bri in bangladesh

new blog

2009-01-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

check it out: http://gasoline-rainbows.blogspot.com/

knock me over, stone cold sober...

2008-03-11T10:14:00.000-06:00

I have been keeping a point form list of things to blog about, and it has reached the point where I have to do something about it. Actually it probably reached that point a little while ago, but I haven't found the inspiration to put it into words so this morning I will be going in a type of point form mode of things this week that made me want to blog...

Lemonade: I've been in a fresh squeezed lemonade mode lately. So far I have gone through a dozen lemons. Bethany has these really great tall straight glasses that are the perfect lemonade glasses and so the whole experience is really quite fantastic. I've been playing around with the portions and have found that its my favourite if you add a little SoCo and peach schnapps. I think that will be my new "signature drink". SO good.

Also, I had a craving yesterday for cake with apples in it. So I went to the store and bought the cheapest apples in the place, took a base cake/load recipe, added flavours and sugars I thought would go well and ended up with a pretty good maple vanilla apple cake with a vanilla brown sugar topping. Its nice and light because it doesn't have a lot of flavour, but sort of just... hints of a flavour. I like it.

In Bethany's desire to spraypaint anything she can get her hands on, we now have a new life brought into our magnetic board in the kitchen. Yesterday we spent some time putting all of her fridge magnet poetry words on it. Our friend Dave is the best fridge poet we have ever met....seriously, this guy is GOOD! He comes home from Africa next week and I hope he makes a good poem on our board when he visits.

Karen gave me a David Gray cd (among other things) for my birthday and I have been listening to it pretty much non-stop. It has helped that Beth is completely addicted to it too. Its a "best of" album and in the liner notes, Gray talks about each song and sort of gives a little story about it or how it was written or how it was recorded. I love the song "Be Mine" but he apparently hates it. He hasn't played it live for over 5 years now and says its one of his least favourites. I always think its so interesting to see what pieces artists like compared to what the general public loves.

In other news, my birds have filled the top birdhouse so full of sticks and grass and leaves that they are sticking out of every crack. AND, yesterday when I went out to put crumbs in the feeder, they stayed in the tree flitting around, watching me, until I was finished, which means they're getting used to me. I'm excited about them and seeing them building in my yard makes me ridiculously happy.

there is more to talk about I'm sure, but I did justice to none of the above topics so I will quit here.

girl, you make me want to feel...

2008-03-06T15:34:00.001-07:00

It is already Thursday?! How has the week gone by this fast? I don't know. What I do know is that this week has been crammed full of passionate ideas that I cannot put out of my head. I don't know if I can make sense of all these ideas here but I will try to direct you to them in ways that will help you decide about them for yourself...

First of all, I watched one of the BBC's 2006 Planet Earth series yesterday. It as stunning. I can't believe how incredible the world we live in can be. You can read about them here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/planetearth/) and then immediately be won over by them and buy the set here (http://www.amazon.com/Planet-Earth-Complete-BBC-DVD/dp/B000MRAAJW). I can't really say one thing about them that amazed me because it is all so awesome, but I saw the first dvd, and on it, there are these migration scenes of elephants/buffalo/impala, etc. in Africa's dry season. It was so stunning that I couldn't hardly speak or swallow or blink while I watched it. Check them out if you get the chance.

Last night I went to hear Cal DeWitt speak. I've heard great things about his books, though I haven't read them myself - something I plan to soon remedy. You can find them here (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_d/002-2184198-1622434?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Calvin+DeWitt&x=0&y=0) if you want to beat me to it. He spoke on climate change and presented much of the same evidence and disturbing trends we've seen in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" environmental documentary, but rather than using scare tactics and playing on fear for the future, he delivered his message with amazing hope and joy. I could write so much about what he said but there are two thoughts that have really been swirling around my mind today. First of all, he talked about how to react to these overwhelming, disturbing trends we are seeing in climate change. In one example, he said we should look to the Netherlands as an example. He said that the ocean is rising. This is a fact we all know. What did the Dutch do?? They raised the dikes. They didn't sit around discussing whether it was our fault or a cyclical process or even worse, ignore the fact that the water is rising....they raised the dikes. He went on to use this metaphor as a way to really break down the overwhelming paralysis we are seeing in the face of climate change in a very beautiful lecture. The way he ended it though, really got to me. After giving such a heavy topic a very light perspective, he said, "we will lose species, we will have millions of environmental refugees, we will cause irreparable damage to this world and will forever change to course of our climate, but it will still be a magnificent world and it will not lose its awesome beauty." (i don't want to say i'm quoting him directly, but he did say all these things and fairly close together! haha) He ended by challenging us to live joyfully and full of awe in the face of this changing earth and to mobilize our own lives to make the changes we need to slow this curve of destruction. And, to most importantly, bring the children into nature so that they will love it because, he said, legalism cannot make any headway against these trends. What we need is the passion that comes from defending something we desperately love.
If you have a chance to hear him speak, take it. Also, I think that if you are at all interested in the environment, creation, land, beauty, religion or humanity, you should set out to read his books.

Also, I received the Jan and Feb issues of the National Geographic in my mailbox today and one of them made short mention of these "emerging explorers-tomorrow's storytellers". They're Canadian (from Vancouver) and run this website community called 4REAL.com. Though I haven't had a significant amount of time to look at all their projects, these two guys Sol and Joshua have made a television series with the same name..."4REAL". The television show, 4REAL, is a series of half-hour episodes hosted by Sol Guy that takes celebrity guests (musicians, models, actors, etc.) on adventures around the world to connect with young leaders who, under extreme circumstances, are affecting real change on some of the most pressing issues of our time. It looks amazing and the way in which they are using art and culture to bring awareness to the triumphs of young leaders in these places is groundbreaking. Anyway, this week, the series airs on CTV. Everyone I know gets CTV and so if you have the chance, you should watch a few of these episode and let me know what you think...I will be watching them as well. The Alberta CTV schedule for these shows can be found at the top of the page here (http://www.4real.com/airschedule.asp). Each of the four episodes they're airing this week will be aired twice, so if you miss it once, check again the next showing.

This week is far from over and I can't wait to see what else will come up, but tonight I am going to a "travel talk" at the local Travel Shop about backpacking around Europe because, over the past few months, Iceland has gone from being a fairly non-existent place in my world to a place of interest to feeling as though it is in my very bloodstream and I am deciding that I have to do something about that.

on a final note...thanks for reading this far, I usually try and keep my blog posts shorter than this, but I also hope you follow some of those links. They're worth your while.

you were my sweetest downfall...

2008-03-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

I've been reading The Great Gatsby in bits lately and today I came across this line:

"In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."

I want to photograph that.

That exact idea..."moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars"

I have to go to work now, so I cannot write more, but I will soon. Probably tonight. I realize I've been neglecting a good blog post lately, so I will get on that.

amongst the crowd a heart will break and a heart will mend...

2008-03-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

I am here! Still here. Despite the craziness of this week and my lack of blogging, I am taking a breathing break to spend some time to put into words some jumbled thoughts from this week. At the moment, I am sitting on my bed, with every movement of my body sending out whiffs of beer. My co-worker put Big Brother on the TVs at work tonight and so, half of the last just of keiths red I poured ended up all over me because I was watching the veto competition instead of the tilt of the spout. great.

That being said, I am overwhelmed with exhaustion and so I will point form some things I have been thinking about and leave them to perhaps expound upon later...

- "You are not our little closet secret anymore" -Jamie at my photography opening

- Angus and Julia Stone are my new favourite musical artists

- What would your parents have been like had they led different lives?

- I really love poetry

- I think I could do great post graduate work in sociology on reality television shows

- 10 years is a very small block of time, but in the next ten years, my life will most likely be drastically changed

- post script to the one above...I want to be able to say that every 10 years

- Bodies need sleep

wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere...

2008-02-25T18:31:00.001-07:00

Things I've seen, experienced and appreciated on my 23 birthday...

Eating breakfast with an El Salvadorian family and happily surprising myself with my ability to understand exactly what they were talking about most of the time.

A kind taxi driver with a huge salt and pepper beard and a old corduroy cap advertising a backwoods grill in Oyster Bay.

A man taking his two young kids to the beach for the day on the train, sharing bits and bites snacks while telling them about all the different animals and birds that could be at the beach today.

An old native woman standing before a raging bonfire in the woods, grinning and waving at the train.

An elderly couple walking through airport security together holding hands. When the man went through the woman continued to walk beside him on the other side of the glass until he had found a spot to sit and wait for his flight. She put her hand against the window and said she loved him and to remember that the keys were in his pocket before he blew her a kiss and she walked back to the car.

A road sign that proudly announced "Welcome to Comox...Expect Deer on our Roads!"

Listening to Sufjan Stevens, Eddie Vedder and Broken Social Scene as I sped along tracks cut so narrowly through the coastal forest that evergreen branches reached out and ran along the glass.

Watching other people, people watch when they think no one else is looking.

....As I am not yet home, I'm sure I will have more but I may save them for my next post...

if you could be who you wanted all the time...

2008-02-20T12:42:00.004-07:00

I have been thinking about this blog for a while.

Joel has started a new chemistry blog and from what I've seen, is really enjoyable and suits him pretty well. Bethany has been talking about switching blog accounts for some time now because she is unhappy with xanga.
One of Jamie's recent posts (theblogthatismylife.blog.com/2700377/) talks about how she has stuck with her blog for a year now and what that has meant for her. The thing is, when I think about this blog it seems as though I have outgrown it. I started it a few days before I left for Bangladesh and it chronicles my experiences since then. I wasn't planning to continue it once I returned to Canada, but the habit sort of stuck and I love writing my thoughts to this medium. However, "bri in bangladesh" no longer seems to define me.

Reading The Catcher in the Rye today, I came across the passage I've written out in my previous post here today and it started to move something inside my mind that I think will take hold. That being said I've begun a new blog.

*quick disclaimer to bethany: I didn't do this because we joked about it last night, or because everyone else is doing it, or to take the thunder out of the unveiling of your new blog because I am very excited to see it. I just kind of felt like it was time. I know, suspicious timing, but time none-the-less. I hope you are not offended.*

I'm not sure I'm ready for a complete transition, so I've stuck with blogger and you will be able to access both this blog and my new one from now on through my profile: (http://www.blogger.com/profile/00534532930732802181)
I may put new posts up on both sites for a while to ease into the process of moving. My new blog is entitled "gasoline rainbows" (http://gasoline-rainbows.blogspot.com/).

I think "Bri in Bangladesh" was about the big things that test us, "gasoline rainbows" will continue exploring the small things that change us.

I know quite a few of you have been reading my journey thus far, I hope you'll follow me on.

---
On one more strange note, the number 2 has been following me today. This is my 202nd post on this blog, on the 20th of the 2nd month where I wait out the last few days of being 22.

when there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire...

2008-02-20T11:17:00.002-07:00

The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. They only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way - I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it."

- JD Salinger, "The Catcher in the Rye"

gonna shine up my boots gonna go into town, gonna scrape up $20, gonna throw it around...

2008-02-18T11:41:00.005-07:00

Things to cross my mind today...

I think Barack Obama would make an excellent president and I hope he is elected. American politics are so incredibly exciting right now. His "Yes We Can" speech sounds to me like our generation's "I Have A Dream". And though its not my country he's running for, it is amazing to think I am living in this moment in history.

I love baking and cooking. Those of you who have lived with me may not believe this but maybe its because I tend to eat 98% of anything great that I make before you ever even see it. In another life, knowing what I know now, I think I would have liked to go to culinary school. That being said, I'm a little unimpressed with the banana maple muffins I made today, so beth, you might just get some of those when you get home.

I'm not sure I'll never make it as the kind of photographer I'm hoping to be, but I'm pretty sure I'll one day make it as some kind of photographer.

I can't wait until spring comes and I can plant flowers and vegetables along the side of the house. One of my favorite things to do in life is to have my hands in soil and work in the dirt.

I need to quit eating these mediocre banana muffins or they will make me sick.

ROUND TWO...

On a walk around the farm today I came across these old greenhouses that were full of snow and pigeons and stuff stored away that was long forgotten. It made me remember how much I love old buildings. Not necessarily those historic brick ones (although I like them too) but the ones that have been abandoned and are left to weather the elements as they slowly dissolve back into the soil and wind and rain. I can spend hours wandering around old deserted farm yards back at home. There is something so compelling to me in combing through the places that once saw so much life.

I also spent some time talking with Cait tonight. We haven't talked in quite a while and since she doesn't have internet at home, our emailing has significantly dropped off. At first when she asked what was new, I didn't know what to say. Really, there was a lot "new" in my life since we last talked, but I didn't really know what to say. Eventually though, we got going and I love the way we can talk about nothing and everything all at the same time. I think thats what distinguishes friends you love now from the friends you will love your whole life. When you can spend an hour talking about nothing in particular and though you maybe don't know what specifically is going on in their lives, you know you're still on the same page. I love that. I also love that I know many of my "now" friends will become those "life" friends. It makes my heart calm to know that in a way, the amazing people I have surrounded myself with at this point in my life, will never really leave. I like that a lot.

Finally, after 22 years of despising lettuce as the world's worst vegetable (thats not true actually. I think I had that in Bangladesh, I just don't know what it was called) I have come around to it. Therefore, I christen this year (exactly one week before I turn 23) the year of lettuce as a symbolic representation of taking chances on things I had previously scorned. Not sure what that means yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

...more to come as the day goes on...maybe.

where do you go with your broken heart in tow...

2008-02-17T18:06:00.002-07:00

I came within inches of jumping in my car, driving down and surprising my sister and her family today, but in the end I stood outside my car, bags already in the back, keys in hand, and decided that I should stay for a number of reasons I just couldn't get out of my head. I'm disappointed I'm not there, but I've done some things today that made me feel better (well, not really feel better about not being there) but at least made me forget it for a while.

I woke up this morning with a quote in my head. I heard it years ago and love it, but for some reason this morning, it was just under the surface of every thought.

"I said in my heart, 'I am sick of four walls and a ceiling. I have need of the sky, I have business with the grass; I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling lone and high, And the slow clouds go by. I will get me away to the waters that glass the clouds as they pass. I will get me away to the woods." - Richard Hovey

So when I had decided that "getting me away to the woods" wouldn't mean taking off to the south for a few days, I put on my hiking shoes and struck out across the farm. I had never explored the second half of the farm and so I walked the width of it and then jumped the fence into the river valley woods. Edmonton's river valley is about 21 times larger that NYC's central park and I feel like I've seen very little of it. There are some great walking and bike paths but today I didn't feel like running into anyone on the trail. For a while I followed some snowshoe tracks until I came to an old, fenced off footbridge. I follows its support pillars down to the river bed where I wove in and out of mud, snow, trees and bushes. There was these two tiny little birds that followed me for about 30 minutes. Flitting from branch to branch ahead of me as if to show me the way. I've never thought of birds as being curious creatures, but these two seemed to really enjoy the entertainment of my plodding through their space. I followed the river (vaguely) until I ended up near Fort Edmonton and could hear the whizzing of cars along Fox Drive. I then made my way into Whitemud Park where there were about 50 kids tobogganing down the hill and I tried to watch them without looking creepy as I climbed the 100 steps to the top of the valley. When I made it all the way up, I realized the trail ran right along the road and, feeling the need to disconnect with the world of pavement and people, I plunged back down the hill towards the river again. Before I knew it, I had lost any trace of tracks or human activity. Eventually I came to a point where I had to climb up the face of this steep hill or turn back. By this time though, it would have been just as difficult to climb as it would have been to go back the way I'd come, so I strapped my camera to me as securely as I could and started up. For the next 45 minutes, I hugged that hill as closely as I could while I tried to find footholds in the knee deep snow. When I reached the halfway point I looked back down and realized that it had been much steeper than I had first imagined, but eventually I made it to the top where I leaned my back against the trees, panting and sweating with mud and snow all over my hands and face. And as I stood there catching my breath, I thought about how alive I felt and how much I love that moment where beauty and the supernatural and self awareness all collide.

I don't know exactly where I am going with this. Probably into the territory of indescribable, inarticulated experience, so I will stop here and simply say I intend to seek out that moment more often and hang on to it with everything I have inside me.

her violet sky will need to cry...

2008-02-13T16:48:00.004-07:00

Out of God's Hat
-Hafiz

The stars got poured into the sky
Out of a Magician's hat last night,
And all of them have fallen into my hair.
Some have even tangled my eyelashes
Into luminous, playful knots.

Wayfarer,
You are welcome to cut a radiant tress
That lays upon my shoulders.
Wrap it around your trembling heat and body
That craves divine comfort and warmth.

I am like a pitcher of milk
In the hands of a mother who loves you.

All of my contents now
Have been churned into dancing suns and moons.

Lean your sweet neck and mouth
Out of that dark nest where you hide,
I will pour effulgence into your mind.

Come spring
You can find me rolling in fields
That are exploding in
Holy battles

Of scents, of sounds - everything is
A brilliant colored nova on a stem.

Forest animals hear me laughing
And surrender their deepest instincts and fears,
They come charging into meadows
To lick my hands and face,

This makes me so happy,
I become so happy

That my rising wink turns into a magic baton.
When my soft-eyed creatures see that wonderful signal
We all burst into singing

And make strange and primal beautiful sounds!

My only regret in this work then becomes:

That your shyness keeps you from placing
Your starving body against God

And seeing the Beloved become so pleased
With your courage

That His belly begins to rock and rock,
Then more planets get to leap
Onto the welcome mat of existence
All because
Of your precious love.

The Friend has turned my verse into sacred pollen.
When a breeze comes by

Falcons and butterflies
And playful gangs of young angels
Mounted on emerald spears

Take flight from me like a great sandstorm
That can blind you to all but the Truth!

Dear one,
Even if you have no net to catch Venus

My music
Will circle this earth for hundreds of years
And fall like resplendent debris,
Holy seed, onto a fertile woman.

For Hafiz
Wants to help you laugh at your every
Desire.

Hafiz
Wants you to know

Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's
Arms

Is already

Perfect!

how can you stay outside, there's a beautiful mess inside...

2008-02-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

I had my first shift at work last night. I liked it and think once I get a few days under my belt, I'll be pretty happy there and good at what I do, but at the same time it sort of felt like I was starting another job that wasn't quite "me". I'm not sure I know exactly what it is I mean by that. I liked the people I'll be working with and everything, but at the same time, I didn't really feel like I connected with them. I know its only been one shift, but its one of those things that you can kind of just sense. I will get along with them and I'm sure we will all share some fun experiences and learn to be friends, but there isn't that something more. When I told Beth this, she said that maybe when I someday find a place that I really want to stay in, I'll also find more people who I connect with, who are like me, who think about things the same way I do. Thinking about that afterwards, I felt a lot more comfortable with settling into this new job...for a little while at least...because there is so much more just around the corner and before I know it, I will need to know and use the things I learn here to move me through the next step. And I'm so glad I have surrounded myself with people in my life who remind me of that. On that note, I want to finish this post with two things. The first one is from and email Karen sent me this week in response to me venting about my uncertainties. (Karen, I hope you don't mind me splashing your words across this page)

"This job is an excellent opportunity for this time in your life. And there will be times when working in the dirt will be suitable for your life. I know it sounds hokey, but there is something to be said about accepting ‘where you’re at’ and making the most of it and having faith that that is where you are supposed to be. I think you made a great choice, Bri Vos"

Also, somewhat unrelated but serving as the soundtrack to my mind today: "Far Far" by Yael Naim:

Far far, there's this little girl
she was praying for something to happen to her
everyday she writes words and more words
just to speak out the thoughts that keep floating inside
and she's strong when the dreams come cos' they
take her, cover her, they are all over
the reality looks far now, but don't go

how can you stay outside?
there's a beautiful mess inside
how can you stay outside?
there's a beautiful mess inside
oh oh oh oh

far far, there's this little girl
she was praying for something good to happen to her
from time to time there are colors and shapes
dazzling her eyes, tickling her hands
they invent her a new world with
oil skies and aquarel rivers
but don't you run away already
please don't go oh oh

how can you stay outside?
there's a beautiful mess inside
how an you stay outside?
there's a beautiful mess inside
take a deep breath and dive
there's a beautiful mess inside
how can you stay outside?
There's a beautiful mess
beautiful mess inside

oh beautiful, beautiful

far far there's this little girl
she was praying for something big to happen to her
every night she ears beautiful strange music
it's everywhere there's nowhere to hide
but if it fades she begs
"oh lord don't take it from me, don't take it yourselves"

i guess i'll have to give it birth
to give it birth
i guess, i guess, i guess i have to give it birth
i guess i have to, have to give it birth
there's a beautiful mess inside and it's everywhere

so shake it yourself now deep inside
deeper than you ever dared
deeper than you ever dared
there's a beautiful mess inside
beautiful mess inside

Please don't let me down this time, I've come a long way to just fold back into line...

2008-02-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend tonight about difficult past experiences and she said "If that was what it took, if that is what I had to go through to get to this point...I'd do it all again." I spent some time thinking about that and I decided that there is nothing else I'd rather be able to say 20 years from now than, "if all that was what I had to go through to get to this point, I'd do it all again". My friend Jamie said to me lately that she needs a certain amount of shit to go along with the good in order to really feel alive. I totally agree. I've come to the conclusion that much of the time, things are defined by what they are not. Order is defined by chaos, light defined by dark, peace defined by unrest and in the same way, beauty is defined tragedy. Everything is relative to everything and everyone else and everything has balance. And in 20 years, if I can say, that I would go through all of that life defining "shit" all over again if it meant getting to the place that I am at...I will have achieved more than I have ever imagined.

a long, long, long, long time ago...

2008-02-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

I spent almost this entire day convinced that it was Friday. It wasn't until about 3pm that I was finally told that it was actually Thursday. So I decided to make a list of what I am going to do tomorrow with this free day. Mailing letters, washing my car, eating a buffalo chicken Ceasar salad, maybe baking some banana chocolate cake...who knows what tomorrow will hold.

some things you do for money, some things you do for love...

2008-02-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that after a month of ridiculous job searching, I have finally become employed at a place that I think will suit me well...at least for a while (I refuse to plan my life more than 3 months in advance). I am the newest bartender at The Derrick Golf and Winter Club. It is the most exclusive and ridiculously fancy club in Edmonton. It costs a fortune to be a member and I'm hoping some of that fortune trickles down to me. It also takes a beautiful 7 minutes for me to drive from my house to the club where there is free parking for staff. Excellent.

In other news I am headed back to Blue Fish studio this afternoon. Yesterday was my first day of "working" there and though it was kind of an "all over the place" day, I think I can say with confidence that it was a positive experience. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

I am also going to The Mustard Seed tonight to help serve the evening meal because they had a shortage of people. I've been there before twice, but that was years ago and I was in an entirely different mind frame. I know Jamie loves that place so much, but I am a little nervous. There are some jobs that I just know I couldn't do. Like working with kids with disabilities or being a nurse in the maternity ward and I kind of feel like I could really love the Mustard Seed or I could be terribly frightened by it. I think maybe thats why I've stayed away from it despite many of my friends working there and loving it.

I have also decided that I want to become involved with the community league here. I think I will start by going to the winter festival held at the community centre this weekend.

I leave you with the Mountain Goats until next time...

"Going to Reykjavik"

i been drinking that coffee you sent me from thailand
i've been watching the lamps burn
i've been listening to the wind chime
i've been waiting my turn

and i'm coming to you
i am coming to you
i am coming to you

and i heated the milk until it boiled
and i drank it down
and i stepped outside
and i checked my reflection in the rain
there were voices on the wind
winter coming on in
and i made myself up again, brand new

and i am broken and i am tired
and i'm coming to you

Anything to make you smile...

2008-02-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

As another week of lots of job searching and not a lot of working passes, I have decided to dedicate this blog to the merits of the peanut butter and jam sandwich.

First of all, my roommate and I uncovered a large jar of natural peanut butter in one of our cupboards about a week ago. The problem with natural peanut butter is that when its been sitting for as long as this one has, it tends to separate. Big time. To the point that it can't even be stirred. Well, Beth had a brainwave idea to lay it on its side and roll it every few hours. Now, a week later, its pretty much completely mixed. brilliant.

So I've taken to eating a few peanut butter and jam sandwiches a day for the following reasons.

#1: Its quick but doesn't give that fast/processed food feel

#2: Between the bread and the peanut butter, you feel pretty full, or at least like you've put something in your stomach

#3: The jam (my mom's homemade tri-berry at the moment), fulfills all those sweet cravings but the peanut butter cuts it just enough that it still feels substantial.

#4: Really high nutritional value...altogether it's an excellent source of protein, vitamins B,C and E, and fiber. As well as containing magnesium, manganese, niacin, iron and antioxidants. (yes, I've done my research)

#5: its cheap. A mysteriously free incredibly large volume of peanut butter, mom's jam and run of the mill whole wheat bread. All it all, a couple of cents a sandwich.

and...

#6: Once you have the perfect ratio of pb to j, it can be incredibly tasty. And let me tell you, I have the PERFECT ratio.

remix to ignition...

2008-02-01T21:20:00.000-07:00

Friday night at the Farmhouse:

9:20pm watching a movie...breaking for a snack.

beth: "Oh! we should have that "gypsy love" tea....oh wait, its caffinated. OH! never mind its Friday night! Partaaay!"

young soul in a very strange world...

2008-02-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

I watched part of Mary Poppins tonight by mistake. We set out to watch Jerry Maguire, but inside was definitely NOT Jerry Maguire. However, I did come away with this gem...

"A chimney sweep's world is between the pavement and the stars"

somewhere to fall apart...

2008-02-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

I have been dying to get outside to take some photos. Lately I just can't come up with anything new or interesting to shoot inside. The catch is that this week's average temperature has been hovering around -40C. Not good for the camera and definitely not good for me. I woke up this morning longing to go out and shoot, and though the temperature is only -27C today because it's snowing, I'm still not going to get any substantial time outside to shoot. So I took a look at the 15-day accuweather forecast which told me not to expect anything much warmer in the next two weeks. Tomorrow is my key day. Before the wind starts up in the late afternoon, we might make it to -15. I'm going to grasp it with both hands, seems how it will dip back between -28 and -42C for the following 13 days.
The best part of this kind of weather is the way in which everyone becomes friends. You see someone stuck in a snowdrift on the side of the street and you get out to help them. You walk into a store and find everyone chatty and friendly because you have all braved the conditions together to make it to buy bread in one piece so of course you will chat about the price of bananas with a 42 year old mother of 3. Everyone is invigorated with the ridiculousness of surviving in this weather and with that comes the need for community, for shared experience.

The cold equalizes.

Si pudiera ser tu heroe...

2008-01-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

I watched a documentary last night on CBC, called "Run For Your Life". A journalist and camera crew are following a group of Honduran men who have left their towns and families to illegally make the way to the north in search of money to send back home. I know you hear about these things happening often and all, but this, this was something else for me. In 2005 I spent a month in a rural Honduran village. Pretty much everyone between the age of 16-30 were gone from the village - all of them made this trip to the north. While I was there, I got to be really close with two of the girls in the village - karla and jessenia - and the day before I left, jessenia's older sister (16 at the time) climbed into a truck with 15 young people from other villages and began the journey north. Watching this documentary, I just couldn't help thinking that Karla and Jessenia are going to be the same age as all these people who are running north. Its one thing to sort of know what they have to go through before the make it to the american border, but its something else to watch these guys climb on trains and run from gangs and police and live on nothing, all in the hope of something better.

I often think about getting back there. I wonder what i would find if I walked into that village again. Karla and Jessenia are both turning 16 this year. And last night, watching the documentary, I couldn't help but scan the faces of the other people on these trains, even though I know the years for filming it are probably way off with the ages of the girls, I still couldn't help looking to see if maybe I recognized one of them.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/runforyourlife/

Moods that take me and erase me...

2008-01-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

I find myself doing things or wanting to do things that I believe most other people would find....crazy or start to think I was a little unhinged.

There is a bit of a snow storm today and the wind is whipping the trees and snow and drifts around the yard and I have stood at my bedroom window staring out at it for a while this morning while I listened to the soundtrack from "Once. All of a sudden though, it wasn't enough for me to look at it. I needed to smell the storm and hear it and feel it and so I ripped open my window and let it hit me full in the face. I then opened my other window, the one without a screen and let the wind send snowflakes swirling through my room. They were cold and wild and lost as they melted against my skin and clung to my t-shirt. And I closed my eyes and listened to the music as I breathed in the storm.

There is nothing more powerful to me than wind and music and when they come together, I lose myself in them. Maybe that isn't the best choice of words...I think its more of a finding myself in something larger. But not simply as a piece of the puzzle, but impossibly dissolved into the bigger picture, permeating the whole.

My favourite quote for this week comes from the movie "Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium". Natalie Portman says "And now we wait." and Dustin Hoffman looks at her and says,

"No! We breathe, we pulse, we regenerate. Our hearts beat. Our minds create. Our souls ingest. Thirty seconds well used, is a lifetime!"

when i'm not myself...

2008-01-27T00:01:00.001-07:00

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." -Anais Nin

Can't you see it's in me, can't you see...

2008-01-26T11:37:00.000-07:00

I saw a few people last night that I haven't visited with in years. Its a bit strange and entertaining to see what it is exactly that they expect from you. I always find that I notice how much I've changed when I end up in a situation like this. When I talk with someone who hasn't been part of my life for a couple of years, its amazing to see all the ways I have changed and transformed and where I've come from. I was thinking about this this morning while I was organizing some of my books and I thought about how long it has been since I read some of them. Some of them I loved, some of them I own because I had to buy them for a class, but most of them have been sitting on my shelf since I read them once or twice a few years ago. I've decided to make a list to reread some of them and see what I think of them now that I am coming from a different place, thinking differently and seeing things in different ways. This list both encompasses those books I loved the first time around and those I connected with but didn't necessarily understand the first time through.

- A Complicated Kindness, Miriam Towes
- Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Wolfe
- Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
- Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
- The Diviners, Margaret Laurence
- Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
- Middlemarch, George Elliot
- Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller
- Sons and Lovers, DH Lawrence
- Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
- The Color Purple, Alice Walker
- The Alchemist, Paulo Coehlo
- Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
- A Happy Death, Albert Camus
- The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison

I'm excited to see whether I love them more, understand them better or just simply think about them differently. I will start today.

let me take you down, 'cause i'm going to strawberry fields...

2008-01-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

I learned a few things tonight:

Heath Ledger is dead at the age of 28. No one seems to know why, although rumours are flying.

Sir Edmund Hillary has also past. I watched part of the funeral on the news tonight and was impressed that Tenzing Norgay's son was asked to speak along with Hillary's son and the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Edmonton isn't really good at any kind of hockey this year...hm, that might get me beat up.

Sometimes its an offhand chance that makes all the difference.

Lots of people try to devote all their time and energy to things that they will forget 10 years from now, or even worse, remember it and live in the past for the rest of their lives.

A couple 1000 dollars at age 22 seems like the end of the world, but in the scope of real life, it is simply building experience and responsibility. Though, I'm still not sure I want any more of either at the moment.

between the bars...

2008-01-21T16:27:00.000-07:00

Job searching is one of my least favorite things to do in life. It just always remindes me that I don't like working. Well, at least not for someone else on an hourly wage. Mostly I hate job searching because you spend 1.5 hours on looking just right for the first impression, and the whole of the interview only takes 15 or less minutes. And most of that time is spent with the interviewer trying to judge whether you're good enough for them. And either they decide that yes, with a lot of work, you might be able to work out, or they tell you you're not good enough. Either way, it often feels like they're trying to justify why you're taking time out of their day to make them judge you....which only makes me wonder why exactly I am doing it too. And then I look at my bank account.

I think I could be really good at being independently wealthy.

mother mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom...

2008-01-16T17:04:00.000-07:00

I am listening to a copy of my incredibly talented friend, Darcel's debut concert. It was at the university a few years ago. I found it on my roommate's iPod this afternoon and that night came back to me so clearly. I sat at the ticket table near the entrance and when the concert started, I flipped my chair around and leaned it back against the table to listen with my eyes shut. I have only heard her sing once since then. Its moments like these, when I just want to go run and tell her that I KNOW what she needs to do with her life. She needs to go pursue her music because she is incredible and wonderful and has so much support. But I think she knows this, and yet, last I heard, she's still working 9-5 jobs, singing here and there less often than she should.
And as I thought about this, I laughed because, though I'm not any where Darcel's musical equivalent in photography, there have been moments, more and more frequently, that I am shooting something or working with photos or looking at photos and I think, THIS is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And still, this week finds me handing out resumes to work service jobs...which I enjoy, but maybe not for the rest of my life. I remember the first time I went from thinking that I had fun with photography to thinking that it was a part of me. I was borrowing a friend's camera as I didn't even have an SLR yet, to shoot a battle of the bands concert at the University. It was just for fun, but about the middle of the concert, I realized that when I held that camera up to my eye and saw things through its perspective, I became so focused. Everything became so much more intense - the colors, the sound the movement - and I felt like I was more alert and completely alive than I had ever been.

I can't think of a better reason to do this for the rest of my life.

However, I'm also realizing that this doesn't mean I can't have a good time serving beer and baked brie sandwiches until the rest of my life begins.

lightning running through my veins...

2008-01-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

favorite random moment from tonight...

Jamie saying "You know when you die and your life flashes before your eyes, this is one of those days that you don't really see".

I want so much to open your eyes...

2008-01-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I can't sleep. Not because I'm stressed out or because I hit a second wind. I just can't sleep. Tonight is one of those nights. Its past one in the morning, but I'm laying in my bed with my computer on my stomach watching old Scrubs episodes while I read poetry and look at photos. There is something very eerie about sitting in a dark room with only computer screen light. My skin looks strange and my hands look large.

Earlier tonight I cleaned off the window frames I pulled from the yard my grandma grew up on and hung them on my wall beside my torn blue jeans and straw hat. I like having that kind of history on my wall. Especially when it is so connected to my own. I wonder what those windows have seen. Weathered from hot southern alberta summers and wind, they must have also seen winters packed with snow. In my own 22 years, I've seen winters where the snow in the ditches was so deep and thick you could fall in over your head. But now, I'm more worried about getting snow over the top of my running shoes. Yes, since my grandma was born behind those windows, she has seen the world change dramatically: cultural revolutions, world wars, unbelievable information/communication advances, space exploration. And I've always wondered what I would be witness to. By the time I'm her age, will people be living on the moon? Will all the 1960's science fiction be reality? But while I was home this Christmas, it came to me. I think what I will be witness to, will be much closer to home than the Jetsons. I know I will be witness to the most drastic changes in the environment our world has ever seen. Already I've witnessed longer, hotter growing seasons and dryer winters. I think that all the advancements in technology and luxury that have so far removed us from our environment will crumble as our environment grows more and more aggressive in demanding our attention. I think that's a big part of my desire to travel. I'm afraid that one day, I will be telling the next generation about when there were rainforests and when you could grow crops in southern alberta and play hockey on the ice in the ditches in winter and when ice picks were needed to climb in the Himalayas. I want to experience it before its gone so that if we wait too long to take global action to preserve our environment and allow it to be irreversibly changed/damaged, I will have seen it, experienced it, photographed it, written about it and in some small way it will be able to live on through me.

"Acknowledge that there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, than precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honour them is to do great harm" - Marilynne Robinson

Thats what I think about when I look at these window frames above my bed when i cannot sleep.

water pulls so strong, no one is around...

2008-01-09T09:25:00.001-07:00

This blog will be constructed in parts...

Part One:

I'm not sure I'm a very thoughtful person. Not in the way that I'm not caring about others, but in the way that I think about things a lot. I have friends who think about things/issues/ideas so thoroughly and passionately that every aspect of their life is effected by it. Jamie is my quintessential example of this. I have never met anyone who thinks about things as deeply and intensely as she does. That is why I like reading her blog. Well, and because I like her. Today though, she was talking about a guy at the Mustard Seed - Paul. She said: "Most of the time I think he's talking shit, but that sometimes I choose to believe him, simply because it's more fun." I liked that. I think i need to learn to do that more often. Why do we always have to destroy other people's sense of reality in pursuit of the sharp edged truth? There are moments when it is more important to look at someone and simply choose to believe them because it is more fun for everyone involved.

Part Two:

I watched two different movies this week that struck me as being very similar. First I watched Kingdom of Heaven and a day later, watched Charlie Wilson's War. Sometimes, you really just have to respect Hollywood. Yes, I just said that. I think its one thing for celebrities to stand up and support a cause, but often the media just gives it a cursory nod and everyone forgets about it. But when big name actors/actresses chose to play roles in movies that deal with current issues so blatantly, their point becomes so well illustrated. Kingdom of Heaven, which came out a few years ago, was so well timed because to the language used to validate the War in Iraq at the time. Bush's propagating the war as a Christian nation's struggle against "infidels" was put into the context of the crusades and shown for the destructive, violent approach it was. My favorite moment in this movie is when Orland Bloom stands up and gives a speech just before the battle for Jerusalem begins. He says,

"It has fallen to us, to defend Jerusalem, and we have made our preparations as well as they can be made. None of us took this city from Muslims. No Muslim of the great army now coming against us was born when this city was lost. We fight over an offense we did not give, against those who were not alive to be offended. What is Jerusalem? Your holy places lie over the Jewish temple that the Romans pulled down. The Muslim places of worship lie over yours. Which is more holy?"

Thats not even touching the issues that plague Jerusalem today.

Anyways, on to Charlie Wilson's War. I have a few favorite moments in this movie. The first was when Tom Hanks visits the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. I sat there watching, wondering where they got all those extras. And then the thought came to me that they really wouldn't have needed to. I'm sure today more Afghans are crossing the border into Pakistan to outrun the violence in their own country. Try to name a country in Africa that is not directly effected by the movement of massive numbers of refugees. What about South East Asia? The scene in Charlie Wilson's War is stunning because it is reality today.

Also, I think this movie ends with a clear and unapologetic message. Having being granted 100 times the approved budget for his covert war on the Soviets, Congressman Wilson can not even get a 1 million dollar school rebuilding project approved after they achieve victory. The other board members tell him that no one cares about some Afghan school. Their decision instead is to simply pull out of this country they've messed up without any plans for funds to rebuild it and this leaves off Wilson saying:

"These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world... and then we fucked up the endgame."

Its not too hard to draw the obvious line between mistakes made in the past to the current situation in Afghanistan. Like I said, sometimes, you've just got to respect Hollywood.

One, two, three, four, five, six, nine and ten...

2008-01-07T10:08:00.000-07:00

This morning, after 17 days of traveling around for the holidays, I woke up in my room in Edmonton. It is the first time in two weeks that I woke up without feeling sick. And despite the fact that it is 20 degrees colder this morning than the +7 I woke up to on Friday at the farm, it feels good to be in my own space again.

And mom, I know you're reading this, and this is not saying I didn't enjoy my time at home because I did and its always good to be back on the farm and in that southern alberta wind that I love so much.

However, even though I have very little groceries, lots of unpacking, little money and lots of job hunting to deal with, it feels good to sleep in my bed on the floor and wake up under my still living Christmas tree.

deep sea eyes, porcelain skin, love's sweetness and then boxing rings, It's late night heading into morning...

2008-01-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

It is 44 minutes into 2008 as I write this and I am thinking about the past few days. Mostly, strangely enough, I am thinking about Canada and how much I love this country. I have just returned from a trip to Vancouver Island and in the past few days I have experienced some moments of incredible, intense beauty. I can't put them into logical order, so I will list them instead...

Flying over the Rocky Mountains and remembering how stunning they are.

Standing alone outside in the wind during a wedding dance listening to Fix You by Coldplay. My giant hood on with strands of my hair flying in front of my face, being tugged at by a winter storm on the ocean.

Reading Hafiz poetry

Photographing the inner harbour in Victoria all lit up at night, the rain just misting down around me with friends I have not seen in a long while.

Watching a poorly directed chickflick movie and making a late night burger run with my oldest sister.

Watching seagulls follow the ferry, catching chips in mid-air and diving into the boat's wake to pull snacks from the water.

Skidding across black ice in my runners on a street in Victoria in the early morning hours.

The marriage of two good friends.

Peeling and sharing a Christmas orange with my nephew while reading a good book.

Driving south in Alberta, seeing flat prairie fields, coulees, foothills and mountains all at once out my passenger window.

steal my records...

2007-12-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

I went with my parents to our friends' house tonight for supper. In junior high, their oldest daughter and I were inseperable and because our parents were good friends, their house and family were so familar to me, it was almost as though they were my own. Over the years we've keep in really good touch, even working together one summer. However, its been years since I'd seen some of their other kids and even longer since I had been at their farm. I showed up early, and played Apples To Apples with my friend and her sibilings. At first it was a little awkward. Its strange to come to a place that was so much a part of you and to people who knew you so well, but to be a different person. I didn't really know how exactly to act and how to relate to the sibilings who, though they were now in college, my last real interaction with them was when they were still in junior high. Somewhere in the first hour though, I settled into the rhythm of the place - as though I had never left. It was so comfortable and warm and familiar and it felt like home to be with them.

I left a few minutes after my parents and turned my normally 15 mintue drive into 25 just slowing down and taking in the moment. Cruising down the oiled country road in the dark, not a single other vehicle on the road the entire way home, listening to Ryan Adams as loud as the speakers would allow, every farmhouse lit up extra bright with their christmas lights that reflected off the snow drifts in the ditch...it was one of those moments that you can actually feel yourself, your soul expanding to encompass it.

she said she loved me but she had somewhere to go...

2007-12-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been looking into sending in submissions to different travel magazines. For years now, just under a dusting of paperwork on my desk, a copy the writer/photographer guidelines for submissions to National Geographic Traveler has taunted me. Arlette, who found and copied them for me, continues to encourage me to put something together for them. I have yet to bring myself to do it, despite the fact that I think on it often. Its not laziness, I like doing writing and photography better than pretty much anything else in life. Its not a fear or rejection. I'm not deluding myself, I know that it takes numerous submissions before one even gets looked at critically. I know I will be turned down over and over again and working through that wouldn't be all that bad. And yet, I still can't put my thoughts to paper. I can't choose the portfolio to submit. I thought maybe I was trying to jump too far, too fast. National Geographic is my dream. It is the pinnacle of my goals and aspirations. What if I submit and, worse than getting a letter of rejection, I get ignored? What if I submit and by some strange miracle, get accepted relatively early? I'm not sure I could handle either of those two options. If I got ignored, it would probably stop me from ever submitting again. If I got accepted, how could I comprehend that and how, if I was asked to do more work for them, would I be able to assure them the same quality of work?
I started to think that maybe I should aim a little lower to begin. So today I spent an hour in Chapters, pulling out all manner of travel magazines jotting down websites and photo editors names and e-mail addresses. I rejected magazines on either side of the spectrum. I couldn't see myself reviewing 5 star hotels for the rest of my life for "Life of Luxury" and I'm not the kind of hardcore extreme hiker/climber/snowboarder/scuba diver that Adventure Travel Mag is looking for either. I came across quite a few interesting options though and now that I've researched them back at home, I sit here immobile again. I have seven websites in front of me with detailed submission guidelines for photography and writing for excellent, interesting travel magazines and I still can't take the next step. I don't know what to do. If I submitted to these magazines and got ignored, I think that might be it for my attempts in the travel magazine world. If I submitted and got rejected, I might get lazy and convince myself that I didn't really want to work for them anyways. If I submitted to them and got accepted, I might be content with their publication and never make a run at National Geographic. None of this helps me.

Some days I believe I am going to be pretty good at a lot of things and never great at just one thing. I will be a good writer and photographer and landscaper and teacher and waitress and whatever else is in my future, but I will never be world renowned for any of these qualities. I will never be the expert in any one area. I have friends who I firmly believe will be KNOWN. People who will be talked about and of whom I can say "Yeah, I know them. We're friends." and people will look at me in astonishment. I will not be one of those people and I am content with that.
Sometimes though, I will be walking down the street and for a moment, for a tiny glimmer, I feel the most intense potential and I feel as though, if I really pursued it, things like National Geographic are within my reach.

I read a quote from Angelia Jolie this week and it struck me as interesting...

"If you ask people what they've always wanted to do, most people haven't done it. That breaks my heart."

It makes me wonder if we (as a collective race) settle for what we don't really want to do or if we choose things that are beyond our grasp so we never have to think about what to do once we've achieved them.

the clouds up above openned up and let it out...

2007-12-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

In a Town in Germany

"Isn't this an interesting monument?" says Robert. The late autumn sun is beginning to set. We are in a town in Germany.
"I can't see anything" I say, "Just an empty square"
"The monument is beneath our feet" insists Robert.
I look down. I see only plain slabs, all of them the same. I don't want to disappoint my friend, but I can't see anything else in the square.
Robert explains: 'It's called "The Invisible Monument". Carved on the underneath of each of these stones is the name of a place where Jews were killed. Anonymous artists created this square during the Second World War, and continued adding slabs as new places of extermination were discovered. Even if no one could see them, it would remain here as a witness, and the future would end up finding out the truth about the past."

- from "Like the Flowing River" by Paulo Coelho

I think this is beautiful.

As in olden days...

2007-12-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

I had a bad day. Mostly because things didn't turn out the way I wanted them too. Usually I can roll with the punches pretty well but today, I was unimpressed. The biggest disapointment of the day came in the form of UPS. (please do yourself a favor and ship with FedEx...this is the second time this month that UPS has caused major problems in this household). Anyways, the package I was promised on Wednesday got waylaid and so I was guaranteed delivery today. That was, of course, until they forgot it in Calgary this morning. Now I am "guaranteed delivery" tomorrow. right.
After my fourth call to UPS trying to track its whereabouts, I let Mr"i'm sorry mam, thats just sometimes the way it happens" know that I did not appreciate the company he worked for and would no longer ever be using them for my shipping needs (or something along those lines). Now I'm not usually the type of person who lets the man/woman in the call center have it because really, its not their fault and not only are they are not personally responsible for your misfortune, but there is nothing they can do. Today though, I was mad. Really really mad.

In an effort to burn off some angry energy, I went for a walk because it really was a beautiful day outside. By the time I got to the far end of the farm - in record speed - my ears were frozen and my feet were wet. I then realized I had to walk all the way back. As I was blowing into my mittens and turning around, the sun hit that point as its going down where it just peaks through the very top branches of the trees and hits you full in the face. I just closed my eyes and breathed for a while, enjoying the blinding sun on my eyelids. The walk back was much better after that. An old man was pushing an old school baby buggy that, when I got closer, his tiny dog was sitting in all wrapped up in sweaters and blankets. The wind from yesterday had whipped little caps onto the snow drifts in the ditch and I found one of Bethany's mittens that I had lost off the roof of my car last night...this gives me hope that the other one is just enjoying the lightness of the snow and will soon come around to letting himself be found as well.

the lonely light of morning, the wound that would not heal...

2007-12-10T16:00:00.000-07:00

I spent a good portion of my day reading Angelina Jolie's "Notes on my Travels". Its not an easy read. You can tell she's not a writer, but she cares passionately about what she's discussing and the people she has met. There is an honesty in her words that reveals her sincerity. What really struck me was the way in which she described some of the situations she encounters as a Goodwill ambassador for the UNHCR. There were moments that I was reading her words and I could see it, I could feel and smell and taste the poverty she was describing, and it came to me that it was Bangladesh. I could see the naked children running through the alleys filled with excrement. I could taste the dust of temporary housing on my tongue, dulling my taste, choking my throat. I could smell the well of contaminated water being pumped over clothing and cooking alike. I could hear the noise of vehicles and children and bartering in the markets. In Jolie's description of buying appropriate clothes in Pakistan, I saw myself 12 months ago standing in Mohammudpur bazzar. The beggars who press up against the windows, the gender barriers, the bright colors and strange foods, it all swept over me again in a wave of strange emotions. Most of the time, Dhaka sits in my brain barely covered by my conscious thought and in moments like today, I can still close my eyes and be back there in an instant. I'm still not sure what to make of Bangladesh. It was almost a year ago since I've been there, but I still cannot make sense of it. A year before then Honduras stole (and when I say stole, I mean I willingly gave it) a piece of my soul that will forever stay in Varsovia, but Bangladesh and I have been somewhat at odds since I arrived there. I would not exchange my experience there for the world, but while Honduras made me feel as though my heart expanded to encompass what was new, Dhaka ripped me open and left me raw to deal with adding this perspective. But I am coming around to believing there is power and passion in the violence by which Bangladesh impressed itself upon me.

and this makebelieve will get me through another lonely night...

2007-12-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of movies lately and I've noticed a trend. It started with romantic comedies and to be honest, I wasn't surprised, but then it showed up in action movies and thrillers and even the marvel comics films. And well, this may sound a little ridiculous, but LOVE is a major factor in all of the plots. Of all the movies I've watched in the past month, I think maybe only Kill Bill does not overtly use love as a motivating force. Now, I've thought about this for a while and at first I was super cynical. Its so cliche that "love has power" and "all you need is love". Maybe I'm being too harsh on love, but I just don't think that it can pull off all its given credit for. When I was watching "Ghost Rider" today, Nicholas Cage gets told that "a man who has the guts to sell his soul for love can change the world". I'm not sure I'm convinced, sorry Johnny Blaze. But then I started thinking about some very un-Hollywood versions of love. Despite the fact that its produced by a big name movie company, I thought about Love Actually. I think its a brilliant film about the nature of love and the human experience, and though I've already dissed the cheesy cliches, that "love actually is all around us". I thought about the movie Water and how subtly the idea of love gets worked out through the relationships there. And I thought about Amelie in all its quirky beauty and how the movement of the plot is pulled through all these twists and turns with such a lightness. Which in turn made me think of Closer and how it is so heavy and painfully broken but full of a rich kind of love that rips through the character's lives. Love is so ubiquitous and persistent in so many forms that its no wonder all of these movies are so focussed on it. Its such a same that it is so often relegated to being simply an emotion.

strawberry wine seventeen, hot july moon...

2007-12-08T18:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight Beth and I were listening to her iPod on shuffle and "Strawberry Wine" by Denna Carter came on. Spontaneously, the two of us broke into song. Neither one of us laughed about it or commented on it, but continued to sing on and off between chatting about the pros and cons of putting her hair up. I really enjoyed it.

I see it comin'...

2007-12-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

"Improbably and when you least expect it....the world rights itself again" - Grey's Anatomy

I feel like I should have something more to say about this. Like why it jumped out at me, what I think about it, where I'm coming from. But I don't. This is all for tonight. Maybe I'll have some great wisdom about it tomorrow

and when you kiss me on that midnight street, sweep me off my feet...

2007-12-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

I bought a christmas tree last night. A live one. About 6 feet tall. I put it in my room. Right in the center, between my piles of clothes and my bed. I have tree sap all over my hands still from cutting the bottom branches off. But it smells beautiful. And last night while I stood in the IGA parking lot, looking at the smallest trees the guys had to offer, it was lightly snowing and I felt like I didn't mind Christmas. Not that I hate Christmas or anything, but it is not my pick when it comes to holidays. Now, I'm getting off track though, because what I really wanted to say was how beautiful it is to sleep under a Christmas tree.

its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2007-12-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Its snowing great big flakes today. Lots of them. So far probably almost a foot.

And though it may not be connected, I think you should watch this

all of my friends fall from the sky now...

2007-12-02T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today I went for supper with Jamie at "Churros King", one of my favorite Chilean places in the city. Now, I haven't been at Churros in about a year and a half, but they make some real good roast beef and green bean sandwiches and rellenos. Its a family run business and they have about 9 tables. The mom and dad cook in the back and the son runs all the table service. When I have come before, he used to chat with me a bit about speaking Spanish and traveling.
Well today he came over to the table with water glasses and menus and said, "Hey, you haven't been in here for a while, and you are wearing contacts instead of your glasses! How have you been?" I was blown away. Its been at least 18 months since this guy had seen me, and before then I had only come to eat a handful of times, but he not only recognized me, but remembered details about me!
Human interaction amazes me.

time breaks down...

2007-11-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

I am at then end of my "week of morning" photography venture this week. I thought about taking it into the weekend but seems how today is the last day of the month, I decided it was fitting to end today. However, I was inspired by a new idea this morning while I was sitting with Mike and Heather. They both said things this morning
that made me laugh and then I was inspired to take phrases my friends have said that make an impression on me and spend a day trying to capture that idea in a photograph. My ideas for quotes so far:

"teach your child how to spell in a world of broken words" - Mike

"if I knew what I was doing, it wouldn't be called research" - Heather via Einstein

"full body punctuation" - Arlette

"Something happened to me at 10 pm too, I was waiting for my bus, and it didn't come" - Jamie

"ah shit. it's not really a big deal, it's just a little homonym issue" - bethany

"make amends with gravity it will get you in the end" - patrick

the damage and ruin, man the things that we're doing...

2007-11-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided to make myself take photos every morning this week. Now, anyone who knows me knows that this isn't a hardship I've put on myself, but its more tricky than you might imagine. Monday was all well and fine, I woke up inspired. Tuesday I went out for breakfast in a beautiful light, so that wasn't too hard either. But this morning I woke up, laid in bed and had to spend some time thinking about what I would shoot. I don't know how it came out. Not as good as the first two days, thats for sure, but I'm trying to train myself to shoot under pressure. To be inspired by something mundane and ordinary, when all I really want to do is watch another episode of TinTin and put my hair up. I want to learn how to notice the everyday morning sun creeping along my wall, my tipped over books and the ice on my window as moments of photographic inspiration. My motivation in this is two-fold. First of all, if I can create moving images from everyday things, then it only follows that when I am confronted with something of unusual beauty, I should be that much better prepared to capture it. Also though, I've lately been compelled to believe that there is great beauty in living a life that takes special notice of what is around you. I think that some people are called to perform acts of great, global significance in their life, but I don't think I am one of them. I think I am intended to live a life of intentional attention and awareness to what surrounds me, and I am content with that.

well, mostly content.

Allur heimurinn óskýr nema þú stendur ...

2007-11-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

now today i really should be marking papers instead of being on the internet, but this morning I took a self portrait that I really liked. I don't think I can explain why. Its just that when I saw it, I felt like I captured more of myself than I actually know of me. See, I told you I couldn't explain it. I feel like I'm either becoming very deep or very ineloquent because I've used this quotation twice this week now...

"It all means more than i can tell you. So you must not judge what i
know by what i can find words for." - from Gilead by Marilynne
Robinson

but you don't regret a single day...

2007-11-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

So, I leave home to work because I am easily distracted by the tv and internet. I settle down at Remedy in one of the beautiful window seats and the place is dead because everyone is watching the Grey Cup at home. But I still find myself completely distracted by the people around me.
First there were three university girls sitting at the bar right beside my chair and one of them started talking about a pizza party she was having. She said that she got a Pizza Hut flyer in the mail advertising great quantities of pizza for a minimal price. She went on to say that she thought it looked delicious but thought it was gross to order 13 pizzas by herself, so she was going to host a party. My favorite moment was when she said "I don't think I've ever been so excited about something so mundane, and without the promise of any alcohol!"

Then I managed to mark a few papers before I saw an old man riding past on an old bike with an old school bell, wearing a neon yellow hockey helmet. I think there are very few places in the world where neon yellow hockey helmets substitute for bike helmets. Yay Canada.

A little later it started to snow. Not the boring small flakes that look like heavy frost, but thick wide flakes that seem to take forever to land and follow the least linear pattern to get there. They were falling on to the sidewalk and melting almost as soon as they had hit the ground. Just as I was watching this, a little Chinese girl and her mother walked up to the street corner. They both had toques on and their hoods up. While they waited for the light to change, the mother tied the girl's hood tighter around her face while she stood there with her square backpack on and mittens pointed straight down with the tags still hanging on the side. I wondered if they were new to this kind of cold.

Just as I was thinking about packing up and changing pace, an attractive man came in and sat down just beside me. (nothing like an attractive man to keep you loyal to a place!) He found a penny on the floor under his chair as he was taking off his jacket and held it out to me, saying it was my lucky day. I laughed and he pulled out his work and started studying. He was wearing a great pair of jeans and just the right kind of brown knit sweater. It was then I noticed his feet. He was rockin' some knitted purple and green socks in a pair of sport sandals. It made me like him more. A touch of awkwardness in a person is so important.

And now I am back home, watching the weather change yet again. From snow to brilliant sun and now back to clouds and the promise of more winter. I should go work. Whether in another cafe or at my kitchen table, but the light in my living room is so perfect and its just starting to snow outside again and I can't tear myself away.

"There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us...there is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been given up into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm" (Gilead, Marilynne Robinson)

There are times that I need to capture beauty. I see it as a photograph. I see the moment, the emotion, the essence of it that I want to convey and I need to capture it with my camera.

But sometimes, just noticing it and feeling the magnitude and mystery of it is honor enough.

I am listening to Sigur Ros "Von" right now, and I think you should too.

holding up horizons with her hands...

2007-11-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

The clouds are strange this morning. They're dark like rain clouds, but smooth like snow clouds and from behind them, the sun is shining so brightly that it still seems like a beautiful day. I think I may go outside and explore this strange weather. Or perhaps my time may be better spent in a window seat at the Sugarbowl or Remedy waiting for the snow to come while I mark first year papers.

Yes, that is what I'll do.

laying low...

2007-11-23T23:21:00.001-07:00

"Look Up" - Stars

Your friends hold the lullabies
They watch the way the night lies
Soft sounds, heads like a radio
Hearts wrapped in blankets, laying low
Hearts wrapped in blankets, laying low

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

Your boy is like a memory
Some sense of touch and a melody
Your girl, she's a renegade
A hurricane that keeps you there, safe
A hurricane that keeps you there, safe

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

(And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose
And still in toil, it takes heart to love the rose)

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

You're cold, maybe you just missed the sun
You fall, feeling like its just begun
So far, keeping it together's been enough
Look up, rain is falling, looks like love

Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love
Rain is falling looks like love

may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten...

2007-11-21T15:41:00.001-07:00

I've been "angsty" lately. Sometimes, or rather most times, when I get this way, i can't quite put my finger on WHY I am feeling the way I do. Usually I have a pretty good self-awareness, but there are times when I get this feeling of unease that festers inside me and I can't figure it out. Sometimes it reveals itself in the most unlikely of places, about the most unlikely topics. Today I spent some time at Karen's. I didn't intend to get all intense about things. I mostly came because I had some extra time and her house was close to where I needed to be later and I like hanging out with her. But suddenly, somewhere we started talking about some really intense things and it just all came pouring out of me. I realized that all of these things I had been thinking about independently were all linked in ways I hadn't realized before they came spilling out of my mouth. Now, I'm not sure I'd call myself a verbal processor because when something like this happens and I end up ranting on something and jumping from idea to idea, I'm not so much working things out, as I am actually realizing that I'm thinking about all these things. And today was no exception. I'd be talking about one thing and then something else would come up in my mind as related to it and I'd jump on that idea and try and work it back into my first idea before another new idea popped up to complicate things. Well, that sounds confusing now. And it was. And Karen sat, listening to me and taking it all in, interested, asking me questions, giving me opinions and ideas even though I was going through extreme non-linear thought processes.

But beyond the process, what has come up in my mind now is the overwhelming question of..."IS IT ENOUGH?" Is it enough to live a life of ordinary, quiet love for humanity? Is it enough to pursue what you love? Is it enough to actively care about the world around you and do what you see yourself capable of in the way you see as best working out that vision? Is it enough? Or is there so much more? Should we be pushing ourselves to work out a vision larger than ourselves? Should I be putting more of myself, my energy, my resources into venues that have potential to see worldwide justice? In this global community we all exist within, should we be actively caring about the issues that affect the whole of humanity? Should I be doing more?

I don't know.

Is it enough to live life passionately with integrity, aware of injustice and in awe of the beauty that surround us?
(Who's version of passionate? Who's definition of integrity? Which injustices? Is beauty enough?)

signed, sealed, delivered...

2007-11-20T18:59:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up, had a nice moderately warm shower (which is about as hot as our shower gets) and played around with photos for a while. Then I got in my car and decided to make a trip to Vivid Print (probably the best print shop I've ever been in) and then go to one of my favorite little restaurants for a solitary lunch. By chance, I ended up meeting some of my friends there and had a fantastic meal. Then I picked up some beautifully textured paper from The Paint Spot, bought a Tim Horton's lunch for a drug addict woman who was crying on the street because her joints hurt and made it to King's in time for my group tutoring session. It really didn't turn out to be a group session, so much as helping one student put together plans for a paper, but I enjoyed it and we had a good time. And now I'm putting together photos for an art event on Saturday and then I'm gonna go meet my friend Jackie for a drink when she's done her evening class. And though I'm sitting at home alone watching a movie and getting stressed out about photos....listing the great parts of today makes me feel better about it.

the second i stop, the sleep catches up....

2007-11-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Last night some of my friends and I were having a discussion about how we refuse to wear our "winter coats" yet because it is not quite winter. The weather is still bearable, there's been no staying snow, and we don't have to scrape our cars yet in the morning. And though the long term forecast gives hope that this will last for a while (saturday is supposed to be 1 degree still), today I woke up to -8 and the promise of -16 before the day is through. In my opinion, if it's gonna be getting cold, it might as well snow.

Seriously!

tear men down like Roger Moore...

2007-11-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

I'm wearing a dirty shirt today. Its a hoodie actually. A gray one. The edges are a little dark, and there's a spot of icing sugar on the right pocket. I'll be wearing my puffy brown vest over it later today when I go out to meet Jamie, but the truth is, I kind of like wearing clothes that are a little "lived in". Especially this gray hoodie. The sleeves are too short and I bought it for about $10 a few years ago, but I love it. Today will be a good day. It is always a good day when I wear it.

I can't help you anymore...

2007-11-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up to beautiful sunlight streaming into my room and I thought I'd watch some cartoons. Sadly the only network that really carries Saturday morning cartoons anymore, is the french channel, so after watching some French Tin Tin, I decided just to listen to music and put together a list of clients/publications of my photography. Who knows when I might need to present something like that, and well, this morning was as good a time as any to do it. As I was sorting through the past two years of photographing, the images reminded me of the time and place that I had taken them in. They reminded me of the space I was in at that time: what I thought I wanted, where I thought I wanted to be, who I through I was working towards being. And I remember being really serious about doing graduate work at The University for Peace in Costa Rica. Still not an idea I've let go of, but something I realize I have plenty of time for. Well, I remember loving the idea of this place, its programs, its ideals. And how, slowly, the practicalities of going there put it in perspective that maybe I need more time to become me before I take on such an impressive place. As I was thinking about that time in my life, I came across an e-mail I had forgotten about. It came about 6 months after I had decided the University for Peace was not in my relatively near future. It was from the University for Peace, asking permission to use some of my photos in one of their publications. Life does run in circles. Sometimes it feels like futile circles when you're in the middle of it, but from the larger perspective,they are very strange and fulfilling cycles.

in a time, occupied and invaded, can’t tell what’s right, better hit the ground running...

2007-11-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

I've been wearing pretty thin these past few days. Things that I wouldn't usually let get to me, have been finding their way under my skin and festering. Lately, comments about my finances, my image, my hometown, my car and my intelligence keep piling up where I'd usually shrug them off. The worst are those backhanded comments people make as though out of concern or interest, but in reality their just trying to put you down to put themselves above you. Ripping away your armour so they can set themselves up for a clear shot. And i know this is what they're getting at, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow or to act as though it hasn't affected me. It seems so difficult to find a safe space.

A "flickrFriend" of mine recently posted a beautiful photo with this caption:

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain, and remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself."

http://www.flickr.com/photos/solicitous86/1918649607/

instrumental interlude...

2007-11-13T15:05:00.001-07:00

You know that moment in "Roman Holiday" where Gregory Peck is walking out of that gorgeous hall after the press conference and all you hear is his feet on the marble floor, and then just as he reaches the pillars at the end, the music comes in? You know that moment? Or that one in Napoleon Dynamite, right at the end, when Pedro has won the election and is cutting the cake with his whole family and there's no dialogue, just that music? Or how the guy in The Life Aquatic just sits and plays his guitar on the boat most the time while the movie goes on around him? Lately I've been thinking about how great it would be to be the person who decides...yes! that is the song for that moment. I have this habit that when I listen to music, when I hear a song, I think about where it could be used...for what kind of event...for what specific moment in life. Lately, this habit has gotten so intense that sometimes when I hear a song that I just KNOW is perfect for whatever moment, I can't get it out of my head. Today it has been "Si, Paloma" by Sun Kil Moon (a band I picked up in Bangladesh of all places).
I wonder what kind of training you would need to do that for a job.

trust me you're in deep, its no good...

2007-11-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

songs to listen to while driving away from home:

He Lays in the Reigns - Iron and Wine
Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens
Let Him Fly - Dixie Chicks
Northern Sky - Nick Drake
9 Crimes - Damien Rice
Heartbeats - Jose Gonzaleas
Razor - Foo Fighters
16, Maybe Less - Iron and Wine
Tragedy - Damien Jurado
Redford (For Yia-yia and Pappou) - Sufjan Stevens

Thought that I saw you in the oncoming cars...

2007-11-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be in Japan today. Instead I'm sitting in front of the tv playing with photos and watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I'm trying not to think about the canceled trip, so I'm laughing too loudly at a flower in a bundt cake. Yesterday was a good day. Bethany took the day off work and we had a nice brunch, visited friends at King's and just hung out at home. It wasn't until about 5pm that I realized it was the day I was supposed to be on a plane, flying across the ocean. Today though, I remembered when I woke up. So this morning I'm watching tv, eating boterkoek that I picked up at a Dutch bake sale and waiting for Karen to be done her classes so we can drive to Parkland to get a Husky hotdog.

And while we're on the subject of things I had forgotten about until today:

- Joey Fatone, formerly of N'sync, has an acting role on My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- 1% milk is gross
- 100 Huntley Street is the only clear channel when you want to watch something good in the morning
- Julia Stiles is a cool person (Columbia English Lit degree and all)
- sleeping in only makes me feel more tired
- Savage Garden was really good in its era

knock knock knockin' on heaven's door...

2007-11-03T16:53:00.000-06:00

Today I watched people. I want to say that it wasn’t in a creepy way, but to be honest, I think it sometimes came across that way.

As I was driving to yoga, I saw a woman ahead of me, standing at the corner waiting for the light to change. She must have just come outside because she was still putting on her coat. As she flipped the bottom of her jacket, two pigeons flew out from behind her. From my perspective, it looked as though she was shaking birds from the sleeves of her coat.

I stopped in at Remedy to sit with my friends, Beth and Joel, who were working on some homework there and when I came in the door, I saw a couple sitting at a table with a vase of flowers and tin cup full of markers. There was a little “reserved” sign and an unfurled green ribbon laying on the table too. She had her hair tied in braids and the ends of his hair stuck out from underneath his cap. She laughed and played with her earrings a lot. He adjusted his glasses and rocked his feet back and forth on his chair.

After, I sat down across from Joel and Beth, a woman came in wearing a cream coloured, knitted wool cap, a nose ring and a big wooden necklace. She had her little girl strapped against her back in a kind of backpack/sling style. When she got to the counter, she crouched down so her daughter could get out. The girl looked about three years old and stood in front of the cake display with one hand to her mouth and one finger tracing the outline of the deserts. Her mom stood beside her looking at the drink menu, brushing the girl’s hair back with her fingertips. Then she leaned down, kissed her hair and pointed at the cake her daughter was eyeing.

There was a woman sitting in the corner talking on her cell phone, typing on her computer and drinking her chai all at once. She looked professional, sleek. Like she wanted to make an impression of importance. She was wearing a stripped blue and black shirt; the blue was so dark that you could hardly tell the color difference. I liked it and smiled at her. She smiled back.

A university guy came in then and sat at an empty table…waiting. He looked at his watch twice but didn’t go up and order. He was holding a brown canvas and leather bag, worn and ripped with snaps that didn’t work, but wearing brand new black Oakley shoes. A blond haired friend came, said he was going to get Chai and they went together to the counter. They stood by the tea selection for a while chatting before they came back with a coffee and a milkshake. Then they grabbed the chess board and while they set it up, talked about Xbox.

where the wind takes you, it takes me too...

2007-11-01T21:02:00.001-06:00

Tonight, after my massage and haircut, I went and had a lavish supper by myself at The Sugarbowl. I sat at the bar because there were no tables. I read my book, for over two hours. Eating pan-fried salmon and bernard callebaut chocolate souffle with 10 year port, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. The bartender asked what I was up to tonight and I couldn't bring myself to admit I was celebrating by myself, because although I was completely content and happy with the evening, I thought it might be a point of pity for someone else. I ended up telling him I was reading because I was teaching an English Lit course at a University in town. As the words came out of my mouth though, I started to think about how that revelation about myself would allow him to make generalizations about me. And then I thought about the other things I could have said in reply to him and how it would have totally changed his perspective of me.

A.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "I'm celebrating tonight because I'm done a busy season of landscaping. I've been a foreman for a local landscaping company for the past 6 months and now things are settling down for winter"

B.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "I'm planning the photos I'll be using in my upcoming show at the cafe across the street. I'm currently setting up a photography business and thinking over what to call myself"

but tonight I chose option C.

Bartender: "What do you do?"
Bri: "Well, I'm an instructor for a first year English Lit course at the university, so I'm doing some reading for that because I teach again tomorrow and we're just getting into our novel studies."

Its so strange to me how people's views of me would change with any of those replies. It also makes me wonder, when they first see me, what they imagine my life to be. Certainly not an English Lit instructor, I'm too young for that. Not a landscaper, I look to girly and un-muscled for that. A photographer? maybe, but I'm not sure my outward appearance would naturally be ascribed such creativity.

In the book I was reading tonight, a phrase jumped out at me:

"Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable - which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we all struggle to live." (Marilynne Robinson, "Gilead")

....

Also, tonight I managed to stumble across many beautifully written phrases in Gilead that made me think of something else I had found recently. My roommate owns this book called "Misfits" by Jon Rosen. One of my favorites that has been popping up in my head constantly this past week...

the caption reads: Suddenly he felt happy. He did not know why. He tried to capture the feeling in a net."

As I sat there by myself sipping my port, i felt this way. And then I read these words from Gilead - "There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient" - It was beautiful, and I'll stop writing now because my eloquence looks weak in the face of these thoughts.

***postscript***

my roommate just came home, and upon hearing what I did tonight said "oh, thats such a 'bri' night"

I'm still deciding if thats a good thing or not.

it's that pivitol moment...

2007-11-01T12:30:00.000-06:00

After 6 months with Cutting Edge landscaping, I am done for the season. Today I am celebrating. I have a massage, a haircut and plans for an evening of reading and working on photos at my current favorite cafe/pub in town. And of course I'll be home by 10pm for Grey's.

So far this morning, I've eaten cake, had my first christmas orange of the season, watched a movie while I took a bath.

Also, on another high note, there is a crazy wind today. The house is creaking and the trees are bending almost horizontal. Its beautiful.

i've got you under my skin...

2007-10-26T20:21:00.000-06:00

Today I brought my MacBook, also refered to as "my baby" into the local Mac dealer to have a power problem checked out. I left half an hour later with the assurances that they'd take good care of it for the weekend and call me to let me know if its missing me on monday. This will be a tough weekend for me without it and I am currently trying to plan ways in which I can keep myself busy without using the internet or photoshop. It will be a little tough I think. Maybe I'll clean my room.
How did I ever complete a 4 year BA without a computer?! ridiculous.

For the benefit of Mr Kite...

2007-10-24T18:16:00.000-06:00

It was a beautiful day this morning when I woke up. The air was warm already at 8am, which is pretty unusual around these parts in late October. But this afternoon, a wind came up that was of southern alberta proportions. It was beautiful, I walked out to my car after school and stood there in the parking lot letting the wind whip my hair around and freeze the ends of my fingers with my yak wool jacket, zipped up to my chin.

As I mentioned before, I've renewed my love for Edna St Vincent Millay and yesterday I came across a poem of hers that I had not read before, but that I now love:

Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry,
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

she's so heavy...

2007-10-23T20:41:00.000-06:00

I have to get a blood test tomorrow. So I can't eat for the 12 hours preceding it. I realized this at 8:45pm tonight and I had yet to eat anything since 11am. So I hurried home from the cafe I do my marking in and had to come face to face with the reality that I have no food. Not in the, I have nothing to eat, category, more like "none of these ingredients go together to make food" kind of realization. So tonight for supper I am having icing, a carrot and a few pickled peas. time to go shopping.

i'll tell you something, i think you'll understand...

2007-10-22T21:37:00.000-06:00

I watched Across the Universe with Jamie yesterday. It was AMAZING! One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Usually when I go to the theater, I come out feeling like I spent far too much money on something that wasn't really worth it. Well, if I had the time, I would have turned around, bought another ticket and watched it all over again. Natasha bought the soundtrack last week and now its pretty much all i'm listening to.

This week has been fairly crazy full of things to do and places to go and people to catch up with, and yes, i am aware it is only monday. tonight i went out for korean with Stefan who was just in town for a few days. We found this little hole-in-the-wall place with amazing bbq and it is just across the street from one of my favorite pubs. I'd never seen it before. who woulda guessed.

I've been wearing my blue shirt, doing lots of marking and drinking lots of chai from Remedy. Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that the amount of caffine in their chai makes me sick. Really really sick. Its sad, because it tastes so beautiful and warm and now even one full mug has me regretting it an hour later. They do have a tamarind cider though that I'm curious to try out, so not all is lost.

Well, I needed to mark at least 3 papers tonight and I'm at paper #1 still, so I should get off the internet, but instead I'm wasting time on the internet.

Yesterday I was reminded of my love for Edna St. Vincent Millay. So I will leave those of you who have managed to follow this random line of thoughts with a poem from her tonight...

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!

i'm gonna love you, like nobodys loved you...

2007-10-19T09:46:00.000-06:00

I feel like I bought a lot of stuff this week...

- a double disc Billie Holiday album
- a murder mystery game box to be played on October 31
- a madeline peyroux cd
- 3 chais and a lot of hummus from Remedy
- a new battery for my computer...only to find out that it is the power cord that needs to be replaced
- a power cord
- two rolls of love hearts candies

all this over and above my usual food expenses. maybe its knowing that i'll be out of a job in two weeks that has me feeling like i have spent a lot of money, or maybe its the loan that still looms over my finances needing to be paid. But all in all, I am happy with it.

Mostly, I'm really happy with Billie. I put her on Wednesday night and with a glass of wine in my hand, danced around the kitchen to her while I made my supper, did the dishes, marked more first year papers and chatted with Bethany about her broken foot. It was a good night.

and fell asleep in his brand new winter coat...

2007-10-13T21:39:00.000-06:00

I am sitting at joel's house. I am processing photos and he is cooking. well, sort of baking actually. making pizzelles. wrapped around amazing filling and icecream and wine sauce. he is talking about how, when he is an uncle some day, he will have his nieces and nephews over at his house and make these pizzelles and call them breakfast tacos. he is also saying that generic RAM doesn't cost too much and that we have disjointed conversations sometimes. he has been referring to my musical tastes and saying that its like we're in a movie and he is john cusack and i am joan cusak. and he is giving me speeches that he thinks john would give to joan in this situation. he is burning maple syrup to his pizzelle maker and calling it an experiment and then sighing loudly and giving me a play by play of the "girltalk" concert last night.

i like my friends.

And when tomorrow gets here, where will yesterday be...

2007-10-11T23:24:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I canceled my trip to Japan. I then bought myself a large Mexifries from Taco Time, followed by a dozen greasy wings at the neighbourhood pub. Giving myself no time to think, i ran off to the Weakerthans concert (which was fantastic) and then had a 12-hour day of work today. And now I am sitting here sorting through photos and my friend brittany - who is living in Tokyo - sent me a facebook message wondering when i am coming. And I think, for the first time, it really hit me that I am not going. That, in 3 weeks time, instead of boarding a plane to Osaka, I will be sitting at home. waking up to face two weeks of unemployment, boredom and winter. I have a bad cold. And crying only makes it worse, but as I sit here under my covers, listening to The Waifs, I can't help myself. I know that this money from the intended trip will come in handy in the next few months with all my living and planning, but right now, my heart longs to be preparing for a trip to see my friends.

In so many ways I feel like I'm coping out. If I really wanted to go, I would not have canceled. That if I were living life like I want to, I would throw caution to the wind and jump on that plane. I feel like I might just be letting my fear overpower me by not going.

But at the same time, I have so many other possibilities that open up for me in the next year by not going right now. How in the world will I ever balance these priorities when I want to do everything? Which dreams, which plans, which goals will I sacrifice for something else? Will it be worth it? And how in the world do you learn to sort out which decision is the right one when everything has both drawbacks and benefits?

I think I need to go to bed.

with your eyes closed, close your eyes...

2007-10-07T16:22:00.000-06:00

If you own the Amelie soundtrack, please turn it on and put track 4 on repeat to provide a background to this blog post...

Things I have seen while driving this thanksgiving weekend:

...a line of bare trees so full of tiny birds that they looked as though they were covered with leaves

...a full grown moose breathing wisps of heavy steam into crisp autumn air

...rooftops dusted with snow

...the night sky devoid of any light pollution for 20 miles

...kids in a park tossing piles of yellow leaves into the air

...dust clouds swirling off gravel roads behind my tires and high into the air

...trees bent almost horizontal with wind

...white-blue factory smoke at dusk

...the streaking lights of highway traffic in the dark

...the vast emptiness of fallow land against the long blue horizon

encircle me i need to be taken down...

2007-10-04T19:47:00.000-06:00

I have so many things going on in my head right now I can't even try and put things straight enough to write a coherent blog. I'm trying to prepare for a class I'm teaching tomorrow and feeling a little leery about. The last time i taught this group a class, I felt like I was swimming through quicksand. I'm nervous and unprepared. And also procrastinating because I fear that if I actually sit down and try to get something planned out for tomorrow, I will realize that I have nothing to say, nothing to share, nothing to teach and then I will have to deal with that realization. And so instead, my head is 1,000,000 places at once. Here is an excerpt from my mind in the past 10 minutes while I've stared at the open text in front of me...

Oh, i like this song...that book should be returned...is it out of character for me to alphabetize my cds...who am i kidding, i'd never get that done...i should go buy a nice bottle of wine tomorrow...i haven't played guitar in a long time...where did my piano books go...I wonder if Norah Jones will ever tour to edmonton again...I think I'd like to see her in Europe...How long would it take to lay all those cobblestones in the streets of Bath...I should check ticket prices...did i pay rent...I wish jeans were cheaper...west Ed is a tourist trap...i place my cheek against the glass and i can't see you in the light...the next time i take the bus i think i'd like to dance while i wait inside the stop that would make someone's day...remember get together the camera stuff....remember to pack...remember to eat...remember to breathe...my mind is falling apart...but my hair looks good today.

i just want back in your head...

2007-10-02T20:50:00.000-06:00

I don't have much time before the premiere of "The Tudors" on CBC tonight, so this blog will be short, but I felt I needed to write.

Tonight I downloaded Tegan and Sara's new album. It's really good, but wasn't quite what I was looking to listen to tonight but one song was pretty much perfect. It's called "Back into Your Head" and when I read the lyrics, I loved it. I almost got choked up about it. Usually this happens when I feel like I'm at a place in my life where a particular song really speaks to my situation. But sometimes, regardless of what it has to say, I get overwhelmed by songs. This is one of them. Imogene Heap has a song that ends with "Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry".

Inside this song, tonight, i found space to breathe and that's a precious commodity these days.

leaving nothing else to chance again...

2007-09-30T12:47:00.000-06:00

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church -
I keep it, staying at Home -
With a Bobolink for a Chorister -
And an Orchard, for a Dome -

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice -
I just wear my Wings -
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton - sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman -
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at last -
I'm going, all along.

- Emily Dickinson

slow dancing in a burning room...

2007-09-29T17:17:00.000-06:00

its getting earlier and earlier, that moment when my kitchen and living room erupt in a blaze of setting sun light. Two weeks ago, it was as I settled down after supper, last week it was as I was eating and now I barely make it home from work in time to see it. I can't wait until daylight savings when I can catch it again in that extra hour. I didn't go in to work today under the pretense that: #1. it was saturday and i shouldn't have to work every weekend and #2. i had a lot of other work to get done before next weekend. and its true, i did have a lot to do and i shouldn't have to work every weekend, but really, when i woke up this morning, looked at my clock and made the decision to stay home, I was thinking about this moment. When I can sit at my kitchen table with that strong, beautiful sunlight on my back before it runs its way across the row of trees out my back door and sets to some other place in the world. I will miss it come wintertime.

nothing is like it seems turn my grief to grace...

2007-09-21T18:14:00.000-06:00

I'm going to a Tibetan craft sale today and I've been trying my hardest not to put too much pressure on it because I have to be realistic and know that it will not be the same as spending an afternoon with Tibetan refugees on the shores of Lake Phewa Tal in Nepal.
A year ago tomorrow, I got on a plane to Bangladesh, not having any idea what I was going to do, where i was going to live, how it would all turn out. And thinking back on it now, it seems like a lifetime has happened between then and now. I have seen some of the most beautiful places in the world and in the same breath, have been confronted by the most difficult, poverty and disease stricken places in the world. But it's not just about where I've been. What I've seen and experienced has deeply effected me over the past 12 months. I have have been surprised and delighted in the resilience of my spirit and in the power my mind has to notice and appreciate beauty, but I also have been to some of the darkest places i ever feared existed inside of me. When I think about it, this past year has been such a journey both around the world and inside myself, but it is only the beginning. I feel like I have spent so many years waiting in the airport for my journey to begin. Waiting as my foundations and character have been building. Waiting for the right moment to walk through the gate, and somewhere along the way this past year, without even really realizing it, I have already moved beyond the first leg of my journey. I can only sit here and wonder now about what I will have to say a year from today. What I will have experienced, how I will have transformed and changed.
I am full of anticipation.

And the ground is removed underneath...

2007-09-15T21:39:00.000-06:00

“Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality . Wake Up and Live!”

-Bob Marley

Like a warm drink it seeps into my soul...

2007-09-15T19:26:00.000-06:00

Today I was in second cup, as per usual, and i noticed they put out their fall drink specials. Which kind of made me laugh. I mean, i know it is only a few days into september, but I feel as though it has been fall for a while now. Each day I wake up for work, the sky is darker and at the end of this last week, I still felt the chill of night as I walked down my front steps.
What really gets me though, is the changing colors. Well, edmonton isn't really known to be the most colorful fall city. Its no Ottawa or Halifax, but I've been cutting grass in the same places every week for the past 5 months and I've been watching it happen. The bushes turning from lush spring neon to deep rich summer green to the yellows and reds and oranges that are coming out now. Whatever else this job has been, it has been good for me to watch this season. Last year this time, life was moving so fast for me I hardly noticed any of this at all. But this time around, I've almost been forced to. Forced to slow down. Confronted with the signs of the season changing all day long. I feel like I've become a part of this change around me. I feel it inside me. Slowing down, thinking, listening, prioritizing. I am making a study of myself. What I want to know about me. What I want to uncover, what i want to keep hidden. I feel as though I'm not moving into a new phase of my life, but rather, my body is simply catching to where my mind and soul have been for some time now.

will i do any of these things, the answer is probably no...

2007-09-11T18:54:00.000-06:00

I woke up and saw that it is -5 degrees right now. And yet, saturday is supposed to be +23 again. How is this possible? I am so cold. And it is only September 13th.

i know you've come to take my toys away...

2007-09-09T17:53:00.000-06:00

This blog post is for karen...who recently confessed to me how many times she checks my blog for something new. So here is something new.

While I was moving last week, I received these fantastic wine crates from my friend Dawn. They are beautiful and cedar and the perfect shelving for me. They now house my books, my mom's canning, my videos and cds, photos of my friends who are far from me right now, a 100 year old flask and a clay plate. There is still room for so much more. I wonder, as I sit in my new room in the glorious morning sunshine, what I will experience here. What I will cry about, laugh over, be witness to, get angry about, fall in love with, while I live in this room, in this house? There is so much potential I don't know what to do with it. And when I wake up in the morning -even though I may be going to the same job, in the same familiar clothes, talking with the same people- I can't help but think about how this day is brand new. It's nice to be reminded of that. Not just to know that something new could be around the corner, but to wake up and feel that potential as an energy inside you. As a newness about yourself.

I like living here,

that's all.

its the way you love me baby..

2007-09-05T19:36:00.000-06:00

I saw Faith Hill perform on the Ellen show tonight. I thought my love had wained over these past few years, but has not.

sitting silent wearing sunday best...

2007-09-03T18:43:00.000-06:00

I am watching as a noisy flock of Canada Geese land in the field across the gravel road behind my new house.
The sun is falling behind a row of beautiful trees. The kind of trees that look as beautiful when they explode green as they do in when they when they turn yellow as they do with snow on their bare branches.
I'm sitting on the steps beside the hammock, under the tree that holds two birdhouses.
While I drink my tea, Badly Drawn Boy is playing inside the house. I like their music a lot and I think that Cait would too. I will try and send her a cd of them in the near future.
A pencil is holding my spot in a new book that I'm reading. It is excellent so far. The kind of excellent that makes you want to read it very slowly so that you don't finish too quickly.
I want to light the lanterns in the backyard tonight and have a fire. Maybe I will.
I hear Bethany coming around the corner so I will leave off here to talk with my new roommate about her weekend in the mountains.

if you want your things, they're on the front step...

2007-08-31T17:17:00.000-06:00

I am moving. I hate moving. All the boxes and organizing and collection of your life into compartments and fitting them into vehicles to be transported across the city. But there is something exciting about this move for me. I already love the house and I know one of my two roommates very well, and the location is perfect. Kind of like the country inside the city. If you saw the place you'd know what I mean. There is something calming about the place itself. I feel myself relax when i walk up to the door. I have loved other places I have lived and other roommates, but for the past four months, I've been living in a state of transition. Living out of boxes and my car and a tent in the backyard. I have really enjoyed the summer, but at the same time, this house, this place, has not been a place of shelter and peace for me. For most of the summer it has been Jamie and myself in the house and for the past few weeks, well, more like the past two months, I've been living in a tent in the backyard and she's been sleeping on the couch. I think that this is an interesting phenomenon. I was thinking about it on my way into work this morning and I think for both of us, we've been having a hard time finding our own "space" this summer. Sure we both have rooms inside the house, but neither of us choose to use them. I think this says a lot about what is going on subconsciously. Now both of us are packing to move to places that we already love and are excited to be in and that makes me very happy because it is much needed. I know I'm not explaining this very well, but when I looked at my new room last night I thought about what will all happen to me there. How many phone calls to loved ones, how many nights spent writing and photographing, how many of my cries and laughs will these new walls hear. It is a beautiful thing to be moving into shelter. I am excited.

The ones that get to your soul...

2007-08-26T13:19:00.000-06:00

This will be a two-fold blog entry I have decided. First of all, I want to talk about the Parkland area of Edmonton and make mention of a certain woman who lives there. Every week I am out in the Parkland subdivision cutting parks and boulevards and pipelines. And more than once now, Karen and I have been driving off or on to the Anthony Henday and an asian woman is driving through that very same intersection. Now, normally, that wouldn't be too memorable. I'm sure we have encountered many of the same people in the same places at the same times, but this woman is different. She drives wearing a full visor over her face. Almost as though she is on her way to weld something, but not quite so hard core. Each time we've seen her now, she is never without that full face visor...rain or shine and it brings a fantastic amount of joy to Karen and I's day.
Also, a mention of Parkland would not be complete without bringing attention to the Husky hotdogs. They are quite possibly the best hotdogs in the entire city and the condiments, the likes of which have never been seen before, include not only the usual but banana peppers, sauerkraut and often fresh, finely chopped onion. The other day, when I was in there having my 9am hotdog, I met a man who works on the North East end of the city, but drives all the way out to Parkland Husky (on the far west side of the city) to get a hotdog everyday. mmmm. Thursday here I come.

Now, on a totally different note, I'd like to share with you some lyrics from the fantastic Xavier Rudd. Its a song called Message, and I really like it.

So come sit down
Will you talk with me now?
Let me see through your eyes
Where there is so much life
We are biding our time
For these myths to unwind
These changes we will confront

So peace be where
With every place that you had
Look to your soul
For these things that you know
For the trees that we see
Cannot forever breathe
With the changes they will confront

You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things

This sacred land it has
Seen many hands, it has
Wealth and gold yet it is
Fragile and old and all the
Greedy souls just don't care to know
Of the changes it will confront

So speak out loud of the
Things you are proud
And if you love this coast
Keep it clean as it evolves
Cos the way that it shines
May just dwindle with time
With the changes it will confront

You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things
You know some people
They just wont understand
They just wont understand these things
Thank you for your message
But I don't understand
No, I just wont understand these things

So hold nice and close
The ones that get to your soul
So that when it is cold
You wont feel so alone
Cos the roads that you take
May just crack and break
With the changes you will confront

With each gift that you share
You may heal and repair
With each choice that you make
You may help someone's day
Well I know you are strong
May your journey be long
Now I wish you the best of luck
Well I know you are strong
May your journey be long
And now I wish you the best of luck

and the wheels just keep on turning, the drummer begins to drum...

2007-08-20T21:53:00.000-06:00

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways, truer answers, or more beautiful, promising potentialities."

- M. Scott Peck

it just takes some time little girl, you're in the middle of the ride...

2007-08-18T20:58:00.000-06:00

Last night I was sitting by a fire and I was asked to play a song on the guitar. And as I declined, I realized that I haven't played guitar in such a long time. I stared at that guitar and couldn't think of a single song that I would want to play. This sort of disturbed me. I have come to think of myself as a musical person. I have played piano and guitar and sax for most of my life. And its been months and even years since I've picked these instruments up. I am slowly allowing myself to become un-musical, which is odd, seems how I always have music playing in my life. When i'm home, when i'm at work, when i'm cooking supper, when i'm showering, when i'm reading...I'm always listening to music. But never any music coming from myself. I used to love playing music. It never sounded as good as the original people performing it, but there was something in the feeling of playing it for myself that really captured of piece of myself.
I think I will pick up my guitar again tonight and see what comes of it.

miss almost, miss maybe, miss halfway...

2007-08-08T20:16:00.000-06:00

I went for a walk with Jamie in the rain tonight for 2 hours. She always has so much going on in her mind and when we go for walks, it seems to just spill out from her and take shape and form and its incredible to just sit back and listen to and watch and let it wash over me.
There is so much faith and hope and beauty and passion in what she says that I am so challenged by it. On days when I begin to feel as if the human race is becoming ridiculous and stupid and so self-centered, there are moments that she says something and I am forced to step back and see the hope and beauty in humanity and the love and potential that exists in this world.
It makes me realize that there is so much more that I could do with my life and at the same time, that there is a real simplicity in just loving and respecting the people around me.

And as it continues to drizzle rain and the temperature drops, I realize...I have enjoyed this summer.

tell me about the sunsets in sweden and the laws of eden...

2007-07-19T23:08:00.000-06:00

I don't think anything hurts so bad as to be separated from someone you love. Tonight my heart hurts for people who live far from me and who I cannot hug or go to breakfast with or be obnoxiously loud together.

Here are two poems for you tonight that I would share with you if you were here with me sipping tea at 11:21pm on Thursday night...

The first is by Hafiz, and it is beautiful.

I Have Learned So Much

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

And this one is written by Lawrence Raab. I hope you can hear my voice in it.

Since You Asked

Since you asked, let's make it dinner
at your house - a celebration
for no reason, which is always
the best occasion. Are you worried
there won't be enough space, enough food?

But in a poem we can do anything we want.
Look how easy it is to add on room, to multiply
the wine and chickens. And while we're at it
let's take those trees that died last winter
and bring them back to life.

Things should look pulled together,
and we could use the shade - so even now
they shudder and unfold their bright new leaves.
And now the guests are arriving - everyone
you expected, then others as well:

friends who never became your friends,
the women you didn't marry, all their children.
And the dead - I didn't tell you
but they're always included in these gatherings -
hesitant and shy they hang back at first

among th blossoming trees.
You have only to say their names,
ask them inside. Everyone will find a place
at your table. What more can I do?
The glasses are filled, the children are quiet.

My friend, it must be time for you to speak.

those LA lights never shine quite as bright as in the movies, do you still want to go...

2007-07-16T00:28:00.000-06:00

Today i took a road trip through the country with some friends...we became tourists in our own province. Taking in the museums and towns we would normally never take the time to pull off the highway for. But today we did, and it was beautiful. A gopher museum, an abandoned rail car, and old blue church on a hill...today was full of beautiful randomness with my friends.

However, I took two moments to myself today. One while the girls were eating supper in Subway. It was raining outside, but was still so warm. I took a stroll in the rain down the street, just listening and smelling and watching and not thinking. It was so restful and beautiful. I love the way rain just carefully settles things into their place.

Later I made us stop on the side of the road by a field of hay bales. I jumped the barbed wire and climbed on top of one. I just stood there for a while watching the sunset against the clouds, watching the other few vehicles on the road whiz past, watching my friends chat in the van. I stood there and smelled the humid alfalfa and felt the hay under my feet and breathed in everything I could about that moment. It was also beautiful.

I will remember this tomorrow when I am working, when i will need it to sustain me.

There's a perfume burning in the air, bits of beauty everywhere...

2007-07-08T14:40:00.000-06:00

Two great moments this weekend. First, I was talking with Jamie about life and other things. I got to thinking about how I used to think that I had to always be following where god wanted me to be. Always worried if this next decision will steer me off the path that has been laid for me. More and more though I've let go of that idea. I had a moment this weekend where I finally came around to completely, 100% feel comfortable in a theory that has been flying around in my head for the past few years...if you do what you love and make your own path, God will follow.

Another great moment this weekend...

I was playing in the backyard with my nephew this weekend and he says to me, "Auntie Bri, all over the world people speak a different language, right? But they all have the same laugh"

the streetlights all burn out...

2007-07-05T06:43:00.000-06:00

It is 6:43.
It is already 19 degrees.
It's supposed to get up to 34 today.
I am running out the door to go work outside all day in this record breaking heat.

Sick.

how do you dream when you can't fall asleep...

2007-06-29T23:00:00.000-06:00

There are some moments that I am struck so forcefully by the need to write that I can't think about anything than what I would put down on paper. How I would say it. Why. To whom I would be writing. But usually those moments happen when I am riding a lawn mower, or having a drink in a pub with friends, or in the middle of yoga. And so often I return home, continue with the normalities of day to day life and forget about them. Today is one of those days. This week I've felt the insatiable need to write more than usual, but every single time I am unable to grasp the opportunity to its fullest potential. It makes me dream that this week would have been a very productive week for me if I were to quit everything and become a writer right now. Who knows...perhaps the world has missed out on a great work of our age because I am choosing to landscape this summer.

But how does one live through not so productive weeks when you're a writer? Or a photographer for that matter? How do you decide to jump in over your head into a life, a career that you may or may not drown in?

i still find pieces of your presence here, even after all these years...

2007-06-22T13:26:00.001-06:00

I have lived in edmonton for 5 years now. Five years in which I have changed and formed and stretched and grown so much so it is difficult to relate to the person I was 5 years ago, but I love my life here. I love who I am, how I live, the friends I've chosen, the life I've created. But sometimes I find it terribly difficult to continue in this life I've begun. I woke up to rain this morning and had the day off. I have a busy weekend ahead of me...friend's parties and birthdays and concerts and I thrive on such a social weekend. It was then I called home and found out that two of my sisters and their kids are heading out to my parents' farm for the weekend to celebrate my nephew's birthday. I wanted to be there so bad, it physically hurt. Sometimes I miss my family and my life with them so much I can hardly continue in my life up here. But I know that, if I were to go down to the farm on such a busy weekend for me up here with my friends, I know that though I would love being with my family, I would miss out on parts of my life up here. So once again I find myself torn between two worlds. The world I've made for myself and the world that will always be my home.
Cait once told me that I have the gift of being discontent, and I think thats a very interesting and diplomatic but I fear this tendency to live in dichotomy will follow me the rest of my life.

she gets splashed in rain and turns away, leaves me standing...

2007-06-21T00:03:00.000-06:00

Its midnight. I am awake. Lying in my bed. Listening to the thunder and rain against my window. There is nothing quite like a good edmonton thunder and lightning storm. The rain has picked up now and its so heavy and strong, it sounds like a thousand horses stampeding past my room. The clouds are streaked across the sky tonight and so when it lightnings, (i am now making that a verb...lightnings) I don't see the individual bolt, but rather, the landscape of the clouds.

I am tired and I should be sleeping, but this wind and rain and power of nature is worth tomorrow's early morning.

why you are we so in denial when we know we're not happy here...

2007-06-11T21:11:00.001-06:00

I hung out with my friend Christa tonight, who is leaving on Wednesday to spend a month in India. I really like talking with Christa, but I always come away from hanging out with her with my wheels turning and feeling such...anxiety - for lack of a better word. But anxiety in a good way. When Christa and I talk, I get glimpses of what I really want to do with my life. Where I really want to be. How I really want to live. And how much potential I have inside myself to do so.
Lately I've met a few people who don't really have a drive to travel. To be honest, I didn't really believe those people existed, but they do. And its been strange to interact with them and talk about traveling because it usually ends with them saying something like, "Yeah, thats nice that you really like to travel." But its so much more than that. Some people like to travel, but I feel it as a tangible ache inside me. Since I first stepped onto Honduran soil two years ago, traveling has been inside my soul like a virus. Feeding off of my very core, demanding more of me. it won't let me sleep or eat or think or work without thinking about it, without planning for it, without feeling the soul wrenching ache to travel inside me.
And the thing is, I love Canada. I love edmonton in the summer...the long days and the sun and the trees and the festivals. And I love my home at harvest time, endless fields of wheat and mustard waving in the wind. And I love the people who live here. I love being grounded by them and having them as part of my daily life. But all this love of being grounded and in continuous community is contrasted with my desire for the fluidity of travel and movement and experiencing new places and people and culture and food and landscape.
Maybe that is why I come away with my talks with Christa with such anxiety. My heart lies in two places, in two lives, in two ideals and I don't know how I will ever learn to balance the two. Or if it is even possible. But choosing one over the other would be settling for something that wouldn't make me quite whole. Either way.

So what do I do?

to find the water to quench the fire that burns in her spinal cord...

2007-06-10T14:43:00.000-06:00

There is something so incredible about the smell of earth after rain. I love it. I wish I could be bottled, but I think that would negate some of its beauty and intoxicating quality. I would be content to feel (yes, feel because it has a very tangible sensation, emotion, feeling attached to it) to feel the smell of earth after rain for the rest of my life.

Lately this week at work I've been seeing a lot of storm fronts moving in and out. Not much rain, but the beautiful dark clouds and angry winds. I take that back. I love wind and I have experienced many different kinds, and I don't think these winds have been angry. At home, we have a wind called the Chinook. It comes over the Rockies in the middle of winter with incredible warmth and melts all the snow on the ground in only a few hours. I love this wind I love that it is named I love its personality. When I was a kid, my parents, especially my dad, used to call me chinook. I think maybe that is why I love the wind so much. Growing up with almost incessant wind, I know a lot of people who not only detest, but HATE wind. But not me. And lately, when I've seen these storms moving around Edmonton, I always feel it in the wind first. Picture it in your head, like a cheesy Pocahontas moment...I'll be standing behind the mower and all of a sudden, I feel the wind coming. Like it pulls at my soul before I feel it on my face.
Maybe its because I feel so connected to wind that I want to name it, to give myself a way to interact with it. And maybe its because I've been watching too much Pirates lately, but when I think of this wind, when I feel it, when it hits me...the only word I can think of to describe it, is Calypso. I realize that using a sea goddess' name to describe a wind in land-bound edmonton is pretty ridiculous, but I can't help it. Like the Chinook, it is compelling and pulling me into itself, but this one is more seductive and whispering, more dark and mysterious. The Chinook whips open your soul and becomes part of you, but Calypso draws you down into itself until you become part of it. And like Odysseus, I cannot resist.

So when I am mowing and a sense the Calypso coming, I switch my iPod to play "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" by Sufjan and I wait and I watch.

turn up the music and pray that she makes it through...

2007-06-08T20:56:00.000-06:00

I got out of the city last night and went to hang out with some friends I rarely spend time with to celebrate some birthdays. It was probably the most fun I've had in months. A fire, some beer, good conversation, a few rounds of fris-beer...it was fantastic. I love those times when I walk away from the evening and my soul feels lighter. I have incredible friends and even as I get to know each of them more and more I realize that I am exceptionally blessed to be surrounded by an extraordinary amount of people who are thoughtful and kind and passionate and confused and over and above that, in love with life.

Happy birthday Elly, Hans and Jon.

On another note - related but different - you know its been a good night when it ends with everyone in the car laying in the middle of a dark country road listening to Josh Ritter and talking about the length of the yellow dotted lines...which are for the record, almost twice the length of my 6 foot frame - I know it doesn't look like it, but its true. Go lay on one sometime.

not necessarily need, but qualities that i'd prefer...

2007-06-02T18:39:00.000-06:00

The lotto this week is set for $30+ million. I've been thinking about buying a ticket...I mean, someone has to win don't they?? And since that thought has crossed my mind I can't stop thinking about what I'd do with that amount of money. I don't want a new car or a mansion or an extravagant luxury cruise. I want to fly to Belize, buy a hut on the beach, string up a hammock, listen to music, write, photograph and just live. I would shop at local morning markets, drink local beer, sing and dance late into the night with my neighbors...I'd learn Spanish quickly and read Latin American literature. I'd lay in my hammock and be inspired by the sand and sun and sea and stars and move in and out of the culture, experiencing what it has to offer and examining my own. I want all of this and so much more. And I think....do I really need $30+ million to do this? The answer to that scares me even more.

Two quotes come to mind for me in this...

A ship in a harbour is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

and

I never intended to be a run-of-the-mill person. - Barbara Jordan

usually when things has gone this far, people tend to disappear...

2007-05-29T21:14:00.000-06:00

Someone involved in "Jacob's Well" (http://jacobswell.ca/) in vancouver came to talk at the Mustard Seed here in Edmonton. My roommate happens to work there and passed this on to me. I am still thinking through what she means by some of these claims, but I think she's on to something here. Something very worth thinking about:

1. Justice embodies mercy, but mercy does not encompass justice

2. The biblical mandate is that we love others, not save others

3. Intervention=mercy; Prevention=justice

4. The Year of Jubilee should be the governing principles of church embodied justice

5. The church has abdicated her responsibility for the marginalized by paying taxes to the government and thinking that's enough

6. Justice cannot be relegated to a department of the church but rather should be the function of everyone who claims to follow the way of Christ

7. Guilt massaging does not satisfy the poor or the heart of God for the poor

8. The kingdom of God cannot be confined to a program

9. True Christianity always includes care for the marginalized

10. Serving the marginalized is not a special calling or gifting for some Christians, it is God's requirement for all his people

11. God calls us to participate actively in the redemption of all of His creation which includes care for the earth and all that is in it

12. Culturally implicated understanding of spiritual gifts lead people to think in hyper-spiritual terms and in personal benefit/consumptive ways

13. The gospel is way more that Jesus dying for our sins

14. The church has predominantly taugh both verbally and in praxis that it's your church participation that matters to God, not your participation in the world

15. The enlightment led us to individualism that is rampant in the church and completely contrary to the Kingdom of God

walked a mile just to find the edge, some place low enough to step right in...

2007-05-26T22:40:00.000-06:00

Thoughts while cleaning my room at 10:41 on a saturday night:

"Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground - you can discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as its going to get." - anne lamott

I kept quiet so you'd think my heart was tough...

2007-05-25T21:20:00.000-06:00

I spend most my days lately with some sort of lawn mowing device, headphones and my own mind. I was thinking today about how I can't really say that I think a lot while I'm at work. I mostly just listen to music, watch the height of the blade, avoid rocks, gravel and hidden ruts, sleep in the truck or lay on the grass in the sun during lunch, listen to more music, go home, snack on something, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. The thing is, I can't really say I've been thinking a whole lot in the past while. Usually my mind races so fast that I can hardly keep up with it, and not that it has stopped doing so, but I've found that nothing its rambling on about inside my head is really compelling or interesting or of great importance. Maybe that's it maybe I'm realizing that it never was all these things. I don't know yet. I'm still thinking on it...so I guess I am thinking every once in a while these days!

no more left and right, come on take my side...

2007-05-22T06:34:00.001-06:00

Sometimes time stretches out in front of you like it will never end. Standing on this side of the May Long weekend, I work 10 of the next 11 days...10 long days. Its not that I dislike my work, in fact, I usually have a lot of fun with it, but its hard to swallow 10 days of probably over 10 hours each that lie in front of me. Not that I'm complaining either. I just spent the past 5 days taking off work to be at my best friend's wedding. She was stunning. And I know lots of people describe brides that way, but she really was stunning, even with kneehigh stripped socks under that wedding dress. Its strange to have two of my closest friends married within two months of each other. But in both Amy and Cait's case, I am so excited and proud of them because I respect the men they married so much. As Mr Bennet replies to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice: "I couldn't have parted with you for anyone less worthy!"

I know we've all had a bumpy ride, I’m secretly on your side...

2007-05-12T22:34:00.000-06:00

I sometimes have these overwhelming moments when I realize that I have really REALLY great friends. Here are a few of them: