A Victoria Life

For the last month I have been in a manic non stop creative outpouring.  I have written a print version of this column for the James Bay Beacon who have expressed interest in syndicating it, I've done drawings, paintings, poured out poetry after a nine year dry spell, and started on my second novel. And in amongst this I have tried to update here weekly. During my creative outpouring, I have not stopped to refill the well, so, basically, the well has now run dry. The pump spurts and gurgles but nothing comes out. So, what is the point of my ramblings about wells and pumps spurting and gurgling? I have creativly overextended myself and now need to refill the well. So this will be the last post for this month. The column is not dead, in fact, it is hopefully reborn on the pages of a real newspaper. In the meantime though, I'm taking a creative step back so that I can once again view and describe the city I live in and the dream I am following without pressures of  entries to be read by the world. I am allowing myself space to write poignant moments of brilliance along with insipid uninspired whineings, and not care. Every artist at times needs space to grow, to try new things and fail heroically,and in doing such with no  outsiders watching, and no thoughts of comments or critiques.  So I am giving myself that space. In the meantime, hopefully you'll be able to read my writings in the next edition of the James Bay Beacon.

*special entry to my regular readers*

Regular Readers of this column may begin to notice changes in the upcoming entries as my writing is taking on a more introspective look at living the life of an artist and living in Victoria.

I suddenly find myself in the position of no longer being that 'aspiring' artist cleaning girl who  wrote the first entry to this column, sitting there in Tim Hortons before work, with nothing but a pen, sketchbook, and the audacity to dream. I now find myself with the title "emerging artist", and what this title means to me is something I am still trying to figure out. I have tried to force my writing to continue in it's third person objective style but am finding it stifling and constrained. The journal entries that I generally take my columns from have become much more thoughtful and introspective about the process of becoming an artist, and what reaching certain goals means, the good of it and the bad as well, Because with every gain there is something left behind. That is how it with growth, you shed one set of clothes and put on another. I feel I have shed the clothes of that tired out working class girl, and am now trying to find a wardrobe that fits the new 'emerging artist' me. I believe strongly in artistic integrity and refuse to do anything that I am not passionate about just for fame or money. So for those who have read my writings from the beginning, I hope you will continue to read and my words will still be an encouragment to anyone crazy enough to follow a dream. Be careful. Dreams can come true. And then what's next? That's the question I face now.

Jan. 25/10

.....I am sitting at my desk, impatiently waiting for my latest sims world creation to save, as I watch a moment of wintery January sun illuminate the brickwork of my balcony. It lights it in a soft yellow glow briefly before fading quickly from the sky and apartment. The sun has been shineingf fierecely all day, beckoning me to come out and watch it dance on emerald leaves and light up small buds shooting through dark earth, but I, I sit with my back turned to it, working in a virtural world, with buds I can neither touch nor smell. It is nearly 4pm before I finally break free of the virtual world - the chance to play god - that I am creating and doing, and head for Starbucks. The air has cooled now as I step out into the street, but does yet have an evening chill.

I order coffee this time at Starbucks instead of cheating and packing my own in my leaky starbucks mug. The taste, though disappoints me. It is  bitter and unplesant. It tastes like it has been overbrewed and then sat there all day. I grimace but drink anyway. The atmosphere, though,  is bright, electric with the energenic voices of many different languages clashing together - Japanese, English, is that Spanish? For a brief moment I break free from my computer obsessed mind, just in time to watch the rare sun sink in the sky, returning the winter coolness to the city. There is such a thing as a day well lived. Well I, I am an expert at a day well wasted.

What is it with monday, I wonder, that causes my crash into video game virutal reality hiding and obsession. What is it that makes me turn off the morning alarm, go back to sleep and ignore my to do list. I ride high for the rest of the week, meeting friends, doing art, listening to bible passages. Monday, though, Monday is my enemy, my nemesis, the one day I have yet been able to conquer. So I drink bitter coffee in an electric coffee shop, my thoughts still pulled back to my vitural world I just created, while a reality more beautiful and amazing than anything I can create goes on, ignored and unnoticed around me.

Monday. My enemy. My nemesiss.

The sun disappears.

Jan 11/10

...I step out of the drizzle weathered outdoors and into the overheated starbucks. I am relaxed and unhurried today, filled still with the good feelings from the night before.

...Flash back to the previous day. The parents buzz for our regular Sunday coffee. I get in the car and am greeted with the news that the coffee is rushed because we are babysitting the baby niece. It is our first time babysitting her alone. I am filled with some wariness. The mother person's foot is still sore, and the baby niece still screams whenever I come near. We drink coffee quickly, go back to the parents apartment. The baby niece toddles in. She spots me and gets that serious look of concentration as she studies me. What does she see that makes her so serious I wonder? What vibe does she get from me? Does she mirror my own serious stare as I also try to figure her out?

...Flashforward to later in the day. The mother person has found the singing bear I had bought the father person a few years ago. The baby niece sits contendely on the couch with me, laughing each time I start it to play. Her smile is wonderful, as is everything about her. To spend time with her, to finally get to *know* her is the best gift I could have gotten. I see her as *her* now, and not the bits of the brother person and sister in law in her. I see the unique person she is beccoming; perceptive, smart, stubborn, curious, music lover. She laughs and giggles, smiles, plays with a box, putting things in and out, laughing with her dimpled smile everytime I clap my hands and exclaim how brilliant she is.

...Flashfoward to later in the evening. She is tired. She is crying. The father person tries to rock her to sleep but she screams. The mother takes her and walks her and she quiets. She hands her to me. And I receive one of those moments in life so rare, a moment of complete perfection. She reaches her arms out for me and I hold and walk her. She puts her small blonde head on my shoulder and is soon contededly asleep. I carefully sit down so not to wake her, then stretch out on the couch, with her fast asleep on me. I hear her contended baby breathes and sighs. I realize that maybe this is what life is, just a series of moments, each special, precious, never to be repeated again. And it is our choice to hold onto them, experience them, *live* them.

...Flashfoward to the next day and I am walking to Oxford Foods. I slow down, don't rush to my location the way I normally do. I admire the winter artistry of the oak trees in the graveyard park, the way the limbs stretch and reach towards the gray sky, and the way the dark wood is stained wet from the rain. I notice the vibrant Victorian houses on Vancouver street that I usually walk by and ingore. I notice their bright blues and pinks, with ornate trim, and the overgrown hydrangeas growing around bent over fences. I notice the trees as near cook street, the way the light and dark bark mix, and the moss vibrantly green becuase of the rain. I notice this one moment, this one particular point of time that I inhabit, the smells, the noises, the sights. I slow down, breathe. This is life, a series of moments, special, specatacular, each one with it's own uniquness never to be repeated again. If I could teach the baby niece anything it'd be to never take even the ordinary things of life for granted, because even in the ordinary there is beauty and magic. I would tell her to take each moment and  grab it, hold it, *live* it.

Dec 24/09

...It's Christmas Eve. No one is happy or friendly today. They walk into me downtown without an apology or an excuse me. They shove infront of me through doors instead of holding them open. They refuse to fill my tall mug at Starbucks with the claim that it is a Grande mug. I refuse to let them cheat me and they fill it with much attitude. I talk loudly next to the manager about the server's attitude, making sure he hears. The Victoria Christmas spirit has rubbed off on me too, even though I don't even celebrate it. I look forward to when the city gets back to it's regular soft kindness instead of this single minded shopping debt frenzy that is the wonder of the Christmas season.

   ...Then I am walking  up yates, trying to ignore the people shoving me on the sidewalks. I wind my way into downtwon to look at some new Character apartments that are being renovated and put up for sale.  What am I doing, I think, as I stop and look up at the bay windowed apartments, what am I doing looking at a place to buy when I am scrounging change for coffee? Because of a father who cares. It is a pipe dream to own it I know but what is life without dreams? Without dreams there is no hope, and without hope there is no action, and without action we sit in our apartments playing video games all day. I stand on the street writing down the number of the real estate agency, then grab a the real estate magazine from the newspaper kiosk on the corner.

..Then I am winding my way up Douglas, trying to avoid being trampled by stressed, angry people who just realized that they forgot to buy a present for hated Aunt Mary who will then gossip to equally hated Uncle Fred, so of course, we have to get her *something*. Ah, the joy of the Christmas Season. As I head for the Chapters door a lady plows ahead, shopping bags weighing down each arm, single mindedly racing ahead against the christmas clock. I have to jump out of her way so we don't collide. She just glances up, glares, and continues at her present pace. I open the door to Chapters and a group of young men coming out at the same time shove by me, pushing me aside. Yes, the joys of the Christmas season. I weave through  a maze of people in the downstairs bookstore and then am upstairs in the quiet oasis of my second home; starbucks. The usual soft jazz plays on the radio, people sip coffee and read books as they relax back into overstuffed armchairs. In this small section Christmas is left outside and the people are quiet and at peace. I grab a booth seat where I can see the fireplace infront of me and the city out the side window. My Starbucks, my home. I sit back and look through the real estate magazine. What is life without hope?

December 3/09

....I feel magic in the air as I settle into Chapters - it crackles and sparks all around me. It is a special kind of beauty where everyday moments become enhanced and special. When every detail is extra strong - the smell of the coffee, the glaze of the cinnamon roll icing in the soft light, the sweetness of the singer's voice on the radio. It is a beauty I desperatly want to capture and hold, so I try in vain to turn it into words, knowing that nothing I write will do the world at this moment justice. It is not a magic born of special occasions, or sudden wonderful events, it is a magic that settles quietly, bleeding into each and every step, and breath, sight - making life alive in what it truely is, a series of single moments we so often ignore as we rush from one 'important' duty to another. Where did this magic, this speical astounding beauty come from? A lone man, a guitar, a song, a folk voice echoeing in the cavernous courtyard of the main library.

I am there with the artist friend, a calm quietness settling over us as we sit on a bench listening to the voice softly rise and fall with the notes of his guitar. He is not a professional, just a simple man wanting to express himself to the world, and in his simple love and truth, envelopes me and the world around me, astounding me again at how art can reach inside you to your very marrow and soul.

I walk the artist friend home, the sun setting early, and as I head back to my own apartment I feel alive, present, fully in that one moment in time with each step I take returning home. I want to capture every moment of what I see - the way the winter light hits the sidewalk, elongating the shadows of the other peop;e who walk by me, how the setting sun is just beginning to touch the sky with a northern feeling pink and not the fire sunsets of summer. I want to capture how alive I feel, and how my heart feels every nuance of being a living, breathing, person. But how can I? I will try to write and will fall short. I do not even attempt to write that night, but instead wait until the next morning to capture the beuaty of life. And that, that is what this magic is, it is the true beauty of life, when we reach tha rare state of living instead of doing. Life becomes beautiful, magical, soul stealing. As I sit in starbucks the next morning I still feel the settled magic of simple everyday moments.

A man, a song, a guitar, doing what every artists want to do....grab and touch a soul.

Novemeber 30/09

....Words burn into me, tearing, ripping, stretching to be born onto paper. My thoughts come rushing at me today in framed sentences, sitting impatiently to be put into the permanant journal I carry with me everywhere.

....Flashback to earlier. I am at the bus stop wating for a bus I have not taken since moving from my old apartment. The weather is gray, the cement, the buildings, the sky, everything is gray. A light misty drizzle starts. I am going into my old neighbourhood to finally get my taxes done, a chore I have put off for nearly the whole year. The bus comes and I board. It is the low income bus, people are not well dressed, they slump, hang their heads. I curl into the corner of my seat, wanting to escape the inveitable trip back into my past. I stare out the window as I near my old neighbourhood, the one I spent the some of the best, and worst, times of my young life. The bus passes by my old park and I am transplanted back to summers past, with the little sister friend and I laying on the emerald grass taking photos, both of us lazy, untroubled, the dog lolled next to us, her too, happy and alive. I can still see the bench between the two maple trees, the baseball field, the green grass stretching out, see the little sister friend trying various self portrait shots. I can see the tree we lay near so that the dog is could go into the shade when she watned. I know that if I go up a little ways and cross a street I'll come to the swings park where the former best friend and I used to always go at night when we roomed together. A sad smile starts as the memories come back. The days of innocent youth, nieve to the battles each of us would fight in our future, battles that would tear us apart and wedge between us....

...It is weeks ago. I have run into the former best friend a few weeks ago. Talking to her is like putting on a comfortable sweater, only one that now had a large rip that makes it unwearable. We sit n the Bay Center food court and talk. She is still her, I am still me,  the line is still drawn the neither is willing to cross. We say goodbye, relucntantly it seems and I wonder if it will be another year until I see her again....

...flashback to the present. I sit in starbucks now, writing the words that burn inside as memories flood back. I am reminded of a country song about a homeless man, and one of the lyrics, "Memories like a coat so warm", as he thinks of his past. Are my memories like that, I wonder. Mine feel like a coat that has been ripped, torn, irrepreably damaged beyond repair. But here I now sit, in the safety of a different life, a better one and it's my current life I realize that feels like the song lyrics, "A coat so warm." Music plays on the radio, a few voices talk, it is warm and quiet in the cafe, and I feel my current life wrapping around me like, "A coat so warm."

November 24/09

....I sip dark roast coffee in a small Serious Coffee in Jubilee. A jazz tune plays on the speakers, making me wonder why all cafes like this one play jazz music. Also, oddly, I like the tunes, whether soft or fast, even though, on every other occassion, I hate jazz. The jazz tune, upbeat, feeds into me, bouncing with joy in my heart, making me want to get up and dance. My companion across from me today consists of a huge bag of Guinea Pig bedding. I left the pet store with a much lighter bank account, and sit here now and question how I will survive without work, but then another upbeat Jazz tune starts up and my mind begins to dance. It dances to the music's feeling of youth and joy and freedom. I should be scared, stressed, worried; instead I sip coffee and mentally dance around the coffee shop. Perhaps I am like the band that continued to play while the Titanic sunk. But, I think, were they so wrong? If you're going to go down, you might as well go down laughing. The Jazz tune increases, turning into more of a blusey song and my foot taps a happy rythem to it's guitar strings and pulses.

I have come from the kid doctor today. I  had nothing to say to him today; no worries, concerns, or complaints. I feel stable, settled, relaxed. I feel like Alice stepping through the looking glass, only, instead of into an alternate reality, I stepped into my real life - the life I have chased since a young teen, a world of writing, photography and art. A life of relaxed freedom from the world's general concern of career success and prominence. Still, even as I dance, behind the joy is a small gremlin of worry that is is all too good and it will soon crash down, leaving me in complete dust and ruins and ashes. I dance harder, trying to ignore the gremlin, but it still sits in it's dark corner watching, as I dance...dance...dance.

November 16, 09

.....I leave for Starbucks early, hopeing to beat the crowd. Rain is falling today, in a steady plunk-plunk-plunk on my winter jacket. As I walk down view street I admire the small spreading ripples each drop makes in the puddles edging the sidewalks. I am in a good mood today, as I always am when I say the hec with a 'responsible' life and focus on my art and writing. The rain splunks down, I veer off the sidewalk - jump in a puddle and hear the satisfying splack of my runner and watch the spray of water it creates. The mother person told me today that I should take three months off of work, and, oh how I want to. To be able to walk in the rain and enjoy the water droplet artistry, to read poetry esconced in the safety of a warm starbucks, to sit in my studio apartment and churn out pages in my in progress novel. Oh, to have such a life! And once again my brain debates he eternal debate of freedom or financial security. It is a debate that has gone on for years, and still plays out in my mind, as, perhaps, it does the mind of every struggling artist.

I cross the street, debate jumping in a huge spreading puddle, satisfiyingly deep, but hemmed on both sides by people who would probablly not appreciate an unexpected spray of cold water because an eccentric artist wanted to be ten again. I pass the puddle by.

On the other side of the street a homeless man stands in rain drenched clothes, an overflowing rusted shopping  cart next to him and a baseball cap held out in front. I glance at him as I pass by and he greets me with a happy, "Good morning! How are you today?" I give him a cheery response, surprised at his good humour and continue on. I know he wants money, no, needs money, and for a second I hesitate and think about going back and giving him some. Then I remember. Oh yeah, I don't have spare change anymore. I am now in the position of having to go through my spare change for coffee money. Still, I have a winter jacket, I have respectable clothes, I have a home to go back to when I tire of the rain's art, in the end, I am still one of the fortunate.

Nov 11/09

...Flashback two weeks. I am sitting at my currrent job waiting for the supervisor to pick me up and take me to my new assignment. I do not want to switch buildings but am trying to stay positive. My positivity instantly dies when I enter the new janitor room and meet my new co-workers. The best friend's words come back to me. "The fact is," he had said, "If you didn't like your job, you wouldn't be doing it." I realize, now, the truth of the words. The words from someone who seems to know me better than I know myself. Because now, I do not like my job, and no, I am not going to stay. The next morning I phone the supervisor. There is no other place to put me so I resign. I am now jobless. I should be scared. For some reason, I feel relieved and free.

...Flashforward to today. It is sunny out and I feel I should go out and do something. It is rememberance day so all Starbucks will be packed, but also open. I dress and brave the crowds, taking the route down Vancouver Street. Large fallen leaves are bright splotches of color clinging to the wet sidewalk. The early winter sun is shining down bright, but without warmth. I am bundled in my winter jacket and skull armwarmers - the ones I bought when I went though my confused punk stage while the little sister friend was still in town. It is the only pair I kept when I moved. I am now far past my return to punk stage.

I am lost in my thoughts as I walk, my hands resting comfortably in my jacket pockets, the buildings going by unnoticed by me. I think of life and the  future. Where I want to be, now, and then. I am confused today. Confused as to which direction to take in my life, because, at the moment, all directions are open to me, and yet, I have no motivatin to follow any of them. My brain feels relaxed and lazy. It does not want to learn the duties of a new job, it does not want to study a school course; it doesn't even want to make the effort to be with friends. It just...wants to drift aimlessly, with poetry and shakespear and video games. I am so lost in thought that I miss my first turnoff. I walk further up and take the next one.

I reach Starbucks and step out of the cold into the overheated room. Now I am sweltering in my jacket and armwarmers. I get in line and gaze quickly about the room. It is even more packed than I had anticipated. Every chair is taken, including the outdoors ones. The stifling hot air buzzes with animated conversations. I order a coffee to go in my starbucks mug, and remember the year the former best friend and I lived together and went to school together, arriving each morning with starbucks coffees and pasteries. A teacher finally said that we should buy stock in Starbucks since we supported it so much. Memories. Happiness and sadness at once. A life that once was, but is no more.

When I leave starbucks, there is an empty seat outdoors in the corner. I grab it and sit in the cold november sun. I sip coffee and stare across at a large chestnut treee. It's leaves tower over the building behind it , vibrant shades of oranges and reds. On the cafe's speakers, a soft jazz song plays. Next to me, two friends discuss yoga. People pass by with children and dogs. Today the cook street village is alive with life. And I...I drift.