turner valley

about an hour south of calgary is turner valley. this is where my dad lives with his partner holly. i'm at their house right now, a duplex among a half-circle of identical duplexes nestled between the ridge and a golf course. really, its a retirement community.

currently this house, usually a haven of order and quiet, is chaotic and upended. the recent rains forced ground water into the basement, so most everything from down has been moved up. at the same time, the kitchen is mid-renovation; cupboards have been empited, backsplash ripped off, floors impossibly dusty. and the stuff scattered throughout the house. (last night i slept beside the crockpot, wok and salad spinner.

my dad and i walked along the sheep river on our way to town. the river, usually a clear stream running in a shallow course over river rocks, is muddy and full. you can see by the erosion of the banks the height that it got to not even two weeks ago. a huge tree lies sideways to block the route down to the shore. this tree, my dad tells me, was caught under the bridge when it got washed out of its home many miles upriver. now it bars the was with an orange sign: ROAD CLOSED.

as we walked along the road the sun shone on us and the mosquitos buzzed around our ears. the blue sky was huge. that is one thing i miss about the prairies: how far you can see. and the clouds are majestic. they seem to float so much higher off the ground than our pacific clouds do. and their presence there seems to expand the sky rather than fill it up, as if each new cloud adds to the potential of more clouds, more objects filling the air, rather than occupying space and narrowing possibility.

my dad waves at his neighbours as they drive by and comments that everyone who lives here does so because they want to live here. that sounds like paradise to me. now, if we could only do something about all of the mosquitos...

calgary

i'm in the land of rains and floods. no, not vancouver, but dry dry calgary. and despite the rains and storms, my mucus membranes are sore and dry. it is arid here conpared to what has come to be known to me as my home.

i was saying to my friend matt that if i could make one, only one impossible thing happen (and a purely selfish thing) i would make it so that my two hometowns of vancouver and calgary would be one place. he asked whether they would be connected by a slide or a tunnel. I said, no, the two would occupy the same place. Or better yet, i would occupy a magical place -- like in Howl's Moving Castle -- with a fancy dial that would change where the front door went. Green for Vancouver, Red for Calgary, Blue for the cottage on Mayne Island and Purple for my own private refuge... shhh....

i have been observing my moods and noticing how intimately linked they are with things like sleep, diet, and hormones. there is about a week out of every four during which i should not attempt to make any important decisions, a time when i feel totally vulnerable and weak.

and i was asked the question today: blogging, why? is it not self-indulgent? is it not? perhaps what i write is akin to a online journal, but i'm certain there are others who carry the burden of internet publishing with more style and panache and journalistic responsibility. as for me: i just don't like doing things unless someone else is watching.

(hi k)

happiness

i believe in happiness the way i believe in santa claus: a red-suited, jolly fiction invented to keep the kids in line. "if you're good, you'll be happy." and I believed. and I was good, so good, terrified into goodness by the prospect of the alterntive to happiness: sadness, or worse yet, anger.

just when did i realize that the fellow in the red suit was just an ordinary man, not a saint. that his laugh was a hollow imitation of long imitated jolliness. that the beard was plastic.

only his fat gut was real.

the big night

it was like christmas, but for theatre people in vancouver: the jessie awards night. we got together and primped over pizza on j & n's back deck. friends, family, lovers, former lovers, haters... they were all there.

i woke up on jessie day with a start. being part of the organizing board has demanded a high level of involvement in the balloting, voting and general communicating. the entire day seemed to be one giant stress factor. throw in personal problems and ka-boom: i wore my own shoulders as earrings that night.

but it all turned out well. we drank, we danced, we laughed and didn't cry. and in the end i learnt that awards don't matter -- until you get one. (first said by kevin spacey, a wise actorly type fella).

startling starling

i came around the corner today and there was a starling landing on the framed stained glass hanging in my window. the bird's wings were flapping and he seemed as startled as i. i cried out, "hey! you not supposed to be in here!" and so he left.

i'm managing to clean a little bit. coming to terms with my pack-rat tendencies. had a conversation with billy about collecting stuff. that for the pack rat each item is potentially useful or important. each object loaded with meaning - past or future - and therefore impossible to discard. a pack rat is essential to human civilization; their hoarding preserves the past. but there is a difference between a pack rat and a historian: perspective. where the pack rat will tend to keep *everything* the historian has a greater understanding of context and the narrative of events and is therefore better able to choose what to keep.

looking around my apartment i fear i am a pack rat - marrooned with perspective on a two-dimensional plane of to do and done. and with very little interest in explaining myself.

they say when a sparrow flies into your house someone in the household is about to die. what does it mean when a starlling - not even a bird native to BC, much like myself - *almost* flies into your house? a warning, perhaps, or a promise of songs to come, or better yet, an invitation to come outside to play.

parapluie

it just started raining like nobody's fucking business over here. i open all the windows wide wide wide and turn off the stereo, so i can listen. it's bouncing off the fucking sidewalk. i reach my arms out the window as far as they can go. the beat of the rain stiffens, dropping sheets, sounds like the inside of the west edmonton mall. my apartment fills with the smell of rain and summer and outside. the floor is still strewn with my things - cloth things mostly, shoes, cds, dvds, discarded work. and still it rains. i can see. harder and harder it seems. the cars still speed by, unaffected by the downpour. SLOW DOWN FUCKERS! no one listens. a woman in a black coat bows her head, caught in what looks like a shower stall that extends throughout the entire city. she carries groceries that are getting heavier by the moment, weighed down by water.

now it slows just a little. enough that i don' t feel it might pound through the roof and find me.

and now it has stopped. like a fan going off, relief from the sound is palpable.

the cars keep driving. faster and faster it seems. more and more of them.

is it safe to go for groceries now, or will i get soaked? it smells so good.

la menage

my apartment is barely contained chaos. perhaps its true, perhaps i do have too much stuff.
i'd like to clean it, but it is overwhelming and being inside the scattered things makes me feel at home - cocooned inside the detritus of my own life. but its slowing me down. weighs me down.
i think i'll just go and look for something to eat instead.

nostalgia

me behind glass
Originally uploaded by Kevin MacDuff.

there are some nights that are unforgettable. usually because of the company, the activity, the locale. there are some nights that make you say, "yes, I'm alive." There are some nights that make you want to stay up all night every night if only each night could be as magical and transformative as that night.

This photo was taken on one of those nights. I look at it and think: that night... oh... that night.

This is why photos exist: to remember and remind. And to make us wonder: did you take that picture, or did I? And *what* was in that drink?!

Monday

I've decided to be happy. That's it. I've decided.

There are choices in life: the high road or the low road; original or sugar free; walk or drive; happy or sad. Sure sure, there are challenges and events that are dissatisfying to us. Sure there are even days that suck. Deciding to be happy doesn't mean I can't be sad sometimes, or angry, or whatever. But it does mean that I'm agreeing that the good outweighs the bad. And even those events or relationships that make me want to tear my hair out have some value. I learn. I grow. I blah blah blah.

It's hard to decide to be happy. Partially because I have a deep suspicion of happy people. Ignorance is bliss, yes? I'm too smart to be happy. And there is the romance of sadness, malaise, discontent, dis-ease, whatever you want to call it. The darkness is so inviting and easy to wrap round oneself. There is company among the miserable. Happiness is loneliness. Or at least the ability to accept the intrinsic connection between life and loneliness. Most of us are fortunate to be only one person within our bodies. Which means that no matter what, no matter how hard we try, we will never ever find someone who totally understands us. Me. I'm really talking about me here.

What to do? I surrender to loneliness. It has to be. I phone my friends. I post messages for no one to read. I listen to music and drink water labelled "love." And I dream dreams of doing 100 push-ups, of walking deserted urban streets with no fear, of being held and protected, of holding and protecting.

This morning, after seeing my Mom onto the bus that would take her to the airport I crossed the street to catch my own connector. As I fumbled with my bus ticket a butterfly launched into the air from my heart. I'm taking it as a good sign: that there is love travelling on unsteady wings out into the world. Not in a bad way: that my heart is abandoning me and flying away. No. It was definitely a good sign. Because I just decided to be happy.

mi madre

My Mom is here this weekend. Which prompted me to clean my apartment. I got to everything except the kitchen. i think there's a secret part of me that's hoping she does the dishes when she gets home. As much as that irritated me when i first moved out on my own, now that sort of cleaning and "helping out" is appreciated - even invited!

It is so wonderful to have her here. To hear her perspective on what I feel are my crises and to realize that things are not nearly so bad as i thought. In fact, that is the greatest gift of her being here right now: perspective.

She also told me that she has been meditating to "remove obstacles" for herself and for me and my three sisters. She wanted to give us fearlessness. And courage. To step forward into the unknown, to meet challenges head on, to know that while we are not indestructable we *are* more robust then we might think.