Lately it feels like I'm at the bottom of a very tall pile of precariously stacked items. To talk about needing to achieve balance would be putting it lightly. I feel the conflicted impulse to both stand out and recede into my comfort zone. To noticeably be un-noticeable and therein lies a paradox.
You can't have people take notice without standing out in some way. But I don't have a knack for flair, I don't dress in any manner of avant-garde fashion and I often spend too much time thinking about what I'm going to say rather than saying what I think. I try to be good in the little ways: chasing after a person who has dropped something, returning lost items, giving directions and taking pictures for tourists. I even gave a free hug along with some spare change to a homeless man. Yes, I still feel weird about that but sometimes a fellow human being needs a hug.
In doing good things I don't feel as oppressed by the cigarette smoke that billows in my face no matter how I strive to avoid it. I try to smile at strangers and hope that what I think is a smile doesn't look like a sneer to them. Maybe putting on happy airs will help alleviate the panic I feel on a daily basis. I wonder if I'm capable, if I can manage my finances, if I can move out, if I seem confident, if I might actually know what I'm doing.
When life feels complicated I need to remind myself that the best ideas come in simple packages. Musicals are good for this. Often daily life fails to remind us of the things we learned from Mary Poppins and The King and I, films I still go back to after all this time.
I might be as brave as I make believe I am.
March 22, 2011
March 16, 2011
Collections of Clichés
I was born a talker or at least that is what I'm told. This tendency I repressed throughout my childhood since I was neither popular nor noticeable My peers didn't much care for what I had to say. Despite this, I sheltered my little garden of stories, tending to it in secret until suddenly everyone wanted to be different, to stand out, to grow up and then I let the stories escape.
You might not know it from meeting me, but I do love to spin tales and above all, make people laugh. Not in the stand-up comic kind of way however, although I have nothing against that method (I try to catch some shows at the comedy festival every year), but I choose to draw humour from the telling of stories. The Lad teases me, saying that I was born in the wrong era for my tastes. As much as this might be true, I still feel that my sense of feminism would be misplaced in any other era. Insomuch as the art of rhetoric is considered among the highest to be attained, I sometimes feel I missed my boat.
A well placed cliché can be very effective, triggering comforting nostalgia in a reader/listener. While this might be considered laziness on the part of some story-weavers I see nothing wrong with turning to tried and true methods. They are, of course, clichés for a reason - they work.
Times are that I will feel the whispering of a new story, it taps lightly on the back of my neck like a playful lock of hair. Climbing up the marble steps to my classroom, wondering at the surface of the steps, worn concave by decades of steps. These are the physical manifestations of echos. I run my hand up the banister, looking at where the stain fades, where touch has occurred most frequently. I could think of this in terms of building safety, which I was trained to do, but I cannot bring myself to such things.
Stories are better. Stories live in the faded wood and the worn treads of steps. I will never know them all but I can strive to weave my own. Whether they are found and read at some point is not as important to me as the fact that I have written them down. While I would like to be true to my nature and talk and talk until my throat is raw and my cheeks are sore from laughing I will, for now, tuck my stories away until they're ready to bloom.
You might not know it from meeting me, but I do love to spin tales and above all, make people laugh. Not in the stand-up comic kind of way however, although I have nothing against that method (I try to catch some shows at the comedy festival every year), but I choose to draw humour from the telling of stories. The Lad teases me, saying that I was born in the wrong era for my tastes. As much as this might be true, I still feel that my sense of feminism would be misplaced in any other era. Insomuch as the art of rhetoric is considered among the highest to be attained, I sometimes feel I missed my boat.
A well placed cliché can be very effective, triggering comforting nostalgia in a reader/listener. While this might be considered laziness on the part of some story-weavers I see nothing wrong with turning to tried and true methods. They are, of course, clichés for a reason - they work.
Times are that I will feel the whispering of a new story, it taps lightly on the back of my neck like a playful lock of hair. Climbing up the marble steps to my classroom, wondering at the surface of the steps, worn concave by decades of steps. These are the physical manifestations of echos. I run my hand up the banister, looking at where the stain fades, where touch has occurred most frequently. I could think of this in terms of building safety, which I was trained to do, but I cannot bring myself to such things.
Stories are better. Stories live in the faded wood and the worn treads of steps. I will never know them all but I can strive to weave my own. Whether they are found and read at some point is not as important to me as the fact that I have written them down. While I would like to be true to my nature and talk and talk until my throat is raw and my cheeks are sore from laughing I will, for now, tuck my stories away until they're ready to bloom.
March 4, 2011
Trying to Sleep
At 11:47 p.m the front door latch squeaks then clicks open with an explosive sound. Dad is home from working the evening shift. I have an early morning class the next day and should have been asleep by the time he came home. I'd come home only two hours before and wanted to get caught up on some online socializing.
Having grown up in this small, one-story bungalow the symphonies of the floorboards are quite familiar to me. Each member of the household has a distinctive pattern; I can use these to track their routines. I doubt as much attention is paid to my comings and goings. Dad has a heavy step, made even more so tonight as a bad flu is dragging at his feet.
Boots are discharged, door is re-latched with a thunderous clang (it's an old door, throwing the latch invloves some elbow grease), coat is thrown over the back of a chair and he comes down the hallway. He sees my light is still on, whispering through the crack under my door. He greets me, his eldest, with a sniffle. The light in the kitchen is now on and I choose this time to get some sleep. I've made the mistake to staying up through Dad's nightly routine and have no desire to lose sleep this time. Kitchen, shower, kitchen, bedroom; his heavy treads loop around the small house, resounding in the hardwood floors.
Laying aside my book, I let the sound of the shower lull me to sleep, and as I drift off I hear the squeak-thunk of the front door. Mom's home. It's midnight, in six hours and twenty minutes I have to be up again. So I sleep, I rarely dream.
The sound of velcro wakes me, it's quarter to five in the morning. I hate waking up before my alarm clock goes off - it makes me feel cheated. My nest of blankets immediately starts to overheat and I am uncomfortable. The ragged lace egde of my pyjama top has no doubt left plently of red lashes across my chest. The kitchen light is on again, the sound of velcro means Dad is up checking is blood pressure, his most recent fixation. Despite being arguably beneficial to his health, his method leaves me wondering whether he might be increasing his own blood pressure by stressing over it at five in the morning. Beep, then buzz, then hum. In twenty minutes my alarm goes off, but it's pointless.
Friday's a good day, so I don't let the rough start get to me. But things get strange rather quickly. There's a foreign creature in the kitchen. I percieve it through the corner of my eye as I head for the bathroom. In the dim light I spy it's lilac-coloured bathrobe which hangs askew, the belt dragging on the floor. Be-socked feet and the cuffs of sweat pants peek out from under the open fridge door. In the arctic glow of the fridge light, I see a knitted toque* perched on it's head.
By the time I quit the bathroom - all squeaky clean and dressed - the kitchen is devoid of life once again. An auto repair manual is open on the table next to the blood-pressure cuff. On the counter, half a mango sits abandonned and the cutting board is slick with golden slime.
Shaking my head as I leave for the day, I think of how everyone must have those strange days. When I claim a free coffee after class and win another free coffee with it, I know this to be true.
Sometimes it's just another day , but short stories can come at any moment.
* For my non-toque-wearing readers: pronounced tooque; Canadian fashion icon and climate-driven necessity. Also knows as a knitted winter hat (often has a pompom or other such adornment but sadly not in this case) or a stocking cap.
Having grown up in this small, one-story bungalow the symphonies of the floorboards are quite familiar to me. Each member of the household has a distinctive pattern; I can use these to track their routines. I doubt as much attention is paid to my comings and goings. Dad has a heavy step, made even more so tonight as a bad flu is dragging at his feet.
Boots are discharged, door is re-latched with a thunderous clang (it's an old door, throwing the latch invloves some elbow grease), coat is thrown over the back of a chair and he comes down the hallway. He sees my light is still on, whispering through the crack under my door. He greets me, his eldest, with a sniffle. The light in the kitchen is now on and I choose this time to get some sleep. I've made the mistake to staying up through Dad's nightly routine and have no desire to lose sleep this time. Kitchen, shower, kitchen, bedroom; his heavy treads loop around the small house, resounding in the hardwood floors.
Laying aside my book, I let the sound of the shower lull me to sleep, and as I drift off I hear the squeak-thunk of the front door. Mom's home. It's midnight, in six hours and twenty minutes I have to be up again. So I sleep, I rarely dream.
The sound of velcro wakes me, it's quarter to five in the morning. I hate waking up before my alarm clock goes off - it makes me feel cheated. My nest of blankets immediately starts to overheat and I am uncomfortable. The ragged lace egde of my pyjama top has no doubt left plently of red lashes across my chest. The kitchen light is on again, the sound of velcro means Dad is up checking is blood pressure, his most recent fixation. Despite being arguably beneficial to his health, his method leaves me wondering whether he might be increasing his own blood pressure by stressing over it at five in the morning. Beep, then buzz, then hum. In twenty minutes my alarm goes off, but it's pointless.
Friday's a good day, so I don't let the rough start get to me. But things get strange rather quickly. There's a foreign creature in the kitchen. I percieve it through the corner of my eye as I head for the bathroom. In the dim light I spy it's lilac-coloured bathrobe which hangs askew, the belt dragging on the floor. Be-socked feet and the cuffs of sweat pants peek out from under the open fridge door. In the arctic glow of the fridge light, I see a knitted toque* perched on it's head.
By the time I quit the bathroom - all squeaky clean and dressed - the kitchen is devoid of life once again. An auto repair manual is open on the table next to the blood-pressure cuff. On the counter, half a mango sits abandonned and the cutting board is slick with golden slime.
Shaking my head as I leave for the day, I think of how everyone must have those strange days. When I claim a free coffee after class and win another free coffee with it, I know this to be true.
Sometimes it's just another day , but short stories can come at any moment.
* For my non-toque-wearing readers: pronounced tooque; Canadian fashion icon and climate-driven necessity. Also knows as a knitted winter hat (often has a pompom or other such adornment but sadly not in this case) or a stocking cap.
March 1, 2011
Kinetic
After a much deserved and all-too-short "spring" break I am back in motion. After skidding down glistening slopes and lugging myself to the Eastern Townships and back to visit the Lad at his dorm I get to go back to reading and essay writing.So as the rice bubbles merrily on the stove I contemplate which of my many projects gets my primary attention (you would think it was school but there you would be wrong dear friends). I have several items on the needles at the moment and I take them up depending on my patience level. The Tubey sweater is coming along, I am now in the body of the thing but I reserve that for my Knit Nights as I can talk easily while working an endless 3x1 rib. But as my very understanding teddy model Sunny will demonstrate, it is already looking pretty sweater-like.
I just wanted to take a picture of my teddy in a sweater, teddies are very obliging models.
On other needles I have a Holden Shawl in the delicious colour of Sapphire from Cherry Tree Hill. The pattern is simple, which is good as this is my first attempt at lacing. I have finished the stockinette body and am on to the decorative bit. For those of you who are not with this blog for the knitting, stick with me, I'm almost done. There is another colour from the same maker that I am absolutely in love with but cannot think of what to do with it. Take my word for it for now, but it is the colour that children's cough grape-flavoured cough medicine tastes like.
It is deliciously and nostalgically purple.
From knitting we move on. I feel a spring in my step and with every path I follow I cannot help wish that spring was contagious. Just enough that the air would catch it and perhaps come down with a good old case of it. The ice recedes from the sidewalks in such a way that it catches you unawares are you turn a corner and sends you sprawling. I have not yet been so unlucky. With spring shall come new adventures, such as the belly dancing competition in which I am scheduled to compete. My teacher feels I am ready but I am not entirely sure from whence she gets these delusions. I feel not half as skilled as the women I have seen dance in videos of previous competitions. However, since it only comes around every two years, better to try now then wait.
I took tons of pictures before sitting down to compose this and had almost as much fun. The bright colours of yarn are a shield against the bleak winter night. By time I finish most of these things however, it shall be too warm to wear them.
I go now to sit myself down with a pile of great movies and a steaming glass of cinnamon chai tea and wish winter away. From my cocoon of spicy brews and hearty chocolate chip cookies which I bakes last night, nothing can cool my spirits.
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