swing like a wrecking ball, like the heart of god, what a mystery...

Today is quite possibly my last day of work (word is still out on whether or not I'll put in a few hours on Tuesday). I woke up this morning feeling strange that the last 5 months have gone by so fast. Everything is surprising to me this morning, like it has been sneaking up on me and suddenly has decided to hit me full in the face.
Suddenly my job is done.
Suddenly its still night when I wake up.
Suddenly my trip to Iceland is less than 2 weeks away.
Suddenly it is fall.
Suddenly my summer has slipped between my fingers with only a bike ride here and a trip to the waterslides there.

smoke baby smoke baby...

I used to think that spending too much time on my own would make me weird. Now I'm finding that not enough time on my own makes me kind of ordinary.

I've been so busy with work lately and photography projects and planning for Iceland and shooting weddings and more working and keeping up with friends and a little sleeping thrown in, that I haven't had much time to just spend an evening at home in my own head. At folk festival this weekend, I spent a lot of time jumping from friend to friend and visiting and trying to hit up all the artists shows I wanted to see. And then on Sunday morning, while sitting listening to Brett Dennen, Colin Hay and Martha Wainwright, I was looking at the program deciding where to go next and I took in this deep breath and realized what it was I actually wanted to do. What I love so much about folk fest. I laid back against the hill and closed my eyes and let the music just wash over me while I just felt the grass against my shoulders and the sun on my feet and just let myself sink into my surroundings. Being spread so thin this summer, I've forgotten that I need to find those spaces to root. To dig into the moment and just be there. I've been looking so forward to doing that everyday for two months in Iceland, that I've skipped so quickly and shallowly over the past few months that I've let most of my summer slip by me. Today marks one month before I'm waking up in Reykjavik and out of necessity to keep my sanity in the next few hectic weeks, and to make an attempt at taking back my summer, I plan - not to slow down - but to at least give a space for "rooting".

Tonight I chose to take a few moments to cook myself supper and write this blog and think about home. As I cooked, I could smell supper on the stove in Burdett. See my mom shuffle her feet to the music in her head, flipper in hand. Hear my dad coming through the garage door and stamp his boots on the concrete floor. I still heard my dog's collar rattle through the door as she shakes her head and lays down on the step, even though she died months ago. I opened my eyes and breathed in and felt settled. Which is good. I have much to do this week and I need to be able to breathe and think things through to manage everything that must be finished by the time the weekend rolls around.

every step that you take could be your biggest mistake...

Things cannot always stay as they are.

I hate that. I hate dealing with that. I love change, but I want change when I am ready for it. When I am eager for it. When it fits into my schedule, my plan.
But things cannot always stay as they are.

I want my friends to stay close to me. I don't want them to move away for school or spouses or careers. And I don't want to move away from their homes and gardens and mornings full of crepes and strawberries. I want them to be a 20 minute drive across town for tea.

I want to finish everyday with my hands dirty with the earth. I want to be tanned and strong and spend more time with the wind and sky and grass than with four walls and a ceiling.

I want to always be doing what I love. I never want to agree to take money in return for making myself do something I don't enjoy doing. I want to have pride in my work and know that it will benefit someone else too.

I want to live three lives. I want to drink wine in the late afternoon on my farmhouse porch in Edmonton, to walk to the Sugarbowl and sit on the High Level bridge to watch the sun go down. I want to be able to lift off and explore the world on a moment's whim, to see Germany and Borneo and Argentina . I want to dig my toes into the soil between rows of green wheat crops and listen to the gravel crunch beneath my feet as I walk down the driveway in Burdett.

I want to have enough of everything I need to sustain me. I want enough money and enough time and enough love and passion to know what to do with them and to use them well.

or the story goes...

I haven't been blogging lately. I've been working lots. But it is July now - probably my second favourite month of the year - and it deserves a post.

My mind has been running in overdrive lately. Never stopping long enough on one thought to let myself even realize what I'm processing. When I think about what I want to blog about, I can't find one cohesive thought to speak on. Instead, maybe snippets of moments from the past few weeks will suffice. I've been all over the map lately with moments of beauty and pain, and excitement and of bitter boredom and disappointment. The days have been blurring together lately, but there are a few sketches in time that stand out to me from the past weeks...

- Drinking beer with my friends until late in the evening and wandering into the fields behind my house, laying in the unbelievably soft green, young wheat and staring into the night sky.

- Stepping out of my work truck to see another park turn brown and crisp...watching the grass I take care of slowly shrivel and dry out.

- Standing in the quiet livingroom of a friend's house holding a Carol Sheilds book in my hands feeling an overwhelming compulsion to sit down and read it rather than join the voices I hear in the backyard enjoying a Canada Day bbq.

- Listening to fireworks ricochet between downtown buildings and river valley and watching the ash and smoke float between tree branches.

- Watching someone learn to back Karen's work truck and trailer into it's spot in preparation for her leaving for two weeks on Friday.

- Feeling my arms and back turning brown with heat and dirt and sweat and sun.

- Watching one of my friends learn to adjust to a new stage of life and fight against the pull to let freedom and independence become loneliness.

- Breathing in the smell of summer heat, sitting my porch, listening to Bon Iver, watching black birds against pink/blue evening sky.




from Carol Sheild's "Swann"...


"Some days Virginia Woolf is the only person in the universe I want to talk to; but she's dead, of course, and couldn't like me anyway."

and in the end, we lie awake, and we dream of making our escape ...

tidbits from a life rarely expressed by blog lately...

Its sunday morning. I am laying in the tent, in my backyard, in my new amazing sleeping bag. Its been raining little bit by little bit for the past few hours. Big drops hitting the tarp in some irregular rhythm. I have the new Coldplay album on and the screen zipped down enough that its letting in nothing but the scent of rain. That smell mingling with the wood fire smoke and pipe smoke clinging to my clothes and hair (remnants of last night's summer solstice six hour bonfire party) is making the moment absolutely perfect.
Last night Dave brought his guitar and harmonica and diggeridoos and we sat around the fire eating and drinking and laughing and taking turns playing what we could on the diggeridoo - which for most of us, wasn't a whole lot. As the fire died down we all ended up laying on our backs in the grass, feet against the fire pit, watching the sky in silence.
On top of it all, I slept in my contacts. I've never done that before because I've always been too nervous to, but when I got these new contacts, my eye doctor said that I should have no problem sleeping in them for up to 7 nights in a row. Though I'm not sure I'll make a habit of it, I woke up and I was immediately able to see. I haven't had that since grade two.

I have seen your refractions and I did not recognize you...

things I would like the extol the virtues of today:


.Creamy Cucumber salad dressing

.wearing pants that smell of day old wood fire smoke

.asparagus steamed in lemon juice with butter and salt

.down sleeping bags

.trappist beer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappist_beer)

.the great lake swimmers

.hot chocolate with goldschlagger

.tiny birdhouses

.holes in the knee of my jeans

redford...

I am laying in the grass, watching the sun dip lower and lower as my fire slowly burns out. Last night it was nice and warm at this time, but the breeze has picked up tonight. I can feel my fingers getting a little stiff from the cold as I type and do up the buttons on my favourite plaid shirt to keep out the chill. I realize I haven't been thinking very much lately...well, for any substantial amount of time on one thing. I've been thinking about lots of things, but mostly when I'm driving to or from site listening with one ear to my crew chatting about...whatever, and one ear on the radio. I'm not working this weekend and I think I'll take that time to think. I think I'll try not to use my car this weekend. I'll walk or bike or bus. I think better when I'm doing those things. And I'll try and talk less. Only when I need to, and hopefully mostly to strangers.

This isn't to say that I have big things to think about, its just that I have a million little half-threads of thought that are floating in my mind just waiting to be picked up, needing to be picked up for my sanity. I need time and space to think.

---

I just spent the last 25 minutes standing in the middle of the road watching the sun set against the clouds. I was trying to decide whether or not to go check out the poster for the event on the farm tomorrow that was hanging on the fence. Trying to decide whether it was worth braving the wind that I was currently being protected from by the house. As soon as I stepped out from around the house on to the road I sucked in my breath and thought to myself 'there is nothing more beautiful than this'. The colour and the light of the sun stretching out the orange/pink/red clouds against that deep blue endless sky just blew me away. And the wind, oh I love the wind.
I thought to myself that if I had not decided to step out of the yard, to look around the house, I would have never seen it. Sure I would have seen it reflected on the grass and the trees, but not really seen it, experienced it. I think each time I see something that intensely beautiful, it becomes a defining moment in my life. It changes me ever so slightly and I carry it with me. Makes me wonder what other "houses" I'm standing behind that, though they may be protecting me from the 'wind', are standing between me and a defining moment for my soul. Cheesy metaphor? maybe, but I will think on that.