new year, new year

10 days into the new year, i am sitting down to write for the first time in a long time.  christmas is a strange being, isn't it?  no matter how i plan for it, the holidays always seem to wipe out my will power and resolve.  routines vaporize and healthy eating turns into turtles for breakfast.  the concept of writing seems foreign and inaccessible, and 'personal time' consists of getting ready for the next event.  i inevitably turn into a busy blob with a full schedule.

it didn't help that i was stressed about getting my new school application sent for about three full weeks.  isn't it a dastardly thing, to sell yourself on paper?  to know that your entire future rests in the hands of someone who may be in the foulest mood on the morning that they review your application?  my friend nato used to say that academics is a game, and he was right.  every morsel of truth must be swaddled in layer upon layer of bullshit.  that being said, i desperately want to get into this program.  the course content just seems to right for me, but i have done what i can do:  i have sent in a stack of papers with my name at the top.  i have no idea what my chances are, but if i don't get in, i would like to think that i will be okay.  i will choose another adventure for my book.

christmas, though busy, was great.  chris and i really felt the joy of not being in northern alberta anymore, like the last two christmases.  we split our time between my grandma's (bedroom with a sheet for a wall) and his parents ("hammock of springs" pull-out couch), and i have to say...we are really looking forward to getting our own place.  the year after we got married, we lived in an amazingly decrepit apartment in new brunswick while chris finished his BA, but since then, we have been on the move.  during our two years in alberta, we moved five times (five!) and since we left in may, we have been road warriors (a.k.a. homeless).  this has made it possible for us to do some great things:  east coast road trip this summer, new york for two months, st. stephen for a month in november, minnesota for ten days at new year's, and now vancouver for a month or two.  i realize that this time is a gift, and that these things wouldn't be possible if we had an apartment to pay for back in ontario.  as much as i anticipate getting settled for a while in a place, i do worry that i will feel discontent once we've locked in.  and isn't it likely?  i live in this tension, the desire for adventure and the need for stability. 


the past two days in vancouver have been amazing and sunny, and we are questioning all over again why it is that we don't feel like moving here.  there is no denying that this is a gorgeous city, and there is something incredibly appealing about the vibe.  nature is everywhere...beaches, trails, old old trees.  we are wearing light jackets and it's january.  and all this is not to mention the fact that we have over 20 of our best friends living in the city.  moving here, in so many ways, would just make sense.
but.
i cannot shake the feeling that it's just not the place, or at least not for now.  as much as i love it here (it's our fourth time visiting friends in the past year), as much as i can imagine me here, there is something unnameable that makes me hesitate, and turn away.


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every little thing's gonna be alright.

we left new brunswick ten days ago, and now i'm finally sitting here again, writing, writing and erasing, not sure of what to say or how to say it.

it's been an eventful week and a half, ups and downs.

i found out on my birthday (seriously? my birthday?!)that i didn't get in to the master's program i applied to at UBC.  you know - the only program i applied to, the basket in which i tossed all of my eggs in a whirlwind 10 days back at the beginning of september as i struggled and scrambled to put together a portfolio in time.  i guess i assumed that i would get in, regardless of a crappy letter of intent (written in the last 45 minutes before the midnight deadline) and a slapped-together gong show of a portfolio.  and for some stupid reason, the rejection made turning thirty that much harder.  

it's such a nice, fuzzy feeling to be on some kind of a path, to know what's next, to have a plan.  before going to SSU, i was terrified of committing to a four-year program; but once i was there, i relished the feeling of security, of not having to make any decisions about where i was going or what i was doing.  in university, things move in a natural rhythm that was well-suited to my personality:  chunks of time spent at school, summers and christmases for a change of pace and scene, travel semesters for adventuring...but always coming back to the big yellow house eventually, always being together again eventually.

now i am cut adrift in the wide open world with endless possibilities, decisions that will lead to happiness or despair, greatness or mediocrity.  

remember when 'choose your own adventure' stories were popular?  as a kid, it seemed like my first instincts always led my princess (or other character) to a tragic end.  i would go back and make different decisions and different decisions until finally, the happiest ending was achieved.  it doesn't exactly work that way in real life, sadly.  and it has me immobilized, paralyzed by indecision.

i found another program after my post-traumatic rejection shock wore off, one that maybe even excites me more than the original program i applied to.  but now i'm scared, scared to death, scared out of my pants about applying and not getting in.  oy vey.

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a random assortment.

some things i have been thinking about lately:

- how exciting it is that M.A.C cosmetics are cruelty-free.  it's weird because they don't advertise it a lot, but PETA endorses them because their products are never, ever tested on animals.  this has been something that i have been wrestling with for quite some time...the idea that why should some poor, defenseless bunny suffer because i want to put black goo on my eyelashes?  this is something to seriously think about.  while i can admit that there might be a little bit of weight to the arguments that are pro-animal testing in terms of medical research, what possible justification can we have when the cause of suffering is simply vanity?  there is no reason, none whatsoever, why animal testing for cosmetics and toiletries should still exist.  it is cruel and unjustifiable.  and i am delighted to find out that M.A.C is one of the companies that acknowledges this.  especially since their Liquidlast Eyeliner is probably the best product out there for liquid liners - it doesn't move!  swimming?  sleeping?  no problem!  i encourage everyone to put a little research into the products that you buy.  there are so, so many options now for bath products, skin care, and cosmetics that are not tested on animals.  just because we all would rather not know what goes on before the product arrives on store shelves, it still does go on.  millions of animals are abused every year for the sake of 'beauty', and it's just not right.

- anne lamott.  she says, if you want to be a writer, you must write every day.  write no matter what.  and since i trust anne lamott on most things, i'm going to take her word for it.  i may not always write here, but i will be writing.  i always fall prey to that stupid idea that if you are meant to be a ________, it will come easy to you.  especially in the arts.  the concept of a writer/painter/speaker/etc working on his or her craft, maybe even being kind of bad at it at first, is one that i have never really allowed myself to believe  (...probably because i really hate editing).
nevertheless, it is a true thing that committing oneself to an activity generally leads to increased ability in said activity.  it is also a true thing that for heather mercer, discipline chafes at her like a badly-fitting bridle.  in spite of this, she is determined to try.  or, since (as we all know) there is no 'try', she will do.  and she will cease and desist from speaking about herself in the third person, immediately.

- turning 30.  they say it's great, that the 30's are a magical time where you suddenly have it all figured out.  i can't imagine that this is the case, but i'm trying to be open to the possibility.  it's strange to take stock of your life so far, and to find yourself lacking.  i have lived through great swaths of time in which i was absolutely certain that i knew who i was and what 'it' was all about.  i have also lived through the classic 'ssu-deconstruction' when i was still pretty sure that i knew who i was but less sure about what 'it' was all about.  now, on the verge of being suddenly and mystically whole at the stroke of midnight on december 10, i can admit that i'm not who i thought i was at all and i truly have no idea how to move on in the world.  i have terrible moments of hoping that maybe the human race will go extinct so that we don't destroy everything, which seems to be our pattern.  we have a disturbing penchant for doing the absolute worst things virtually all of the time, from genocides right down to animal testing to littering to telling white lies.  we may be beautiful creatures even despite this obvious brokenness, with the capacity for incredible love and justice, but i'm sorry to say that the good simply does not outweigh the evil.  in spite of our moments of grandeur, we humans are far too willing to accept the lowest status quo in word and in deed.  i'm sorry to be a downer, but this has been on my mind a lot lately.  life may be beautiful, but we, as a species, seem bent on making it ugly.

- am i having an existential crisis?! 


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home.

i haven't been the best at writing here, i know this to be true.  there is a strange phenomenon taking place, though...somehow the days are disappearing right from under my nose.  how can it be possible that we have been here, in st.stephen, for almost a month already?  it seems like it's been only a few days, or maybe a week - but then, that's not right either.  what it really feels like is that there is no time, none at all.  if calendars didn't exist, i'd guess we could have been here for months and months. 

part of it, i suppose, is that this place always just feels like home.  i lived here, new brunswick of all places, for six years (school years) and that's actually a big chunk of my life (my life which, by the way, seems to be expanding as quickly as north american waistlines.  did i mention that i'm going to be thirty soon?  thirty?!).  places like todd's point, dover hill, new river...these places are practically tattooed on my body, a physical knowing that defies logic. 
it is like this with some places, and with some people.

i know that this is rare, to have a place that feels like home when my 'real' hometown is a suburb that doesn't recognize me anymore, probably never did.  so why can't i stay?  chris and i are tempted, believe you me, to plunk ourselves down on any old creaky porch in this town and let our legs grow into roots that go deep down.  however. 
we can't stay.  we just can't.  it doesn't 'seem' like the right time, if there ever will be a right time.  but there is a longing in me for stability, a longing that would have shocked the pants off of teenage me (weird expression).  i always prided myself on not being a homebody.  as a child, i would beg, literally beg to be sent to camp, for the whole summer if possible, for my whole life if my parents could afford it!  (they couldn't).  but they did somehow manage to send me to camp, every summer for weeks, and i trotted happily off with never a tear, barely a wave.  as a teenager, i tried to be everywhere at once, and everywhere was decidedly not at home.  it wasn't that i didn't love my family, because i truly did (do).  but i didn't need to be at home, because it was enough to know that home was there for me to come back to.  and the sense of home was very real, very necessary to my adventuring. 
when i went to australia after high school, what it meant to be seriously dating an australian was a concept that was lost on me...until i actually got there and realized that i could never imagine staying for the rest of my life, not for him or anyone else.  it wasn't home, and i had the distinct feeling that it never would be. 

i don't have a family home anymore.  after cancer stole my mom, there was no more glue and everything fell apart.  it doesn't take a genius to figure out that my longing for stability is very deeply connected to my very real lack of it.  i just want a home again, a place to adventure from and then return to, a place to lay my head.  i don't know why i of all people should deserve this when Jesus himself didn't have it, but i can imagine that he longed for it, especially after knowing the fullness of home that only heaven could be.  at least he had a strong sense of purpose to keep him warm at night!  it would seem i am without that too...

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the great great outdoors.

today it snowed, and in such cases i am always torn:  stay in and watch the gorgeous fluffy stuff pile up while drinking coffee and bailey's, or go out and walk in the cold white stuff.  or both. 

i went out.  the nature trail is no longer maintained, and there are big cement blocks across the entrance that say S-T-O-P-! in fluorescent orange spray paint.  while at first i was appalled, this is not necessarily a bad thing...while there may no longer be bridges, there is a distinctly more nature-y feel to the nature trail when the paths are a little overgrown.

i spent so much time on the nature trail in my first two years in this little town, and a bit less every year since.  back then, i knew what i needed to feel sane/happy, and i did it.  it's funny how being 'busy' can clutter everything up so much, mentally, that we forget what gets us through, what makes us tick.  being in the woods does something very real for me, something that i don't even know if i want to name.  the mystery is enough. 

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a poem by margaret atwood

Cell

Now look objectively.  You have to
admit the cancer cell is beautiful.
If it were a flower, you'd say, How pretty, 
with its mauve centre and pink petals

or if a cover for a pulpy thirties
sci-fi magazine, How striking;
as an alien, a success,
all purple eye and jelly tentacles
and spines, or are they gills,
creeping around on granular Martian
dirt red as the inside of the body,

while its tender walls
expand and burst, its spores
scatter elsewhere, take root, like money,
drifting like a fiction or
miasma in and out of people's
brains, digging themselves
industriously in.  The lab technician

says, It has forgotten
how to die.  But why remember?  All it wants is more
amnesia.  More life, and more abundantly.  To take
more.  To eat more.  To replicate itself.  To keep on
doing those things forever.  Such desires
are not unknown.  Look in the mirror.


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doing my best.

ok, so i missed two days.  and almost three.

you know what this reminds me of?  when i used to be completely wrapped up in the Pentecostal church as a tween/teenager,  fasting was a big deal - and by 'big deal', i mean that it was a sign of how holy you were/were not.  i would vow (and i do mean vow) to fast for x amount of time.  sometimes i would be victorious/holy and sometimes i would eat/fail miserably.  there was no guarantee of spiritual enlightenment from the fast, but there sure was a guarantee that if i did not fulfill every agonizing day i would feel like the most unholy of creatures for weeks on end.  isn't that messed up?  i'd say yes.  i got the impression from these ridiculous attempts at sainthood that i was a) a failure, and b) never able to follow through on anything.  i don't know if these are the elements of selfhood that my youth group aimed at instilling in us, but either way, they succeeded. 

so it's not really surprising to me that, after just a few days, i have already been defeated by my own determination to make reckless vows.  it's no big deal, but it brings up bad memories that i have to actively try to keep at bay.

oh well.  perhaps i just need to get over my need for perfection.  if i write here for 28 out of 30 days, or 12, i am still writing, still trying.  and i guess that's all that matters.

in other news, tonight i made mushroom ravioli for the first time in life, and it was exciting.

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