it felt like floooooooating, it felt like floating...

My candle burns at both ends,
it will not last the night.
But ah, my foes and oh, my friends,
it gives a lovely light!
-edna st. vincent millay




I have to be at the airport in 5 hours. I feel as though the past 48 hours have been frantic, but mostly, I think that is in my head. My head is definitely feeling frantic, but my past two days have been great. I secured a job that I may potentially love for November, I listened to the songs Dave wrote while he was in Kenya, had a sleep over with Karen, sat in on Arlette's 17th Century Lit class (yeah, I'm a geek...but I'm okay with it), had a surprise lunch with Theresa, got my hair cut and had a pint with Sheri. All in all, its been a good time. And on top of it all, I've cleaned the backyard of beer bottles and other post-party debris, I swept and washed the kitchen floor, am currently doing a load of laundry and I bought brand new bobbie pins. So other than actually having something packed, I'm doing well.

In Arlette's class this morning, they were discussing segments of Francis Bacon's writing. I'm not the biggest Bacon fan, but he has a way of putting things that is really beautiful. In his "On Empire", he starts by saying "It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire, and many things to fear." He's talking about kings, but I couldn't help but turn it around. While talking with Arlette after class, she said that I have the whole world before me. And she's right. I feel as though I have 'many things to desire and few things to fear'.
What a beautiful place to be in.

how can I get any rest now...

I've had a lot of things on my mind this weekend. After finishing my job on Friday, I started to realize that having to decide what to do and where to work and how it should be done all day at work was nicely keeping all of the things in my head at bay. Suddenly on Saturday, all the floodgates came open. Sometimes my thoughts are so loud and overwhelming I can barely pay attention to the people around me in the present. I think I need a trip. Like, I don't know, Iceland? Say, a week from today?

I also have been thinking lots about what to take and what to leave and I came to the decision to take only my hiking boots for shoes. Which makes me feel pretty torn. I have this pair of blue runners that have been with me everywhere I've traveled. I mean EVERYWHERE. LA, Houston, Honduras, San Fran, Singapore, Nepal, Bangladesh, Victoria, Iowa, Michigan...everywhere (except Quebec, because I didn't own them back then). But I am leaving them at home while I go to Iceland and Ireland and London and I'm feeling pretty sad about that. They don't fair very well in wet conditions (thanks Victoria) so it makes very little sense to even think about bringing them along, but they will be missed. I am going to wear them this week lots to try and make them not feel so bad about not making this trip with me. I took a photo of them this past christmas because I was thinking about how great it is to have shoes that "carry so many stories".

we push and pull, i fall down sometimes, i'm not letting go, you hold the other line....

I changed my flickr screen name today. After 3 years of going by "fatal Cleopatra" (only 18th Century literature enthusiasts understand that one) I have changed it to "bri~".

Yes, I realize flickr is not a "reality"...most days...but it felt pretty momentous to change my name nonetheless. I'm still unsure if I'll stay with it. The thing is, its not just 'from here on in' that my name changes. It changes everything I've commented on retroactively. I feel like flickr has been pretty instrumental in my evolution as a photographer, and to have that journey changed feels...weird.

That being said, I took a photo at Darcel and Chris' wedding yesterday that I'm really proud of and love quite a bit. If you're reading this, you're probably one of two people - my sister or my mom - and so you've probably already looked at it, but if you're not either of those, go check it out. Because I like it lots. And I hope you will too.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=2814526436&size=large



(for those of you who care...mostly for mom...my web address stays the same on flickr despite my name change. you still type in www.flickr.com/photos/fatalcleopatra to see my stuff)

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."