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Saturday, 28 November 2009

Homeward Bound.

I am back on the road again, for a time, come January. Back to the only home that claims me - the prairies. I will spend the coldest month or so of the year between Regina/Winnipeg - tears freezing in my eyeballs, lips numbing and with at least (at least) one guaranteed, utterly embarrassing and totally painful wipeout. Flat on my back, cold in every direction, looking up at a bright blue sky.

The prairies are beautiful in the winter, blindingly white and endless - the pressure lifts in the expanse, letting you breathe. They're the setting for dreams and a beginning to a new year.

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. - Carson McCullers

Friday, 27 November 2009

A Page from a Great Lady

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

Art/Archidossa

Images from Tim Burton's show at MoMA.

I find myself gratefully enveloped in the warm hum of life and connection - the ease of being with people minutes after you wake up and have been propelled toward the kitchen in search of coffee. The lottery are the days when someone has made a fresh french press while you were just opening their eyes and offers you a cup or half a bodum upon arrival to the dining room. No grinding needs doing, the water has already been boiled and the four minutes has passed - with a plunge I have begun my first ritual of the day. I love the sound of coffee when poured into a cup, any cup - the material from which it's made doesn't seem to matter, I experience the tiniest of thrills each time. Maybe it's simply the anticipation, but whatever it is, it is lovely and silly and I like it. With coffee in hand, one may sink into an ugly, yet incredibly comfortable couch and have a conversation with a roommate about love and life. How there is no us and no them, just a whole lot of people and a lot of beauty.

Or maybe, it is one's turn to make supper and after an exhausting day, with a couple hours worth of anxiety on the clock already, it seems an insurmountable task. No money, no groceries, no inspiration - but a partner is met outside the door of Unit A. We are both coming home and before we are at the top of the stairs, soup is settled on and there is a new, slight spring to be found in our steps. Supplies are acquired, rain has curled our hair and our bounty is spread out on the counter - ready to chopped, diced, etc. We make Zuppa Achidossana, soup from Archidossa (Tuscany, Italy, the world) and as it simmers, more and more people follow their noses into the kitchen. Thus before supper begins, there is happy hum to be observed, one that has not yet reached impatience. Olive oil from Greece, fresh bread and freshly mortared pepper and sea salt on a platter, bowls are filled and emptied, music plays, voices speak and dimmed light sets the mood for our nightly feast.

Contrastingly, I am often squirelled away in my room. Sometimes lonely, sometimes sleepless and sometimes quiet. Painting, writing, watching. Wondering. Awe-fully happy, and organ crushingly affected. A world of contrasts.

Tomorrow there is school and class and books, and always the rain.

Saturday, 21 November 2009

Currently
Troubadour
By K'naan
see related
The Snow Woman.

I love my room by lamplight - almost more when the halls and rooms are full of people. My antisocial tendencies have come on full force of late, often not as an escape, but a preference, which I am unable to fully explain. It is not that my heart doesn't swell and a smile curve to my lips as I watch people play and laugh and cook, it is more that I segue into observer mode, a way of being not at all unknown to me. Having to work to interact in a normal fashion and without massive mood swings and a slew of irrational thoughts around every corner, finds me slipping out of door ways and down a hallway to a room filled with books.

I ventured out of my room to refill my champagne glass filled with wine, spoke to old friends - old roommates, and after not long, ducked around a corner to watch an old illustrated film - The Snow Man. It was enchanting. It played on a sheet hung in the middle of the hall, obstructing movement, instead offering charming glimpses of childhood imagination. Down the halls, strains of music begin, I am drawn towards them and slip into a room already full. One of my million roommates is playing music to all the folk who have come to our celebration of the city Christmas tree lighting. It is raining and not snowing outside. Inappropriate BC.

Below, Beth (Man)'s drawing of a section of our bookshelf. The most non - booky part, that is.

Sunday, 15 November 2009

Photos by Beth Mans.

I left and when I came back, the halls were decked with holly. All alone in the halls at 2 am. The yellow tinged light illuminated my tired shuffle to the back of the building and room 220. A movie done, a roommate gone out for a smoke break, I venture out of my room to heat the water for tea. Doors are open as I walk down the hall. Mark is recording in the pantry. Jamie is leaving the kitchen. I rifle through tea bags in the front coffee/tea room, glance forlornly at my empty mailbox, and someone is playing the piano in the entrance below. These are comforting things.

All these people alive behind closed, or open, doors, sounds giving the proof of their existence and inspiration. Tea pots still warm from the last person to heat water. Proof of life.

The December sun is dawning, and with it, crisper air and all that comes with such a month. The celebration of another year. There is always much proof of life at Christmas.