One Week
I recently watched the movie One Week recently and it got me thinking. Yes, it was so nerdily Canadian but I loved it.
It got me thinking that I really do love Canada. Granted, the movie showed mainly beautiful scenery during the summer and avoided the terribleness that can be a Canadian winter but I finally feel like I'm putting down roots.
I can't remember who I was talking to about this but it seems like all of a sudden you accidentally put down roots and then whoops, what happened? How did I get here years later with a savings account, a career and a contract that are holding me in place?
The movie also spurred the thoughts of what I've done thus far. The main character, Ben, rides across the country seeking new experiences and thrills and fulfillment he has never had because he settled for a girl he wasn't in love with and a job he didn't like. He finds out he has cancer and decides that should be the impetus for all these self-revelations. And yes I guess it does usually take something negative like that to create positive changes.
I feel like there are many reasons why I spent so much time travelling. I needed to know I could do it on my own (or without a guy more realistically) and it also gave me the chance to fulfill some of the big "wishes" I had on my life list.
Some of the first conversations I ever had with someone pretty special were about life lists. Bucket lists if you will. I think they're pretty important. Everyone should have one and find the means to achieve everything on it. Mine continues to grow. So despite my rooting moments and newfound love for Canada I have no regrets at the moment. I'm happy where I am. Growing in one spot instead of a dozen, enjoying my profession, having weekly get-togethers with great friends. All of this makes me happy because I am secure in the knowledge that my list-fulfillment is far from over, that what I'm doing now is merely a portion of it. Hell, what I'm doing now is on the life list.
The film also reminded me that you just need to tell people you love them no matter what the consequences. Sometimes you need to get on a bike and go somewhere. And being alone is important for everyone at some point.
The other day, I felt frustrated as I shoved my way through people to work. If only I could just see that sunset once a day perhaps I wouldn't feel so pushy. This film wasn't the best I had ever seen but it just hit little neurons in my brain, reminding me of beautiful scenic moments in this country I have grown to love again and made me think a little harder about where I am right now.
Look in a book...
I've been on a search for the ultimate novel for pretty much my entire life. I would scour the library thinking that today would be the day that I would find it. A novel with the perfect characters, amazing plot line, life lesson and I guess the holy grail of knowledge that I could carry with me forever, that would make me understand the world in a different way. I guess for some people this book is the Bible, and though it has many great parables I don't know if that's what I'm looking for. I've read many great novels thus far, I have yet to truly find a book to fulfill all my needs.
So, I want to write a novel. Then again, who doesn't? A lot of the journalists I've come across are all just wannabe novelists. If you could pay me to sit at home and write all day then hell, that's my dream job. And yet the older I get the less I know what to write about, the more I fear that I don't have the creativity, the imagination, or the skills. Like if I had started writing and publishing books when I was about five and at my most bizarre and creative then I would be a hell of a lot farther ahead in life than I am now. I feel like journalism has really reinforced this hamburger model of writing, so much so that it has sucked the joy out of my writing so much so that I almost hated it when I was done my program. As my master's progressed I eventually specialized in radio to avoid having to plug my words into the carefully crafted boxes of the model that inevitably included: entertaining human-interest opening, boring story background, some fun facts, and then never ever a real conclusion. (We are supposed to be story tellers, oh the irony.) Writers like Stephanie Nole and Jane Armstrong manage to tell real stories, not hamburger ones but I'm clearly not there yet. And I am so long-winded I need more space to write than a column of a news article.
But also, I don't know what to write about.
I have a million ideas but they all stem so much from my own life that I don't know how to separate them. I don't know how to make it not about things I've felt. I feel like I've lost some of my imagination that would have allowed me to create the story of something completely different. Because as much as I want to use my experience to fuel my characters, my dilemmas, my climax and plot, I fear that I am too over-involved, too confused still to separate them enough so that they would be unrecognizable, so that I don't offend those closest to me with my portrayals of pieces of their lives.
I want to imagine myself another life I could not and may not ever lead. I want to create people that I could love, that because they are my creation can be who I want them to be, to be able to envision places and events that may never happen but that could fulfill my insatiable wanderlust. Like connecting the R.E.M. of my dreams and pouring it onto paper. I need the confidence to write from my heart, to take the ideas that my 10-year-old self poured into notebooks and make them a reality with my ever-expanding vocabulary. I'm just not sure how, or if I want the guidance of a class, or a structure at all. Because maybe some of the best writing is practically poetry, breaking rules, ignoring grammar, creating a piece of art out of letters. And I feel like you can't teach that.
A while back, on a whim I read the book
Chasing Harry Winston and it really got me thinking. (No, not the book itself, but more what it was lacking.) It was a book one could read entirely in the bathroom. Hypothetically speaking of course. I'd describe it best as one of those easy-to-read but mind-numbing Us Weekly types. And though the book was entertaining, it had almost zero longevity. In about a month no one will catch half of the references to The Hills or designers or swanky New York hot spots. So while the author will make some good money on a fun piece of entertainment it's not the notoriety I want. It was candy floss for the brain. It sickens you a bit but you keep going because it is fluffy and endearing somehow. But I want to write something that can be read generations from now and will still be relevant, will still make sense like The Alchemist or all the hilarious novels by my beloved childhood favourite Roald Dahl.
I feel like if I keep reading the ability to be a good writer will just happen, will be absorbed through a waterless osmosis, like if I slept with MJ Vassanji or Paulo Coehlo under my pillow that I would just wake up and know where to begin. But I'm just not sure. And will perhaps just keep finding excuses and dead ends and not know where to start.
So I'm going to try to just keep writing and see what comes out.
Oh the irony of this blog's title
So, I know I need to write more. It's fully necessary and I need to get my writing going again. If you don't use it you lose it right?
Basically I feel like I'm at a crossroads. Again? Oh yes. This always happens to me. My life direction is never clear. It's exciting but it's also terrifying. Like if I choose the wrong path I may end up somewhere terrible, shallow, horrifying, where I will die alone with no friends just by picking the wrong route. Highly exaggerated obviously. But a legitimate fear. I know it's not so black and white. One way isn't amazing and one way isn't crappy but I just never know which will make me happier which is part of the problem.
So these are my interests and dilemmas: I want to do a job that contributes something to the world. I want to wholeheartedly throw myself into something. I want a job that I care to go to every day and that will enlighten me. I want to be able to travel and help people and learn and volunteer. But on the other side, I'm a raging consumerist. Every time I get a paycheque of any kind I can barely let the cash cool in my bank account before I'm rushing out the door to pick up the newest pair of boots I saw in Vogue. (Okay so not the exact pair but something similar in my price range.) What is wrong with me? Shouldn't I either be a hippie-loving, Birkenstock wearing, hemp clothed NGO do-gooder or a gladiator sandal-wearing, credit card swiping fashionista? Why do I have such weird and conflicting interests?
It's not normal. And it makes a career path confusing as hell.
But what I have learned is that everything happens for a reason. Back in the day when I was killing myself to get into magazines I had a series of interviews with a big Toronto fashion magazine. Now in the long term they were totally unprofessional towards me but I was conflicted because I was debating between them and a stuffy well-paying corporate job. In the long term, the stuffy job may have gotten me farther in life and I used that time to save money to travel the world, meet a great guy who was exactly what I needed and have a really awesome summer. So I know that happened for a reason. Sometimes it's just really hard to see.... Oh perspective. I guess that's why they call you perspective.
True Beauty
I often spend my day surrounded by beautiful things. Shiny, glossy, sparkly, gorgeous man-made creations, all formulated to make people look taller, leaner and more avant-garde. But as I'm wrapped up in a tornado of things I sometimes remember, hmmm oh yes.... the real world, the outside world. And articles like this one are why I have grown to love
the Globe and Mail so much, because it is the string to my balloon of a life.
Check out these photos linked below. They are so amazing. I have always wanted to go to Rwanda. In the midst of everything this small nation has gone through it has strangely retained so much beauty. I love photo number three and wish I had more photographic talents.
http://www.photosensitive.com/- Go into Projects and click on Rwanda.
Shopaholic
Sigh, spring fashions from
style.com.
Big news: I am going to give up shopping. Yes. Who am I and where has Kate gone? But today as I was thinking of all the things I was looking forward to buying on my next shopping trip I realized that I waste a lot of my life consuming things that I don't need, that don't make my life any better and that don't make me any happier. I think for the past few years buying something new seemed to be the key to "being better". I seemed to just keep buying things in hopes that that one final purchase would make my life complete and stylish. But funnily enough I actually think the more I shop the less stylish I get. Like the more stuff I have the more random my wardrobe becomes and I've realized that half the crap I buy I never wear or I buy it for a life I no longer lead.
I've come to the realization that my overconsumption is really adding to my stress levels. Every time I swipe my credit card (sweet, sweet credit card) I have a mini-panic attack thinking that it won't go through, or that I'm going to have to sneak the bags past my loved ones so they won't judge my habit.
My closets are overflowing, as I've realized that I own at least 10 dresses I've never worn, about five pairs of shoes I've worn once and decided I hate, and drawers of fun jewelry that I now think is too tacky to wear. It's great for costumes- I have an endless supply- but for everyday life my excessiveness is actually bogging me down. For anyone who has ever helped me move, they will know, I am a
heavy traveller. I once missed meeting a cute boy because I was checking out January sales, use my food money on purses and have even put myself into debt for the sake of style. At the moment I am kind of working in the business of consumption- fashion magazines sell endless amounts of things- and it will be harder than ever to do this but it's necessary even for a little while. Most people live on nothing, without basic necessities and though me not consuming won't give them any more I think there are better ways to spend my money and energy and they could include donations instead of more fabric crammed into my drawers.
So I'm trying to be realistic but practical. I can't stop buying food- obviously- and my new insane health issues have led me to become a crazy organic food store shopper. (It's me in leopard print among hemp-sack-wearing customers buying vegan quinoa cookies which are actually amazingly good!) So I must buy nutritious items or I will die, and I am allowed to buy products that I already own, use daily and need to be replaced- this includes face wash, moisturizer, etc.
But basically, I'm not allowed new things- I considered bending this rule for vintage but it's hard to say. They are old things but still, I don't really need anything. Literally. Nothing. That is what travelling taught me that my stasis in Canada has helped me forget- you need very little to survive so I need to cut out my excessiveness. I was happier with less.
I tried to "quit shopping" in third year for Lent. I lasted three weeks until I had a bad day and ended up at the mall for some retail therapy so I think I'll need a sponsor for this.
I'm going to try to make it until August- fall fashions come out in August so I can't just ignore them. But I will try to wear the clothes I already have until then (shocking development) and make a list of the
five things I really want for fall and then invest in those. Instead of accumulating bags and bags of clothes that I really don't need.
God, I'm so self-improving I'm annoying myself. I actually think I'm becoming more hippie-like every day. If anyone's looking, you can find me going not-shopping and eating vegan food- oh and dancing somewhere, sober. Sigggh. I'm going to fall off the wagon, hard.
With or Without it
I've been doing some thinking about love. The
Sex and the City Movie kind of started it and also I seem to encounter a lot of interesting opinions about it. Check out this
one. WTF. Way to make a rainy Thursday slightly more shizer Sarah Hampson.
So while the SATC movie was filled with amazing fashions (Eiffel Tower bag anyone?) and endless hilarious fun it also, when pondered more thoroughly as I am wont to do, made me feel kind of depressed? Obviously anyone who knows me knows I'm a die-hard pessimist (get over it), but it wasn't a stellar conclusion. If you really look at all of the relationships in the movie you'd have to wonder, well how appealing were any of those? Is that really the best there is? Seriously? Okay well then I'm not in for that, because that sucks. Large.
The imperfection of it all makes me feel more disgruntled than sad. Without giving too much of the movie away, the ending left one woman with a distant "guy-that-you-broke-up-with-ten-years-ago-that- you-should have-left-in-the-past-because-he-doesn't-love-you" type of guy that she had to coerce into matrimony, one with a cheating not-so-appealing guy who had to coerce her back into a relationship, one girl seemingly single and fabulous until she's too old to have random sex, and one with a husband who is nice and all but is not someone you aspire to be with because he's kind of gross and creepy. So I'm mean but those are my shallow and rude observations.
Obviously the movie played on the Cinderella theme. I'm sure many others have had these sentiments before but did someone think all those romantic stories up just to mess with women? Do men feel the same way? Why in God's name did my parents let me read stories like that, watch movies like that (Disney does it again) if it was never going to be replicated in real life? If it was only going to be hard work and compromising and settling and no glass slipper, prince or perfection?
In Sarah Hampson's article above she talks about people who "settled for less." So it seems that the alternative to dying alone and childless is marrying someone who is okay, mediocre at best and trying to produce a life out of just getting along. Wow that sounds amazing doesn't it? Why don't they make more fairy tales and romantic movies about that? Because that SUCKS. I understand there are many places in the world where arranged marriages happen and people do find happiness but I just don't get it.
And now back to where I started. Basically the SATC movie made me feel like love was so imperfect. And I know it can be and will be at times. I know relationships and marriages can be hard work but sometimes the work is worth it if the person cares about you enough to not do stupid things that break your heart. How can people settle for cheaters, people they have to change for, plead with, or coerce into caring?
And that, damn it, that makes me an optimist.
And now for some fun. Check out
these amazing photos. They make me happy.
....is a highway
Every time something doesn't work out I feel like running. Like I don't really have anyone or anything stable anyways so I might as well hop on a plane, get in a car, throw some things in a pack and just run. I find it to be much easier than having to face this sort of imminent doom of eventually being alone or uncertain. Because if you never stay in one place you can blame it on that. A lot of people do. And when I have good days I can see why people stick around. Because you could have weekly plans, a set date with a set activity, a specific corner of a specific bar where you meet every saturday night with old friends. That always seemed so terrifyingly static to me but maybe it could feel really comforting. But when I have bad days I figure why bother? Nothing is here for me so I might as well just keep on moving.
Like a vagabond who plans on escaping reality for as long as possible. There are lots of them wandering around and I always wonder about them, how they keep moving, when they will slow down.
I think that's what's so amazing about travelling. You instantly bond with the people around you because you're stuck on a ferry, or on a plane, train, tro-tro and everything is new and different all the time so it's exciting. But it's also exhausting. I wish I was feeling well enough to go somewhere but at this point I can barely make it to work every day.
I just miss the feeling of being utterly alone and yet not, because around the next corner is another backpacker, another beautiful sunset over a different land, and then suddenly you're more alone than you've ever been in your life, thousands of miles away from friends and family but you're so complete and so happy without any of it. It feels like true freedom. There is no panic to fill your life with plans because you are somewhere outside of it all.
