Friday, July 30, 2010

Infested

That's the right word.

How is it that I can have such a day of freedom and shininess... when my whole being laughs at the notion of disconnectedness...
And then turn round, and fall over like a card house?

You know, I just can't not cuss about this:
Fuck.

... Don't worry. I have a super great story about last night to tell when I'm not feeling so virulent.
I just have to spit this out now and go to bed.

I'm housesitting for a few weeks. Bizzzy tired, thrumming with doubt tonight, I came back to a house full of ants. As if my snozz-faced brain sent out a message to its minions: "Let's rip it up."

I don't have a problem with ants. But thronging all over the kitchen counters? Cruising over my toothbrush? C'mon. A perfect visual image for the infestation in my head- swarming mob of hungry critters, looking for crumbs to hold above their heads. And yup, that was me, walking around today dragging humiliation like a moldy apple seed.

...

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Spastic torpedo

My arms are a bit stiff this morning. Ran into some jagged waves in the kayak yesterday - steely, blue-back, broken-glass waves. I'm still fresh at this, but getting stronger. I felt like I was riding a spastic torpedo. A spastic torpedo in slow motion. It was an amazing feeling to be my own power, to be playfully roughened up, and roughly muscle myself through it. Whooping and wobbly and wet! And almost dauntless.

Yessir, yesterday was damn fine. I don't think I've ever had so many people wish me a happy birthday, and for it to be such a given that a happy day I would have, all wishes aside.
Clung starfish-style to some sunny rocks for a good while in the morning. Then had a great talk with my bosom friend (yes, it's a nerdy A of GG reference) on phone in hammock. Decided to skip the hike because hell, my legs didn't feel like it, and went out on Bike instead. Ended up at my ceremony meadow, dozed off, and then ate cherries. Kayaked with my sister who brought me flowers. Then dinner with fam, and a coconut cake with -YES- chocolate icing and (hurray!) a GOOD sleep.

These are 2 deer (pic by ma) of the 5 that seem to live with us. The baby is growing fast. The bigger pretty girl is so gentle and brave, she'll eat right out of my hand, even when it's right beside my face. She nuzzled my cheek the other day. Had such a lovely wet nose, bristly chin... and that hot horse-breath that is so oddly humbling.

I have big plans for this year and ever after. Just wait. Torpedo!

...




Day 1 of Year 29


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Meanie junkie

Oh-kay. It's my birthday-eve, and I'm floating on that lilypad of 'maybe-something-special-will-happen'-ness. I had lots of good birthdays growing up. Lots while camping, that kind of thing. But in recent years I haven't done much about it - usually feel kinda sad on my b-day. Not 'poor me, I didn't get any good presents' but 'what the fuck is all this about?' It's been too much of an invitation to get into existential angst.
Tomorrow I want to give myself a nice birthday present. I've been thinking about it. Here's what: I'm going to give myself a day without mean-talking myself. I'm just going to tell my bitches to get lost, come back next day to do what they will, but just give me one day off.

I'm gonna take a solo hike, nice and slow. And then go for a sunset-kayak. Sounds good, huh?

We'll see how it goes. It will be an all-round challenge.

Then, when I've landed soundly in my 29th year, I am gonna try the next stage of this CBT stuff. (I've been trying to build my awareness of how many times a day I start poking at my weak self. Just to be conscious enough to say, "Oh, I'm doing it again." Interrupt the pattern.)
Next step, if I'm ready, is to relegate the mean-talk to specific time intervals during the day. Say, 10 minutes before 10am, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm and 10pm or something. Can't let myself go into mean-talk unless it's mean-talk-time. And if I miss mean-talk-time, too bad. Have to wait til next mean-talk-time.
This sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it comes from an indisputably trustworthy source. Anyhow, I like stuff that sounds crazy.

Whoa man, can I really go cold-turkey all day tomorrow? H.B.T. Me!

...

Monday, July 26, 2010

Pre-Arranged Marriage

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a pre-arranged marriage. And because I'm a basically good woman, I try to have faith that one day I'll fall in love.

I was walking this evening, in a naturey place, a naturey-peopley-place, and having good alone time. Sat on a railing of a little bridge for a while because I saw something suspicious, and I decided to wait and see if I could see the suspect again. And I did! It was a beaver. A real big feller, building a nice, sound dam. People don't seem to notice this stuff much. Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't see beavers everyday. But it was a great moment. It made me really happy.

Later on that solo walk, I was thinking about unrequited love and love you can't requite. I've been snaggled up in these tricky situations too many times. Actually, I think all of my relationships were with people who loved me too much or who didn't love me enough... (or at all?) I know that's no great insight. Most people would probably say, 'Me too.' I think.
It's an awful thing to like someone so, so, well, but not be able to fall in love. (You know, I think brains and hearts should match like socks and shoes. Am I wearing wooly workmen socks in patent heels?)

I tend to fall off the wrong cliffs. The ones with the jagged rocks at the bottom. And then stay frozen in place, on the edge, when there's nothing but soft grass and springey shrubbery down below. Mixing too many metaphors today. I'm not really trying to write about love with men. Relationships are now just rumoured islands in the South Pacific, and I'm on an Atlantic barge. The pre-arranged marriage is with my self, my body. My mind can think kind and conciliatory thoughts. I know this corporeal home is a good one. But my heart aches with the inability to love it. This is the hardest thing. I catch myself, a thousand times a day, feeling scornful and mean towards my body, and when I do, I try to redirect, try to check myself. But when will I wake up in the morning and not feel sad about the marriage, tinged with disgust, trapped?

A woman who is forced into marriage with an icky slob will really dislike those who say the icky slob is a great person. Those who admire the icky slob, and seek out his company, she'll deeply scorn. She'd much rather be around people who agree that the icky slob is, in fact, beyond repugnance. I guess that analogy might be a little extreme, but maybe that's why my heart has been troublingly unresponsive towards the adoring ones.

Experiencing sound oddly today. Keep having to stop and listen carefully, because I think I hear singing. But it's just mechanical noise. All day like that, in different places. I've written a whole bunch of songs this week. I wish I'd written them down. Guess that means I didn't write them. It's such a struggle to pull things out of the abstract imaginary and make them tangible reality sometimes. Just imagine how much *fantasic* artwork has happened out there, that didn't get hauled over into our sharing-realm. Maybe others, like me, are often too content to just watch the silver fish in the stream... and the fishing rod and net just sit there.

...

Saturday, July 24, 2010

For J.K.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
a perfect line ruined by insincere overuse and glibly chiming abuse.

Woke early again, wishing that I could sleep somewhere else. Not in a different bed, but in a different head. Too many sour dreams and restless legs that kept me tossing and twisting in my sheets, sleep aids and all.

Whether from dreams or an accumulation of city-burdens, I came to the surface this morning heavily, with a weight of shame. I went out to the end of the yard, to a bench by the water, to wait for the sun and memorize a poem.

...Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

I wanted to replace my thoughts with Keats'. But his words, slowly, slowly spoken in the hush of morning, did not reject but soothed them. They may not hold against the clamour of life's artifice tomorrow, and what I write now may not hold against the cynic's thoughts that later will fight me. But as long as I am outside and the sun is larger than my self-small mind, I will be full with these words.

Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

....

Friday, July 23, 2010

Who is Your Enemy?

If I scan my life for happy memories, a vast number of them are simply of beautiful days spent outside. Lots are about laughing (or deeply sharing) with my siblings, my friends, my folks, sometimes strangers. Lots are of being alone. Many, many, are of playing, writing, or listening to music.
Do I have to place them in an order? No, I can't. They're just different hues of my happiness. I worry, maybe unnecessarily, about another winter coming. Winter is always hard for me. I know it's possible for it not to be so hard, if I'm incredibly connected to some kind of life-line. But... well, I feel such a kind of grief at the end of summer. This is a stupid analogy, but it's like a lover withdrawing, growing distant. Now it's mid-July, my favourite month of the year and my birth-month. I feel intimate with the Outside - so much that it feels stupid to call it the Outside. It's really the Inside. Year after year, I miss much more of it than I can stand. So when I see summer begin to die, I just - feel bereft somehow.

Our winters aren't so bad. People survive them. Do I deserve to let myself dream about spending my winters somewhere warm and continuously bright? Spend more of my time as a human without walls around me? What a mean old nag, guilt, always ragging on people who dare to want more happiness. (Guilt = it's a cop out. Winter is the necessary balance to summer, just as sorrow balances joy. Leaving winter is a means of running away.)

Who is your enemy? Mind is your enemy. No one and nothing can harm you more than your own mind. Who is your friend? Mind is your friend. No one and nothing can help you more than your own mind. So said Buddha.

It's so true. I am so afraid of my mind sometimes. That's what holds me back. What if I go to the tropics for 3 months, alone. What if my big bad scary mind beats me up?

...Can I learn to rival it with big bad joyful mind?

.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

And the answer is...

...Yes.

My orchid bloomed. The orchid that has never bloomed since its first days out of the hot house. I watched its buds getting large and full, hoping they would not wilt again on the stem.

Today, this flower unfolded, just like that, out of nowhere.

It was a long day and my eyelids are already half-closed, so I won't write anything more now. But this orchid gave me my answer today.

(I'll tell you the questions tomorrow.)
.....

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Hull

In Deep Bay there is a ship wreck. She's called Sid Sirocca. I wonder what happened to Sid.

I was listening to music on my way home today. I set my player to random, and it chose the perfect music for me. It often does this if I know what kind of music I want to hear. When I reached the beach, it played me this:

Prokofiev's "the fiery angel"
Grieg's "aese's death" and some
Radiohead, Bach, Iron and Wine and Charlie Haden.

I don't know how it does this. It could have played thrashy pop or pixie punk or worst of all, jazz. How did it know?

Big ravens on the beach gave me eyes, and the clouding skies were appropriate and lovely. I might have just b-lined for home if the music didn't slow me down. Music makes me do things. Makes me walk with waving arms along a narrow log, like an acrobat, tiptoeing to Prokofiev. Crouch down at eye level with geese because some cruel woodwinds pushed me down onto the rocks. Stare moonily at the shipwreck looking for Grieg.

I always was a bit of a romantic. I'm not talking about valentine's day romance. I mean, like, the
Romantic era. I can't really speak to visual art. I don't know anything about art history. But I know enough about poetry and music to know that I'm a sucker for it.

I'm into John Keats again. I like to read poetry when my brain is going glug-glug like a dishwasher with too many dirty pots and thoughts.

I'm feeling a bit heavy with the album, and caught between 2 philosophies -

1.) This is just a snapshot. The product is of little value compared to the process. Move on, accept the outcome of this process. Trust that the others are right about the song, and that this is just about insecurities and attachments.
2.) Settling for this 'outcome' is a cop-out. It would be easier to just send the album as-is to get mastered and have it all done by end of summer. But then this recording will represent a song that I don't really feel is mine. Can I live with that?

Curious side-effect of mental-grappling and doubts: blame lands on the body. Man, it's hard to re-program the brain when one thing triggers another which triggers another. But there's no sense getting discouraged.

I'm going to read poetry in bed.

...
...

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Costumes & Variations

Sunday was our final day of mixing. There was the kind of stretched-rubber-band energy that comes with a deadline. I am really quite happy with 9 of the 11 songs. The 10th I'd give an 80%, the 11th... well, I feel 50/50 that's it's either deadly good or deadly bad.

I was able to speak my mind a bit, so that was good. They listened. Problem is that the 50/50 song either goes on the record as-is, or I scrape together some more money, book more studio time in September, re-record it... with non-guaranteed results.

This is the hardest thing about collaboration for me: telling the others that you're not as thrilled as they are. Damn, that's hard.

It's just a song. But how will it hang on me? Will it drape nicely? Will it dissolve into my skin? Maybe it will fall right off. It's one of my favourite songs- and maybe everyone will love its new sound. Not me though.

Fuck!

Tired and thinking about costumes. I don't want to wear so many costumes anymore.

Monday, July 19, 2010

.......

Looking, lost,
and half-way found
I lie, and drift
in shapeless sound

I lie, I sleep
I lie, I wait
I ache, I lie
I sleep, I wait

A fledgling
still awaiting flight
spins out its voice
into the night

This rock, my bed,
is etched, embossed
This branch suspends
a veil of moss

The moss, it drips
with evening air-
The sea, its mist
has settled there

And still I lie
I lie, I wait
I ache, I lie
and still, I wait

Then darkness closes
down all thought
my dreams in thickets
deeply caught
my dreams in thickets
deeply caught

......

Rogue and I take to the seas

Kayaked with my sister today. Clumsy beginners, paddling full out with glee. 2 shiny heads popped out of the water and watched us for a heartbeat. We said Come Back Seals! but they didn't hear us. Maybe they followed us underwater. Came home with limp arms, wet everything, burnt noses. Ate carrot-cake (!) and were a pair of hams.
My sister is one of my favourite people, ever. I used to carry her about, and she was the slyest little blonde monster, fiendish and sensitive and pretty as a starfish. It's her birthday in 2 hours. Happy Birthday, la mia bella fioraia.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

BIKE


This beautiful green bicycle and I were meant to be together. I haven't told my brother (the owner) yet.

Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon and early evening riding Bike, and as the day wore on, Bike seemed to became more responsive. The hills were less threatening and the bumps less jarring. Brakes slowed us down at beautiful spots quite naturally, without effort. I'll have to explain to my brother that to this lovely green machine, I am… I think I am… a bike whisperer.

I love Bike! We went through a forest path that was sun-drenched-luminous and vibrating with huge and tiny life. The air, though invisible, was dark green and tasted like newness. Then there was a long road without cars that led to a barnacle beach. And then another road that I'd never noticed before - it led straight through woods. On my city days, I would never imagine that such roads still exist. A battered stretch of concrete sneaking through rainforest? Fairy-tales. But there it was, and it took me to a high, rocky coastline. I took a snapshot but it's only a little ghost of the scene. I just… I don't know. No sense trying to describe it. There are little seeds that float in the air. These seeds go into you and explode gently in your throat; they are filled with creation and joy which waft up into your brain and sink into your heart. And there isn't anything else that you could ever want or need.

Bike busted a shoe on way home. One too many bumpy dirt-paths. But I was in a meadow, and was ready to walk anyhow - so I took him home the slow way.

I've always kept journals; when I was a kid my entries from the summer time always ended like this: "IT WAS AN AWESOME DAY!!!!!!"

I'm 8 years old again.

........

Saturday, July 17, 2010

... one more thing...



http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/search.aspx

I love this site because you can find descriptions for an amazing array of different birds, complete with audio recordings. You can even listen to several different birdsongs at once, if you want to emulate a forest soundscape or make your cat crazy.

I would like to recognize the voices of more birds. I had a dream last night that I was somewhere very dark and I was very afraid, and all of sudden the frightening silence was broken by birdsong. One little voice was joined by dozens and I knew day was coming.

(btw: my mom took this amazing photo.)

Pros and Cons

I'm about to go for another bike ride. This new activity opens up the island for me in such a fantastic way. It means that I don't have to use my car at all to access the other side, nor do I have to spend 3 hours each way walking to get to a beach I want to visit or a trailhead.

I'm really grateful today for having so much energy and being able to enjoy time outside again.
I don't want to dwell on dark memories, but it's really important for me to remember all of the 'pros and cons' from the peak of my anorexia.
Chilled to the core at all times. Reptilian, practically. A hot drink would flush heat through my whole body for 5 minutes, then dissipate. I wore toe warmers under 3 layers of winter socks and still regularly lost all feeling in my toes. My cheeks and neck were covered in thick fuzzy down that stood on end to keep me warm. I couldn't sit on a hard chair or get into a bathtub because it was so painful for my tailbone and spine. I forgot things almost immediately. I had no creative thought. I was exhausted by climbing a staircase. I forgot how to walk properly, my muscles seemed to jerk my legs forward in a funny way. My ears were always blocked. My feet were always blue. My lips had no fat to support them and I looked years older. I felt completely asexual and alien. My hair was thinning. My digestion stopped working. I had to take naps wrapped in blankets and with a hot water bottle on my chest many times a day. I couldn't sleep at night because the body prioritizes eating over sleep, and I tossed in an agony of hunger and nightmares. My muscles were wasting, and even getting out of the car was hard. I couldn't stand and sing anymore. I was faint and foggy and had chest pains that really scared me. Leg cramps, headaches, terrible terrible endless thirst, paranoia, shame, desperation, and fear of death. Always the constant cruel circulating voice of my disease. That is the short version of a very long list of cons.

These things are gone now. I'm going out to ride my bike. I have a very long list of pros for my remission, my new state of health. The main con is that I am embarrassed and often humiliated by having gained so much weight. I ate enough to feed a continent to put on my 40 or 50 lbs of healthy life-giving flesh. I feel terribly vulnerable out there in the world. Certain that everyone is thinking, "Well, yes, you needed to gain some weight, but you've overdone it." I feel encased in a giant marshmallow. But this is my body, my temporary home, a dwelling that I am so grateful to have. It is getting healthier by the day and I know on some level that it is not ugly. Not grotesque. Not repulsive. Not off-putting. This really is daily work... mental pathways do not get changed by going down them again and again. I'm bushwacking, carving new paths. It's exciting and exhausting.

This is the week of legs. Short skirts and lots of sunshine. Legs, my most-maligned body parts, most hidden and most blamed, are seeing the light! Come on legs, we're going outside. I am so so so grateful for you, and I am going to learn to find you beautiful one of these days.

..........

Friday, July 16, 2010

Henry


Taking the bus is an adventure, anyone will tell you. Today on my adventure I met an interesting man.

I was sitting beside a blue-collar Bowenite and we were having a 'Nice to meet you,' kind of chat. Father of 2, daily commuter, etc. To our left was this large and mysterious looking man, a man I'll call Henry.
Henry was wearing a large ill-fitting blazer, a sloppy tie, an old white shirt. He was tanned, tall, gangly-limbed and had enormous bony spiders for hands. On his knees was a worn briefcase. He had taken off his knapsack, which he'd been wearing backwards, the old canvas hanging under his necktie like a tired little monkey. He looked deeply bored with life.

Henry was looking straight ahead one moment... and the next, he had a camera out - an old-fashioned automatic film camera - and was pointing it at my seatmate and I. *Snap!*
Then he put it away casually, and continued to look straight ahead. Blue-collar worker and I exchanged startled glances. Then the delightfulness of the situation took me over and I sat back to see what might happen. What ensued was a long and lively (and somewhat tense) discussion/argument between my seatmate and Henry about privacy and photojournalism and the appropriateness of taking pictures of people without permission. It was compelling entertainment for a bus ride. At some point, a silly urge overcame me and I whipped out my camera fast-draw style, and snapped it at Henry. As you can see, he took it rather calmly.

Later, when Henry had left the bus, blue-collar guy turned to me and said, "Well now, there's a unique mental profile."

Thanks, Henry, for a great morning bus adventure! I hope your unique mental profile does not cause you too much suffering in life. You look like a good man to me.

....

Bicycle!


Yesterday I rode a bike!!

This is my brother's bike; he lives in Toronto so I'm going to adopt it for a while. It has a bell and 3 gears and a rat-trap and is a beautiful emerald green.

I haven't sat on a bike for many years. As a kid I was always riding a bike, but I gave it up when I became a self-conscious teenager. Maybe it was because somebody once yelled out the window of his car, "Get your fat ass off the road." I was pretty plump in grades 8 and 9, and that self-image still sticks to me.

But yesterday, I got up on that bike and rode down my favourite windy road to the gorgeous beach at the end. It is a hilly, rolling road, with cliffs and thick forest on one side and the ocean on the other. Sweet fragrant shade alternating with shimmery bright sun. Blackberries slowly ripening in dense thickets; tall grass softening every surface.

It was totally silent except for eagles chirping their high whistling songs, and my own involuntary hoots of joy. My heart was whooshing, whooshing, humming, humming...

.....

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Ode to Patrick O'Brien?

This is not a relationship
this is a relationboat
it has rust along its stern
it can barely stay afloat

There is no mast, no rope or sails
No crew of men to swab her down
There is no fore-deck, is no helm,
no figurehead in drenched blue gown

Relationboat is still misnamed,
it's really just a relationraft
no real class of any vessel
a relation-un-seaworthy-craft

A few more lines tacked themselves to my verse from yesterday. I'm not sure where it goes yet- my mind feels freshly scrubbed after an outdoor expedition, so if that's what it's got for me right now, i won't question it. Going back outside!

Camping but with glass and wood and appliances


I'm sitting on my bed, and this is what I'm looking at. I get really jealous of myself when I'm in the city. My bedroom has a door to the outside, and it's always open, so I feel like I'm inside a really really big and kingly tent. But I might take a tent down to the rocky bluffs at the end of the yard sometime when I want to feel less kingly.

I'm taking today off. Just feel maxed out after 3 days of going into town in a row. Maybe that's just a perfect healthy amount. I work 4 days a week so maybe it's even better if I do two on, one off, two on, two off.

I've realized that my goal of writing a song a day is perhaps a bit unrealistic. I wrote a verse of lyrics yesterday, but was too sleepy on the boatride home to finish. Just too burnt out from the city to write a tune. New goal: set realistic goals.

My Dad just invited me upstairs for 'second breakfast' on the deck. It's a bit of a strange arrangement, I admit. Living here with my folks, each of us kind of separate. One day I'll try to explain it. Anyhow, in my family, we like breakfasts. Especially in the summertime. Because berries and fruit are so good with anything. Yogourt. Crunchy cereal. Oatmeal. And toast is also so good with everything. Jam and nut butters. Eggs. Cheese. Coffee, tea. These are all breakfast foods!

Now, because I also really love to get up super early, I'm proposing the following schedule:

-5:00am - first breakfast (perhaps oatmeal) w/ caffeine
-9:00am - second breakfast (berries and some kind of dairy) w/ caffeine
-1:00pm - third breakfast (eggs and toast and watermelon and pineapple) w/ caffeine
-5:00pm - dinner (fourth breakfast disguised)
-9:00pm - bed!
.....

Am I really alone on wanting this?

.....

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Beach Opera


In this scene, the lady in blue is singing the famous aria, "Que Bella Spiaggia," to her sister. This is from Act I, Scene III, of Otto Giorni in Perfetto Maui.

Charles


This is Charlie. He's a morning-cuddler. A favourite trick of Charlie's is to wiggle between me and my laptop, and be irresistible. Right now I'm typing over his snoring body, and his chin is resting on my wrist. What a great cat.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

BTW

Speaking of Sasquatches, I think I figured out the origin.
Toddlers!
A 1-year-old was walking up and down the ferry deck. Like Godzilla. Like a Sasquatch. Arms out, hands grasping, feet crashing. He was even growling, with a drooly smile.

Picture it!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Never trust insects that are red

See those piano keys up top? Oh yeah, those. I play those things. But sometimes I forget!
Today I remembered that it's good for me to try to write a few bars at least every day. A few bars really is not pressure-full. It's when I try to string them together that it gets tricky.

So how's this: at least every other day, every day if I'm home, I'm gonna write a new core idea for a song. I like the one I wrote this evening. It has a LH pattern that modulates in minor 3rds - I really love that sound - but I have to be careful not to overuse it. It's fun to write songs with little rules made up on the spot... like, "Can't use my 5th or 3rd fingers, and I'm gonna change each chord by moving the bottom note up a minor third, the middle note up a minor second, and the top note down a major third" or something like that. Sometimes I play with rocks on the keys, and that's fun, because it imposes certain limitations. And also makes an awesome percussive clattery sound.

Aarh- am being molested by mosquito! This reminds me of my middle-of-the-night insect torment in Penticton. I know I digress, but listen to this... I was heading to bed, and noticed a big red bug on the wall. I didn't know what it was - he was kind of weird looking, bright red with transluscent wings. Anyways, I didn't have a glass to put him outside with, so I just said, "Okay bug, we're cool, right?" and went to bed. (I like to give bugs the benefit of the doubt unless I can identify them as things that will bite me.) I was later awakened by a scorching pain on my lip. I sat bolt upright, cussing and holding my mouth. "Mother fucker!" I looked in the mirror- big red welt on my upper lip. I knew who was responsible, and I was mad and bloodthirsty. I couldn't find him anywhere and almost gave up, pulled back my blankets, and there he was. Mean and red... and soon really dead. But can you believe that? Not only did he sting me after I had called a truce, but he stung me on my sleeping lip! Such a violation!

I've got ample energy to write this evening. Probably because I ate a whole bunch of smarties. Smarties are kind of my ultimate nostalgic childhood sweets. I'm not very stable with food still... it's hard to kick the part of me that thinks it might all be gone tomorrow. No more candy, no more calories, no more yummy treats. Just seaweed and broth and steamed greens. I kind of inhaled the smarties. And now I'm feeling baaaad and very plump. But I'm trying not to punish myself. I'm not a bad person. People eat smarties- and sometimes too many! Right?

My walk home was so good. I had some music today for the walk...
If I'm walking on cement, then I like to have a sound track. It's my best listening time - I can focus so so much better when I'm moving and looking around me. And I love how music colours the scenery. When I'm walking in the forest, though, I never listen to music. Unless it's soft enough to be able to hear all the forest and creature sounds, water, wind, etc. Today I listened to some Oliver Schroer solo violin and then, randomly, some Yann Tiersen piano. I love this. I love it because music becomes another forest sound - another green thing that is growing. And it feels like it's just music in my head that is happening because of what's around me. This is the best when I'm listening to, say, Brahms or Mozart, cause I feel like I'm living a few moments of a dead composer's life... You should try it. It's all very quiet, and then Mahler's 5th starts to play, and you're Mahler walking through the woods, hearing this melody and spinning it into a symphony right there, under the trees.

New commute

My bedroom has a view. My new bedroom. (Ah!) The view is this: Trees, flowers, sky (always with birds), ocean, and often deer. I left the house with a lunch and no makeup. I walked down a logging road through woods, across a pebbly beach, past the lagoon, and into the cove. The air was so delicious I had to stretch out my arms to try to catch more of it. I crossed paths with geese and goslings and a swan. I visited my ghostly little shipwreck on the beach. I lay in the sun and wind on the ferry and said ‘mmm, mmm.’ I listened to the finished half of my album on the bus. I thought this all morning: I am a lucky, lucky girl. When I leave work, I will do the whole thing in reverse. My commute – 4 hours a day wasted? Tell me a better way to spend my time.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Nerding out with Frederika van Ijsbeer


...actual name, White Bear. He's a boy bear in drag today.

I'm not really one for cutesy stuff, and I don't keep stuffed animals around. But bear is a regular dude, and best of all, he's a good sport.

I am having a hard time letting go of a few items of clothing that no longer fit. I missed them in the big closet clear-out I did a while back. Two black skirts and a white blouse. I found them today, and didn't know what to do. "Maybe I'll be able to wear these again," I thought.
Then Bear spoke up from the pile of moving-rubble in the corner.
"Those would fit me," he said.
"Way too big," I said.
"Let me try them then."
You can see the results - A pretty smashing ensemble on the little chap. The spandex skirt only fit on his head - hips were a bit too wide - but it made a nice pseudo-Dutch headress.

Together, we made a rule: if the clothes fit Bear, they shouldn't fit me.

I'm still feeling sad about it though. I'd never felt good in a skirt before... but when I was thin enough to wear these, I no longer felt much fear that anyone could think I was too lumpy and bulgy to show my legs. I felt like I had a little window there, to be beautiful, to be safe from cruel judgements. I'll never fit those skirts again unless I am sick again, so they have to go. But it's hard. It feels like I'm saying goodbye to my chance to be beautiful.

There. Said it. Beautiful like Ms. Frederika "white bear" van Ijsbeer.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

AJ

Oh, oh, I am so happy with my record. I yelped, like really yelped when I left the studio today. Oh, I am so grateful.

The heaviest part of all this, for me, is trying to absorb AJ's contribution (he's the producer/arranger) and commitment to this. All the way along, I expected that he would get fed up with me. I could feel sick with anxiety between meetings, sure that he had become disillusioned and was going to bail. If I sent him a long excited email about new ideas, he only ever responded with a couple of lines - suggestions or questions or criticism. I felt awful. (Poor guy- I've paid him, and now he's stuck with this project.) But he didn't leave. Even now, he is there at the studio from morning til late at night, obsessing over sounds and e.q.s and filters and whatnot.
I have never worked with somebody on something so long-term. It got gritty and angsty and exhausting. We had silence tug-of-wars over chord changes and lyrics and form. Sometimes I thought he hated my music and could barely stand me.
But he loves my music and is obsessing because he thinks it is brand new and important. Was so hard-lined and pushy because he didn't want me to let this go. He told me this. He told me things that hit me like a sack of gemstones. I can't really describe it. I never thought anyone (anyone who really 'knew' about music) would make so many sacrifices to help me. Or voluntarily stay by me. We weren't friends - he didn't have to do this. My throat gets so tight when I think about it. I can't believe that other people might notice this little stream that sometimes flows.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Hush moon

Tonight I can't stop thinking about a baby - a tiny soft animal that I am missing. He's my nephew, a 6-month old. He is all softness and perfection. His eyes are the most unveiled world I have ever looked into. But he is not my baby. I am just an Aunt, living far away, and he only knows me when I am there. But he knows everything, everything that I've forgotten. Is it just longing that stretches out the walls of my heart? I can't make him love me or want to see me. He is... a wild animal. Infancy is such a wild animal.

When I startle deer in the woods, they don't trust me, they don't stay. They don't see my heart beating in a pulpy tender glow. Music, art... don't see it either. The things that move me don't stop moving; I can't make anything come from me, or come back to me. I can only make what I can make. And give it away. But it means I get to love wherever and however I need to love. I can toss handfuls of it in every direction; it goes out and keeps going. Or I can let it circle around me in humming layers, and go floating out to somebody else. I'm so glad I just get to love. Even if it deepens my longing to be loved. I just am glad I get to love.

A 3rd Piece of Toast

How about that for the name of my 1st symphony?
Ah, such a loaded phrase. Filled with horror, hunger, yearning, denial, anger, sadness.

Last day in Kits - stayed up til laaaate packing up the last things, vacuuming, dusting. Slept a bit, got up early, loaded it all into the car, and now am finishing breakfast. I'm hungry this morning! And yes, I want a 3rd piece of toast.

Will she do it? Will she take that tempting slice out of the freezer? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion to this morning's battle of A's shouting voices.

Just a few scattered thoughts this morning before I run off:
I hate Kitsilano in the summer!
I love recording!
I am hungry!
I want to be on Bowen!
I am tired of traffic!
I want to make more music!

I want to invent an anorexia-vaccine and go around with loaded needles! Jab-jab.
They are everywhere. The North American race will perish - women will no longer be able to bear children. It's an epidemic.

And, on a more cheerful note:
I get to go to Bowen today!
I get to see an old friend today!
The album is sounding wicked!

There are great big ravens and eagles waiting for me to come listen to them croon and croak... don't want to keep them waiting.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

4 quarts each

For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about an animation that a friend of mine created years ago. I watched it over breakfast. It's so beautiful it makes my chest feel heavy and full. I think it's the longing for art. I get this feeling a lot- when I experience beautiful art, I fill up with longing. What is that?
I've spent 4 nights in a row in the city, and the city is now baked and crackling from sunshine. I don't like it! The sun makes me homesick for trees and cool air that smells of flowers and shade that smells of buds turning into berries.

Everything is contained in a space that can never be full, and here there are too many layers. One thing piled on top of another. Buildings and cars and concrete, people, noises, smells, thousands of thoughts and actions colliding and fusing. Filling up space as if the goal was to find its limit... I don't know. I like vibrancy. People are beautiful. I guess it was the contrast of being by the water a few nights ago, and hearing dawn come with the waking birds. Underneath all the screaming chaos there is still water lapping, ruffling wings. I miss these layers when there is so much piled on top.

Day 3 of mixing the album. Checking in at the studio at the end of each day. Those guys are working furiously. It's strange to be so removed from this part of it. Have I ever given up so much control in my life? I wonder if I should take back some of it. But no- this is collaboration. It means compromise. And it means surprises. The best part is showing up, being greeted with raw excitement. Listening to the work they've done, and sitting in that energy of sharing and anticipation. I'm not the only one who is vulnerable. Quarts of their blood is pulsing through the album's veins too. "What do you think?"
I think: Holy shit- is that me? Is that my song?
I'm unsettled - to hear myself through someone else's ears. Good. Very good.

black things with wings

I had an amazing moment on my walk to work this morning. I was rounding the point at Vanier park, and saw a couple of black bird-like shapes under a tree in the distance. Too big to be ravens or crows. I assumed they were statues- more 'outdoor art.' They didn't move until I was quite close, and then one of them ruffled a wing. Holy smokes! I derailed from my path and approached them slowly. Holy hot smoking potatoes! These birds were big as geese, black all over, and tough as nails. One of them was pulling apart a bit of pink fabric with its beak and talons. Probably the remains of a little girl it ate for breakfast. My headphones were still blaring Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. It was an apocalyptic moment.

I did some quick research, and now believe they were Great Black Hawks. Indigenous to South America, Mexico, and other such warm places. Vacationing up North? Nobody else seemed to notice them. Hallucinating again?

Too beautiful and mystifying for words. The excitement stayed with me all day.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

"It's slanted, it's slanted!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Up and then down; somebody put a boulder on the wrong side of the teeter-totter. Shit, it was me.
CBT saved the day; I got myself out of the house and into the night air. Good! I will do this again when I have a melt-down in the city. Walking, walking. Made a new song while I was out there and I feel better now. It's going to be a kind of vocal fugue, like Bach but without all the brilliance. heh heh. Wanna hear the chorus?

'Fire the jury
it's slanted, it's slanted
Fire the jury
it's slanted, it's slanted'

Profound, eh?
Here's my favourite verse:

'Visit your client in her cell
bring her something to read
find your key witnesses
and do your fucking job'

Don't worry- the melody will made it sound much more refined. (....?)

Going to bed now.

Frogs and Orchids

This morning I left without my new music mix. Argh! I remembered just in time, hesitated about going back (already was late) and then thought, Screw it. I want that music. This decision felt good.

When I walked into my apartment lobby, a little reward was waiting for me:
A beautiful purple orchid!
Beside it, a piece of paper that said, "I need a home with lots of sun. Please adopt me and care for me." I scooped it up, and took it upstairs. A present just for me!

The orchid is a beautiful creature, all right. But I have to say, the hydrangea is giving me the most pleasure these days. My walking route is completely lined with bursting hydrangea blooms, in all colours. They are as gorgeous as anything alive on this earth!

Now, about the frogs. I have always felt an affinity with frogs. Always felt that I was a frog, in a good disguise. People always seem to fall for this disguise, but I can't shake the fear that I will be seen for what I really am one of these days. (Princess when kissed turns into a Frog.)
I learned today that studies have been conducted on frogs to learn more about body image dismorphia. I wonder who thought of frogs? At any rate, scientists have discovered that people who suffer from severe body dismorphia (ie. anorexics) don't just emotionally see themselves inaccurately in the mirror... they actually hallucinate.
I would like to find this study, because I truly am curious about this. I also am beginning to fear for frogs round the world. Do they, too, suffer from a terrible body image? We use frogs as an icon of ugliness in our culture. Perhaps we've trampled all over their little hearts.
Hmm.

Frogs aside, I don't do very well with mirrors any more. I've covered up my big mirror (in my soon-to-be-ex-apartment) with pieces of paper so I can only see my neck and head. It's too much of a torment. I don't think I'm hallucinating, but I absolutely can't see myself as anything other than... (negative, negative, negative, etc.) Yet. Yet.
It's my last week in Kitsilano. It's a hot summer day. If I was on Bowen I would strip down, flake out in something scant and comfy. In my apartment, the sheer proximity to Kits beach and all the glossy bodies makes me too uncomfortable to change. Ribbit! Ribbit!

Monday, July 5, 2010

...for the morning

Felt at loose ends this evenings. Sacre du Printemps fixed that. Stravinsky makes me shudder in such a delicious way! It's so strange that this piece is already so old. So gritty. Carnal.

Have been wanting to make a fresh music mix for my morning walk. Done!
1. Villa-Lobos
2. Prokofiev
3. Whitacre
4. Beethoven
5. Reich
6. Scriabin
7. Glass
8. Bach
9. Tavener
10. Grieg
11. Schumann
12. Brahms
13. Telemann
14. Holst
15. Faure
16. Weiss

Yummm!

Looking for Evidence

It is time that I quit my full-time job as a prosecuting attorney. It's a 24/7 kind of job and I'm tired of it. What I really want is to work for the Defense.

My jury is probably fair enough. They keep handing over the same verdict, but who can blame them with such a weak Defense? From now on, I am on the hunt for evidence to acquit the accused. I will wear a white cowboy hat on my days off, and send my client progress reports and reassuring letters.

I will cross-examine for the next 50 years if necessary. But I hope it doesn't take that long- a vacation would be nice.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Healthy

A month or so ago, driving home from Penticton, saw the first of two bears that gave us a few minutes of their time in Manning Park. Does she not look like the picture of health?

I meant to say something about my hike the other day. I loved it. I remembered that I never feel better in my body than on a hike. And if I ever scorn the word 'healthy' again, please knock me over the head.

So grateful for healthy heart, healthy lungs, strong limbs, clear ears, sharp eyes. And everything else that I am a *fucking idiot* to ever take for granted.