding of others, but mostly, not enough listening to themselves. there. one last judgment for 2009. listen!!!

try and get past the italics, to the italics at the end

what is it about routine that immediately incenses me? i look at the laundry ready to put away, the in-box that's never been empty, the innocent plants that need watering, and i feel angry. angry at plants? they don't even complain.

it's the needing. in the last year, it's been a youth program that didn't have enough emotional support (guess who noticed?), organizing and curating a first-ever youth art show for a victim/crime awareness project, and helping a small business first moving into having employees and running their business according to government rules, which meant a lot of scary first steps and risks to take. eventually the scariness mellowed out, at which point i becamse bored and gave my notice. so there's something to be said about what i seek. let's come back to that.

i took this really easy job for the summer so that i could be responsibility-free (the board doesn't meet in the summer, which seemed promising as well), only to become a key-holder within three weeks. currently, my boss is on vacation and i'm 'running the place'. it's not a high-tech global centre of wealth or anything, but the pattern is uncanny. i attract positions of responsibility. and now and again (and again and again), they need things from me.

my spoils: coming back to my own attractions, i admit that i get off on feeling needed. it was the role i played in the family drama, after i outgrew the baby post. i problem-solve, collect emotional outpourings, smooth out ruffled feelings, head off imminent conflict and generally put people at ease (when i'm comfortable in my own zone, of course).

and when it's stimulating as opposed to grating, i find value in this. or do i?

maybe it's just feeling valued that i value (whew). well, it's helping me meet a need, seems harmless. unless i'm using others to build my self-esteem from the outside instead of from my own experiences. hmm. is there another way i'd like to meet that need (belonging/social security) that seems more centred in myself?

what else do i do that i think is needed by society as a whole?

...

also, and here's an interesting point. is it in my best interest and path to undertake every responsibility that i see or that is offered to me? i pretty rarely say no, although i do turn down projects. occasionally.

other than meeting a need for feeling valued by others, do i learn anything from playing this role?

maybe it isn't even a matter of changing how i meet the need. maybe it's a matter of letting myself realize how much i am already valued. i have such a fear of being left out - still. after all these years and all these social accomplishments. can i nourish the plant of self-confidence in my own garden, instead of buying it from the appreciation of others? can i barf after that terrible analogy? ewww. the power of one's own blog: ruthlessly publishing phrases better burned.

band on the run

it's raining. in january. what are we, the west coast?

i like it. it's on the rolling filofax of grateful-fors. along with lotion, making templates, chocolate, cheese on popcorn (smoky cheese curds sprinkled on popcorn, ohhhh my) and that feeling of accomplishment that comes with cleaning all the old stuff out of my shelf in the fridge.

so much more. i'm grateful for scotch whiskey, my family trees, cats, nia, mystery novels, drummers, long lunches, cardigan sweaters, caribou (the band), great online comics, making links, writing letters and putting teabags, stickers and other delights in with the letters before i mail them, cute little stools, embracing abundance, well-written non-fiction and reggae music.

and wow, the beat-boxing flute player! i sure am grateful to that guy for sharing his talents, passions, discipline.

i have been considering my role models lately. all the people i unconsciously took after; teachers, fictional heroines, my parents, my sister. authors, artists, bosses. friends. it's important, i think, to revisit one's old role models to both thank them for helping us through and to let them retire. because as i grow, i know i need to learn different lessons and value systems from different teachers in my life.

anne of green gables doesn't always have the answer. neither does the energy-worker i had a big crush on for years (and learned a lot from. in fact, one might wonder if the crush was an example of unconsciously fulfilling the desire to learn). there's a point where zen masters don't know. but if i tune into what i want to learn and learn it from the people who can best teach me, i'll probably stay engaged enough to keep answering questions. and love what i do.

drafts and dreams

it's challenging, the holiday season. and now it's done. for the first time, it seems, i recognize the magnitude of what i've accomplished: family gifted, time shared with the myriad of out-of-towners who came back to the nest to warm themselves, presence shown at various social gatherings, internal pressure only erupting a few times and seemingly having not caused any irreversible damage... seemingly. the cold, desolate months of january and february stretch emptily before me and i am grateful for their emptiness. space to grow in. stretch in. draw in.

i am stunningly broke. the cheque i received today is for less than bills and rent. suddenly, all that time off is seen in a new context. days of gallivanting, early morning sleeps, funerals, roadtrips and more. oops.

i still have a bit in the bank to help pad the fall, but we'll be hitting ground soon, baby. dipping into the currencies of luck and loved ones. enjoying eating lightly and paying the phone bill two weeks late. i understand why this is a little stressful, seeing as it's operating at a deficit and this touches my value of being self-sufficient and responsive to my own needs. however, i can only let the stress hit the point of gaza. or nigeria. my country is not war-torn. eternal occupation, starvation, normalized rape, these are not happening to me. phone bills? they're absurd. don't waste my time. love? you're on.

a moment of silence, and then it continues.

stomach sings the blues

examining the misery. what are some of the premises my sadness rests in, and are those valid? one of the things i noticed yesterday in a conversation with a warm spirit is my degree of upset with the 'positivity at any cost' attitude. when i hear "just focus on the positive, and the negative will dissipate," i respond with "oh, you mean denial?" i feel very strongly, for example, that even as we learn how to live in harmony with a living planet, it's important to grieve the species we lost along the way; the price of our education.

but there's a difference between being present with my emotions and dwelling on them. i know that since sadness is how i got to my needs initially (how i noticed there was something out of balance), my default attitude is to trust sadness more than happiness. sadness has proven to be of value. which is different than awarding it 'cure-all' status.

i wonder what gifts happiness could offer me. in a story i wrote, what would happen to my character? she would come full circle while continuing to rock the spiral. she would learn to appreciate what she has while benefiting from her efforts toward service and personal development. she would grow up. the broken social scene lyrics come through: "you know it's time that we grow old and do some shit." she would grow old and do some shit. and she would have a buddy. but she would need to shift her emotional settings to accommodate the happiness.

i wonder what that would look like?

some friends hold the best silence

i visited a forest ecosystem today. there were brambly types and lofty types, there were blue jays, birds of prey and an enormous white cat. there were deer track and dog tracks, and one lone beer bottle. not too bad for an hour out of town. and oh! the river.

at night, the milky way was stunning. i watched orion drift across the sky, the pleiades amuse themselves (they're like the people who hang out in the kitchen at parties. there's nothing different about them, but they seem to have more fun nonetheless), a star fall like a lone firework quietly streaking through the night.

i thought about trees. about the huge banyan tree i'd seen in honolulu, the branches cascading down into roots, how i could walk through them. i thought about palm trees, how they seem to dance in the wind like shaggy fraggles rockin' out to the sweetest tunes. i thought about the tree on 108st i usually touch as i walk by, its trunk expanding past the skinny public swath of green between the road and the sidewalk, its roots upheaving the poured cement. i thought about all the tress i won't meet, the trees destroyed by storms and clearcut by humans who don't know or don't care that those kinds of drastic methods are neither necessary or even beneficial to the value system that's emerging. reading this book is helpful and inspiring, but the best thing is just getting out there. i want to go to california and hang out with redwoods.

i wrote this in my journal: "with just our ignorance, we could get by. it's our shame that debilitates us. making mistakes is one thing, not fixing them is another." we could fix things so easily, we're so clever. but we would often rather be windbags. strange how shame is so powerful. how did we let it grip us so tightly?

i feel re-inspired, like i can smell again. i want to love the parts of life that are awesome.

wish list, while i remember

i'm at that point (again!) where i'm feeling overwhelmed by the day to day. it's amazing, really. i know so many people who "do" so much more than i. yet i find the balance that brings about peace compromised so easily. invariably, i decide i either work too much, have too many friends or really shouldn't be in love. awesome. glad we've solved that one.

i just wish i had one of those days coming up where there was nothing going on. where i could allow my good friend to finally fix the dreads that have been forming, unguided, in my hair for months. where i could hack away at my mending box, filled to the brim with clothes i have forgotten. where i could vacuum under my bed. whatever. attend to the things that aren't screeching in my life, just waiting.

what do i do with my days? get up, let cat out, have shower, make coffee, make breakfast, make lunch, go to work. work work work. use lunch to catch up on email, especially volunteer-related email. walk home. lie down, do yoga or engage in some kind of "relaxing" activity. make supper (or don't). engage in one or more of the following activities: read, listen to music, give childcare, do house chores, go grocery-shopping, run errands, play with cat, write or entertain.

weekends: go to market, go to meetings, get saturday's globe and mail, have dates, make food, catch up on errands and house chores, entertain, sit or do yoga. but rarely do i do any of those things as much as i want to. often the globe is only partially read, the yoga is cut short because of obligations, or the market gets postponed until next week. sometimes i sleep in and stare at the wall, but even those have pretty much been cut out. these days, sleeping in lasts until 9.

i wish my job was only four days a week. the other activities give me more joy or care, relative to the amount of time i put forward for each of them. but part-time jobs are rarely as engaging as the full-time jobs that are available. i wish i could run a b&b in the woods while raising some tiny little zen kid. imagine; occasionally writing, building eco-friendly cabins in the woods with my hunky partner, and the little zen kid being home-schooled by ourselves and the friends that would drop by to recover from their hectic city lives in our beautiful mountain retreat. i mean, if we're going to make a wishlist, that's on mine. too bad no one can afford to drive there!

second choice, go to school. at least it's a change. and i can spend more time at home in bed with the cat. "doing my readings". yeah. sounds like an appropriate second choice. that whole "change is as good as a rest" idea that i occasionally think was made up by workaholics. actually, in light of that, let's drop school to third choice, b&b to second choice and introduce number one as: society recovers from stress-induced, high speed, one-winner-only competition to be the world's biggest, "smartest", "most powerful and respected" greedy idiot. there we go. that would be great. then we could all relax, instead of just the lucky folks who own b&bs.

am i whiny? spoiled? should i be thankful that i don't have to run from bombs, eat bugs to stay alive or attend to my arranged-marriage-husband's every 'need'? yes, definitely yes. and i am glad of all those things. until i forget.

and yet...

i read once, i think it was in an orson scott card book, that history is comprised of long periods of little activity interspersed with short periods in which nearly everything happens. sometimes it seems like life follows that principle way too vehemently. like most people, i sleep (and complain) through the periods of very litle activity, then act surprised when life goes nuts. again.

i've been trying to figure out what to do about the 'bad stress' in my life. i've been aiming to mitigate it, and while that is somewhat successful, i'm noticing stress is being barfed repeatedly into my life (maybe i'm barfing it, not ruling anything out). i think part of mitigating the stress is choosing less stressful situations. to live in, to work in, to love in.

so i've been looking at the aspects of my life that i find 'too stressful' on a regular basis and trying on the idea of changing them. it's weird, because in the past, i've changed these (job, home, lover) far too often. i need to make sure that i am not going to end up with 'different but the same', and be faced with the same things not working later.

it's tough to live in a large household with diverse needs. i've found it difficult to keep track of my needs when faced with the, apparently conflicting, needs of others. i know that i have a very specific plan for what my life is (though i admit i refuse to sum it up, often pretending, even to myself, that i don't know). what i stand for. and while there are things i really don't like about my life currently, that doesn't mean that those things (petty bickering, social slights, stubborn people) go against my values.

i value the self, the 'individual' separate from a larger whole in some way (even if that way is illusive). i value consciousness, that aspect of being present that is simply present, without a plan. i value expression. i value communication, the attempt to express outward and be understood.

these are my values.