Monthly Archives: February 2011

To Sleep, Perchance to Remember a Dream

For more than a decade, I’ve woken daily without remembering my dreams. There’s been a handful of dreams in that time that I remember. Literally, probably under 10 for 10 years.

Photomanipulation by @Chiaralily on Flickr.com, Creative Commons.


And then, this week, I remember flashes of dreams from no less than four nights now. Poof! Like that, suddenly my “dream memory” is coming back to me.
And they’re not significant dreams. Just flashes of odd snips of people on my life’s peripheries. Not like the times in ’00 and ’01 when I dreamed my dead mother came back for one last goodbye conversation — after which I’ve never since remembered a dream. Funny how that works.
I’d tell you I’ve done nothing different in my life, but there’s one thing that has changed recently: My bedroom.
I removed the distracting clutter, got rid of the ugly fucking window treatments, brought in plain, simple, beautiful flowing white sheers and a white “blackout” blind. That’s it. But, suddenly, poof. Dream memory, back.
When it comes to dreams, I’ve had some incredibly trippy ones in my life, and it’d be wild if I had that back. My drugs-before-drugs, as it were, those early strange dreams from 20 years ago, when life was simpler. If I could have filmed some of those dreams, it’d have made compelling abstract art.
I never did remember dreams often, and I’ve never been prone to nightmares,  so I’m unlikely to have either as a constant presence, but what if I could? I wonder what it’d do for my creative life, to have that odd mighty-fucked subconscious tap-in within reach, daily. Clearly dream memory is working for Tim Burton.
Someone like me, I’m constantly creative, but in a very only-slightly-left-of-centre kind of way, day-to-day, anyhow. I look at other people for whom outside-the-box is thinking small, the kind of people whose imaginations live in the clouds, and I wish I could be a little more detached from the straight and narrow sometimes. It must be… fun. I know it exists inside me, I’ve certainly had my moments. It’s something I wish I could more easily access.
Maybe there’s hope for that, yet. Maybe life can constrain that creativity out of us more than we know, like wearing a constantly too tight belt might do for one. Maybe it can be loosened. Maybe I’m loosening it now.
I mean, how is dream memory suddenly coming back to me now?
Is it merely because I changed my room from a distracting and cluttered place to a womb-like relaxation room? Did that help my subconscious take a chill-ride?
I don’t know.
What I do know is, I sure as hell will take every bit of insight my little brain can muster these days.
Cue the subconscious. I’m ready.

Falling Dominoes: Our Changing World

I started a posting a couple weeks ago, when Egypt’s revolution was on the verge of blowing wide open. I saved it, moved on. I’m not a political nor economic pundit, so what have I got to say, right?
But it brought to mind the oft-misattributed proverb/curse “May you live in interesting times.”

Party like it's Tahrir Square after Mubarak stepped down, people.


Boy, things are getting interesting.
Watching the Eastern world come tumbling down is like being spectator to a game of Jenga after a bottle of vodka. It’s just crazy shit. It’s terrifying, it’s beautiful, it’s mind-boggling. It’s everything I never thought I’d live to see.
Decades of corruption, oppression. Decades of us living in the west and thinking Arab countries liked their lives and those horrible leaders.
A few years ago, I did some ESL tutoring. I met this great pair of Saudi couples. They were profoundly Islamic, and very traditional, but still young and hip, living on the university’s campus, trying to take in the Western way of life for a couple of years, and finding it really hard to assimilate, because nothing says “We’re different”  louder than a full-length burqa, you know.
You might as well have a klaxon blaring “SUPERORTHODOX” as you approach a young group of kids, if you’re in a burqa here in Vancouver. We don’t get a lot of that here. And this was five or six years ago, closer to 9/11, still in the throes of war, under an idiomatic Bush regime to the south.
Yeah, it was a tough time to be a Saudi student in a burqa. So, naturally, the husband wanted a female teacher so the wives could learn some of the culture and take their burqas off, and be comfortable.
Well, learning about the culture went two ways. They were wonderful, kind, curious, sensitive people. I loved learning about traditional Islamic experiences, trying their food.
So, my attitude about the news I was getting, with western perceptions of Islam, began shifting at a faster rate. I’d also seen the documentary Control Room, around this time, and knew Al Jazeera to be a fair and well-delivered news network, not the “mouthpiece of terrorism” that our leaders were demonizing it to be.
As much as I loved the couples I got to know, I never did abandon my belief that much of the Arab world is far too patriarchal, and that the deference to their traditional beliefs was not only hindering their progress, but putting much of our world in a risky position. I’m a feminist and a leftist thinker, do the math.
Fast-forward a few years, and here we are, waiting for the house of cards to fall in Libya.
A powder keg of change has exploded in the Middle East and North Africa, and it all traces back to one man on December 17th.
Mohamed Bouazizi was a 26-year-old fruit vendor who set himself ablaze, in response to being slapped and beaten by officials, after they tried confiscating his apples and his scale.
So, when denied a meeting with the governor, he set himself on fire.
He died January 4th. The people fought in his name. By January 14th, Tunisia’s dictator had fled.
Less than two months later, the eastern world is being redrawn as decades-old regimes have begun toppling. Mohamed Bouazizi’s indignation sparked the fire that now rages.
It’s an amazing time to be alive.
Honestly, the future terrifies me. With this economy? Throwing in the uncertainty of a fast-changing world?
Where do we go now? What do populations that have been poorly educated and long-repressed bring to the societal table? How do tribal nations create democracy?
No one KNOWS how to accomplish this. Everyone’s got ideas. Everyone has a different level of “holy fuck!” they feel about what comes after all this. Every pundit’s betting on a different outcome. We have no idea.
When communism fell in Eastern Europe, that unleashed crazy shockwaves and took a while to adjust to,  but it wasn’t that bad.
This time, our cultures are completely different. Whether it’s about the roles women play (but usually don’t play) in the eastern society, or the lack of widespread quality education, or the fact that the countries have all but given up trying to export anything but oil, well, we have one hell of a road to travel.
Never mind the whole “writing a bunch of constitutions and creating safe, transparent elections” dilemma.
Simply put, the ability to effect change in so many regions, at such a pervasive and far-reaching level, is an opportunity the world has seldom ever had, and certainly not on this breadth or scale, at this pace. With technology and communications that we have today, this is an unparalleled time of potential.
For the moment, today… wow. What a thing to behold. What a time of change.
There is nothing more amazing to watch than that light-switch that flicks on when someone realises they’re entitled to stand up for themselves and ask for more.
That’s basically what’s happening to millions of people. These people are saying they’re willing to die before they’re willing to take another day of being treated like shit.
Me, I’m inspired.
Interesting times, indeed.
Tomorrow, we’ll put together the world again. I hope. Today, we’ll watch, cheer, and dream.
Fight on, Libyans.

Remembering Slavery: Book Review

Please take yo’ fine self over to Books on the Radio, where you can read my review of REMEMBERING SLAVERY, a powerful collection of stories from slaves themselves about their experiences as “owned humans”.
I believe it needs to be on every serious book owner’s shelves, even if you’re unlikely to ever read more than 5 pages at a time.
Here’s my review. Thanks!

Now I'm Getting Somewhere

I’m so close to the end of a very, very long journey at home.
I have always maintained, as have others, that the home does reflect who we are and where we’re at. Mine has been chaos for a while. I’ve kept making improvements, but there’s always another area that’s remained undone, and it spreads, like a fungus or something.

Creative Commons image by Christolakis on Flickr, "Light".


I’ve had a vision, but neither the time nor the money, and possibly not even the inclination, to make it happen.
Now, though, I finally came up with a few disposable dollars and put money into a “treat”: Finishing my bedroom. For $115, I’ve completely transformed the space. I awoke this morning and felt like I’d stayed the night at a spa. That’s how a bedroom should feel. Now my room is a room I feel I need to live up to, rather than a place I simply go to sleep in.
As for the rest of my home, over the last 10 days, I’ve been getting rid of some more “stuff” around the house, little things that all add up to something big, like a couple shopping carts full of crap. Gone. Or, well, donated, as the case largely is. This is a little place, that’s a mighty big impact.
But beyond creating space, I’ve also created structure. I’m organizing things as I go, subtle changes here and there that just make sense, and make it more likely to have order as an ongoing status quo. For instance, now my ironing board, iron, and laundry basket all in  my bedroom clothes closet, rather than scattered over 3 separate closets.*
By deciding I don’t emotionally need to have my giant 1840 camelback armchair in my living room anymore (since I already have a gorgeous modern leather one with great back support that’s the same size), I’ve cleared up 16 square feet of formerly-consumed space in my living room, and given my 600-or-so squarefoot home, that’s a hell of a lot of floorspace to reveal.
I even had the strength to get rid of something I’ve been hanging onto for emotional reasons, and not because it’s something I’ve ever even used in 11 years: My mother’s leather briefcase. I just put it out back and it was gone within the hour, and so too the remembrances of how broke she was as a realtor at the end of her life, and how that briefcase was something she bought for confidence. I don’t need that connection in my life. I’m done, Henry, movin’ on.
So, I’ve been applying that sort of thought process to just about everything I’ve looked at lately. Someone said, if it doesn’t prove itself useful, or actively beautify your space, it should go. Period. So, yes.
I’ve now probably pared back the clutter in my life by about 35% in the last two years. I tell you, my soul sure feels like it.
Some of those things were remembrances of bad times, connections to negative vibes. It’s hard to ditch those pieces when you perceive them as a connection to someone you love who’s gone, but it’s so soul-saving when you do. Wow.
I’m not done. I think as we grow and evolve, we move out of more and more things, and I’ll probably fine-tune this over the next five years or so, as I get closer to where I want to be… wherever that takes me.
But I’m closer than I’ve ever been.
I’m not a materialistic person in that I covet new things all the time — I don’t. I don’t want to go buy this or that. I just want my space around me to reflect who I am — and that I’m finally find calm and peace both inside me and around me is a really nice development. It’s taken a long time of continuing to pare through things to get to here.
I’ve been learning a lot about myself in the last week, that much I can say.
I’m also really excited to see where this takes me creatively. If you don’t think your environment affects your writing, you’re cuckoo for cocoa puffs, friends. I feel less constrained, more open, more free to move around in this little home of mine, and I’ll be surprised if that doesn’t find its way into my words, too. And spring’s here — always my most creative season.
Boy, oh, boy. Good times. I have more cleaning to do, but I’ll post some photos tomorrow morning. Enjoy your Sunday, world.
*I know, it seems like you’d just put all that stuff together anyhow; but before I had the stupid idea of using shoe racks and keeping all my t-shirts, shorts, etc. on the racks, which was the dumbest idea EVER. Don’t do it!  I also had a little drawer unit that stuck and was impossible to open/close, with all my underwear, bras, and socks in an ungodly jumble. My clothes have been ridiculous for forever. My new highboy that holds everything and even Grammy’s blanket and my old comforter sewn by Mom [with every blanket I’ve ever had since I was 2 sewn into it!] — which now don’t have to be unseen and stored in deep dark corners in plastic bags. Yay!

Moods in the Morning, February Style

The rain’s coming down sideways.
My coffee cup being more full than empty is fact, not perspective.
My attitude today isn’t a bad one, just one of nothingness.
What can I tell you? February. It’s that old wall-hanging quote: This too shall pass.
Which is an accidentally appropriate segue to a joke I’ve made a million times: “I need an existential laxative, ‘cos I’m finding it really hard to give a shit.”
So true today. So much needs doing, so little will to do it.
It’d be easy to chew myself out for missing the mark in a few areas, but by the time the dust on this week settles, I’ll have gotten a number of areas and long-running projects sorted in my life. I think. Or something.
But, in the meantime, between the oppression of February at its finest, the confusion of PMS, and the indecision of my life, it’s a really weird headspace I’m in this morning. Unsettled, but calm. Worried, but hopeful. The continuing state of the Steff, brought to you in part by the letter Y and the word “sigh”.
It’s weeks like this I find it impossible to write, mostly because I just have one theme on the top of my head: I just don’t know.
I’m not COMPLAINING or sad or depressed or bitter or anything. I’m the human equivalent of a rowboat tied up at dock right now. Ain’t a bad thing, ain’t a good thing — it just is. Poor little boat wants to just get a direction and sail, man.
But direction’s a two-way journey, and I’m not the only one with a say in the matter.
So, today it’s humpday. A rainy, stormy humpday.
And I got nothin’, nothin’ but a muddled mind as muddled as the clouds above.
Now my cup is empty, and my day begins. Enjoy yours.

February: Waking At The End of Winter

The song that inspired this posting is in the widget down below. Give it a listen and get a feel for where I’m coming from.
February.
My least-favourite month of the year. I’m not a winter person, least of all a February person.
This month reeks of death. From personal anniversaries through to roadside molding rotted leafy messes, some days, it’s all death for me.
That’s February, nature’s “darkest before dawn.”
But February also becomes birth. Snowdrops emerge from recent-frosted soils, crocuses poke up. Cherry blossoms begin their storming of Vancouver’s awakening streets.
It’s the dichotomy of life and death.
This morning I awoke with the “I don’t know how I’ll make it through the month” mentality that inevitably hits me right around now every year.
It’s like my soul grows and dies with the seasons. Come this time of year, all the fallen life leaves — and winter’s struggles — have decomposed enough that a mat covers all that’s inside of me. Finding joy and fun at this time of year, embracing humour and seeing the big picture, it just gets hard some days.
This year, not so bad. Still, below is the song by “The The” that epitomises how I experience February every year. I start off blue and pensive, thinking about my mother, whose cancer was found, whose life was given a “best-by” date, and whose birthday all fall in Valentine’s Week. It’s inevitable, I remember her every year.

Me and my friend were walking
In the cold light of mourning
Tears may blind the eyes but the soul is not deceived
In this world even winter ain’t what it seems

Then, the week ends, and I realise it wasn’t so bad. I realise I like to remember, that taking that time to remember is what will help me keep some small fragment of her alive, that the confusion of pain and acceptance I feel even now comes from how strong a relationship and connection we had, and how many questions I never got answers to.
And, like this song, “Love is Stronger than Death,” I get that it’s all part of the journey. We need these times of sadness to really know when to embrace joy, like a million philosophers and Sufi poets have said.

Here come the blue skies here comes springtime
When the rivers run high & the tears run dry
When everything that dies
Shall rise

Then, it’s the last week of February, and more of nature wakes, March is around the corner, the temperature’s rising… I feel like I’m breathing more, I’m stronger. Energy returns, curiosity piques, and smiles come easier.
It’s human nature, spring fever, waking from hibernation. I don’t know. The northern way, perhaps. But that last week of February, that’s about when my soul refills with everything I’ll need to get me through the frenetic, light-18-hours-a-day Canadian summer.
And this is the month. It’s everything — birth, remembrance, death, a tease of things to come. It’s a world of emotion every week. That’s February.
This song captures that. I’ve played it on a loop for a half hour. The slow, painful start, consciousness rising in the middle, then the exuberant determination in the end, when a groove begins to fall upon you, the listener. Like February moving into March. For me, anyhow.
Soon. Out there, I can smell its arrival. Air too fresh like that, always signals winter’s either comin’ or goin’. Yeah. I’m ready.

—-

I give you “The The,” the band name that stumped pirates before downloading was even a thing. Trivia about The The? Local alternative radio station, CKST, Coast 1040, had a very short on-air life in the early ’90s after fighting hard for air time, and the station came to life and died with their first and last songs ever played being “The The” tracks: the first being from the Mind Bomb album, the last from Dusk, Lonely Planet.

The Stormy Psychic Seas of Job-Huntin'

The thing about the unemployed-becoming-self-employed-or-something lifestyle is, it’s fight-or-flight, feast-or-famine for a while.
It’s a reactionary life. “What’s out there? Jump! Get it! There it is! Don’t let it escape!”
When it’s about job-hunting, other pursuits in life tend to get dropped while opportunity gets pursued.
At the moment, that’s where I’m at. I have to work as much as I can RIGHT NOW because I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow. I could sit around and collect unemployment insurance and do nothing, but I’d rather be working. I’m thrilled to have the chance.
When it comes to taking jobs, I’m old enough to know that not just anything will do. When it’s 25% of your weekly life, including sleep, you better fucking like what you do, or at least who you’re doing it for and with.
There comes a point in one’s life when one should realize a job interview isn’t just about them interviewing you, it’s about them being good enough for your commitment. This is the first time I’ve ever been patient enough to see it that way and I’ve come close with some amazing opportunities, some of which aren’t yet played through.
Unemployment is a hard, hard road. I don’t care who you are or what you’ve been through, if you don’t learn new things about yourself during unemployment, dude, yer doin’ it wrong. Most of us, it’s probably one of the toughest tests, and most educational passages, of our lives.
I’ve been that person in the past who gets laid off, then the next day has a new resume, and nine days later has a shiny new job. I’ve done that. And it was one of the worst six months of my life. Including my mother’s death. Seriously. Bad choices equal bad results.
Getting A job, ANY job, is easy. They have books on it, you know. It’s a method. Look pretty, smile, be funny and warm and engaging, do stuff during your life that looks good on a resume, learn the answers, know how to talk, and really give a shit. It ain’t for everyone to master, no, but it can be learned.
The right job? Whew. They’re like blue moons and honest politicians, they’re out there — it’s just real damn hard to come across one.
Me, I’m in an era of transition. Whatever happens in the coming days will shape my year(s) to come. And it’s totally up in the air.
How often do we get to enjoy THIS? Uncertainty, hope, possibility, unpredictability, the unknown, variety? Most of us, we find a groove in life and off we go. That’s the path we tread for months, years, and even decades: Routine.
I called a dear friend on the weekend and told him a situation I had to decide about. Do I press forward despite the personal risk? He took a deep breath and sighed, we batted the idea around for a while. At the end, he commented, “I’m jealous: The unknown. I don’t envy the choice, but I’m jealous of the possibility.”
For years, he’s gotten up, worked at the same store, same people, same routine. For years, I had, too.
There’s a comfort in such a routine. It’s not exciting, but you know your bank account empties and refills, ebbing and flowing like any river of life.
This fluttery what-will-I-get confusion and possibility I’m living under these days, it’s driving me sort of insane, but it’s also something I know I might not experience again for 5 or 10 years. If ever.
All that being said… I’m glad I’m getting closer to resolution. I’m ready for a new chapter. I’m ready to work on other areas of my life. I want my financial picture clear and reliable so I can move back to feeling, and being, creative — with abandon.
The long things drag on, the more I feel like I should censor my creative efforts. @Smuttysteff who writes The Cunting Linguist? Sure, that says “hire me.” Well, actually, unbeknownst to some, it does say just that. Still, I’m not a fan of this creative apprehension.
A year ago, the Olympics were rolling into Vancouver. Since then, I’ve grown a lot through taking chances, confronting fears, and believing in myself in a quietly persistent way through some trying times. I’ve had refreshers about what’s important in life — and who.  A year ago, I didn’t know I was about to lose my job. I never would’ve predicted the year that followed, but there you have it.
Even now, I’ve no idea what’s around the corner, except that it’s hurry-up-and-wait time.
But what I can tell you is, I hope I never forget some of the lessons I’ve learned this year, or the old ones I’ve been reminded of.
Adversity’s your friend. Suck it up, buttercup. Become better. Find your weaknesses and replace them with strength. Unemployment is a relentless opportunity to discover who you really are and what you really need.
Unless, you know, you actually enjoy the living-and-operating-from-a-place-of-fear approach to unemployment.
It can be a long ride, man. Best advice is, buckle up and see where the hell it goes. It might just be an end destination you never woulda seen coming.
With that, it’s on with my unpredictable-yet-not week. Oy vey.

The Continuing Limbo That Is The Life of Steff

I don’t have time to write!
Most of the time lately, I don’t have the wherewithal, either.
This is what happens when I’m in complete professional limbo. Everything, everywhere, all up in the air. I have no idea where I stand nor where I’m going, even though I have secret inclinations as to what the destinations may be.
But I can say nothing. NOTHING.
Tipping one’s hand in public is wrong, wrong, wrong. Dumb! We are not hardy fools here, my friends.
Today, it’s work, waiting on whether it’s a decision-making time, talkin’, and hopefully making it all fit in time to attend a meeting of an organisation I’ve intended to join for more than a decade.
Which is all to say I sort of feel like vomiting.
My entire month, from about January 8th through to now, has been chock-full of wait-wait-wait. It’s a much better place than “what the fuck do I do”, like where I was wallowing before Christmas.
It’s funny, I made a couple decisions over the holidays, and this full-steam-ahead mode has been the result, ever since. What decisions? One day I might tell you. This is not that day.
I should be writing more of this uncertainty down, but it’s the kind of writing I hate. All self-absorbed and repetitive. Maybe tomorrow.
Today, a wind is blowing — moving a dark, wet, oppressive weather system that kept us all inside and lazy yesterday, out the door and ushering in a sunshine-and-wind weather pattern for the next few days. It’s an interesting weather day for feeling that so much rides on conversations, choices, and self-confidence.
But that’s where it is. That’s what it’s about.
Still, I’m trying not to rush anything. These times of tumult and change and possibility and unexpected, unpredictable futures… we seldom get to enjoy these. The questions that are swirling around me — I know I’ve spent more of my life bored into routine than I have dancing with chance and opportunity like I am right now… and this should be a rare much-savoured treat, this uncertainty.
It’s a hard mental place to stay in, it requires so much self-belief: This will resolve, I will choose rightly, the changes it will usher might be amazing, I can do this, and so forth.
Chances are easier to take when you’re well-monied. Let that be noted.
I am not well-monied.
The chances I may soon take scare the living shit out of me, even if they seem small and nothing-like to others.
The only thing that keeps me comforted is this — and it’s a big one: I know myself really fuckin’ well.
So, yeah. Life? I don’t know.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. And I got nothin’ I can share with you. Or nothing I’m foolish enough to share yet, anyhow.
Now it’s into the mottled grey yonder, and into a big and daunting Monday. Let’s see where my life goes between now and the next dawn.
I don’t know. But I know I’m fortunate to even have choices, and I’m more fortunate I have the smarts to make ’em right.