Oh yeah, those things

Did 2011 creep up on you, too?

2011, you creepy stalker, you. Has anyone ever told you that you look like Keanu Reeves?

Suddenly, everyone wants to talk about resolutions.  Or maybe it’s just me.  I think that we (and by “we”, I mean “I”) often make resolutions or set goals and then never check up on them.   We start the year with the spastic energy of small children, all excited and ready to take on the world.  We write down a few vague ideas, and then we get back to work or school, or whatever occupies our non-holiday life…and we promptly forget what it is we said we are going to accomplish.

Last year, I set some goals.  Remember?  I was so very proud of myself because I could actually see as far as the end of the year, and not just the end of the next wine bottle.

Something strong, something permanent, something to follow when the path gets murky. 

Did it get murky?  Oh hell, yes.  But how did I do?  Did having a few bread crumbs actually assist me in keeping to the path?*

Finances?  Important.  Budget.  Plan.  Monitor.

Uhh.  I’ve discovered that I’m not a fan of strict budgets.  But I’ve done alright.

Buy property.  Put down the roots that I’ve been reluctant to nurture.

I started looking for a place in January 2010, and bought a condo in February.  I moved in April.  

Thank you, Mr. President.

To be honest, even though I’d been through this process as part of a couple, it was tremendously scary doing it alone.  All of the negotiating, paperwork, logistics, risk…but here I am, part of the propertied class, with all of its glamour and privileges.  I’ll expand upon that in a future post. 

Work plans?  Now that I have a career, I should probably have career goals.

Midway through 2010, career goals were basically thrust onto me, like a bad French kiss.  The workload and stress it caused are two of the reasons why this blog saw so little action in 2010.  And that’s about all I’m going to say about that.

Re-learn my French?  No, I’d rather learn Hindi. 

Yeah, this totally didn’t happen either.   Yet, the language barrier hasn’t seemed to affect my enjoyment of quality Bollywood films.

Travel someplace new and exotic.

I went to Boston!  That counts as someplace new.  Exotic?  Ehhhhh, not so much.   Calgary?  I went there twice in 2010, and I’d never been there before.   Exotic Calgary, the “Middle East” of North America.  Right?  Right?

This is what happens when your “career goals” get in the way of “travel goals”.  Next?

Finish the novel.  This also requires starting the novel.

Next.

Do yoga.  Work out.  Watch less TV.  Go to the theatre more often.

I went to the theatre more often, and plan to go more often in 2011.  In fact, I may have developed a bit of an addiction to live theatre.  However,  in 2010, I also developed an addiction to The Bachelor.    I think these two addictions balance each other out nicely.  Like Yin and Yeeech.

Based on this (entirely impartial) review, I think I’d give 2010 a solid B+.

And yes, I have a few new goals for 2011 – just a few more breadcrumbs to help me find my way.

*  Of course, in the original story of Hansel and Gretel, the trail of bread crumbs is eaten by birds, which only strengthens my theory that birds are evil.

Dear Shoebox

Dear Shoebox,

I’m sorry that I left without leaving so much as a note.  I acknowledge that it was insensitive for me to to run off, leaving the IKEA furniture that I shed so many tears* to obtain bolted to the wall.  Yet it seems symbolic that the two pieces I left behind are called “EXPEDIT” and “HOPEN”.

When I met you, I was running away, hoping beyond all hope that I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life.  I didn’t tell you this, but I always viewed you as a stopping ground, a safe harbour.  Never as a permanent home. 

Let’s face it, a woman needs a little space to call her own.

And a bedroom door.

And a mortgage.

I won’t miss your inpenetrable lighting fixtures.  Changing a lightbulb shouldn’t require a toolkit and an engineering degree.

I won’t miss my nominee for Toronto’s worst neighbour, MuchMusic.  How often does Justin Bieber visit, anyway?

I will miss watching the always entertaining late night discussions outside my window between the 905 Clubsters and Parking Enforcement.

(OK, so that video didn’t feature any Parking Enforcement, but you get the idea.  Very Jersey Shore, no?  With snow.  Also, it’s not College, it’s Queen Street).

If it makes you feel any better, when I told a friend that the movers were laughing at how little actually had to be moved, he said:

They only see the physical, not the emotional baggage.

I hope you don’t mind, I left a lot of the emotional baggage behind.  Along with the EXPEDIT and the HOPEN.

All the best with the new guy.

xoxo

A

Farewell, Shoebox.

 

* In front of some young blonde delivery clerk at IKEA.  I cried so hard, I left snot stains on the delivery forms.  But that’s a memory I’m trying to repress.

Learning to fly

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

-Ernest Hemingway

*** 

You’re still HERE? 

I’m just teasing.  Thanks for checking up on me from time to time.

I’ve been busy.

Very busy.

You see, I’ve been trying out these wondrous new wings.

There’s no sensation to compare with this

Suspended animation, a state of bliss

Can’t keep my mind from the circling skies

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I.

On writing

I had very good intentions for this little corner of the interwebs.  I still do.

I wanted to write more fiction, more creative pieces.  There is something cathartic about personal confession, but I had grown weary of cutting myself open and bleeding on the page.  After giving myself a transfusion, I built a new home, and opened the doors to everyone.   It was a liberating experience.

It was easier to write when my life was in tatters.  The one thing upon which I could always count, in a world where nothing made sense, was my ability to build something out of the fragments of thoughts clouding my brain and the emotions pounding to crescendo in my chest.  Build a blood-red boat, set it on the waters and let it drift away.

Then one day, a message came back.

“I hear you,” it said.  One voice, to start.  Then, more.   Thank you for giving me what I needed, when I needed it.

A lifetime ago, I wrote that a Writer is someone who lives to write.  Someone who wakes up every morning, as I did, burning with words, desperate to get them out of my fevered brain before they dissipated in a wisp of smoke.   Set them down before the fickle Muse leaves, pouting from lack of attention.

Lives that are in tatters tend to be chaotic.  They have no rhythm, no goal, no sense of purpose.  There is time to dwell on thoughts, especially dark ones.  There is time to write these thoughts down, during the hours that are so late that they can also be thought of as early.

Eventually, the jumble of thread starts to untangle.  One painful piece at a time, the tapestry of life is re-woven.  Connections are re-established, homes are re-built.  The big picture, long forgotten in the endless dwelling upon details, becomes clear.  Suddenly, the full life is worth living.

The passion and energy spent on the words, always the words, is suddenly spent on the living.   The passion is there, but it is spent on other things.

Does it mean that I’m not a Writer? 

Or, worse.

Perhaps it means that I’m only capable of writing when my life is a mess.

I desperately want to burn again with the words, to feel that overwhelming rush of thought that must be expressed.  There must be a balance between these two things. a safe harbour in which I can find my bearings and finally use this space in the way I originally intended.

Random, random, 2010 style

Oh baby, don’t look at me with those big, watery eyes. 

Mama had to take a little break over the holidays, that’s all. 

Here, take this tissue and blow.  That’s better.

If it’s any consolation, I’ve been neglecting my other work, too.  It’s all just sitting on my little bar table, begging to be read and reviewed and highlighted and…whatever it is that I do for a living.

The email’s been piling up too.  And don’t even ask about that book I’m supposed to be reading, lying by the side of my bed.

Now, now, you know that I can’t promise you that I’ll write everyday.  I can only write when the Muse visits, and goodness knows, she is an even more fickle woman than I.

But, I can see by the state of neglect around here that I need to pay you a little more attention.

2008 was the annus horribilis, the year of the flood, the hurricane that swept away life and home, leaving only tattered remnants, scars and bruises.

2009 was a meandering journey on a life-raft, a search for a light in the darkness, glimpses of land without ever reaching the shore, a twelve-month long question mark.

2010 is a new world.  Anything is possible.

Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to send you a postcard on a regular basis.

How is your 2010 so far?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Holiday visions and dreams for the future

A gal can’t just sit around the office, going through old unread back issues of the Economist, tearing out the now-inadvertently funny Accenture ads featuring Tiger Woods.

“At a time when it’s tougher than ever to be a Tiger…”

What a hoot!  But even this gets old after a while.

***

The other night, while I was walking up Yonge Street to the Terroni’s near St. Clair, I had a vision.  A mobile home, decorated with a Menorah, was driving up the street, blasting Yiddish music from a loudspeaker.*

A young fellow, fully bearded and donning the traditional black hat, was hanging out the back window of the vehicle.  He was grinning from ear to ear, and I must admit, so was I.  I had never seen anything like this before in my life.

“Are you Jewish?” he called out, clearly implying that if I was, I could maybe join the mobile celebration.

I shrugged sadly and shook my head as I replied in the negative.

He waved goodbye as the vehicle kept driving down the street, the happy music fading into the night as quickly as it arrived. 

These are the moments in this city that I would not trade for anything in the world.

***

Whether you light the candles,

or trim a tree;

Whether you celebrate with family,

friends,

or prefer to spend time by yourself -

Have a happy and safe holiday season.

2010 is our year, I can feel it.  The year when all of our dreams come true – even the ones we don’t know about yet.

*I was raised Catholic, so I’m probably getting it all wrong.  But I know all the words to every song in Fiddler on the Roof, so that should count for something, right?

***

PS:  This is for you.  Yes, you.  But for me, it will always be Bay.

The Last Goodbye At Summerhill by Anne Douris and Dan Busheikin.

Goal setting exercise

Last year I had vague notions. 

This year, I have goals.

A clean sheet of paper.  Headings.  Underlined.  No, wait…bold, with italics. 

Bulleted lists or numbered?  Numbers seem more definitive, somehow. 

Other people I know have five year goals.  Last year, I couldn’t see past the end of a week.  Sometimes, it was only a day.  Get through the day.  Get through another day. 

I’m happy with a year.  A year is a very respectable amount of time.  Instead of grasping at spiderwebs and feeling them disintegrate between my fingers, I have a rope.  Something strong, something permanent, something to follow when the path gets murky. 

It will get murky.

Finances?  Important.  Budget.  Plan.  Monitor. 

Buy property.  Put down the roots that I’ve been reluctant to nurture.

Work plans?  Now that I have a career, I should probably have career goals.

Re-learn my French?  No, I’d rather learn Hindi.  The Bollywood Oscars are coming to Toronto, you know.

Travel someplace new and exotic.  Push the boundaries.

Finish the novel.  This also requires starting the novel.

Do yoga.  Work out.  Watch less TV.  Go to the theatre more often.

This is easier than I thought.

Relationships.

Blank.

The pen stops.

Blank?  There must be something.  Let’s try again.

Relationships.

Blank.

What do I want?  I must want something.  Write.

Blank.

Keep asking questions.  Where do I want this to be at the end of 2010?

Blank.

It’s all right.  Let’s leave this one blank, and come back to it later.

***

Apparently this blog will forever be tied to Sesame Street, and not necessarily in a good way.  Lately, some people have found the Shoebox by taking a wrong turn en route to the following destinations:

Sesame Street on heroin

Sesame Street pissed off

And, my new personal favourite:

XXX Sesame Street

I feel dirty.