Category Archives: Autobiographical

Of Plants, Aliens, And Relocation

I feel like ET.
I was getting pretty down on things in November, and at the same time my jade plant was dying. My jade was clipped and grown off my mother’s monstrous plant that had to be given to a commercial business ‘cos it was so damned big — about 7-8 feet radius the last time I saw it.
But this guy was more than 4 feet wide. It lost nearly half its bulk, all shrivelling up and falling off, rotting from the inside out. I had to sweep every couple of days, it was losing so much. I was crushed!
Turns out I was giving it too much water. Like the rest of my life, it was me overthinking and being overattentive that was the problem. Not anything, you know, REAL. Just excessive attention. Another place where I need to chill.
I stopped watering it. I let it breathe and do its thing. That’s it.
Seven weeks later, and the self-destruct sequence of “GAH! Stop fussing over me!” has finally been aborted by the plant. Now it’s got new growth, including new branches, all over the place. Looks fantastic.
It’s just like in ET, where our little alien buddy’s health is directly linked to the flowers in the closet. They start dying, ET’s dying. They come back, so does ET. Just as my life’s getting fun and promising and healthy again, so too is my jade tree’s.
So, I thought it was a good time to give it a pep talk. “Okay. It’s time to bulk up and get tough! We’re moving soon. But, remember? You’ve ridden the ferry twice. Once when you were on your mommy’s branches, and once when you were a baby. Look how well that turned out! So, just brace yourself, and soon you can let your roots settle in a groovy new place.”
I don’t know who got more out of it, me or the plant.

And About That Move

It’s funny. Someone (on Twitter) asked if I was just gonna move and come right back. Well, no. When I decide something like this, it’s pretty done. When I moved to the Yukon, I moved there for a year. I probably would’ve stayed even longer, but I did the old dumb thing and moved back for a fella. Lucky, too, because it turns out I only had a couple more years with Mom.
But, no. I don’t see this being anything less than a couple of years. I’m giving notice, moving everything, investing in working from home, got a raise so things are looking good for my company, and life’s generally snazzy. It’s not like I’m moving to Mars.
So, yeah, March 1st, I’m off like a prom dress and it’s to Victoria I go. I’m stoked. Work’s 100% onboard, which is a fantastic thing to know. Family and friends don’t question the dedication with which I’ve made my decision. Go time!
And of course I’ll be starting a “life in Victoria” blog.
Let me know if you have any creative names. I’m stumped still.

The Deeper Reasoning Behind My Going

I wrote 1,300 words earlier but they don’t feel right after coffee. So, let’s try this again. [deep breath] Om…

***

My Friday post about leaving Vancouver is inspiring a lot of discussion, and I’m thrilled for the comments. So much is being said. I plan to mine the comments for posts in the coming weeks, because I think what’s going on in Vancouver, how the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” has become an anthem for a select class of Vancouverites, deserves a lot of discussion.
[If you’ve discovered my blog by way of others, hiya, and thanks for visiting.]
I’ve grumbled for a while that the cost of living is just ridiculous in Vancouver. Through an unfortunate series of events — bad vehicular accidents, stupid injuries, illnesses, victim of industry slowdown, over eight years — I’ve had one financial hit after another in recent years, like a boxer who keeps taking blows when he’s struggling to his feet. Well, when you’re down so long, it’s hard to see what way’s up.
I was an early financial canary in the recessionary coalmine and I’ve been hurtin’ in the bank for a long time comin’ now. The question of “how much is too much” when you’re throwing money at a way of life that leaves you an observer always on the flipside of the action starts to get a little old after two, three years of serious cutbacks and struggle.
There comes a day when there’s a line in the financial sand you can’t get over anymore, and if you don’t get gone, you just might get swallowed up. I have worried that if I stay in Vancouver much longer, that line in the sand will be crossed and I’ll no longer be able to get myself out of this situation. I’m not planning to stick around and find out.
I’ve said before about life that sometimes we just need to be uninvited from the party. Well, after so long of just getting by, and seeing my ability to afford even the meagre indulgences in life dwindle, I’ve taken the hint.
#OccupyWallStreet really amped up my thinking about what quality of life means, and what I’m willing to accept in life.
I don’t need a lot, you know. A good computer, a nice apartment, some comfortable belongings. I love the stuff  I own. I want to replace very little of it, actually. And I’m grateful for what I own, too. Then there’s cooking — like the ability to use good ingredients for cooking, that’s important, and is something I can’t always do these days. Wine two or three nights a week, also important. I’d like some more kitchen gadgets and a whole enameled cast-iron cooking set, but that’s a whole ‘nother matter. Aside from that? Pretty content on the possessions front.
So, there’s not a lot I really “want” in life. It’s not about that, and never was.
I don’t feel entitled. I don’t feel ripped off. I feel occasionally bitter that simple things I used to enjoy — dining out, concerts, games — are out of my means now, because life keeps getting more and more expensive but my salary stays the same, a common theme I hear from others. But, then, I don’t think often about restaurants, games, or concerts anymore, so they’re not really a factor any longer, either.
So, if I’ve made my peace with the idea that I don’t go out, and that’s sort of my level of expectation in life, and I’ve lowered my standard of living and simplified my expenses, and I’ve caught up with all my bills, and I’m on top of my finances that way, and I still can’t live “up” to my now-adjusted-and-simpler standard of living, well… something has to change.
Other people don’t have the same connection to place. I understand this. Some thrive to pick up and go. But I’m a sticker. I love my home. I’ve lived in 5 places in 38 years, with two of them alone compile more than 30 years of my life — my first home and my most recent apartment. I don’t like being in places for a short period of time. I want to know people, haunts, secrets, and more.
But it’s really hard to look around this place — a rainforest with world-class mountains, the Pacific Ocean, culture, great food, rivers, and more — and think “Yeah, I can do better than this.” Leaving doesn’t exactly sound like a step up when looking at everything around me here in Vancouver.
Then I remember it’s all dragging me down ‘cos that awesome comes at a price, a price too high for the payin’, and leaving’s the only thing I can do to break my  downward spiral.
So, it’s a really heavy heart that has made these choices.
But now that the choices have been made, I’m excited about the change. This is gonna rock, you know?
I love “learning by experiencing” in a new place, just like getting to know a lover. Every day it seems there’s some new thing to discover, and that’s just a fantastic way to live.
As a writer, I’ve long since lost my fire within. There’s something missing inside me, and I think being able to get up and see Difference around me every morning might be the thing to fire me up again.
Besides all that, it’s a monumental time in my life, and I’ve known that  as I’ve waded through the deciding of late. It’s the fork in the road — do I choose a city career or do I roll the dice on my writing dreams?
By choosing to get out of Vancouver, I’m telling myself I deserve more, I’m asserting that I won’t settle for less. I’m putting a value on my time, what I’m willing to waste on a commute, versus giving back to myself via writing and other passion-based endeavours.
I’m proving that I’m meant to live a slower life. I’m living up to my ethics and finally making the switch to a lifestyle where I can mostly walk and cycle, and stop leaving a big-ass carbon footprint.
I get to continue being surrounded by arts, culture, and open-minded people. I’m affirming that a life spent pursuing greater creativity, and living closer to people who inspire it within me, is something that’s critical to my nature.
I know, down deep, that acting on all those values in this way is something that will resonate and ripple for me, and for a long time to come.
I’m being forced to move by today’s economies, but that doesn’t make me a victim. It makes me someone with my eyes wide open, who’s choosing to turn it into a opportunity for positive change.
I might still be on a tight budget as I make my way to where I’m going, since most of the costs of living are somewhat similar to hear, save for rental and the ridiculous commutes, but it’s a really exciting time to be running down a new dream, whatever the price.
And so it begins.

***

Yes, I plan to continue blogging in Victoria. Yes, I will write about the experience of moving toward the big day. Yes, some will be panicky and insane. Yes, I will address some of your great comments in postings to come. Yes, my head may explode before Christmas at this rate. And, yes, it’s kinda fun. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading.

Nightvisions: Of Dreams and Wakings

Dreams. I don’t remember them often. I wake to a hazy shade of blank in the morning, most days.
Not this morning. Somehow aware I was sleeping and dreaming, I couldn’t shake my disturbing visions — splicings of abuse and trauma all swirling in my head.

The Characters

Coffee shop, old-style American ’70s joint with tattered vinyl booths, a stainless steel coatrack by a jukebox, long counter filled with blue collar workers, lotsa beards. Felt like a truck stop. Waitress straight out of Alice — dark roots, blonde, overtight calves from too many long days, older looking than her years. Blue diner uniform, white apron, frequent smoke breaks.
Scene two: Junkie, rat-trap apartment with cracked plaster, taped fractured windows, bugs skittering across worn floorboards. Old furniture once-loved in better places than this — ’80s brown floral couch, round sidetables covered with threadbare cloths, wobbly coffee table, old console TV with rabbit ears. Thin woman with scarred arms from years of lesions and self-harm. Natty mousy hair, dry and dull, messy and barely tied back. Sunken complexion, decaying teeth, sad hollow eyes. Needle and pipes at couch’s end table.
There was also an old rancher in the country. Broken swingset, overgrown lawn. Guy with a penchant for jean shirts, in his 40s. Isolated. Likes working on his truck.
Dreams being dreams, mine was a swirl of childhood moments with these three. Incestuous, abuse-filled snippets, albeit somewhat stereotypical.
They flooded at me, images of things some of us should never imagine but others have tragically lived.

Remembering

And that was horrifying but it was more who and what these people grew into that ate at me. How you can never undo that loss of innocence. How we get imprinted at such visceral levels as to what we feel about the world, thanks to our encounters in our youth. How cynicism and hopelessness find us through experience.

This is a "joke" picture people post to Facebook, etc, but imagine growing up with this guy as Dad. It's a little disturbing for me. Should we unsee this?


We joke about embarrassing photos of others, calling them “things you can’t unsee,” but what if an entire childhood is formed that way? With the things that can’t be unseen?
I had a nice comfortable upbringing, aside from an asshole child molesting teacher at my Catholic high school (with whom I had no contact). The rest is par for the course — adversities and challanges aplenty, just not the soul-destroying kinds.
Even still, moments with certain beggars on the street, brushes with homelessness, imprinted me deeply at a young age. And it was in passing, at best. Yet.
But this morning’s dream haunted me on waking. I realized I’m often guilty of judging people for who they are now, with little consideration of what the may have moved past in becoming who they are. What abuses, adversity, horrors may have helped shape them.
I have a neighbour, a burn-out former junkie who seems to be a pathological liar, and I’m suddenly wondering what it was that got her to where she is now. What kind of childhood did she have? Where did the wrong turns come? What could she have expected otherwise?
A cynic would say soul-crushing is a compounding experience. Every hurt adds to the last. Every layer of dejection lands atop another, slowing wrapping us up from the world, walling us off. Like the outcome is unavoidably dire, and one can’t unravel that damage.
For some, I’m sure that’s true. Adversity has the same way of affecting us. When everything keeps being hard, it’s sometimes easier to fall into survival mode than to remember that thriving can be a choice, a series of actions.
But when it comes to people like those I dreamed about, the damage is often long done. If they don’t overcome that hardship as a child, they often pay the price through lacking education, all but determining the lives they’ll live largely marginalized, paycheque-to-paycheque, unprepared for a complicated adult world.

From Whence We Came

I don’t know what it is that makes some able to fight past all that, but I’m so glad that resilience can be found in the world. I’m glad not all souls get crushed and stay that way.
I grew up in a white low/middle-class neighbourhood, a mix of kids. My days seemed fun like anyone else’s. We kept our doors unlocked, had some neighbour parties, all knew each other like you’re supposed to, way out there in white suburbia.
Now, though, I know two families had incest happening, another had violent abuse beyond the screaming fights we all heard.
Another had drug-addicted kids by the age of 15. One family had parents who were addicts. I found needle works in their sofa when I was 14 and had no idea it was for heroin then.
Sure didn’t feel like it when we were all out there on the street doing neighbourhood snowball fights. Knowing now what I didn’t know then, it sort of taints the memories on some days and makes them more awesome moments on others. For a brief time, we were all kids and having fun. For a little while, some snowballs whizzing through the air put us all on equal ground. Life could be good, even just for 30 minutes.
It’s safe to say I feel like I’m living the end of the movie Stand By Me this morning, as I remember the life we all had but tempered with the knowledge of an adult who one day learned the deep dark secrets each of us had back then.
I lived so close to darkness in some of those homes. It never touched me personally. I don’t think it ever dampened my light. I wish I could have helped them.
But deep down inside, I’m glad I was able to be ignorant of those worlds until much later. I’m sure it helped me have a wider worldview.
I’m sure the years of looking-but-not-seeing have affected greatly the way I see the world today. Knowing how “normal” people seemed, yet how they were anything but, seems to have shaped my very skeptical view of what others being what they project at us.
I guess, in a way, being raised so close to some of the things I dreamed about last night yet so insulated from all the happenings, has defined a lot of my empathy and perceptiveness in life and in writing.
It’s funny. We’re shaped as much by what we didn’t know, it seems, as what we did. What a weird world we live in.

***

And that’s where my headspace is this Monday morning. I wish I could better wrap it up and put a bow on it, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how this one ends. Much like my dream.

When Writing Isn't Working: My Experience

I feel like I’m phoning in the writing of late.
Doesn’t really matter what you think. I’m the doer. The deciderer. If I don’t buy what I’m sellin’, then I’m wasting my time.
Writing isn’t like washing dishes. Doing it on autopilot ain’t gonna float, Joe.
And I don’t know where that went. That “thing” that makes writing awesome.
For me, writing’s like a bad lover. Doesn’t always stick around when you need it. Communication’s either there or it’s not. It’s easy to feel alone when you’re with it, and not in a good way. There’s not a lot of dialogue, just feuding voices in your head.
People who claim they wish they could write have no idea what they’re asking for.

The Realities of Writing

It’s a demanding thing. It needs hours, days, weeks, years of your life to get done and get done well. Part of it’s sheer luck — getting born with a gift for words and swirlie-idea-thingies, well, you can’t send away for a degree at the University of Phoenix for that.
It’s a worldview. It’s believing you have a perspective that’s worth registering as a voice in the cosmic mix.
You have to really believe in yourself when you write. You need to commit to word choice, slap that vocabulary down. Then you have to turn around and doubt every fucking thing you wrote. You need to read it like you’re the Word Reaper, slashing ’em away with your sickle. It’s a Jekyll/Hyde thing, writing/editing. Love it, then hate it, on purpose.
There’s a lot of debate out there…

Does Writers’ Block Exist?

I can unequivocally say YEAH. Oh, yeah. Sometimes writers’ block (I use plural ’cause I know I ain’t alone in my “writer’s block” experience) is more like the Great Wall of China than it is the cinderblock fence down the road.
The thing is, it can be overcome. But sometimes the things causing the block just need attention, time, and perseverance. Sometimes it’s about making choices because priorities need to happen.
Face it. Writing happens by sitting on your ass with your implements of choice, doling out letters, words, phrases. No phone calls, no outside world, no need to wear pants.
Writing takes time away from everything and everyone in your life. It’s a selfish, solitary struggle. Hanging out with your friends? Gets in the way. Doing your dayjob? Another “block.” Dealing with real-life situations, everything from relationships to rehab? Another obstacle.
So, when you’re talking about life distractions, focus issues, and the equivalent of creative impotence, you can understand how TIMING is everything.

So, It Can Be Fixed, Right?

Writers’ block absolutely can be overcome. But it’s like the old joke — if there’s a wind at my back, the stars align, and the cosmos is on my side, maybe it’ll all work out.
You gotta have the right timing. That feeling of “Oh. I could… expound on that, you know. Well, THAT’s an interesting line…” is exactly when to jump on writing. Why I started this post was, I wrote this tweet and thought “I just like the way that sounds,” and thought “Maybe I should blog.”
So, if the mood hits, and you need a topic, well, what do you write about?
For me, if I’m at a loss, I’ll usually start writing about what I just ate and whether it was yummy. Then I’ll write about the weather. Then I somehow hit a “you know, earlier, X happened” or “I saw Y” vein, and the tangent will lead me into something that’s actually been playing in my head but all the STUFF got in the way. THEN I delete all the crap about breakfast, yummy-factor, and the weather. Poof. We has writing.
But there are times when I’m just not feeling the joy, and nothing has been interesting to me for a few days, and everything I write’s crap, even if I’m trying.
When they say “shit happens,” they’re talking about writing quality too. For all of us. Anyone who tells you that you can be consistently excellent at writing is someone who doesn’t have a fucking clue about writing.
You can sure try. But that’s what editing is for. Coming back with fresh eyes, judiciously cutting/splicing, and recreating it.

And Then We Edit

They say movies are born or killed in the editing suite. Sure, you can shoot a movie, but until the editor splices that thing together, it don’t mean jack. It’s as much in the edit as it is in the original draft that writing is made.
If you don’t have the passion when writing, or at least the craft of copy, then it’s a hard thing to salvage but it CAN be done, especially if you know you have more in you then you put on the page, and you’re open to rewriting and amending entire sections. Some of my best work was “add-on” work that I started just so I’d get my half-ass idea down, then completely reworked later.

Bottom Line: Fake It Till You Make It

Lately, writing’s been obligatory for me. Seldom is it something I’m inspired to write, and I know it feels that way to me when I read it back. Technically, it’s not bad. But it needs a little soul.
So, if I’m not writing well lately, why bother? ‘Cos that’s how you get past it. Keep trying. It’s why I wait for a notion to hit me. The chances of not sucking are higher when I’m not forcing it. Eventually, the things getting in my way will get the fuck out of my way, and I’ll have that day where I LOVE the feeling of writing.
Ultimately, as hard as writing is, as both a friend and foe, I’m quite sure writing and reading have saved my life at times, and they’ve certainly shaped who I am.
If writing is as much a state of being as it is of doing, I generally love the kind of perspective I have on the world. It’s fun being in my head when I’m on creative bents. It becomes like a drug I wonder how I could ever live without. But, like heroin junkies and other addicts, it’s a high we seldom get to live for very long because the price we pay is high. Eventually we come crashing back to that place where it’s a struggle to do things well.
But that’s why they call it a ride.
Love it or hate it, writing’s the thing that’s been a part of me more than and longer than anything else — and when I’m not doing it the way I want to, not hitting the target like I love to, it’s kind of hard not to feel like I’m not the person I thought I was.
And that, too, is part of writing. Self-doubt, disappointment. A “block” is something we take very personally, and with good reason.
But I’ve been blocked before, and breaking through it is an amazing feeling, and a great time to be a writer. It’s worth the struggle. For me, anyhow.

Darth Vader's Right: Anger's Good For You

I had that “lightbulb” moment a couple of weeks ago that has served as a real catalyst for a change in thinking and being.
A moment of my own stupidity just reminded me how many things happen to us due to a lack of care or attention in life. Big, small, whatever. Often, that lack of attention tends to not be neglect or ignorance, but just that we’re so damned thinly stretched.
I don’t really want to share my “moment” with you, except that it was my getting mad. Really mad. At myself, at the cosmos, at the passing of time.
Whom/what I was pissed off is irrelevant, beyond the simple “thinly stretched” mode of living. Some of it financial, most of it physical related to my complicated 8-month Yo-Yo of back injury struggles, and a lot of it due to the vacuum of time that is modern life.
Much of the sustaining of my back injury came from the reality of my love for cycling keeping me injured, but not in an immediate cycle-and-hurt way, rather in a cumulative way that wouldn’t become obvious for a few weeks. So, every time I was improving, I would suddenly have a dramatic backslide with extensive flare-ups.
We figured that out in August, then I ignored that until the end of September. Then I paid the price.
Now, though, I know. I know why, how, and when it all happened. I get it.
More importantly, at the end of that whole stupid, definitive journey, I got pissed. I had my Peter Finch Moment, from the movie Network, of wanting to open the windows and bellow I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE at the skies, at the world below, raging into the wind.
MAD AS HELL! NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE! RAWR! RAWR! RAWR!
That was two weeks ago, when I was still having my ass kicked by a flu. On the 1st of November, I slipped into a new gear. I’ve worked out 7 of the last 9 days, began a new physiotherapy routine, have started to rethink food (though haven’t excelled there yet), and put a new focus on resting and sleeping, so my body can bounce back from the workouts and physical grind I’m throwing at it.
At least now I’m not literally an active part of the problem via bicycling and exacerbating that which I’m trying to heal. At least now I seem to be getting things right and having more good days than bad.
I suspect a few weeks will make a world of difference. I think I’ve found the magic bullet physio that will undo the punishment I dish to my body, IMS, and I know the roles sleep, nutrition, and exercise play.
But it means I won’t see people, I won’t have money to spend, and I won’t have a whole lot of fun… for a little while. The thing is, I’ve been here before. I’ve been this MAD AS HELL. I’ve been this focused. I’ve demanded this of myself in the past — 6 to 10 hours working out a week — and I succeeded like few people do, and for the better part of a year.
Somewhere along the line, I stopped doing things that had made me successful in 2008-2009. The year 2010 was my undoing and I’ve spent much of 2011 paying for it.
I’m not mad at myself for that. It is what it is. Somewhere in this stupid era of back troubles are life lessons I couldn’t buy. My anger is slowly turning from something I’ve been exacting on others into something that I’m using as a catalyst for changing myself, fuel for the fire, as it were.
Anger isn’t a bad thing. It’s what you let it do to/for you that matters. I have a hard time of harnessing it. I’m a pretty passionate person and there have been a lot of times of late my anger has gotten the better of me and turned into a self-pity-sorrow show, when frustration rules me, and much of the last year has had pockets of my Being That.
I had a hard time processing, for a really long time, that I could be the person who was pushing 300 pounds, lost 25% of her body weight, and became UNHEALTHIER, despite doing it all through better eating and exercise. Something about realizing that sort of crushed me. Still does, sometimes.
We get so caught up in the moment sometimes and forget life’s a long, long road, and this time of struggle might wind up representing less than 5% of our entire life, but TODAY it feels like it’s forever. When they talk about “big picture,” that’s what they mean.
If I live to 70, finally get past the worst of this back injury in the next couple months and never revisit Herniated Disc Land again, then these past three years of up-and-down injuries will represent a grand total of 4.2% of my life.
That’s a different perspective, isn’t it? That’s not even a nickel compared to a dollar, you know what I’m saying?
I think the hardest part of injuries, weight loss, all of that, is the mental game. I willingly admit that I was losing that game for the better part of a year. My unemployment last year showed me pretty much every wrong direction I was headed in. It honestly wasn’t until I was working again that I realized what I should’ve been doing when unemployed.
And that’s life for you. We figure out what we should’ve said, should’ve done, long after the ideal moment passes. Rearviewmirror Syndrome. We’ve all been there.
Have I figured everything out? Fuck, no. Am I close to the finish line? Fuck, no. Am I sure I’ve got the solution this time? Fuck, no.
But this time I have my anger to keep me warm and running. In a good way.
Feel the Dark Side, Luke. Then kick its fucking ass.

A Life Lived In Fear is No Life to Live

It’s cold and flu season, and I’m your canary in the coalmine. Got railroaded by the bug last week and I’ve been sick a full week.
I spent my weekend being The Human Spigot and exploring my all-too-close love-affair with polar fleece and cozy slippers, sipping honeyed tea and regretting food choices that turned me into The Loudest Coughing Neighbour Of All Time.
But all this time under the weather around All Hallow’s Eve has given me a chance to watch horror movies I’ve always been too cowardly to see. I was never a “horror” fan. But I never gave it a chance, either. They were scary, so, no, I wouldn’t watch ’em. Ever. A + B = Not A Fucking Chance.
Having crossed a number off my list now, the experience has left me sort of pensive after my horror-movie-spree of Halloween week. I still have more horrors on the trusty PVR, and I’m not worried about watching them.
I began wondering if maybe my fear of watching horrors was part of the problem with my general fears about life. If there’s any one thing I most regret from my childhood, culturally, it’s that inability to confront All Things Scary in horrors. I’m not sure where my apprehensions came from. Maybe it’s just demonstrative of my unlikely tendency to face fear in general.
It’s the cultural chicken-or-the-egg conundrum. Did my fears come first, or was it my fear of feeling fear?
I know that even today I’m a big old scaredy-cat. There’s so much I’m scared to face, so many excuses I find for honouring that fear and not facing those things which I should have the balls to face.
On some deeper level, this “I’m gonna watch horrors” movement I’m in reflects that I’m finally trying to do some of those things that scare me. I’m trying to take the scare out of the figuring, and make choices that don’t come from a place of avoidance due to fears. But, it’s hard.
A friend of mine does theatrical classes with kids and had a big scary day planned for his class today, but the asshats who run the school (and I know they’re asshats firsthand, having worked for the jerk owner myself) said it was “inappropriate” and now he’s doing a “harvest” class because the ghouls and goblins are nixed by administration. Probably partly on religious grounds, since I know who’s doing the deciding there. Whatever, lady.
When I heard about this, it made me angry. The thought of kids being raised coddled and protected, without the experience of being scared shitless, well, that’s not working out so well for me in my middling age, and I think it’s a recipe for failing the next generation.
Every kid needs to experience horror, fear, and the idea that Evil Lurks Somewhere.
Fact is, life is a big scary place. Evil is lurking. Bad things happen. But the further fact is, we usually outlast the fear. We get over it. Things scare the bejesus out of us, then we laugh it off, take a deep steadying breath, and carry on with life. That’s the human condition… most of the time.
Except we’re trying to handhold everyone out of fear — whether it’s Big Pharmacology trying to medicate the shit out of our anxiety or bubble-proofing kids, we try to “protect” ourselves. Don’t tell the politicians and the newsmedia, though — their whole industries exist on sneaking fear into our daily lives.
Today’s playgrounds — rubberized so kids don’t “get hurt” — are an example of just how ridiculous we are about life and its trials. God forbid Little Johnny should scrape his knee.
Personally, I know my stubbornness probably made it unlikely anyone would have succeeded when I was young and saying “No, I won’t do that, it scares me.” I wish I’d had craftier people around me that could have manipulated me past that fear. I wish my brother had taunted me less and supported me in confronting those deep, dark, scary places where having a big, strong brother with me holding my hand rather than trying to up the fear-ante might’ve taken the edge off things. I wish I’d had a lot of things, but that’s the way the growing-up-in-the-real-world cookie crumbles.
I think it  comes down to us being one of two types of people — either we focus on the exhilaration of relief we feel when fear subsides, or we get hung up on the terror that comes with fear’s rise. I’ve always been the latter, unable to get past the scare and celebrate how awesome it feels to realize we’re safe.
And maybe watching horror movies doesn’t mean a fucking thing in the long run of life. Maybe it’s a stupid waste of my time.
Or maybe it’s a sign that I’m changing some fundamental philosophies inside and opening my eyes to the reality that most of those things I’ve feared in life have been without point, and overinflated by yours truly’s excessive imagination.
Because, in the end, none of those movies scared me. A couple made me angry. “THIS? THIS is a horror classic? Carrie SUCKS. I didn’t even gasp once!”
In the end, the most common reaction I had, though, was that there was never anything I needed to fear, and I could’ve gotten it over with literally two decades ago.
Now I need that line of thinking to my day-to-day, because waking up on the fear side is no way to live.
PS: The Exorcist is still a fucking awesome movie. Saw it a decade ago and still love it.

Fall On The Wind, A Seasonal Teaser

You’ll have to forgive me for the pomp and the abundance of adjectives. I’ve been watching a little Orson Welles biopic and feeling a bit verbose.
The recent heat broke before dawn and the temperature fell a few degrees. Skies are cast in grey with a wind carrying a ominous reminder of the north Pacific chill we’ll be battered with for months once the season ends proper.
Its almost-autumnal whispers feel treasonous after the hot summery days we’ve enjoyed of late, given far too few for the first many weeks of the season.
Labour day looms, and with it an all-too-soon sense of Vancouver’s unsummer coming to a close.

***

Fraser lookout, Vancouver, by moi.


The forecast says more sunshine is to come, but many today woke with that “great northern land” sense of the oppression we’ll soon be under.
I worked on a documentary the other day, on the job, and it was about a Danish designer, and they spoke of the Danes and how they’re two different people — moody and oppressive in the winter, and carefree and awesome in the summer. I realized then it’s not just Vancouver that’s schizophrenic with the seasons, but rather most of the northern world.
So this is why I’m resisting writing as much as possible right now. Because life, and this season, are short.
This spring was one of the most disappointing I’ve ever experienced in Vancouver, and summer never appeared until August. I was on the verge of switching from being Seasonally Affected to becoming Permanently Defected, but then summer arrived. This is only the second iffy day since the end of July.
In my cold fingers and shivering bare legs, I sense the long, daunting season that may be ahead. Last year’s summer wasn’t great either, making for an insufferable wait for this past month’s fantastic weather.
The rise of Vancouver’s delayed summer was coupled with the end of my own season of discontent as well. My back is slowly getting more livable. I’ve had some really nice bike rides lately, and I’m beginning to feel there’s hope for recovery to a place where I can cycle as much as I like and have the lifestyle I long for. Not there yet, but a great ride with a couple days off to recuperate is an okay balance for me.
With present reprieve from both Vancouver’s weather and back woes, I’m trying to just enjoy the moment, embrace the season, and remember every bit of daylight I can for when those 18-hours-of-darkness-days return, where the laughable “daylight” is often under mottled moody Pacific skies or rain-forest deluge.

***

This winter, I’ll do the writing I’m eager to do. I’ll continue working a little less “at the job” despite not needing so much rehab time for the back, and I will write a lot.
Right now, there’s no guilt for taking the time to remember other things I love about life, because I had felt so little passion for anything for quite a few months there. Injuries are as oppressive as heavy weather storm fronts when it comes to living life the way you would like. Passion tends to be a good thing for writers. To be devoid of it, well, that’s a crime.
To be freeing myself of feeling trapped is a sensational page to turn.
Lately, I’ve been cooking great food, rediscovering my bike, enjoying the sunshine, lazing around with movies when I’m not doing the first three things, and that’s about it. I won’t have vacation time this year, so I’m doing the best to plant a little vacation fakery around my work weeks of late, and I’ve fooled myself quite handily at it, too. I haven’t had the money to be social, after all the expensive rehab since March, and cock-ups with the medical claims, so having at-home-and-in-the-hood staycationing has been well-timed and fantastic for the soul.

***

The end of summer has always been a time of sadness and apprehension for me, but this year it’s not. I’m not sure what the difference is. I’m normally categorically despondent at the thought of an onslaught of Vancouver’s wet, grey winter. With only a month of real summer, you’d think I’d be even more so this year, but I’m not. I guess it’s because I have plans and goals in mind already for the grey heavy months to come.
I’m hoping seasonal sunshine and warmth continues until my September-end birthday, and I will continue steadfastly ignoring the literary arts and any goals until then.

***

It’s strange. I’ve never been this at peace with what I’ve been denied because of injuries before. I have this incredible gratitude for the little things I get to go and do of late, especially when the day ends and I’m stiff and sore but not in pain or worried about what the next day will bring.
I got to watch baseball 10 days ago. That was wonderful. I got to cycle in Stanley Park on Friday, and by the river the week before. Both wonderful things. Tomorrow, I have a cycling adventure planned with a friend, and I’m a little nervous but more excited. It feels great to not have the apprehension I’ve had. On Monday, I get to see a concert — a concert by the same band I was absolutely heart-broken to cancel seeing in May because my back injury was becoming worse instead of better.
Then a week or so later they announced a Labour Day return to Vancouver. My heart sang. The goal was to have my back healed by the gig. Well, it won’t be healed, but it’ll be good enough that I can go and bounce around… a little. And that’s awesome.

***

I’ve said before that my year of unemployment was a gift because it reminded me of simpler food, putting heart into cooking, and really learning how little one needs in life… and that I became aware I had most of what I needed.
I’ve believed for a while that my back injury was teaching me a few things. Gratitude for just being able to get around and have personal freedoms is just one of the lessons. The rest are for me to chew on a while longer.

***

It’s a bitter-sweet autumn-is-somewhere-out-there morning, and, as it turns out, that’s just fine with me.

Food: The Battle That Never Ends

One of my weekly addictions now, pun intended, is Extreme Makeover: Weight Edition.
It’s exactly what it sounds like: A person is ideally supposed to go from morbidly obese to, well, much less.
The most “extreme” episode I’ve seen spent the year with a man named James who began at 651 pounds and lost 313 pounds in 12 months. The first three months, the trainer, Chris Powell, lives with the show’s focus person. After that, the “contestant” is on their own but for the equipment they’ve been left, quarterly check-ins, and emails/phonecalls.
[Spoiler ahead.]
This week’s episode had 9 months invested in one morbidly obese man, who began at 490 pounds, lost 110 in three months, then 21, then gained 60 in the third quarter.
His food addiction came back stronger than ever.
The end of the episode had him checking into rehab 70 pounds below where he started, but 60 pounds over where he was after 4 months — and emotionally broken.
This is something I wish would shut all the cynics up who see weight-loss success on TV and go “Oh, but they had professional help, of course they lost weight.”
You know what? I don’t buy that. It works for a while, sure, but a show like this, it conveys that, left to our own devices, even with all the tools and means at our disposal, failure can find us because we’re our own worst enemies. Every person goes to bed alone in their heads.
Many people regain all their weight back, and even more, when life gets hard, because we’re usually heavy through unhealthy eating addictions that involve masking emotions or failed communications.

Enough About Them, Let’s Talk About Me

I’ve always been food-addicted, but I’m considerably less so in my old age. It’s still a problem. It probably always will be.
That I’m a pretty fucking confident cook sure as hell doesn’t help, but my ability to research and learn the science, well, that does help — a lot. I educate myself from time to time as well. Being a good cook means I take control, and I do so in an often-satisfying way with foods that are ultimately less addictive than fast food and commercial preparations.
Luckily, I somewhat like being active. If I weren’t so goddamned injured so often, I’d be unstoppable, and I’d probably get to keep eating the way I love but would continually lose weight doing it. Fortunately, I eventually battle past my distractions and usually maintain.
That’s me. And I know it’ll be a lifelong struggle. Fortunately, every year I get a little smarter about it, and have done that recently in the face of times that might’ve taken me down a more personally-destructive path in the past.

An Environment Created for Failure

The thing is, food’s an incredible struggle. It’s the hardest addiction in the world to overcome. It’s everywhere. Even skinny people drool over pictures like it’s porn. We even talk about the sexual ways we satisfy our hunger, we have “food orgasms,” we celebrate every holiday around a table, we communicate over tables, we have a national bacon dependency, and now we have sharing apps for cellphones that are all pictures of high-falutin’ drool-inducing food, and everywhere we turn is advertising showing the most sinful burgers and cookies and pastas and pizza (but read this about the dirty tricks photographers use to make that food look so yummy).
In this highly food-pornified world, losing 10 pounds is a massive achievement for some. Losing 313 in a year, no matter who’s helping you, even on a TV show, that’s absolutely mind-boggling — if done through weight and healthy eating, that is.

Add In Being Affected by Life’s Demands…

And putting a few pounds on in any given month or year, well, that’s human. Failing utterly? Also sadly human.
For me of late, I’ve not really been worrying about food, exercise, or whatever. I’m rehabilitating a back injury that scared me more than anything has in years. I had a week in April that was the darkest of my life. All I care about is NOT BEING THAT, and paying my rent. I’m rehabbing, getting my life under control, and that’s all the achievement I require right now.
In saying that, the last 10 months has included enough chaos that all I want to do is get into a routine where being active truly IS my lifestyle, and eating reasonably IS my way. That’s it. I want something I can follow for the rest of my life. I lost 70 pounds in a year doing it that way, I know I can get back to it, too, once my routine’s back.
Anyone who says weight-loss is easy during unemployment isn’t a stress-eater.
During my year of being often under-employed, I had pneumonia followed by a cancer scare that turned into a “dunno what that was, but it ain’t cancer” dealio, followed by blowing out my back. That I only gained eight pounds in two years since my drastic loss is fucking awesome, given my history of overeating for emotional reasons.
It is an addiction, and this has been the hardest year for fighting it. Have I won? No, but if this were a fairytale and the Big Bad Wolf was trying to get into grandma’s house, then I’ve been fighting that fucker back with a big-ass stick. He hasn’t gotten in, but I haven’t gotten around to doing much else with my time, either, time-consuming as fighting wolves tends to be, and all.

It Doesn’t Need to Stay That Way: Ebb & Flow

I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks, as my stress has gone down, as my back injury has finally gotten to a livable place, that my tendency to eat excessively, and too often, has just naturally slowed down, as have my cravings. I’ve not been eating GREAT all the time, but I’ve really not had too much on the average day, either. I also find myself avoiding sweets or feeling compelled for pastries.
The effort now is to simply be more active in my food choices– making more effort in cooking it so I’m not just eating food but, if I overeat, I’m wasting my time and money. Instead of buying bread, the plan now is to make my own for a while instead of buying huge baguettes to indulge in. Every meal needs some kind of veggies with it, preferably more than half the meal being veggies. Using less fat again, I’ve cut back on cheeses, there’s no cheddar in my house (fact: “cheddar” is Canadian for “crack”). I had chocolate during my “girl time” but haven’t felt cravings outside of that.
I don’t care who might think I could’ve done more or I’ve somehow failed myself because I put a little weight back on instead of continually taking it off. I don’t think of it like that. I think of it as “success interrupted.”
What I know about myself today is, I can get through everything that’s happened in the last year (and that short “pneumonia-blah-blah” point there barely skims the surface, as we all know life’s more complicated than big talking points), and gain back only 12% of the weight I’d lost up till 2009, well, that’s not too shabby for an emotional-eating food addict when the odds are better that I should have gained it all back. I kept 88% off, yo!
I’ve been more aware, even in my failings. Now I need greater awareness. Thankfully, it seems to be rising in me, and the stressors seem to be falling.
That’s the ebb-and-flow of life. Like Rocky Balboa says, it’s about getting hit and knocked down, but keepin’ on moving forward.
When I see a man, in life or even a show like that, reduced to tears in his failures, knowing he’s let down his beautiful little girl and wife, checking into rehab and facing all those demons… well, for me, being knocked down but moving forward feels like it’s as good an accomplishment as I need.
We should all remember that. Setbacks are great, if we learn from them and treat them as practice against being defeated in the future. Welcome to life, where we don’t always get it right, but we almost always get a second shot.
Failure photo from Mindthis.ca.
Hand photo from Haley Bell Photography.

The School of Fucking Up

I’ve been internally celebrating something I like to call The End of Fucking Up for about a week. Ironically, it’s coincided with more fucking up. Que sera sera, like the man sings.
Mistakes happen. That’s life. Growing from them, that’s smart. Repeating them, that’s dumb. I don’t tend to repeat mistakes. I may attempt, you know, a variation on a theme, as it were, but seldom do I duplicate it flat-out.

Turns out technique is everything.


From May of last year to June of this year, it’s been sort of The Lost Year for me. It’s been a time of being unsure of what I really wanted from life, and understanding that I wouldn’t get where I needed to go unless I could at least put a name and voice to that wish.

Mm-kay. Explain, please?

I think most of us are raised with the “find something you can live with doing” mentality about getting a job. You know, do what it takes to get by, and that’s that.
I wasn’t raised with the notion that dreams came true for everyone. I was taught you picked a career you were suited for, that you didn’t suit up for dreams. I wasn’t taught to pursue whatever I wanted because I “had” what it took — it was implied luck played more than hard work sometimes did. Confidence wasn’t a big thing in my household, for any of us.
And that sucks, but I’m far from the exception in that upbringing. Most of us were raised with the belief that we’d have a career, we’d have a house, and somewhere in there would be life, and it’d look a lot like the “life” other people had, too.
The older I get, the more I realize I can’t do the square-peg-square-hole-equals-career thingie.
I can’t just do the “it’s a job, it pays the rent” dealio. I’ve been trying on different writerly “hats” to see what feels right and the answer has been none of them, not really, not yet.

Stupid is As Stupid Does

From writing to life, the last year, for its scores of challenges, has probably been the hardest but also the most educational I’ve lived. There are lessons I’ve learned in the recent months that I hope I never forget, things I’m stunned I never really understood before now.
I believe there are eras that profoundly shape who we are — months or years that are somewhat like a crash course in self, and I think the last 18 months have been one of the most profound life-lesson times I’ve ever endured. Filled with events that may have reshaped the eyes I’ll see my years through.
Only now am I beginning to catch my breath enough to really go “Wow” at everything I’ve had go down in the last year, probably 70% of it or more I’ve never put anywhere on this blog, Twitter, or anyplace online. Ain’t for you to know.
But I went through my email yesterday, deleting thousands of things on my mission to Inbox: Almost Zero (read: 6).
It was kind of like a click-by-click visit of everything that came my way over that time.
You know what else it was, though?
As I saw all my original sent emails, I remembered the emotions I had, but hid, when I had sent the mail. I remember often being less than earnest, saying what I thought should be said.

Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?

It’s funny. It’s almost like the biggest lesson of the year was pretty simple: The heart wants what the heart wants, and trying the old switcheroo to get the heart to settle, that just ain’t gonna work. Lie to yourself, lie to others, doesn’t matter — the truth wins the end, the heart wants what it wants.
What my heart wants is to write the book that I just can’t fucking figure out. That’s what it wants. I’ve been making progress lately, after having back-burnered it for the job search. I know sort of what I want to accomplish, and with what, but I don’t know how to do it. I’ve made a  progress on the subject matter, and now the plotting begins on that front, but the structure… Hoo. That’s the doozy. And the voice.
I think there are a few books to read that might give me ideas. In the meantime, I’m just doing background writing in the hopes that’ll help me figure out the structure I’m so confused about.
When it comes to movies, it’s people like Tarantino, Terry Gilliam, Doug Liman’s Go, Baz Luhrman, and others who really capture the way I like a story to be told — so the reader/viewer has to work for it. Stylized. In writing, that’s harder to do without coming off a complete wanker.
The trouble with having written non-fiction and opinion for so long too — another “learning fuckup” — is that I really don’t know who I am, fiction-writing-wise. I was sort of getting somewhere in the late-’90s but stopped on that journey. I have a good idea.
This fall and winter, I’m really looking forward to exploring new writing and new avenues. I’ll be writing a lot more, but I doubt this blog will see a lot of that.
Necessity is the mother of invention they say, and I guess in times of necessity we can invent too much inauthenticity for ourselves, but in stripping away so much of the clutter we can’t afford or haven’t time to contend with, we also rediscover ourselves at our most basic. It’s a paradox of discovery.
And now I’m somewhere in the muddled middle as the dust settles. May I live in interesting times, indeed.

Catching You Up with Me

Looking for work sucks. I’m glad that part of my life is officially over.
I’m returning to my old job. I’ve worked there off and on since 2000. No, I don’t see myself there for the rest of my life. I don’t see myself at *any* job for the rest of my life.
But I sure see myself enjoying my coworkers, having a job that fits into my life, and having the freedom to write and live as I like for now.
Oh, I won’t be raking in the cash, I’ll be living a reasonably budgeted life, but I’m excited.
The last time I “returned” to this job, I promised myself I would change my life in every area but work. And I DID. I beat the depression that had been plaguing me, lost 50 pounds, and generally improved my life in a lot of ways. Then I blew my back out.
Now, I’m recovering from a REPEAT of that back injury and I’ll be getting the gift of medical coverage. Yay!
I’ve been very quiet about that recent back injury, but now I can share, because I’m no longer looking for work. The injury was a lot worse than I was letting on. Like, Steff-in-tears-on-hardwood-floor-for-hours kinda bad. I had a lot of really scary nights involving a lot of tears and fear for my future.
April was among the darkest months I’ve ever had in my life. I don’t even want to write about some of what I’d been through that month.
One week, though, was EASILY in the Top 3 darkest, saddest, tear-stained weeks of my life, when I re-injured my back the second time in five weeks.
And if you’ve never HAD a serious back injury, YOU DON’T GET IT. It cripples your entire life. Every move you make, task you do, rest you have — it’s ALL affected with a serious back injury. If you know someone with a back injury, please ask if you can get them some groceries, help tidy — anything. You have no idea. It’s a scary place to be. Without a job or medical, it’s terrifying.
Between working anything I could get, rehabbing, looking for work, trying to catch up domestically with all the things I was physically unable to do, I was facing 60+ hour weeks for the last six weeks — and, injured, that’s just no good way to live.
But, all you can do is tough it out, and I did. Now, no more toughing-out. I have the promise of work, the means to care for myself, and a lot less weight on my shoulders.
That time’s over now. My back’s come a long way. Ain’t FIXED, but at least I can work. My social life will return one day but I really don’t give a shit about seeing people, as hard as I’ve been working, and as stretched as my time has been. But that’ll change. Soon, too, I hope.
And now, with a guaranteed job and medical, and a social safety net back under my feet, I know I’ll get to where I need to be.
I’m really trying to hold onto that experience though — the black-as-hell, darkest-before-dawn, all-hope-is-gone fear — because it teaches us what’s important in life, and where our focus needs to be.
Today, I make the same pledge to myself as I did in September 2007: A year from now, I promise myself, I will be stunned when I look back at how I look today. I will be strong. I will be fit in a way that works for me and my life.
Starting today, my health is my first priority. Work, writing, and creativity are my second priority. Then, it’s the rest of life.
Wisely, I’ve set myself up with 30 hours a week. I can always work more, but right now that’s what I need.
In the last year, I’ve learned:

  • I don’t like “self-employment” of the meet-and-greet give-a-business-card variety. I’m not that girl.
  • I do indeed like doing some freelance, but I’m not really structured to be a natural at the business side of that. Maybe one day. Not today, not exclusively.
  • Contract jobs that only offer 15 or 20 hours a week with an unfocused objective and a “but you’ll figure it out” because it’s a “new” position can screw yourself over while giving someone else your value.
  • I need a routine in order to have success measured equally in my life.

I wouldn’t want to do the last year over again, but I’m sure happy I’ve learned this much about what I need for happiness, and what I want in my life. I think I’m on the road to making that all happen.
So, here, today, my New Year of Me begins.
I rocked it in 2007-2008, and I’ll do it again. This time, I’m still down 60 of the 70 pounds I eventually lost. This time, I’ve already got the injury and I’m working to strengthen myself — not just a desperate pushing-300-pounds fat girl like I was in 2007, trying to lose weight without the know-how or help, and damaging myself in the process. This time, I’m finishing the job I started, but properly.
I’m excited. I’m mostly tired after what’s been a really long hard time of life, but… I’m excited.
Some people can be unemployed and it’s like a vacation. I didn’t get that experience. I don’t want it now, either. Employed, this is good.
Have a great week, minions.