I'm on the couch, after a full Sunday of activity, every single thing something I wanted to do, not had to do, and I smell lavender.
I'm reading, and at first I can't figure out where the scent is coming from. My blanket, tossed over my reclining form while I hold a book aloft and read in dim dusky light? My couch? I reach to the coffee table for a sip of wine, and I notice the melted candle in the centre--aha. Lavender located.
I get off the couch (no small feat, I have planned to finish reading this Hamilton book tonight) and I fetch the matches (noting on my grocery-list paper that the match supply is dwindingly low). The spark and hiss and the candle is lit. More lavender, less dusky light. Now the candle is giving the light. Now I'm here, keying these words, because I have no one to talk to right now and sometimes even an introvert like me needs to say things.
Not important things, not earth-shattering things. Just things. Observations.
That this summer is the first one out of the last three (meaning now--12, and 11 and 10) where I am actually starting to feel alive again.
Where I'm not just going through the motions, veiled by so much pain, grief, and heft to feel anything but sorrow, sadness, and binging on tears.
It's weird to feel this way, and I know how weird that sounds.
It's weird to look back and see how much doubt and fear I was piling onto this thing called life.
How grief can deaden the living.
Again--summer has this cleansing effect, I think, for all nations plagued by dark cold winters. It's a lightening--but I didn't get to experience that healing tonic for the last two of this celebrated season and I can't believe all I've been missing.
Walking around. Lately, it's like the whole city had been covered in a tarp and suddenly it's been unveiled, a rabbit released out of a deep dark hole, and I see things. Things I want to do. Places I want to go. The crowds at the festival last night and my calm un-bothered-ness around them bolstered my new feeling of freedom.
I rode the streetcar today, without panic, despite the packed-to-the-gills-full-of-passengers scenario I faced when I entered. There was a detour. I was unmoved. I got to see another unfamiliar neighbourhood here in this city where I have lived, pretty much without interruption, for almost my entire life.
I've discovered new places to eat and drink in my mom's neighbourhood, too. Places to buy vegetables, a Sunday market off the beaten trail, and a consignment shop that sells gorgeous handbags. I've ventured out without music clanging in my ear buds. I don't feel this deep need to disappear from view when I'm out, interacting with the world.
It's like a layer of anxiety has peeled away. And left in it's place: Nothing. A good nothing. A nothing where I can remember things with clarity. Where I can enjoy an aimless morning. Where I can read five books in a week and not even blink. Where I can concentrate. I didn't realize how much I missed those more straight-and-narrow regions of my brain. The neighbourhoods in my head that I have not visited nearly enough in the haze of the past two-odd years.
Just writing this feels free.
I thought, today, of how to 'live the life you want', incorporating all of those want-to-do things, after finishing the need-to-do's. And how they can co-exist with a bit of work, with a bit of reward. And I washed my mind clear of that last therapy session, realizing that I'm working on discovering what I need on my own. This goes for what happens inside my head as well as at work, shaping my attitude toward this unscalable mountain range I've built it up to in my mind. I don't need to scale that mountain when I'm already chipping my way through it.
The slow way, the long way, the hard way.
My way.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Summer Weekends
It was a beautiful July Saturday, I’ll say that.
I did not run. After waking up at 6:30 am (WHYYYYYYYY?) I puttered around my apartment for literally hours, making coffee, ‘organizing’ laundry, (Ie, moving it from place to place, folding it, getting distracted, then leaving it on the kitchen counter—don’t ask) and then deciding to say “to hell with it” about the run and just making some macaroni and cheese from the box, and deciding the only thing that would go with it was a can of Coke, and leaving my apartment, running across the street with a five-dollar bill to the small convenience store, and buying one.
I did not run. After waking up at 6:30 am (WHYYYYYYYY?) I puttered around my apartment for literally hours, making coffee, ‘organizing’ laundry, (Ie, moving it from place to place, folding it, getting distracted, then leaving it on the kitchen counter—don’t ask) and then deciding to say “to hell with it” about the run and just making some macaroni and cheese from the box, and deciding the only thing that would go with it was a can of Coke, and leaving my apartment, running across the street with a five-dollar bill to the small convenience store, and buying one.
Back home, I ate the pasta directly from the pot, standing
up in my kitchen. I explored the possibilities of the day; it was wide open.
Sure, there is tonnes of work-work to do. Yes, this apartment is not going to
clean itself (the dishes in the sink for the past three days have made that abundantly clear). But the sunshine
beckoned. The rooftop called. The seven-day-loan-only-non-renewable-library
book I’m currently reading “Blood, Bones, and Butter” by Gabrielle Hamilton
begged to be read.
I gave in, put on my bikini, got my rooftop-beach bag with
supplies and went up there.
No one. All afternoon.
No one. All afternoon.
Just the sun, the sky, a few wasps and flies, me, the book,
a bottle of water, and the stillness of the city on a nice July day.
My evening plans involved the Jazz Festival in the Beach,
where I met my mom and then some friends. A pasta dinner outside rounding out
the day, a quick glass of wine in one of the overflowing bars, and then just
walking up and down the closed-to-cars Queen Street for a few nice hours. The crush
of people didn’t even faze or deter me.
Getting a cab home was another story, but I soldiered along,
stealing backward glances at the traffic for an approaching taxi, walking
almost 4 km before snagging one. I chalked the walk up to my exercise for the
day and was home in under ten minutes after that.
This morning..up way too early again. I’m reading the book
(I can’t put it down, it’s a memoir by a chef, a female chef at that, who took
the long way in her career, the kind of bumpy road that makes for great
story-telling and a humble manner that I’m lapping up).
It’s looking like another beautiful July day out there. I am a bit crispy-skinned from my hours on the roof, and a bit light-headed from lack of sleep and two late nights in a row, but I’m relaxed. I’m weekend-ed.
It’s looking like another beautiful July day out there. I am a bit crispy-skinned from my hours on the roof, and a bit light-headed from lack of sleep and two late nights in a row, but I’m relaxed. I’m weekend-ed.
Today looks promising for the cleaning up I’ve pledged
myself to do.
Happy Sunday (girl!)
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Therapy
Can I tell you about my dream?
Last night, I was awakened numerous times--for good reason, too. Mother Nature decided to unleash a bounty of rain on the downtown core, and the city of Toronto was the grateful recipient of this wash of water.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was on the rooftop reading and drinking wine when the first few drops started falling.
I came down, went inside, had dinner. The rain was off-and-on, picking up intensity, whipping around a bit, but still no noise, no light. No thunder and lightning.
That happened later. 4am later. I woke to a brightly-illuminated room several times. I heard thunder rumbling.
I slipped in and out of sleep, a couple of times checking my clock-radio (do people still have those?) to make sure it was still getting power. I feel back into a deep sleep, rain notwithstanding.
I dreamed about a condo complex (nothing too out of the ordinary there). Meeting my sister for an early lunch. With our Dad. I didn't know this at first. The restaurant, oddly named "Mike's" was beside the condo complex. It was a cafeteria-style place where you lined up, like the old Movenpick with the passport-type stamps on your bill, and ordered your food from stations. I decided I wanted a bacon-caesar-salad-chicken-wrap. I eventually got to the front of the bacon line. The bacon guy was done cooking bacon for the day, cleaning his pans, putting raw bacon away. I was crestfallen. He was unaffected. I toured around the rest of the food stations eventually settling on cold chicken breast, honey mustard, lettuce, the wrap, with out the salad and bacon I wanted. I located my sister and my dad, sitting at a booth for two, having a grand old time, a great conversation. There was no room for me at the table. We eventally 'converted' the table (in a dreamlike way) and I sat down with my tray to eat. But lunch was over. We'd (I'd) run out of time. I was silent and disappointed. And I hid my disappointment. My dream ended, or it went somewhere else. I don't know.
Back to my therapy appointment of this week. I was whiny, I was at times, despondent, I was frustrated, I described my utter lethargy in the face of things I have to do. My therapist suggested I get some blood work done. Thyroid, she said? It's what affected your mom. I regarded her coolly. I may have sighed impatiently. Really? That's all you've got? In my most recent conversations with those closest to me, family and what have you, all I get is the Bad News. What has Gone Wrong. Why everything is Not Perfect. My husband, my sister, my mom, work, you name it. And I wonder why I employ 'catastrophic mind' at every turn. Why I sleep nine hours a night. Why I read to escape, read to improve, read to embolden. It's like every step up is taken with lead feet.
I left her office frustrated and feeling incomplete from the session (here it is, one more person who has no possible HOPE of understanding me). I walked down the hall to reception to book another appointment. But what I wanted to do was way, hey, let's finish this. Why'd you give me something else to worry about? Why couldn't you see the fatigue I experience goes well beyond the physical.
But, like my dream, I said nothing.
I left, I went to my niece's birthday dinner.
I've got nothing if not stamina. That thought occurred to me as I drove home today, annoyed at the traffic. Stamina. Yep. I've got it in spades. It should make some of these challenges easier, but sometimes it serves only as a reminder that I need to employ this quality much more than I would like.
Another sad fact about last night/this morning and waking up to the rainstorm: I was convinced it was Saturday morning.
Oh, the crush of disappointment.
Last night, I was awakened numerous times--for good reason, too. Mother Nature decided to unleash a bounty of rain on the downtown core, and the city of Toronto was the grateful recipient of this wash of water.
As I mentioned yesterday, I was on the rooftop reading and drinking wine when the first few drops started falling.
I came down, went inside, had dinner. The rain was off-and-on, picking up intensity, whipping around a bit, but still no noise, no light. No thunder and lightning.
That happened later. 4am later. I woke to a brightly-illuminated room several times. I heard thunder rumbling.
I slipped in and out of sleep, a couple of times checking my clock-radio (do people still have those?) to make sure it was still getting power. I feel back into a deep sleep, rain notwithstanding.
I dreamed about a condo complex (nothing too out of the ordinary there). Meeting my sister for an early lunch. With our Dad. I didn't know this at first. The restaurant, oddly named "Mike's" was beside the condo complex. It was a cafeteria-style place where you lined up, like the old Movenpick with the passport-type stamps on your bill, and ordered your food from stations. I decided I wanted a bacon-caesar-salad-chicken-wrap. I eventually got to the front of the bacon line. The bacon guy was done cooking bacon for the day, cleaning his pans, putting raw bacon away. I was crestfallen. He was unaffected. I toured around the rest of the food stations eventually settling on cold chicken breast, honey mustard, lettuce, the wrap, with out the salad and bacon I wanted. I located my sister and my dad, sitting at a booth for two, having a grand old time, a great conversation. There was no room for me at the table. We eventally 'converted' the table (in a dreamlike way) and I sat down with my tray to eat. But lunch was over. We'd (I'd) run out of time. I was silent and disappointed. And I hid my disappointment. My dream ended, or it went somewhere else. I don't know.
Back to my therapy appointment of this week. I was whiny, I was at times, despondent, I was frustrated, I described my utter lethargy in the face of things I have to do. My therapist suggested I get some blood work done. Thyroid, she said? It's what affected your mom. I regarded her coolly. I may have sighed impatiently. Really? That's all you've got? In my most recent conversations with those closest to me, family and what have you, all I get is the Bad News. What has Gone Wrong. Why everything is Not Perfect. My husband, my sister, my mom, work, you name it. And I wonder why I employ 'catastrophic mind' at every turn. Why I sleep nine hours a night. Why I read to escape, read to improve, read to embolden. It's like every step up is taken with lead feet.
I left her office frustrated and feeling incomplete from the session (here it is, one more person who has no possible HOPE of understanding me). I walked down the hall to reception to book another appointment. But what I wanted to do was way, hey, let's finish this. Why'd you give me something else to worry about? Why couldn't you see the fatigue I experience goes well beyond the physical.
But, like my dream, I said nothing.
I left, I went to my niece's birthday dinner.
I've got nothing if not stamina. That thought occurred to me as I drove home today, annoyed at the traffic. Stamina. Yep. I've got it in spades. It should make some of these challenges easier, but sometimes it serves only as a reminder that I need to employ this quality much more than I would like.
Another sad fact about last night/this morning and waking up to the rainstorm: I was convinced it was Saturday morning.
Oh, the crush of disappointment.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Wicked Wednesday
Sociology is rational. God is not.
God knows the very moment we are born.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet
You know how I coined 'Sunday Night Syndrome' with my sis to describe that peculiar angst one feels before they go back to work on Monday morning?
Wicked Wednesday is all mine.
It means:
it's the busiest day of the week.
there are a thousand phone calls
you can't put people off to next week the way you can thursday and friday
did i mention the phone?
I also had to be at work for an 8 am meeting (the stuff of nightmares for me, a non-morning person).
I awakened at 4, 4:30, and 5 am, to check I was not late. Then I fell back asleep and dreamed vivid, horribly odd dreams (devils. over flowing toilets. messy hallways. what? WHAT?).
I finally gave up and got myself into the bathtub, ice pack on my tired eyes, at 6:15 am.
I was dressed and out the door, hair full bedhead (you can pull this off in the summer with long hair. I'm not saying I'm proud of it. But I wore a tailored outfit to offset it you know?)
I was at my desk by 7:30 am after stopping at Tim Hortons and leaving, crushed with disappointment, when they were out of chocolate chip muffins (stars not aligning this week).
I escaped work at 4 ish to pick up plans and packages at a client's place. After arriving to work at 7:30 am it was all I could do to keep awake by then so it was a welcome respite.
And I had an acupuncture appointment to get to.
After the disaster that was my therapy appointment yesterday, I was looking forward to getting stuck with little needles and lying there (ok, falling asleep immediately) in the dim room in a basement on Bayview.
Last week I was late for my appointment.
This week I was way early.
The sky was clouding over. I was hungry. I found a patio with an awning, ordered a chardonnay and a poutine and relaxed with my work journal, making a to do list. All alone. A family of four arrived approximately 4 minutes into my time there, shattering the reverie, the nervous mother/wife making sure her husband faced the other way, while I pulled out my ipod to block out the sound of her and her irritating pronouncements about the patio, what to order, what to have to drink--you know, the useless prattle of those who are used to not being heard. I texted my friend L. Our texts were not knid--along the lines of 'b*tch please', and I listened to my music, sipped my wine, picked at my food, paid my bill, as rain started to fall (that incomparable smell of summer rain, if they made a candle of that smell I'd buy it by the armload). I gathered myself up, umbrella and all (forethought, yes) and wandered down the street to my appointment, where I got stuck with the needles and promptly fell asleep.
Left there feeling drugged (in the best possible way), drove home on the wind-y Bayview extension and decided to go up to the roof with a book and some water and wine.
I sat. I sipped (after guzzling the water). I stared at the sky, clouds rapidly advancing. I thought. About nothing. I read. The Circle of Quiet book, the quote of which leads off this entry. I watched the birds, looking at their signals as the clouds thickened. My mom always says to watch the birds before a storm. They will fly for cover. When you stop seeing them, the rain is imminent. Slow drops at first. I gathered up my gear. Books, bag, ipod, shoes, glass of wine.
Came back down, ate leftovers, and now here I am. It's bedtime, the rain is pouring outside, that amazing sound, there is a bit of thunder.
Wicked Wednesday is coming to a close.
God knows the very moment we are born.
Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet
You know how I coined 'Sunday Night Syndrome' with my sis to describe that peculiar angst one feels before they go back to work on Monday morning?
Wicked Wednesday is all mine.
It means:
it's the busiest day of the week.
there are a thousand phone calls
you can't put people off to next week the way you can thursday and friday
did i mention the phone?
I also had to be at work for an 8 am meeting (the stuff of nightmares for me, a non-morning person).
I awakened at 4, 4:30, and 5 am, to check I was not late. Then I fell back asleep and dreamed vivid, horribly odd dreams (devils. over flowing toilets. messy hallways. what? WHAT?).
I finally gave up and got myself into the bathtub, ice pack on my tired eyes, at 6:15 am.
I was dressed and out the door, hair full bedhead (you can pull this off in the summer with long hair. I'm not saying I'm proud of it. But I wore a tailored outfit to offset it you know?)
I was at my desk by 7:30 am after stopping at Tim Hortons and leaving, crushed with disappointment, when they were out of chocolate chip muffins (stars not aligning this week).
I escaped work at 4 ish to pick up plans and packages at a client's place. After arriving to work at 7:30 am it was all I could do to keep awake by then so it was a welcome respite.
And I had an acupuncture appointment to get to.
After the disaster that was my therapy appointment yesterday, I was looking forward to getting stuck with little needles and lying there (ok, falling asleep immediately) in the dim room in a basement on Bayview.
Last week I was late for my appointment.
This week I was way early.
The sky was clouding over. I was hungry. I found a patio with an awning, ordered a chardonnay and a poutine and relaxed with my work journal, making a to do list. All alone. A family of four arrived approximately 4 minutes into my time there, shattering the reverie, the nervous mother/wife making sure her husband faced the other way, while I pulled out my ipod to block out the sound of her and her irritating pronouncements about the patio, what to order, what to have to drink--you know, the useless prattle of those who are used to not being heard. I texted my friend L. Our texts were not knid--along the lines of 'b*tch please', and I listened to my music, sipped my wine, picked at my food, paid my bill, as rain started to fall (that incomparable smell of summer rain, if they made a candle of that smell I'd buy it by the armload). I gathered myself up, umbrella and all (forethought, yes) and wandered down the street to my appointment, where I got stuck with the needles and promptly fell asleep.
Left there feeling drugged (in the best possible way), drove home on the wind-y Bayview extension and decided to go up to the roof with a book and some water and wine.
I sat. I sipped (after guzzling the water). I stared at the sky, clouds rapidly advancing. I thought. About nothing. I read. The Circle of Quiet book, the quote of which leads off this entry. I watched the birds, looking at their signals as the clouds thickened. My mom always says to watch the birds before a storm. They will fly for cover. When you stop seeing them, the rain is imminent. Slow drops at first. I gathered up my gear. Books, bag, ipod, shoes, glass of wine.
Came back down, ate leftovers, and now here I am. It's bedtime, the rain is pouring outside, that amazing sound, there is a bit of thunder.
Wicked Wednesday is coming to a close.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Slice of life
Below is an email exchange with my lovely blog friend Julia. I've been writers-blocked since my last blog debacle and here I'm hinting, oh loyal readers, as to how I'm going to deal with my truth--disguise it as fiction! Brill or what? Brill I think....
In terms of being well-read, I often shy away from "true lit" (as the purists would define it)
but, J, I am a bibliophile and bookworm to the highest degree. It's my favourite thing to do.
I will read junk sometimes (case in point The Hunger Games, pure curiosity, and The Dragon
Tattoo thing) but for the most part I want to learn as I read. My dream (truly) is to work in
a bookstore one day, maybe when I'm really old and want to just kind of 'be'.
I read this thing on twitter the other day about a man who worked in a bookstore, and
called himself a "booktender" and confessed his pathological curiosity about others, how it
drove his work and reading and writing. I fall into the same vein (hence the interest in
other bloggers).
RE: the Starlets. So true. They give some (ie, the vast majority) a nice low standard of intellect
to aspire to.
RE: Colorado. I know. It's sad too because Toronto has had a shameful summer of crime, nicknamed
'the summer of the gun' and we had a shooting in our largest, downtown mall, and it was pandemonium
over here. And we're not a gun-toting bunch, I have to tell you. It shocks me. I want the old world
back. So badly.
Juliaipsa should definitely remain as is, to your standards and voice. You definitely have a voice. I think
that's the most important thing. The voice is what readers keep coming back for, I think.
I'm growing back in love with my blog, and I know that I will continue to pile personal stories onto it,
and maybe in some instances I'll write little pieces of 'Fiction' so that those who wish to be left off
my blog can appear as a pseudonym, and situations can be honestly talked about, via a fictional story.
I think that is going to be my approach.
I've got an entry kicking about in my head right now about a dinner I went to last night, but I've also
got this crazy fulltime job that needs my attention.
Loving the email trail though ;)
RE: NYC. God. Such a magical, VAST city. I was spellbound. I arrived, after a gruelling summer of heartbreak and was able to lift some huge burdenous issues off my shoulders and enjoy the hell out of NYC.
So for that alone, it holds a special place in my heart. Somewhere I went ... to heal.
:) Carolyn
From: juliaipsa@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:01:21 -0400
Subject: Re: tungsten
To: carolyniyer@hotmail.com
Oh, Carolyn, that's considerate of you to ask if it's ok to blog some of this stuff. It's fine w/me. Thanks for asking.
In terms of being well-read, I often shy away from "true lit" (as the purists would define it)
but, J, I am a bibliophile and bookworm to the highest degree. It's my favourite thing to do.
I will read junk sometimes (case in point The Hunger Games, pure curiosity, and The Dragon
Tattoo thing) but for the most part I want to learn as I read. My dream (truly) is to work in
a bookstore one day, maybe when I'm really old and want to just kind of 'be'.
I read this thing on twitter the other day about a man who worked in a bookstore, and
called himself a "booktender" and confessed his pathological curiosity about others, how it
drove his work and reading and writing. I fall into the same vein (hence the interest in
other bloggers).
RE: the Starlets. So true. They give some (ie, the vast majority) a nice low standard of intellect
to aspire to.
RE: Colorado. I know. It's sad too because Toronto has had a shameful summer of crime, nicknamed
'the summer of the gun' and we had a shooting in our largest, downtown mall, and it was pandemonium
over here. And we're not a gun-toting bunch, I have to tell you. It shocks me. I want the old world
back. So badly.
Juliaipsa should definitely remain as is, to your standards and voice. You definitely have a voice. I think
that's the most important thing. The voice is what readers keep coming back for, I think.
I'm growing back in love with my blog, and I know that I will continue to pile personal stories onto it,
and maybe in some instances I'll write little pieces of 'Fiction' so that those who wish to be left off
my blog can appear as a pseudonym, and situations can be honestly talked about, via a fictional story.
I think that is going to be my approach.
I've got an entry kicking about in my head right now about a dinner I went to last night, but I've also
got this crazy fulltime job that needs my attention.
Loving the email trail though ;)
RE: NYC. God. Such a magical, VAST city. I was spellbound. I arrived, after a gruelling summer of heartbreak and was able to lift some huge burdenous issues off my shoulders and enjoy the hell out of NYC.
So for that alone, it holds a special place in my heart. Somewhere I went ... to heal.
:) Carolyn
From: juliaipsa@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:01:21 -0400
Subject: Re: tungsten
To: carolyniyer@hotmail.com
Oh, Carolyn, that's considerate of you to ask if it's ok to blog some of this stuff. It's fine w/me. Thanks for asking.
"Limited intellect --> soapbox status" --- that makes me laugh. I maintain that the starlets of our world, whether on a tv screen or computer screen, they are rarely equal parts brain and beauty. They are, usually, just savvy, lucky, ruthless, and/ or have a strong PR agent. Let them enjoy their moment.
That whole Colorado mess is something. I try not to follow these sorts of stories b/c they're disturbing and distressing, but my sister told me about his background last night. It's really startling how damaged an individual can be, under such an intact exterior, no less. I hope he receives the help he needs.
I do not know some of these authors! You are much more well-read than I. When I started having eye problems when I moved here five years ago, I stopped reading altogether. My eyes just couldn't take it. I used to love to read :(. Things are a bit more under control now, but I only recently started getting the book-reading itch again.
It is very flattering that you receive my content so well, but at the same time, it prompts a slew of new, unsettling thoughts about my readers' perceptions of me. I don't want to overthink it, so I'll just say that it's most important to me that I keep juliaipsa the way it always has been; as a chronicling outlet for myself.
Anyway.
I forgot to respond to your NY visit ... September is one of the best months here so long as there's not some freaky stretch of searing hot Indian summer madness going on. I'm glad you had a lovely visit. How could you not? There's something for everyone here.
J
juliaipsa {the blog} | by julia
On Mon, Jul 23, 2012 at 10:14 PM, carolyn iyer <carolyniyer@hotmail.com> wrote:
I hear that J...
I think that the recent disillusionment (I've felt it even more keenly in this post-movie-theatre shoot-up this past weekend) has to do with people that I feel have limited intellect but now, with a blog, have achieved moderate soap-box status. Some of the 'mom-blogs' (oh god. A term I LOATHE) felt that criticizing parents for bringing their under-sevens to a midnight movie showing was...wrong (?).
(I was shocked--f*ck up your kids the ol' fashioned way, when they got their hands on books and movies they had no business seeing/reading, but because they found them they "had to know about it" {I quote Joan Didion here}). I mean some old friends of mine had some er, debative discourse on this very topic. I participated as the silent
minority--a childless woman (by choice, not circumstance) in her late thirties.
I always want cooler heads to prevail, but after reading two momblogs that made me wish "heads could roll" I realized, as I slog through reading yet another memoir--I need
quality. I LONG for quality. I need quiet, unrecognized quality, not the block-buster-best-seller John Grisham blog or the Michael Chricton blog. I need the Madeleine L'Engle musing on being an only child in the forties with an alcoholic father kind of blog, I need Mary Cantwell "Manhattan When I Was young" type of blog.
I need world-weary, a bit worn, I need scars, I need William Styron's Darkness Visible, I need Sylvia Plath to write a blog, I need Ayn Rand to talk about what she does late at night when no one's around.
Okay, i've just realized I'm dumping a pseudo-blog entry on you, a fave blogger of mine.
I love your blog because:
you drop hints
you scratch the surface of you
you leave a reader wanting more, but not frustratingly so
your photographs are a gift the world needs more of
you peer through your own lens (literally and figuratively) to see how, exactly, this life you
are living is going to play out.
I await your story. One post at a time.
It is Monday, the end of Monday, it was a quick and dirty day and the best part about it:
it's over. Glass of wine is in hand, dishes are in sink after I cooked a guilty pasta with alot of salt and yes, mushrooms are vegetables and fresh basil is green.
This is my Monday night blog entry now.
Is that okay?
Why do writers need permission? Why? We are in a free continent. We are so lucky for this.
And yet we shy away, we sugarcoat, we dance around the truth of our lives.
What can we do? I am hoping age brings me a searing clarity that allows me to
just slice throught the b.s. with kindness and wisdom.
On to Tuesday.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Let's go (up on the roof)
In deference to a very funny New Yorker cartoon I once saw ("this might be the wine talking but I think we should order more wine") I say, about this weekend: "This might be the Vitamin D talking but I'd like some more Vitamin D". I spent an inordinate amount of time out-of-doors this weekend.
It was fantastic.
No wonder people in Maine, in cottage and beach towns, and those with outdoor jobs seem so pathologically well-adjusted. Once you've had enough vitamin D, you feel invincible. Like nothing could unravel you.
Friday night I had drinks with a friend, stayed out late, took the subway mid-town there and back, a late night walk along King St. just what I needed after a healthy amount of chardonnay and bubbly.
Saturday morning found me lounging around, drinking Gatorade, water, and coffee (at separate times), and then suddenly, looking at the clock as I finished a lazy blog entry--I had to drive up to North York to my bring my car in.
I did, with no traffic impediments, left the car there, and, dressed in my running gear, did just that--started running.
I did a quick painful 5 k (it was now just before noon, the sun beating down..conditions not ideal) and I was running with my water bottle in one hand and my Coach clutch in my other ( I KNOW how this looked. Trust me). I made it from Dufferin and Caledonia to Yonge and St. Clair, all downhill, and was loving the shade I'd found and the breeze, when my sister called to tell me she was near my place and did I want to have lunch. I did, but I was not close to home. She volunteered to come and meet me. I ran east on St. Clair, south on Mount Pleasant (what a fantastic, shady, breezy route) and met her part way.
Sitting half-in/half-out on the Front St. patio of Jack Aster's we had a leisurely lunch, the two of us, with her kids. My car still not ready, ( I now have to pick it up tomorrow morning, and I have a 9am meeting, this is as inconvenient as it gets for me...) we headed to her backyard, filled up the plastic pool for the kids, and sat reading magazines while they hopped in and out of the water.
I got home early and went for another run. The heat had abated slightly by 7pm.
I had a late dinner and was asleep by 11.
Sunday morning. My niece's birthday party--11am. I debated--do I run before? Would I have time? How hot was it going to get? When my eyes opened at 9:30 am, the decision was made for me--I'd go to the outdoor party, at a local park, and run later. Donning a strapless dress I tried to catch the Queen streetcar, to no avail. Detours, blockages. I made it to Parliament, melting in my outfit and hailed a cab to the park, past Broadview. With time and weather on my side, I would have walked that, no problem. But the heat. The sun. My inadequate flip-flops. I was greeted with coffee and kites (which I helped to fly) upon arrival. And wasps, swarming the picnic table set up with a variety of food.
The afternoon wore on nicely, but it kept getting hotter in our little corner of the park, the kids waded in the wading pool, all the adults looking on longingly as they sashayed through the shallow water.
I got home around 4. Up to the roof. One of my neighbours was up there, but was wrapping things up as I arrived. I sat on a lounge chair with a book, sunscreen, water, and my ipod. I had a nice half hour of sunshine before clouds, blessed clouds, moved in. I smelled the rain before it hit me, giant drops, no shelter on the roof except to stand in the door way that leads to the roof entrance. I waited it out and the rain subsided, and I sat back down, looking at the city, streaked now with grey and smelling that wet-rain-cement smell. I looked over the balcony railing onto the neighbouring rooftops, bringing to mind a memory of a New York City rooftop that Mike and I had once visited when we were first dating, while on a trip to see my friend L. It was late night, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we were all together, drinking wine, looking at the night.
The rain started again, in earnest, and I packed up my bag. It was time to run. I've had so little running-in-the-rain this summer that I was eager to get out there. It was a good run, an average run, a short run, and sometime in the next few months (ie, BEFORE the half-marathon) I need to somehow get back into the groove of running. I'm at odds with myself as to how that's going to happen, but it will.
On the way back from my run, walking, I looked at balconies, stoops, little hamlets, snatches of outdoor space in the city--some had kitchen chairs as their outdoor seating, what I think of as a Canadian way of getting the best out of this season called summer, that we have for such a short time, before descending back into cold and darkness.
Now it's Sunday evening, dinner has been eaten, I've showered (again), I've assessed my suntanned skin, I'm drinking dreamland tea, and I'm settling in to read a book before going to bed early.
The rain had started up again a few minutes ago, but the sky remained light, with clouds shape-shifting and transforming.
The power of weather to transform us, drag us out of ourselves, to somewhere lighter, more manageable, more forgiving.
It was fantastic.
No wonder people in Maine, in cottage and beach towns, and those with outdoor jobs seem so pathologically well-adjusted. Once you've had enough vitamin D, you feel invincible. Like nothing could unravel you.
Friday night I had drinks with a friend, stayed out late, took the subway mid-town there and back, a late night walk along King St. just what I needed after a healthy amount of chardonnay and bubbly.
Saturday morning found me lounging around, drinking Gatorade, water, and coffee (at separate times), and then suddenly, looking at the clock as I finished a lazy blog entry--I had to drive up to North York to my bring my car in.
I did, with no traffic impediments, left the car there, and, dressed in my running gear, did just that--started running.
I did a quick painful 5 k (it was now just before noon, the sun beating down..conditions not ideal) and I was running with my water bottle in one hand and my Coach clutch in my other ( I KNOW how this looked. Trust me). I made it from Dufferin and Caledonia to Yonge and St. Clair, all downhill, and was loving the shade I'd found and the breeze, when my sister called to tell me she was near my place and did I want to have lunch. I did, but I was not close to home. She volunteered to come and meet me. I ran east on St. Clair, south on Mount Pleasant (what a fantastic, shady, breezy route) and met her part way.
Sitting half-in/half-out on the Front St. patio of Jack Aster's we had a leisurely lunch, the two of us, with her kids. My car still not ready, ( I now have to pick it up tomorrow morning, and I have a 9am meeting, this is as inconvenient as it gets for me...) we headed to her backyard, filled up the plastic pool for the kids, and sat reading magazines while they hopped in and out of the water.
I got home early and went for another run. The heat had abated slightly by 7pm.
I had a late dinner and was asleep by 11.
Sunday morning. My niece's birthday party--11am. I debated--do I run before? Would I have time? How hot was it going to get? When my eyes opened at 9:30 am, the decision was made for me--I'd go to the outdoor party, at a local park, and run later. Donning a strapless dress I tried to catch the Queen streetcar, to no avail. Detours, blockages. I made it to Parliament, melting in my outfit and hailed a cab to the park, past Broadview. With time and weather on my side, I would have walked that, no problem. But the heat. The sun. My inadequate flip-flops. I was greeted with coffee and kites (which I helped to fly) upon arrival. And wasps, swarming the picnic table set up with a variety of food.
The afternoon wore on nicely, but it kept getting hotter in our little corner of the park, the kids waded in the wading pool, all the adults looking on longingly as they sashayed through the shallow water.
I got home around 4. Up to the roof. One of my neighbours was up there, but was wrapping things up as I arrived. I sat on a lounge chair with a book, sunscreen, water, and my ipod. I had a nice half hour of sunshine before clouds, blessed clouds, moved in. I smelled the rain before it hit me, giant drops, no shelter on the roof except to stand in the door way that leads to the roof entrance. I waited it out and the rain subsided, and I sat back down, looking at the city, streaked now with grey and smelling that wet-rain-cement smell. I looked over the balcony railing onto the neighbouring rooftops, bringing to mind a memory of a New York City rooftop that Mike and I had once visited when we were first dating, while on a trip to see my friend L. It was late night, I was eaten alive by mosquitoes, but we were all together, drinking wine, looking at the night.
The rain started again, in earnest, and I packed up my bag. It was time to run. I've had so little running-in-the-rain this summer that I was eager to get out there. It was a good run, an average run, a short run, and sometime in the next few months (ie, BEFORE the half-marathon) I need to somehow get back into the groove of running. I'm at odds with myself as to how that's going to happen, but it will.
On the way back from my run, walking, I looked at balconies, stoops, little hamlets, snatches of outdoor space in the city--some had kitchen chairs as their outdoor seating, what I think of as a Canadian way of getting the best out of this season called summer, that we have for such a short time, before descending back into cold and darkness.
Now it's Sunday evening, dinner has been eaten, I've showered (again), I've assessed my suntanned skin, I'm drinking dreamland tea, and I'm settling in to read a book before going to bed early.
The rain had started up again a few minutes ago, but the sky remained light, with clouds shape-shifting and transforming.
The power of weather to transform us, drag us out of ourselves, to somewhere lighter, more manageable, more forgiving.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Professionally speaking
http://www.verandaunveils.com/index.html
You know I'm a kitchen designer right?
I don't have alot of arty photos on my blog (most photos I take are of my nearest and dearest, me and mine, and they are not remotely artsy). I never really photograph or document what I eat or drink (my drinking habits are too shaming to post on a blog). And while I admire http://ivyleagueinsecurities.com/category/a-year-without-wine-2/ for giving up pinot grigio for a year, I know this is something I will probably never do (I'd go on about how 'life's too short, blah blah blah...').
Anyway where was I? Kitchens, right (wine is kept there).
So, I'm trawling through the twitter-verse yesterday ( I can't even say/think it without laughing. Mike called tweeting "twittering" the other day and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that and laughing either) but I came across the house in the top link on casasugar.com. I don't normally fall in love with spaces because I'm so numb to how much work it takes to get an interior to the state you see in these magazines, but this kitchen took my breath away. And I'll tell you--that doesn't happen very often.
The real truth? I feel absolute shame for most of my profession. Think about it--we don't do anything really mind-blowing. Can you match the Kleenex boxes you buy to the interior colours of your washroom? Then you, too, could be an interior designer. Learn to wield a measuring tape and you're well on your way. The money, the extravagance, people's over-attachment to how a space should look (I always prefer to focus on how a space feels) always leaves me cold. And sad.
Anyway, nothing earth-shattering here right now. I'm still reading the L'Engle "Circle of Quiet" book, interspersed with the second book of that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. (I didn't read the first one--instead, I saw the movie, as I mentioned--I can only do one or the other). It does fascinate me though, much like spaces, to observe what people like. In this case, what people like to read. And watch. Like The Hunger Games (read the first one only, to weigh in on what the fuss was about, did not see the movie, no need to cancel out my own visualizations). It was plot-driven dystopian 'lit' and yes, as a teen, I may have become obsessed with the world the author created. I loved dystopian literature when I was younger, but my tastes ran more toward The Chrysalids, 1984, and Brave New World. The Dragon Tattoo (books for...grown-ups?) are plot-driven too, as far as I can see. Would make good vacation reads. The detailed listing of what groceries the protagonist buys, her trip to Ikea (I'm not kidding) are all good fodder for me to practice scanning again. But I think about how many people have read all of these books, hoover'ed them up, really, spiked them to best-seller status, and then look back at the small Circle of Quiet book, calmly written from what was, at the time, the author's own utopian summer home, in a world we no longer have access to, except in books and stories.
I'm drinking coffee, catching up on correspondence, thinking about my recent turn against the internet--how tired I am of getting watered-down news from Twitter, how boring people's lives can seem when they hide behind how they think they should be. I had a late night last night, I'm fighting off a bit of the fog this morning. My car is due to be serviced shortly (a logistical nightmare involving me going uptown to the Forest Hill region, away from my own neighbourhood, then finding a place in the area to kill time, or planning a run in around my car repairs, and I have to pick up a birthday gift for my niece). So, all that has to happen in the next few hours. Daunting and fascinating, I know.
So, nothing heavy on this Saturday morning. The world, our little North-American part of it, has been heavy enough this week. Again back to the spaces--as a continent this whole place, despite the raging heat waves and rain-less-ness--leaves me cold. And sad.
You know I'm a kitchen designer right?
I don't have alot of arty photos on my blog (most photos I take are of my nearest and dearest, me and mine, and they are not remotely artsy). I never really photograph or document what I eat or drink (my drinking habits are too shaming to post on a blog). And while I admire http://ivyleagueinsecurities.com/category/a-year-without-wine-2/ for giving up pinot grigio for a year, I know this is something I will probably never do (I'd go on about how 'life's too short, blah blah blah...').
Anyway where was I? Kitchens, right (wine is kept there).
So, I'm trawling through the twitter-verse yesterday ( I can't even say/think it without laughing. Mike called tweeting "twittering" the other day and I haven't been able to stop thinking about that and laughing either) but I came across the house in the top link on casasugar.com. I don't normally fall in love with spaces because I'm so numb to how much work it takes to get an interior to the state you see in these magazines, but this kitchen took my breath away. And I'll tell you--that doesn't happen very often.
The real truth? I feel absolute shame for most of my profession. Think about it--we don't do anything really mind-blowing. Can you match the Kleenex boxes you buy to the interior colours of your washroom? Then you, too, could be an interior designer. Learn to wield a measuring tape and you're well on your way. The money, the extravagance, people's over-attachment to how a space should look (I always prefer to focus on how a space feels) always leaves me cold. And sad.
Anyway, nothing earth-shattering here right now. I'm still reading the L'Engle "Circle of Quiet" book, interspersed with the second book of that Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy. (I didn't read the first one--instead, I saw the movie, as I mentioned--I can only do one or the other). It does fascinate me though, much like spaces, to observe what people like. In this case, what people like to read. And watch. Like The Hunger Games (read the first one only, to weigh in on what the fuss was about, did not see the movie, no need to cancel out my own visualizations). It was plot-driven dystopian 'lit' and yes, as a teen, I may have become obsessed with the world the author created. I loved dystopian literature when I was younger, but my tastes ran more toward The Chrysalids, 1984, and Brave New World. The Dragon Tattoo (books for...grown-ups?) are plot-driven too, as far as I can see. Would make good vacation reads. The detailed listing of what groceries the protagonist buys, her trip to Ikea (I'm not kidding) are all good fodder for me to practice scanning again. But I think about how many people have read all of these books, hoover'ed them up, really, spiked them to best-seller status, and then look back at the small Circle of Quiet book, calmly written from what was, at the time, the author's own utopian summer home, in a world we no longer have access to, except in books and stories.
I'm drinking coffee, catching up on correspondence, thinking about my recent turn against the internet--how tired I am of getting watered-down news from Twitter, how boring people's lives can seem when they hide behind how they think they should be. I had a late night last night, I'm fighting off a bit of the fog this morning. My car is due to be serviced shortly (a logistical nightmare involving me going uptown to the Forest Hill region, away from my own neighbourhood, then finding a place in the area to kill time, or planning a run in around my car repairs, and I have to pick up a birthday gift for my niece). So, all that has to happen in the next few hours. Daunting and fascinating, I know.
So, nothing heavy on this Saturday morning. The world, our little North-American part of it, has been heavy enough this week. Again back to the spaces--as a continent this whole place, despite the raging heat waves and rain-less-ness--leaves me cold. And sad.
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