Film from 2018

The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis.

These days, I'm in awe of the world. I'm in awe of the beauty and the torment we as a collective put into the world. Some days, there is so much beauty and wonder and goodness. Some days, there seems to be nothing but devastation. We are seemingly at a standstill. Or maybe it is me at a standstill, unsure of how to feel and how to act. I only want for things to turn out alright.

The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. 

I'm trying to be more mindful of where I stand in the world, what I do to the world. It's been a slow journey. I admit there are things and habits I will never be able to change. For example, one of my pills is in a sheet of 10. I take 5 pills a day, so every other day I throw out this sheet of garbage. It is inevitable. I can't stop taking my meds. There are things I try to do. That's all we can ever really do.

In the last few weeks, some things brought perspective. I finished Sapiens (I & II). I thought it did a wonderful job of outlining the existence of Sapiens and all we have done to change ourselves and the world. It is informative and witty. It ends asking about the next steps, and what those look like. It ends by acknowledging how scary these next steps can look. I went to the Anthropocene exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario last week. Anthropocene is what our human epoch is called. Humans have caused irreversible changes to the Earth. Some of these changes are beautiful. They look stunning, but beneath the beautiful aesthetics, the Earth is hurt. The animals are disappearing. Cities grow bigger and tighter as more and more people are fit into ever-dwindling, ever-shrinking spaces. It turns out we cannot escape our mess either.

I went to see Blood Orange this week. I have almost no photos - certainly no good photos. I was just trying to enjoy the show. To live my existence instead of photographing every minute. To experience fully instead of partially, missing so many details. It was a truly beautiful concert. It felt like an otherworldly experience. It was transcendent, ethereal. Blood Orange is much better live. The music is good, but it is a different experience to hear it live. He is amazing, the instrumentals are amazing, his backup singers have the voices of angels. I felt the music vibrating on my skin, into my soul. When I heard it, I almost cried. There can be so many things we do wrong, but this - that moment - cannot be wrong. Nothing quite so beautiful can be wrong. It was so, so lovely. So, so transformative.

I wonder if I am simply in a time of transition. A lot feels so tentative. I am in flux. A wave of change. I'm rounding 25 soon. It may be the most exciting year yet. This year has been full of dramatic changes. I'm so far away from where I was last year, and yet so much feels the same. I live in the same place, have the same clothes, my body is mostly the same. I did another year of school, I quit a job I had for almost three years - a family of almost three years, I'm working in a different job and industry, I have so many new friends. I'm in a different financial situation. So much has changed and will continue to change.

I'm rambling. I don't know what I am trying to say. The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. I am in crisis, but standing so tall.

Relevance II

I'm revisiting a lot of my older work. Collages, writing samples, journal entries, deep sad diary entries. I am proud. I am sad and angry at my own innocence and arrogance. I am enthralled with myself. I am shocked by the fragility and vulnerability that I approached things with. The way I approached life, relationships, my emotions, my ambitions, my inhibitions. It is a side of myself I don't think I see as much anymore. It's certainly a side of myself I try to limit the public from seeing. Gone are the days that I am so willing to bare open my chest, to flaunt the rawness of everything.

I'm not sure if I should be sad or happy or content or nothing about the way I am no longer her. I am not the same innocent, raw, vulnerable, unsuspecting girl I once was. Is this because I grew up? Do I still encounter things the same way I once did? Did I stop feeling along the way?

A thought that occurs to me time and time again: if I met the people I once fell in love with now, will we still fall in love? Will we still have the same interactions? Will the interactions be better? More intimate? More sustainable with more communication and respect? Will they exist at all? Will I still want these relationships to happen at all? Will they like the person I am today? Will I be less fearful in the way I encountered these relationships, these people? I often wonder.

In a yoga class not so long ago, the teacher says it is important to get rid of old patterns. To dig and confront the patterns - the bad, the ugly patterns. To build something new. To challenge where we otherwise may not.

I am digging through my past. The collages are a big part of that.

I hope I work through things soon. There's a lot of work to do. I hope you enjoy the collages. I hope you can still feel some of the emotion from some of my past. I hope she resonates with you in some way. I think she still does to me a bit.

Check-In

The time is 6:25PM.

I have four days. A changeover between two semesters. It is impossible to imagine that my first semester of this program is done. It is impossible to imagine that I am halfway through with this year, halfway closer to being with my future. To think that soon I can be truly meeting the people and the world that will make up the chunk of the next part of my life... That thought makes everything spin. It makes my heart skip a beat. Pound a little faster.

From the beginning of September to here has felt like a journey. It really has. I feel exhausted. I feel tested. I feel raw, exposed and so closed off. Some of it has been exhilarating, some of it daunting. Some of it was heartbreaking. Some of it I'm still afraid to put to words. Time has moved so quickly too, that I'm not really sure what has happened and what was a little made up. The human mind is so imperfect. Memory is half history, half design. I'm sure the reflecting I do in this little gap will change, will muddle with more time. It always kind of does.

If I were to imagine writing home, here's what I have to say:

1. I really like what I'm learning. I know I'm getting better at it.
2. Heartbreak took a huge toll on me. I didn't think he could hurt me the way he did. This is defining a lot more of my perspective, outlook and attitude than I want it to. I am not happy with where my romantic life and personal headspace are. 
3. I am going to have to work a lot harder to do the best I can. To be better, to be the best. I cannot complain about this. It's the only way to succeed.
4. Being in a position when I'm good at this, can really really be my dream job. I think.
5. I want to hustle. I know my body has its limitations and it has more limitations than others, but I never want to let this stop or define me or my opportunities and capabilities.
6. I will succeed. I refuse to do otherwise.
7. I am going to be happy. 
8. I am going to create something wholly myself, for myself, by myself. I am myself in every single way. I can look at things and decide without a doubt whether something is me, or isn't. I am going  to create something that is me, for me, by me. I will do it.
9. I will let my work speak for me when I cannot speak for me.
10. I'm both excited and terrified to start really dipping my toes into this world. Adland. This feeling makes me think I'm on the right path. 

One of my teachers help me with coming up a headline. She helps me place my own idea. She asks me what am I trying to say in the ugliest words? This was it. With nothing written well, I want to say that life hasn't been easy but I don't think it's supposed to. I think I can do it though. I think I can do it well. I'm up for the challenge. I'm not done fighting.

This is just the start.

Dear September

Please be kind to me.

Tomorrow, I am heading back to school after two years away. I am terrified. I was excited and nervous for so long. I am now terrified. I'm worried I won't be able to keep up. There's so much going on, and I know I always work better, learn better under pressure but I am a nervous thing. A scared, frightened thing. I've never been good with being wound up too much. Always a little reckless, always a springboard.

I really want this to work out. I really need this to work out - more than I am willing to admit, even with writing this now. I need this to work out. I need the blanks in my life to fall into place. I think above everything else, this is the thing that leaves me most insecure, most anxious. I don't like having no sense of direction in my life. I've never been good with aimlessness. I've been aimless. If this year of schooling goes well, if I work hard, if I am lucky- by the end of it, I can have a job. A real job. A creative job full of new opportunities, new people, new environments. I don't want to feel so lost. This is not an exploratory lost; this is a black, shadowy lost. It is "I-cannot-see-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel" lost.

This month will be juggling. It will be finding balance. It will be finding where my new calm is, where my safety in the midst of all this trouble will be. It will be the sweet spot between adventure and self-care.

I start a full-time program. It will be a little over twenty hours of lectures and labs, and however many hours spent working at home. I will likely start working at a new coffee shop where I will have to learn so many new things. I will still try to balance yoga into my days, weeks. It is something that both my body and mind need. I don't think it is something I can go long without anymore. There is something sacred about going to the classes, seeing the faces of my teachers, hearing their words. Their questions. I will try to schedule in a social life. I will try to date. I will try to make this go as well as I can.

I hope I make friends. I hope they're fun and we spend real time together. I hope we work well together. I hope that the program will not be so difficult that I cannot handle it. I hope I will enjoy my time. I hope that I will be happy, that I'll learn a lot. I hope I'll laugh a lot. Open my eyes a little more, have my world shifted into a new adventure that I'll be able to embrace. I hope I won't lose everything I've worked hard for up until this point. I hope I'll continue to work harder to let these new things fall into place too.

September, please be kind to me. Please let me be happy. Let me learn. Let me meet lots of people, make friends. Let things work out with this guy. I think I can really like him, or I do really like him. I think I need someone like this in my life. Stable, sweet, kind, patient. Please, please, please let things fall into place the way they need to be. Please let me learn balance, learn calm, learn a new sort of bravery to do all of this.

It all starts tomorrow. I hope I do well.

Talk to you later.

That Time in London

A flight on September 29th, originally set to land in London UK on September 30th at 6:25am. It was a week and a half of beautiful ol' London with an old friend to show me the ropes. I flew back to Toronto on October 10th. My week and a half in London was very, very full. There was a lot of walking. There was a lot to see, and probably more that still needs to be seen. I'm told London is one of the oldest cities, a real first class city. One of the most notable in the world. London was not for me, but it was still beautiful and it was still an experience to be had. 

9.29.16. This isn't my worst flying experience, but it certainly isn't the best. Before I go to the airport, I already know that my flight is going to be delayed but I go early anyways. What was originally a 30-minute delay becomes a 3-hour delay. My seat mate is nice though. It's his first flight since he was a kid. It's my first flight in two years. He's moving to the UK to do his Master's. 

10.1.16. Some girls are chatting in the kitchen when I get back to the hostel and join them. A French girl tells us her story. She spent her entire life doing the respectable thing- she went to school, to university, studied to start a career as an auctioneer. She always thought of herself as a career lady. When she failed her test, it all came crashing down. Now she moves around a lot. She works as a waitress, moving from country to country, trying to find a place for herself. Trying to find some kind of happiness. When she feels that it's not her place, she moves on. She tells us it's never easy. That it's not in her nature to be spontaneous or embrace change like this, but she doesn't know what else to do. Another girl contributes to the conversation, tells us her father told her, "There is a magic and a clearness in loneliness. Enjoy it."

10.6.16. What is supposed to be an early night ended up being much later when I come back to the hostel, only to go out again with people from the hostel. On a rooftop looking out at the Shard, I listen to these 20-year old girls talk about how they are exploring the world. A 20-year old Merreck tells me she took a year off from university to travel Europe and then spend a month in Vietnam. She tells me about how she backpacked the summer before in Europe. I keep meeting people like Merreck, although she is among the youngest I have met on my trip. These are people set on seeing the world, set on a little bit of difference in their lives. I am both proud and envious of these people with so much energy and curiosity to embrace the world. 

10.8.16. We end up spending most of the day drinking and drunk. It is fun. The food is delicious. We see parts of the city alive that I haven't seen before. But the travelling is taking its toll on me. I know I'm ready to go home. I think what I learned on this trip is this: I like travelling. I like seeing the world, but at the same time, I need some sort of routine- no matter how small. I also need a feeling of connection, of home. It can be in other people, it can be in spontaneous moments, but it has to be there. London, although beautiful, did not offer any feeling of home or deep connection. 

My flight home goes smoothly. 

Nearly a week after I've been home, it is still difficult for me to decide how I feel about my trip, how I feel about London. I tell people that London is not my favourite city. Some people get this, some people don't. 

Jennifer tells me at the beginning of my trip that London is just another big city, and by the end of the trip I agree with her. London is old and beautiful, but it is also a city ruled by young people and tourists. Buildings are torn down, but the fronts remain. An illusion, a mirage of history. A beautiful mirage, but a mirage nonetheless. The culture of the city feels hard to appreciate when there is so much other stuff in the mix. 

My favourite parts of the trip are wandering the galleries and spending time with Jennifer in the quieter parts of town. I liked spending time in Jennifer's neighbourhood of Fulham and then Shoreditch on a quieter day. It is getting a little lost on the tube, and flirting with British boys at a bar in Shoreditch. It is the wonderful scenery on the way to the Barbican Conservatory. It is also all the wonderful food we had. It is getting lost with near strangers from the hostel. 

London isn't my city. If pressed, I probably wouldn't go back. I probably wouldn't have gone if it wasn't to visit Jennifer. London is wonderful though. I had fun. I had a nice trip. 7/10. 

Pictured above: Merreck, Henry, Jennifer and myself. 

The Light in Me

The light within us, that roots into the Earth, like a beam, a thread that travels downward into the molten core of the Earth. This light that is connected to everything and everyone. This light that is like the Sun. It will radiate and touch everyone- you, me, the planets, the stars, the Moon, but this will not diminish its own light. It is a flow that permeates all. This light is everything and it will be here after us as it was here before us. It will last, it will change, but it is. 

Krista in class today talks to us about yoga's origin story of the world. It is believed that the world, the universe originated when God decided to become the world, the universe. So God is everything in this world, and everything in this world has a piece of God; an essence of God. The Earth we walk on, the people we meet, the animals and plants we touch. All of this is God. There is divinity in all of us. A small seed of bright light. Because God became the Universe, because there is a piece of God and a piece of divinity in all of us, we all share something as part of the core of our being. We all share this quality, and there is not any more or less of it in each of us. 

If we replace this idea of divinity and put in its place humanity or some other quality like kindness or compassion, I think it becomes easier to understand our world and all the beautiful things in it and that can be in it. All the good that we can share. 

The world right now is in a state of chaos. There is so much injustice, so much death, so much horror, so much unkindness in the way that some of the world is treated. Almost an unkindness to all of us in the way the world is, the way God is in all of us. 

Today she tells us this, and we practice in hopes of experiencing all of what it feels to be human, so we might be better able to see God in each other. 

July 9, 2016. 

Weekend Reflection

Last weekend I visited Kingston and Queen's University. It's strange to think that I graduated and moved out of Kingston almost a year ago.

The following is the journal entry following my visit, dated March 14th:

The last two months have been hectic and exhausting. I decide I need a break, a refresh. I am in my old university town for the weekend- from Thursday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. I graduated last June, so it hasn't been that long. Everyone thinks the same. Everything is familiar but everything is different. I don't run into any of my friends. I don't see my classmates or friends of friends. Everyone is gone. The fields, the library, the main intersection, the campus coffee shop- everything is the same. I am home, but I am not. This isn't my home anymore. It almost feels like a strange dream. 

I get in on Thursday afternoon. The ride share isn't pleasant, but I'm back in this place where everything looks the same. I sit with my friend at the library for a couple hours while she works on a paper. I grab sushi with one of my old roommates and I tell her everything- all the good, all the bad. She tells me it's like old times again. We go over everything. Friday consists of shopping downtown, Thai food and hanging out with Sarah, her boyfriend and his friends. I miss my friends, I miss my friends, I miss my friends. Saturday is sweet. I go for a short walk because it is beautiful and warm. There are so many girls already in shorts and short dresses. Ellen and I get coffee. We check out the small art gallery attached to the library. After this, Sarah drives us to the movies. We see How to be Single. We have dinner at the campus pub. We order so much food between the four of us that the waitress cannot believe. Saturday night ends when my best friend and I wait for her to get ready and then a beer tasting at a brewery downtown. I don't get back to my weekend home till almost 2 or 3AM. I leave Sunday, so Sunday is slow. We start slow and we sit at the campus coffee shop until my ride is there. 

I encounter all the same things but everything feels different. Everything feels fine and normal until in an instant, I realize, I am reminded that this is not my normal anymore. While everything looks the same, what made this place for me is not here anymore. I am walking by the field and I will not go past it to go to my first year residence, or the building where my last year seminars were. I am sitting on a couch at my friend's boyfriend's place and the jokes being made are not personal (to me, for me). These boys are funny, but they're not my Boys. They're not my friends, not who made these past four years great and safe and home for me. I take a shortcut through the gym to get to the house I lived in for two years. I only do this once. It is not my house anymore. I go into the house and everything is where it is supposed to be- the kitchen, the living room, the dining table, the stairs upstair, et cetera et cetera, but it no longer has that sense of home. It no longer has a sink filled with dirty dishes or drums sitting in the living room. It is not filled with our shouting or our laughing. It is not mine. Not our's. 

This weekend I feel strange and distant from everything because while everything looks the same, I know things are not the same. While they may not have changed drastically, they have changed. I have changed. The people who used to make this place home for me, have also changed. All the the students walk by and everything makes sense. But then something says, "You're not a student anymore." 

I'm not a student anymore. Kingston and Queen's was almost a year ago, but it feels almost like a dream.