My dad's first motorcycle was a 1969 Norton Commando He bought it when he was 23 and before he knew how to actually ride a motorcycle. He rode it up and down the ally behind British Motorcycles in Vancouver for about a month before he knew enough to ride it home.
When my mum met my father, the Norton was his only means of transportation.
The Norton was my dad's entry point to the world of (now) vintage British motorcycles. His next purchase was a 1952 Vincent Black Shadow which drew him into the community of Vincent owners in the lower mainland. A motley crew of men-Danny the tool and die maker, Tim the maritime lawyer, John and Dale the mechanics. And my dad: Gerry the hospital administrator. They met periodically to drink beer and monkeywrench. 35 years later, they still do. The best house was Jack's. Jack had named his eldest son Vincent and kept his bike on a piece of greasy carpet in the living room of his house.
My father's affinity for motorcycles gently shaped our lives.
My mum got her bike license and her own little Honda twinstar. When we moved away from the coast, my dad reluctantly sold the Norton, but kept the Vincent, mum's Honda and his own Moto Guzzi. I was about 14 before I knew that there was another way to start a motorcycle than kickstarting it. We took family holidays on the bike. I remember being wedged into the sidecar and the fierce rush of wind past my ears. We traveled to rallies: Calgary, California, New Zealand, England.
This spring my dad bought another Norton. A 1973 Commando. It is pristine, the only concession to the march of time is its electric start. I spoke to my dad the weekend after he brought the bike home, he was giddy and excited like a ten year old boy. He had ridden it around the block a few times and was planning to insure it when he came back from the California trip in June.
The bike is in the workshop in our basement. It's a room that I can hardly bear to go into.
Last week I was downtown with my friend Rhys. It was a bad day, one of the days when I want to eat sleeping pills like candy and have trouble finding the energy to brush my teeth. We came out of the cafe, and prepared to sit at one of the sidewalk tables. Rhys glanced past my shoulder, and the words, "Hey, that's a Norton" flew out of his mouth.
I turned around disbelievingly. That Rhys could correctly identify a Norton-I failed to remember that Norton is written on the tank and that Rhys is literate-and that there was actually a Norton a few feet behind me seemed far too much of a stretch in reality.
But there it was. A 1974 Commando. A year younger than the one in our basement. Like a moth to flame, I was standing beside the bike before I realized what I was doing. A lanky guy, a few years older than me, with red hair in need of a trim and the beginnings of a beard looked at me quizzically. I hadn't noticed him. This was his motorcycle.
Awkwardly, I asked about the specs of the bike and then blurted out, "My dad has one." Flushing scarlet, I realized that I had made a tactical error: he would ask who my dad was, I would have to explain that actually he died a month ago, and if possible the conversation would get more hellishly awkward. I apologized for bothering him and sprinted the 8 meters to the cafe table.
As we drank our coffee, the Norton guy put on his jacket and helmet. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him roll the bike off its center stand and balance it for a second, gauging the weight of the machine. Grasping the handlebars, he deftly flicked out the kick starter and jumped to kick it over. Nothing. He tried again. Some faint coughs from the Norton.
I cannot count how many times I have watched the same scene with a different cast and sets. I felt my heart being squeezed in a vice grip. I would lose it if I kept watching. I would lose it if I looked away.
It started on the ninth attempt. I counted.
The Norton guy opened the throttle and gently pushed his feet away from the pavement. He pulled out into traffic, looked over his shoulder at me and gave a small wave.
I closed my eyes and felt my self explode into a thousand tiny fragments.
mardi, août 22, 2006
vendredi, août 18, 2006
fame becomes me
So my brother is by far the cooler of the two of us. He's the guy with the hook-ups, the one who knows 2/3 of the interesting people in this city (while I know just 2) and the one who has the style.
Most of the time when we hang out, when we are both at the ancestral home in chach-ville, I am just along for the ride. I sit in the background, watching the entertainment, and occasionally catching Tim's eye when something funny needs shared appreciation.
A few weeks ago he came up with free tickets and backstage passes to the upcoming Hot Hot Heat concert. Something about a girl he works with being the girlfriend of the brother of the lead singer of the opening band.
I have barely heard of Hot Hot Heat, and never of the opening band but it seemed like a good way to spend a Tuesday night.
The audience at the show was mostly tanned girls between the ages of 15 and 20 in tiny tanktops and "indie boys" in tapered jeans, white teeshirts and too much hair product. There was no bar.
After the show (which was quite good, though the music was not so much to my taste) we toodled backstage with Alexandra, girlfriend of brother of guy... and met the bands. And the girls.
There were a number of girls just hanging around. We weren't sure if they came with the bands or were plucked from the audience, but the number of tiny tank-tops fluttering around the band members makes me suspect the latter.
A plan was formulated. We would head to a bar downtown and wait for the bands to finish packing up their stuff.
By the time the bands arrived at the bar, it was past last call (because in this city, last call on a Tuesday in the summer comes at 11:45) and the only place to get alcohol was at the strip bars.
Heading off to the strippers with my younger brother, his friends, and some marginally famous rock bands didn't weird me out as much as you may think it would. The early closing of bars in this town means that the bro and I have found ourselves with friends at the rippers rather more times than I like to admit.
The bar is fairly typical. Beer and dancing naked ladies. The lead singer of HHH is blatantly making out with a girl who I previously saw flirting with the bassist of the opening band, and later the drummer of HHH. The principle of upward mobility is rarely so easily observed.
Everyone was pretty loaded.
Suddenly, the song changes from random 50Cent to the most famous song by The Killers. The one that goes "...somebody told you... looks like my girlfriend... last summer..." Anyways.
The HHH singer surfaces at the opening chords of the song.
"Hey, this is the Killers," he comments to nobody in particular. "We toured with them last year."
Whipping out his mobile phone, HHH singer proceeds to text message the lead singer of the Killers.
"HEY MAN, I AM AT A BAR IN KELOWNA AND A NAKED GIRL IS DANCING TO YOUR SONG."
You know you've made it when...
Most of the time when we hang out, when we are both at the ancestral home in chach-ville, I am just along for the ride. I sit in the background, watching the entertainment, and occasionally catching Tim's eye when something funny needs shared appreciation.
A few weeks ago he came up with free tickets and backstage passes to the upcoming Hot Hot Heat concert. Something about a girl he works with being the girlfriend of the brother of the lead singer of the opening band.
I have barely heard of Hot Hot Heat, and never of the opening band but it seemed like a good way to spend a Tuesday night.
The audience at the show was mostly tanned girls between the ages of 15 and 20 in tiny tanktops and "indie boys" in tapered jeans, white teeshirts and too much hair product. There was no bar.
After the show (which was quite good, though the music was not so much to my taste) we toodled backstage with Alexandra, girlfriend of brother of guy... and met the bands. And the girls.
There were a number of girls just hanging around. We weren't sure if they came with the bands or were plucked from the audience, but the number of tiny tank-tops fluttering around the band members makes me suspect the latter.
A plan was formulated. We would head to a bar downtown and wait for the bands to finish packing up their stuff.
By the time the bands arrived at the bar, it was past last call (because in this city, last call on a Tuesday in the summer comes at 11:45) and the only place to get alcohol was at the strip bars.
Heading off to the strippers with my younger brother, his friends, and some marginally famous rock bands didn't weird me out as much as you may think it would. The early closing of bars in this town means that the bro and I have found ourselves with friends at the rippers rather more times than I like to admit.
The bar is fairly typical. Beer and dancing naked ladies. The lead singer of HHH is blatantly making out with a girl who I previously saw flirting with the bassist of the opening band, and later the drummer of HHH. The principle of upward mobility is rarely so easily observed.
Everyone was pretty loaded.
Suddenly, the song changes from random 50Cent to the most famous song by The Killers. The one that goes "...somebody told you... looks like my girlfriend... last summer..." Anyways.
The HHH singer surfaces at the opening chords of the song.
"Hey, this is the Killers," he comments to nobody in particular. "We toured with them last year."
Whipping out his mobile phone, HHH singer proceeds to text message the lead singer of the Killers.
"HEY MAN, I AM AT A BAR IN KELOWNA AND A NAKED GIRL IS DANCING TO YOUR SONG."
You know you've made it when...
samedi, août 12, 2006
Random Saturday
I was on Vancouver Island at my grandfather's house for a week and a half, planning, executing and recovering from an onslaught of relatives and the funeral itself. That the internet chez grand pere closely resembles two coffee cans and a piece of twine made anything more than checking emails a seventeen hour enterprise only to be undertaken whilst fortified with copious amounts of gin.
Nan died after a prolonged illness at the age of 82. She had been living in a nursing home for four years prior to her death. Still, it was strange to see the uncles standing around in the kitchen, leaning on the edges of countertops. Had Nan been there, they'd have been shooed out into the already packed living room to make room for the plates and plates of food coming out of the oven, going into the oven...
I'm home now. Well, back at my parents' house. (I cannot yet refer to it as my mum's house...so much of it is my dad's.) There so much to do: little jobs like keeping up with dishes and laundry, and big jobs like thinning the trees around the house, selling the 55 Ford sitting in the driveway, and deciding how to proceed with probating the will. On top of the actual energy required to accomplish these tasks, the real kicker is the energy required to think about them and decide how to proceed.
I keep almost saying, "We should wait until Dad gets back..." So far I have managed to check my motormouth before it rolls off my tongue.
To add to the general state of confusion and chaos, I am leaving for England in three weeks. In the week following my dad's death, I was offered a position as researcher and writer with a magazine published by the UNEP. It is exactly the job I have longed for. And it is in Cambridge. Which is Very far away from my mum and brother. Sometimes things balance out in strange ways. Lately, everything does.
On the one hand, it is a really phenomenal opportunity that will open far more doors, career-wise, than I can even imagine. A job like this does not exist in the city I grew up in and where my mum currently lives. If I stayed here, I would be waitressing or tutoring, living at home, and mostly marking time until we were all "ok enough" for me to take off again. I have two friends here, and it would be all too easy to become (more of) an anti-social depressed recluse.
On the other hand, I haven't worked in an academic environment for at least a year. My research skills are terrible at best, and I have serious doubts about my abilities as a writer. I don't want to leave my mum and brother. I don't want to stretch myself and have adventures. I don't know if I can pull off being a functioning member of society, let alone holding down a job.
I think I am selfish for running away. I think I will regress into a neo-conservative evangelical with permed hair who wears oversized teeshirts printed with cats and who works the checkout at Saveonfoods if I stay.
Finally, in happier news... I finished the legwarmers. The pattern seems to be designed for people with pipe-cleaner legs, and I have, in my grand father's words, "shapely pins." Some aggressive blocking may help matters. They are black and green, and as soon as my camera gets fixed I may torment all of you with photos.
One of the benefits of going to the Island, was an excuse to take an afternoon to wallow in the Yarn Porn Store. A small fiber shop so stuffed with amazing yarn that hard core knitters have been known to pass out from sheer ecstasy. I can't remember exactly how it all went down, but I have a hazy recollection of diving head first into a pile of Noro, of my normally very pragmatic mother shoving six skiens of fuschia Manos Del Uruguay down my shirt, and something about hand-dyed sock yarn. Also, and this part is crystal clear, I remember the staff lady's lilting voice telling me that all knitting yarn was 20% off.
The rest, as I am sure you have guessed, was history.
Nan died after a prolonged illness at the age of 82. She had been living in a nursing home for four years prior to her death. Still, it was strange to see the uncles standing around in the kitchen, leaning on the edges of countertops. Had Nan been there, they'd have been shooed out into the already packed living room to make room for the plates and plates of food coming out of the oven, going into the oven...
I'm home now. Well, back at my parents' house. (I cannot yet refer to it as my mum's house...so much of it is my dad's.) There so much to do: little jobs like keeping up with dishes and laundry, and big jobs like thinning the trees around the house, selling the 55 Ford sitting in the driveway, and deciding how to proceed with probating the will. On top of the actual energy required to accomplish these tasks, the real kicker is the energy required to think about them and decide how to proceed.
I keep almost saying, "We should wait until Dad gets back..." So far I have managed to check my motormouth before it rolls off my tongue.
To add to the general state of confusion and chaos, I am leaving for England in three weeks. In the week following my dad's death, I was offered a position as researcher and writer with a magazine published by the UNEP. It is exactly the job I have longed for. And it is in Cambridge. Which is Very far away from my mum and brother. Sometimes things balance out in strange ways. Lately, everything does.
On the one hand, it is a really phenomenal opportunity that will open far more doors, career-wise, than I can even imagine. A job like this does not exist in the city I grew up in and where my mum currently lives. If I stayed here, I would be waitressing or tutoring, living at home, and mostly marking time until we were all "ok enough" for me to take off again. I have two friends here, and it would be all too easy to become (more of) an anti-social depressed recluse.
On the other hand, I haven't worked in an academic environment for at least a year. My research skills are terrible at best, and I have serious doubts about my abilities as a writer. I don't want to leave my mum and brother. I don't want to stretch myself and have adventures. I don't know if I can pull off being a functioning member of society, let alone holding down a job.
I think I am selfish for running away. I think I will regress into a neo-conservative evangelical with permed hair who wears oversized teeshirts printed with cats and who works the checkout at Saveonfoods if I stay.
Finally, in happier news... I finished the legwarmers. The pattern seems to be designed for people with pipe-cleaner legs, and I have, in my grand father's words, "shapely pins." Some aggressive blocking may help matters. They are black and green, and as soon as my camera gets fixed I may torment all of you with photos.
One of the benefits of going to the Island, was an excuse to take an afternoon to wallow in the Yarn Porn Store. A small fiber shop so stuffed with amazing yarn that hard core knitters have been known to pass out from sheer ecstasy. I can't remember exactly how it all went down, but I have a hazy recollection of diving head first into a pile of Noro, of my normally very pragmatic mother shoving six skiens of fuschia Manos Del Uruguay down my shirt, and something about hand-dyed sock yarn. Also, and this part is crystal clear, I remember the staff lady's lilting voice telling me that all knitting yarn was 20% off.
The rest, as I am sure you have guessed, was history.
vendredi, juillet 28, 2006
Into the Maelstrom
[my grandmother died this morning.]
In an email a friend mentioned striving to become an "emotional jedi", and, though my Star Wars theory is weak at best, I assume he was alluding to one's ability to slide through the wreckage of daily life without losing a sense of purpose and the all important zen.
I am not sliding right now. Sliding implies the pull of gravity and the potential for loss of control. I glide. Like an astronaut looking out the shuttle window and gently drifting head first into the sink. I think there never was any control, therefore the loss of it is a non-event.
I glide through my days the way I used to effortlessly consume
choose your own adventure stories: read for a while, come to the page where I had to choose to one of two or three options, choose one arbitrarily, continue, come to the end of the story, read another. My day to day choices seem unimportant; I will feel exactly the same if I go out for beer with a friend as if I lay on the couch and watched reality television programs. Zero emotional range.
Emotional Jedi. Teflon girl. Ice princess.
Everything is gray, and not in the nuanced, between-black-and-white sort of way. Gray in the whispery-November-stalks-of-shasta-daisies way.
But shasta daisies are perennials. And below the gray something simmers. Nothing else explains my fascination with Grey's Anatomy, the hospital drama that I've been watching on DVD. I am pretty sure that my mum and brother think I am deranged: having spent the better part of a month in the ICU of various hospitals, and having watched my father die in one, we were part of that drama, albeit with worse lighting. I think I watch to make sure that parts of me still hurt. To make sure that I haven't lost myself completely. To remind myself that it wasn't all a dream. Twisting the knives so I can bleed again.
I wonder: how long will this numbness last?
How bad will it be when I start to feel again?
In an email a friend mentioned striving to become an "emotional jedi", and, though my Star Wars theory is weak at best, I assume he was alluding to one's ability to slide through the wreckage of daily life without losing a sense of purpose and the all important zen.
I am not sliding right now. Sliding implies the pull of gravity and the potential for loss of control. I glide. Like an astronaut looking out the shuttle window and gently drifting head first into the sink. I think there never was any control, therefore the loss of it is a non-event.
I glide through my days the way I used to effortlessly consume
choose your own adventure stories: read for a while, come to the page where I had to choose to one of two or three options, choose one arbitrarily, continue, come to the end of the story, read another. My day to day choices seem unimportant; I will feel exactly the same if I go out for beer with a friend as if I lay on the couch and watched reality television programs. Zero emotional range.
Emotional Jedi. Teflon girl. Ice princess.
Everything is gray, and not in the nuanced, between-black-and-white sort of way. Gray in the whispery-November-stalks-of-shasta-daisies way.
But shasta daisies are perennials. And below the gray something simmers. Nothing else explains my fascination with Grey's Anatomy, the hospital drama that I've been watching on DVD. I am pretty sure that my mum and brother think I am deranged: having spent the better part of a month in the ICU of various hospitals, and having watched my father die in one, we were part of that drama, albeit with worse lighting. I think I watch to make sure that parts of me still hurt. To make sure that I haven't lost myself completely. To remind myself that it wasn't all a dream. Twisting the knives so I can bleed again.
I wonder: how long will this numbness last?
How bad will it be when I start to feel again?
jeudi, juillet 20, 2006
concentration
I flew back home a month ago today. Looking back, it seems like years since I left the south of France, and the blink of a hummingbird's eye since life was "normal". The absence of my father continually surprises me, blindsides me while I set the table for four.
Thinking is the worst. Not constructive list-of-things-to-do-today thinking, but the idle musing that happens while one is doing something else. I stay awake watching banal television until I am so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately. The before sleeping time terrifies me.
To fill my mind I have started knitting again. Because knitting falls into the category of things I can do and think about other things at the same time, I have chosen a complicated fair isle pattern knitted in the round. Should keep my mind occupied for a few hours a day at least.
Thinking is the worst. Not constructive list-of-things-to-do-today thinking, but the idle musing that happens while one is doing something else. I stay awake watching banal television until I am so exhausted that I fall asleep immediately. The before sleeping time terrifies me.
To fill my mind I have started knitting again. Because knitting falls into the category of things I can do and think about other things at the same time, I have chosen a complicated fair isle pattern knitted in the round. Should keep my mind occupied for a few hours a day at least.
mardi, juillet 18, 2006
jeudi, juillet 13, 2006
dimanche, juillet 02, 2006
and to dust you will return
Again, it is early and the house is quiet.
My dad died on Monday, six days ago.
It has been a tiring and busy week-the service and wake are today- and I have been on "Type A Personality Autopilot" for most of the time. That looks like me at my most efficient but with the air of zombie and no short term memory.
There is so much I could write about that has been funny or uplifting, but right now I can't.
It's going to be a long day today.
My dad died on Monday, six days ago.
It has been a tiring and busy week-the service and wake are today- and I have been on "Type A Personality Autopilot" for most of the time. That looks like me at my most efficient but with the air of zombie and no short term memory.
There is so much I could write about that has been funny or uplifting, but right now I can't.
It's going to be a long day today.
samedi, juin 24, 2006
48 hours
It is 5 am and I am wide awake (thank you 9 hour time difference jet lag). The sun is peeking over the mountains across the lake, and in a few minutes the whole valley will be awash in golden light.
Joan Didion wrote, after the sudden death of her husband, "Life changes in the instant," and for my family, our lives have changed in a series of instants: The instant of the accident, of the heart attack, of the decision to move my dad back to the hospital in our city, of hearing the neurologist carefully form the words "severe brain damage...discouraging progress," of hearing the surgeon rationalize amputating my dad's right leg, of nodding in agreement.
The 56 hours that I have been home have been the most horrific and agonizing of my life. I have been told that I am 'doing well' and 'holding it together,' but nobody has told me the criteria for achieving these two status'. We are all doing the best we can under extremely terrible circumstances. Most of the time when I am talking to doctors, nurses, concerned friends of the family, my voice is steady and I can even be humorous-albeit rather blackly humorous. And then I turn around and I just feel hollow, as though the contents of my body cavity were sucked out, or I rock back and forth like an autistic child as though by rocking I can control my desire to sob until my ribs split apart. I never imagined that I could feel this terrible and still keep breathing.
Joan Didion wrote, after the sudden death of her husband, "Life changes in the instant," and for my family, our lives have changed in a series of instants: The instant of the accident, of the heart attack, of the decision to move my dad back to the hospital in our city, of hearing the neurologist carefully form the words "severe brain damage...discouraging progress," of hearing the surgeon rationalize amputating my dad's right leg, of nodding in agreement.
The 56 hours that I have been home have been the most horrific and agonizing of my life. I have been told that I am 'doing well' and 'holding it together,' but nobody has told me the criteria for achieving these two status'. We are all doing the best we can under extremely terrible circumstances. Most of the time when I am talking to doctors, nurses, concerned friends of the family, my voice is steady and I can even be humorous-albeit rather blackly humorous. And then I turn around and I just feel hollow, as though the contents of my body cavity were sucked out, or I rock back and forth like an autistic child as though by rocking I can control my desire to sob until my ribs split apart. I never imagined that I could feel this terrible and still keep breathing.
vendredi, juin 23, 2006
change
Two weeks ago, my dad was broadsided by a jeep as he was motorcycling in Northern California. His injuries are extremely severe ranging from compound leg fractures to heart attack and anoxia (lack of oxygen to the brain).
My mum, brother and I are walking around like zombies and trying to remember to breathe.
Please pray for us.
There are no words for this existance.
My mum, brother and I are walking around like zombies and trying to remember to breathe.
Please pray for us.
There are no words for this existance.
mercredi, mai 31, 2006
South Georgia
The edge of a glacier. We stayed here all morning wating for it to calve. It didn't, but the hours in the stillness were the better for it.
King Penguin and chick at Right Whale Bay.
floating
I'm in Liverpool right now.
Truth be told, it seems to be a nice place. Highlights include: a sumptuous pub, the maritime museum's smuggling exhibit, yet another Tate gallery, interestingly unintelligible accents.
I am here because my first love lives here now. And in the six years since we were 17 and the orchestra played in the bushes as we walked around, we've become friends. It was one of those round about processes, and I am glad we have arrived where we have. He's great.
Before here was London. Three days of shite weather but glorious catching up with one of the Montreal girlies.
Because both of my friends have entered the real world and have jobs which require regular attendance, I have had a lot of time alone in the last week.
Still re-adjusting to crowded landscapes and many, many people, I've been walking around a lot. Staring at the little bits of ordinary lives that spill out from four walls of home and into the streets. Snippits of conversations. Clothing choices. Destinations.
As though the world around me is an ephemeral mirage, I observe my surroundings with placid detachment. Minimal engagement. I'm not sure where the cognitive, passionate, opinionated, me is, but it's certainly not here.
Truth be told, it seems to be a nice place. Highlights include: a sumptuous pub, the maritime museum's smuggling exhibit, yet another Tate gallery, interestingly unintelligible accents.
I am here because my first love lives here now. And in the six years since we were 17 and the orchestra played in the bushes as we walked around, we've become friends. It was one of those round about processes, and I am glad we have arrived where we have. He's great.
Before here was London. Three days of shite weather but glorious catching up with one of the Montreal girlies.
Because both of my friends have entered the real world and have jobs which require regular attendance, I have had a lot of time alone in the last week.
Still re-adjusting to crowded landscapes and many, many people, I've been walking around a lot. Staring at the little bits of ordinary lives that spill out from four walls of home and into the streets. Snippits of conversations. Clothing choices. Destinations.
As though the world around me is an ephemeral mirage, I observe my surroundings with placid detachment. Minimal engagement. I'm not sure where the cognitive, passionate, opinionated, me is, but it's certainly not here.
mercredi, mai 24, 2006
More January.
Zavodovski Island: the northern most island in the South Sandwich chain. It belches sulphurous gasses and steams. And has about 800,000 pairs of chinstrap penguins living on it.
They also hang out on icebergs.
(the horror of digital cameras is that I now have 700 pictures of penguins on icebergs...)
lundi, mai 15, 2006
the 5 month hiatus
is over, and I am back where the internet doesn't cost 13pence/minute (that's 30 cents) and isn't attached to a phone line.
haven't really decided what to do with this blog. There is too much to say about the South, and so many pictures.
And Europe is calling, and I will be there soon.
More adventures.
haven't really decided what to do with this blog. There is too much to say about the South, and so many pictures.
And Europe is calling, and I will be there soon.
More adventures.
dimanche, janvier 01, 2006
So here's the deal...
For the seven of you that actually read this...
On Thursday, 4 days from now, I am leaving Canada and heading to the Falkland Islands. Those would be the ones just east of the bottom of Argentina. They are pretty far away from everything I am familiar with, although I have it on reliable authority that they import a hell of a lot of good beer, and the prospect of actually being there in a week is scary and exciting and enormous.
I will be working on a small yacht called The Golden Fleece which will be heading to the South Sandwich Islands (just get the damn atlas out already)for a five week trip chartered by National Geographic. After that-provided I haven't died of seasickness-a trip to the island of South Georgia (I wasn't kidding about the atlas) for another five weeks.
The plans following ten weeks of sailing are a bit up in the air, they depend on sailing work and weather and my sanity, but I am planning to be in the UK and France by early May.
I haven't taken leave of my senses, nor am I going into this blindly. I am as aware of the risks and challenges as I can possibly be, short of actually experiencing them- and I will be doing that soon enough. I am well aware that this is not perhaps the most career forwarding plan I could have taken, and that it is dangerous. But I am only 23, the grad school and work plans have been shelved, not dropped. And I survived a year in the Middle East where people kept blowing stuff up- elephant seals, while a nuisance sometimes, have not yet shown a predilection for suicide bombings.
I know that my choice of location/occupation for the next few months is not mainstream, but instead of asking me if I am out of my mind, how about smiling and saying, "That's amazing, what an adventure".
Being that I am neurotic enough for everyone I know, let's not focus on the negative, just wish me luck.
And if you want a damn post card, you better send me your address.
On Thursday, 4 days from now, I am leaving Canada and heading to the Falkland Islands. Those would be the ones just east of the bottom of Argentina. They are pretty far away from everything I am familiar with, although I have it on reliable authority that they import a hell of a lot of good beer, and the prospect of actually being there in a week is scary and exciting and enormous.
I will be working on a small yacht called The Golden Fleece which will be heading to the South Sandwich Islands (just get the damn atlas out already)for a five week trip chartered by National Geographic. After that-provided I haven't died of seasickness-a trip to the island of South Georgia (I wasn't kidding about the atlas) for another five weeks.
The plans following ten weeks of sailing are a bit up in the air, they depend on sailing work and weather and my sanity, but I am planning to be in the UK and France by early May.
I haven't taken leave of my senses, nor am I going into this blindly. I am as aware of the risks and challenges as I can possibly be, short of actually experiencing them- and I will be doing that soon enough. I am well aware that this is not perhaps the most career forwarding plan I could have taken, and that it is dangerous. But I am only 23, the grad school and work plans have been shelved, not dropped. And I survived a year in the Middle East where people kept blowing stuff up- elephant seals, while a nuisance sometimes, have not yet shown a predilection for suicide bombings.
I know that my choice of location/occupation for the next few months is not mainstream, but instead of asking me if I am out of my mind, how about smiling and saying, "That's amazing, what an adventure".
Being that I am neurotic enough for everyone I know, let's not focus on the negative, just wish me luck.
And if you want a damn post card, you better send me your address.
dimanche, décembre 25, 2005
today please...
have a wonderful day. Whatever you choose to celebrate.
Even if you've got nothing-celebrate vicariously, through me, because I finished the moehair monstrosity. And it doesn't look half bad.
As usual I have nothing profound to relate, I just hope that whoever reads this is surrounded by people who love them, lots of food and wine, and music.
Even if you've got nothing-celebrate vicariously, through me, because I finished the moehair monstrosity. And it doesn't look half bad.
As usual I have nothing profound to relate, I just hope that whoever reads this is surrounded by people who love them, lots of food and wine, and music.
mercredi, décembre 21, 2005
ethics
la famille was out to dinner on Sunday.
A friend of mine, and the daughter of the family who were feeding us, is working on her PhD. She's doing something related to business ethics.
She taught her first university course this past semester and was regaling us with anecdotes of university scholarship.
The best one concerned plagiarism.
She had a student lift his entire term paper from the internet. Which is not actually that funny.
Except that the course was on ethics!
A friend of mine, and the daughter of the family who were feeding us, is working on her PhD. She's doing something related to business ethics.
She taught her first university course this past semester and was regaling us with anecdotes of university scholarship.
The best one concerned plagiarism.
She had a student lift his entire term paper from the internet. Which is not actually that funny.
Except that the course was on ethics!
mercredi, décembre 14, 2005
poetry-life-poetry
(with great thanks à János...such a necessary reminder right now.)
"...Ah poems amount to so little when you write them too early in life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming: to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for someone else-); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that’s rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of woman screaming in labour, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
"...Ah poems amount to so little when you write them too early in life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough)- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gestures which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming: to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn’t pick it up (it was a joy meant for someone else-); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and difficult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that’s rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars,- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of woman screaming in labour, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories. You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."
lundi, décembre 12, 2005
brief joys
-painting clay penguins
-Tracy Chapman singing "Never Yours"
-flying down a rolling hill, half blinded by late afternoon sun, the wind in my face and the snow sizzling under my skis
-sleep. Long, uninterrupted, sleep.
-watching the sun inch over the mountains across the lake, the golden wash of light spreading over the valley...
-Tracy Chapman singing "Never Yours"
-flying down a rolling hill, half blinded by late afternoon sun, the wind in my face and the snow sizzling under my skis
-sleep. Long, uninterrupted, sleep.
-watching the sun inch over the mountains across the lake, the golden wash of light spreading over the valley...
S'abonner à :
Messages (Atom)