The Christmas of 1998, my grandpa gave me a sweater. He was rather pleased with himself about the sweater because he’d picked it out himself, which, for a widower of 80 shopping for his 22-year-old-granddaughter is, I’m sure, no small feat. The sweater was incredibly loud, a striped affair that crammed a great number of colours into its oscillating palette. This was what my grandpa was most proud of—all the colours. The girl at The Bay had been helping him find something, he explained, but everything she picked was so plain. And then he saw the striped sweater and, over the protests of the shop clerk, picked it because, as he told the confused girl, It would be perfect for Charlie. (My grandpa, by the way, always called me Charlie—it was just one of those inexplicable quirks of enduring affection.) As I pulled the sweater out of its box and contemplated it, my grandpa said with a laugh, Why wear just one colour when you can wear all of them at once?
(At this point it must be noted that one of my grandpa’s other inexplicable quirks was that he was a great lover of loud clothes. He had quite a splashy heyday in the 70s and was able to extend this heyday for several decades due to the resilience of polyester. My grandpa was nothing if not frugal and forthright in his preferences.)
Due mostly to the fact that it fit incredibly well (but also because I loved the idea that wearing all of the colours at once was perfect for me) the loud sweater my grandpa picked for me, against many odds, worked.
One month later, my grandpa was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. And four months later, I made a point of wearing the sweater one day when I went to visit my grandpa, even though it was a little too warm for a turtleneck at that point in the season. That same day, after a small group of my family clustered around my grandpa, eating fried chicken and pie in his living room and listening to his latest shenanigans*, after I returned to my apartment and my studying, two hot, fat tears fell onto my text books and smeared the words. I knew. It was the last time. That’s the other thing I remember about that sweater.
Out of intense sentimentality, I kept the sweater for the last ten years. I moved it to Vancouver, Montréal, back to Edmonton, and back to Vancouver again. Each year, it got buried a little deeper in my closet, but every time I stuffed a bag full of clothes for the GoodWill, I hesitated at that sweater. I was worried that I would forget that my grandpa wanted me to wear all the colours at once. That he called me Charlie, even when speaking about me to faceless shop clerks.
I worked up the nerve to give away the sweater today. I suppose if I had been thinking, I would have just taken a picture of me wearing the sweater so that I could remember what it meant, but when I reached for it in the back of the closet, the moment seemed to call for the same approach that one uses when swallowing a nasty-tasting cough syrup: close your eyes and get it over with as quickly as possible before you lose your nerve.
These are the words instead: It was never the particular jumble of colours on the sweater, just that my grandpa once picked out a sweater for me all by himself and he picked one that he loved because he loved me.
I know now that my grandpa was onto something. Be loud. Be yourself. If you have an opinion, say it. Wear it. Do it with your head held high and no one will question that you’re entitled to it. Like eggs? Eat your eggs with defiant gusto even when the rest of the nation becomes squeamish about cholesterol. Love your grand-kid? Call her Charlie. She’ll know what it means. Bellow encouragement at her little league games and heckle the ump over calls you don’t like as though the World Series is on the line. Why not? She’ll never forget. Besides, the only things more important than baseball are family and hockey. Amen.
Love,
Charlie
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*In his final weeks, my grandpa, a stastistician by profession, had crafted a passionate petition that relied heavily on statistics and careful wording to garner support for the ban of dihydrogen monoxide on the basis that it is one of the key components of acid rain. My grandpa took great pleasure in the fact that his oncologist was convinced to sign the petition. If you’re right now mulling over the potential threat of dihyrogen monoxide to the environment and your health and you sense someone gloating, I can assure you that’s my grandpa from the beyond, taking delight once again in his own peculiar brand of playful cheekiness and beligerance.
Much as I’ve tried to prevent it from happening–and by tried I mean thought about it fleetingly–it’s been rather touch and go for me here in the blogosphere for the last year. In other words, it’s been rather touch and go since we uprooted our lives, biked across Canada, and relocated to Vancouver. And that right there would be why. The uprooting our lives thing. To be blunt, I simply don’t have it in me these days. I was talking to my friend the other day and I said I feel like, mentally, I’m crouched in a corner waiting for the dust to settle. In general, it’s not the best head space and it’s certainly not the best head space for humourous, lighthearted recounting of the minutiae of life. “Today I fretted about the future. Hahaha. The End.”
Change is good, except, you know for all the ways that it’s not so good. For many months after this move, I was rather annoyed that things weren’t going more smoothly. That we seemed to be careening from one debacle to another and that, with each passing month, the trajectory of our lives post-move was angling towards even more uncertainty rather than towards finally being settled. Today, as Kieran starts his third job in nine months (also a temporary gig that will need to be replaced [sigh]), as my writing contract dangles uncertainly and I am casting out for a new gig just in case, I’m no longer frustrated with the world and feel strangely optimistic anyway. Learned helplessness? I don’t know.
I…I’ve gotten the memo: The job market in Vancouver ain’t so shit hot. Got it. Duly noted. FINE. Oh, there’s lots of JOBS, yes. But not so much professional jobs. And it’s my choice that I refuse to be an admin assistant (to me, it makes more sense to continue temping in admin jobs because the money is the same and there’s no pretense that I have any intention of staying should something better come along). And it’s possible that because it’s now been a year (almost to the day) since we started this journey and the memories of everything we gave up to come here–the salaries, the stability, the fantastic rent–continue to recede, I have just accepted where we are. This is going to take time. FINE.
The thing is, we’ve had a stretch of generalized bad luck. Things could have gone a little more smoothly, there could have been no homelessness, no family fiascoes, no job up and leaving for Toronto, and all those things freaked us out. And yet, Kieran and I are fine. Our relationship is rock solid, we’re getting through and making ends meet, and we still had a houseful of friends last weekend. So I’m becoming slightly less nervous about whatever curve balls might be thrown at us before the dust finally settles. I’d thought that the dust would have settled by now, but I don’t know what I based that belief on. Now I’ve just accepted that this will take time and I have no idea how long, but it doesn’t matter because we’ll be fine anyway.
Deadlines. Never ending. No really. I think the only words that have escaped my mouth in the last month have been “I can’t. I’m on deadline.” Meaning I can’t: Go out with you, stay in with you, sleep, bathe, or… stop obsessing about my deadline du jour.
The writing project that took me deep into the heart of Google to no avail and thus compelled me to…[wait for it] go to the library to do my research. That’s right. I couldn’t find what I needed online! I had to go outside and use my limbs to propel me to the “library!” Only to find out, of course, that I could have accessed the periodicals online anyway.
Not that that’s been any use. All the information for this project is in French. My second language. There is a big difference between being able to haggle with a cab driver in Montréal and being able to conduct research in French*. Such is life, I suppose, when you’re profiling a Québecois organization. MERDE!!!
Speaking of profiling a Québecois organization, thanks for not returning any of my calls or e-mails, Québecois organization. I’m sorry I presented you with an opportunity for free publicity. I can see how this would be incredibly inconvenient to you. I realize that it’s not really the job of the Director of Public Relations to handle this type of thing. OH, WAIT. (Va te faire foutre, eh?)
T-24 hours until deadline/my house of cards comes crashing down. Tick tock, tick tock. This means I’m officially procrastinating. I can’t blog; I’m on deadline.
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*There was a time when I was bilingual. Now is not that time. Although, my reading comprehension (and swearword retention, for what it’s worth) is still high enough that I’m not royally, uh, tabernac(ed). Just a little…stressy.
First thing in the morning, pull on beloved, supersoft A&F hoodie. Be sure to wear something white or cream-coloured for the purposes of this exercise. Shuffle to kitchen for procurement of coffee.
Sit, slumped, in front of celebrity gossip sites while waiting out your pre-caffeinated fugue state. Sip coffee slowly, patiently waiting for the coffee to sufficiently massage your synapses and convince them that they’re ready to start firing.
Lean forward, dipping tie from hood into coffee mug, allowing the tie to become thoroughly saturated before sitting back.
Fail to notice what you’ve done.
Sit back, allowing coffee-soaked tie to flop into position against the sweatshirt so that it produces a large, spreading stain across your bosom.
Fail to notice.
Begin to move about so that coffee-soaked tie flops around, creating a splatter pattern of stains across entire body, somehow even involving the cuffs of your garment and your BACK LEFT SHOULDER.
Fail to notice.
Proceed to shower and change and, in manner of the slob that you are, chuck the offending garment onto the small mountain of laundry that dominates a corner of your bedroom. Ensure that the offending garment lands prone, coming to rest on one of your white work blouses, thus allowing the coffee-soaked tie to draw in an innocent bystander and continue its reign of brown terror with the creation of a new spreading stain on an entirely different and unrelated garment.
Fail to notice for two full days, allowing ample time for all stains to set with little hope of recovery.
I woke up today and realized it was Tuesday and that–hey!–I have a job and I AM ON DEADLINE in a very serious way. So, uh, I’m here to procrastinate! I kinda forgot about my writing job because there was a pause in the action, so I did a week of cushy temping instead (my hours were noon to five(!) and all I did was play Scrabulous while babysitting a phone that rarely rang) and somehow my brain preferred to believe the cushy reality was my permanent reality and, thus, deleted my inconvenient deadline from memory. Anyway, I remembered that it’s Tuesday and realized I haven’t done a Top Five Tuesday in a while. And, because I’ve been tinkering around with the Big Agnes blog lately, this week’s theme is bike trip related.
5. Carbs are your friend. Period. They’re even better when you wash them down with gravy. Oh, go on. Diet this, diet that, blah, blah, blah it’s all nonsense anyway. Eat what you want, girlfriend. Only Jessica Alba can look like Jessica Alba and, fortunately for the rest of us, wearing a bikini and waving our fannies at the paparazzi is not in our job description.
4. Although, if you don’t get enough fresh fruits and vegetables, you will start to feel a little funny. In the head. Your body needs fruits and vegetables. So does your brain. There was a day, at the height of the Vegetable Crisis, where I woke up, started weeping, and then was unable to stop crying (or explain why I was crying), so I spent several hours grimly pedaling while silent, persistent tears streamed down my face. It was bizarre. And pathetic. I was just…LOW. Low and vague and cloudy. And low. We hit a salad bar the next day and I was all “Whee! I’m fine now!” and went skipping down the street, all high on folic acid. Causality was typically pretty apparent during the trip. ME HUNGRY. ME SLEEPY. ME WANT STEAK. If you’re biking over 100 kilometres a day, your body/mind is pushed to its outer limits anyway, so crises evolving from nutritional deficiencies will became obvious very quickly. For us, within about a week or so of poor nutrition, we were howling at the moon.
However, I think this same process of mental/physical erosion happens even if you’re not engaged in extreme physical activity; it’s just more vague and slow when you’re physical expenditures are limited to shifting your weight from one ass cheek to the other or using your index finger to dial a mouse wheel. The erosion is there, but you’re less inclined to notice it consciously. If you feel a little down, a little low, and also happen to be one of those people who has to count the catsup on their fries as a serving of veggies, that right there might be a big part of your problem.
3. Your body likes to move. Your body was made to move. Before we left, we didn’t train all that much, considering we were embarking on a 7000 km bike trip. That started in the Rockies. Oh, sure, we worked out, we were active, etc. But, we also worked full time. So, we spent maybe an hour or so working out (almost but not really) every day (which actually isn’t all that different from what we do normally). On the bike trip, we typically got in about seven to eight hours of cycling every day, while carrying about 30–50 pounds of gear. And did I mention the Rockies? Because they were really big. And mountainous. I wasn’t sure if two moderately fit, not-all-that-young people could really pull it off without some physical repercussions. But, in fact, we were fine. We were more than fine; we were fantastic! Our bodies adapted so quickly and readily to the increased activity. In fact, our bodies gobbled it up and asked for more. No strains or pains. No back pain, no neck pain, no migraines. Sit at a desk for eight hours and you’ll feel it. You’ll be creaky and sore and your body will complain and get all tangled up and angry. Get up and move and your body will perk up, do a little dance, and then give you an impulsive hug before taking off in a gallop.
It was more than that, more than just feeling surprisingly great considering how hard we were working. The other thing that happens when your body is happy is that you’re happy. Happy body, happy brain. Apart from the vitamin deficiency episode, we both marveled at how…solidly great and clear-headed we felt. In fact, I was so clear-headed that I—okay, you better sit down for this. Are you ready? I was so clear-headed that I even started to understand math. Yes. I no longer believe it’s possible to be happy unless you get at least an hour a day of exercise. I don’t care who you are or what you say, I won’t believe you. You wanna feel better than you thought possible? Go outside. Move around. It doesn’t matter what you do—walk, bike, stroll, roll over 75 times—just give your body what it wants. It’ll thank you. As a bonus, you can eat gravy and still be a hottie.
2. When you’re going through some ups and downs, hills will look much worse from a distance than they actually are. It’s an optical illusion. Partway down one hill, the hill ahead of you will look steep and tall and daunting; get to its base, and it’s actually not so bad. In fact, you’ll zip over the base and be partway up before you know it. Typically, your dread will far outweigh the actual effort required of you to tackle a climb (procrastinating editors take note).
There is an exception to this rule: the mountain pass. If you can’t see the top of a hill (because it’s 50 km away!), your mind will play another trick on you and will make impossibly large uphill grinds look like they’re slanted downhill. I could never figure out this optical illusion, although certainly it could just be straight up denial (Ha! There’s no WAY I can’t see the top of this mountain. That would mean…no. NO.) So, sometimes just when you think you’re going to get to sit back and coast, you’re actually about to go through an extended period of hell. And when you’re going through hell? Too bad, suckah. There ain’t nothin’ you can do about it but keep on going. Amen.
As for coasting? I never once encountered the free downhill ride my mind sometimes expected. The only time life will let you coast is after you’ve earned it.
1. The world is full of good people. People you don’t know will slow their trucks down to a near stop to protect you from bears, they will pull over on a hot day to offer you cold water, they will lean out their windows to cheer you on when you’re struggling up a hill, they will give two strangers the keys to the town hall so that they have a place to stay, and no matter where you are, there is always somebody who will crack a beer for you and invite you to join them around the campfire. People love to laugh and tell stories and will welcome you into their lives if you let them. People are good. Life is good.
5. My back hurts. Really. Fracking. Hurts. It’s been an unmitigated disaster for two full months now. I’ve been unable to sleep properly, or to sit, stand, walk, or do any other kind of exercise or activity. I’ve been in pain, bored, frustrated, and restless and, generally, suffering from a vague, all encompassing misery that has drained me of my creativity, including my desire to write. (Also drained me of my sparkling bitter wit. Without it, I’ve got NOTHING.) The blog and all my other writing projects have duly suffered. However, last night something…happened and I think I’m getting better. Let’s not jinx it and move right along.
4. One of the activities I couldn’t do was housework. The state of our apartment also duly suffered. Kieran had to take over the bulk of the cleaning duties and I made a discovery.
For a zillion reasons I won’t go into, not the least of which is quite simply gender (yes, even in this day and age), I have been CEO in charge of cleaning. When Kieran and I moved in together, we embarked on what appears to be a lifetime of negotiating who’s responsible for what, etc., etc. We’ve all been there, no? Anyhoo, one of the things we never negotiated was vacuuming. I did the vacuuming. All of it. For years. I thought this was because I was Choosing My Battles, Not Making Cat Hair a Hill to Die On, and/or The Greatest Housekeeping Martyr of All Time [trumpet blare]. I am not exaggerating when I say this went on for years—about a year ago, for whatever reason, I had to ask Kieran to quickly vacuum the rug for me. Kieran was game, but could I please show him how the vacuum worked. We’d been living together since 2002.
Since then, Kieran has pitched in with the vacuuming every now and again but it was still My Domain. Until my back went out and vacuuming was absolutely out of the question. These last couple of months I’ve been reduced to watching Kieran vacuum while laying in a twisted heap on the couch, making frantic hand motions meant to indicate that I want him to get down on his hands and knees and use one of the attachments to go along the baseboards. I was practically having seizures from the anxiety that the carpets might not get clean enough. Which is to say, I quickly discovered that I have been doing all the vacuuming not because of some dynamic in our marriage, but because I am a complete and utter control freak about the vacuuming and am obsessed with doing it perfectly and, therefore, I never allowed it to occur to me to ask Kieran to do it. So. It is all my fault and, per usual, I am sole orchestrator of my own misery.
I am not a clean freak. I am not a control freak. I’m just not. How, then, did this happen?
It’s the cat hair. It’s getting to me.
3. We bought a new vacuum. A highly effective vacuum. Problem solved.
2. I don’t know why and I don’t know how, but Snoop Dogg has wormed his way into my affections.
1. I have made a decision to finish up the Big Agnes blog. I’ve always been a little sad that I didn’t get an opportunity to write about riding through the Maritimes, so I’m taking this opportunity now. The Big Agnes blog has a deep soft spot in my heart. Not only was it our tie to our friends and family back home, it provided a lifeline of support. The comments and e-mails we received from around the world, not only from friends and family, but from strangers we’d never met, were amazing. It kept us going. I want to give Big Agnes some closure, I guess. So that’s where I’ll be for the next week or so. See you there!
I’m one of those people who has a Bad Back. Over the last decade or so, my back has produced a constant level of low grade misery such that I have been worn down enough to accept Back Pain into my heart, consider myself married to it, and have come to regard it in the same way I regard breathing: something I don’t think about unless something REALLY goes wrong. It’s sick, really, this learned helplessness, although my back hasn’t given me much choice in the matter. Or at least I thought it didn’t give me much choice.
It didn’t occur to me that perhaps my approach to this whole problem has been a little off until I witnessed my new physiotherapist becoming completely overwhelmed by all the tension in my back. After prodding her fingers into my road map of knots and scar tissue, she began to panic: “Oh. Oh, MY. You really…you really have a lot of problems here. I don’t think I can even start on your shoulders today because that’s going to take an entire session in itself. And down here too? I just…I don’t even know where to BEGIN with you,” her voice gathered momentum with each new discovery until she finally backed away from me and regarded me warily. “What HAPPENED to you?” she said at last.
Good question. Let’s see, I totally screwed up my right shoulder with years of fairly hardcore pitching when I was a kid. Then there was the first big skiing accident, the big car accident, and the second big skiing accident. And let’s not forget all the interminable hours upon hours of sitting at a desk, stewing in stress and wretchedness. My back did NOT appreciate THAT one bit, I can tell you. And, oh, I also have a tendency to repress my emotions by way of ramming them into any available crevice in my back and locking them up there good and tight, so tight I can disrupt my vision. And, wait…is this not normal? Is it not normal to walk around in pain all day every day? You mean, there’s people who just, like, LIVE?
Sigh. Somehow, in my life, I was led to believe that a certain amount (i.e., a lot) of misery (at least emotionally) is normal. Hey kids! Does having mentally or emotionally unbalanced people in your life got you down? Don’t sweat it—we’ll construct a NEW normal. All you have to do is develop a specific set of dysfunctional coping skills and you too can co-exist with people and situations that make life unbearable! Just don’t ask WHY you should find a way to live alongside misery—it may lead to positive changes.
Goddess knows I’ve lived with, dated, and befriended the most miserable, screwed up fucks, and proceeded to put up with their personality disorders, their sociopathic tendencies, their just plain MEANNESS simply because it didn’t occur to me that I didn’t have to. Until, of course, it did occur to me that I might be less unhappy if I avoided people who were ACTIVELY TRYING TO MAKE ME UNHAPPY. I’m a bleedin’ GENIUS, I know. I have spent the last ten years unlearning my tendency to put up with other people’s crap just because I can (well, kind of) and instead learning to only invite in people who simply don’t come with crap. And, hey, what do you know? Exponential decrease in misery. Huh.
And yet.
SOMEHOW, after putting all this energy into learning this lesson in my emotional life, I didn’t transfer the same knowledge to my physical self. It once again didn’t occur to me that I don’t HAVE to put up with the misery my back causes me. Certainly I’ve gone for treatment before, but just like this time, I’ve done so only after my back has really flared up and I can’t function anymore. Once I can tie my shoes again or, I don’t know, simply SIT without excruciating pain, I figure I no longer have a problem on my hands and go back to tolerating the standard amount of physical discomfort. Sure, my right arm goes numb from time to time and there’s constant, shooting pains in my neck and shoulders (CONSTANT, as in, I actually have no idea what it would feel like if it didn’t hurt), but that’s NORMAL. Well, that’s MY normal. That I totally just made up for no discernible reason. Apparently, I just like to be unhappy.
Anyway, calling my back pain normal is the equivalent of saying, “Sure, we never get along and fight constantly and neither of us is remotely happy, but no one’s stabbed the other one in the face for a while, so we’re NORMAL.” I…hesitate to say this because I don’t want to undermine anyone’s experience but…I appear to some kind of self-inflicted battered woman’s syndrome. WITH MY BACK. Can you do it to yourself? I THINK SO. And, GOD, how many ways can I find to repeat this pattern ANYWAY? WILL IT EVER END?
So. This is all news to me, this learned helplessness back thing. It only occurred to me on the train on the way back from physio, after she did something that made me feel better and I was all gob-smacked by the absence of pain. I don’t know whether it’s possible to fully heal my back, but I have two predictions: one, now that I’ve deconstructed my self-constructed (and totally not) normal, I will be able to heal a lot more than I have in the past, and two, if I heal the mundane pain, turn off that persistent buzzing, there will be fewer (no?) intense flare-ups in the future. My back will probably finally get what it needs and won’t be driven to every now and again throw down and start shrieking “Are you even LISTENING to me? You’re not, are you? AGGHHH! YOU NEVER LISTEN TO ME! Well, you go right ahead on your merry little way you FOOL because I’ll MAKE YOU LISTEN! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, SUCKAH!?!”
Oh, hey, did you know that window washers were coming to do our building today? Yeah, me neither. When did I find out, you ask? Why, when I was sitting on the toilet. Naked. With the bathroom door open.
Not that I’m some huge exhibitionist, but I was alone, so why bother? And we’re reaaaaaaaaalllly high up and the only people who can see in are, for the most part, hypothetical, as the building directly across from us is under construction. However, men dangling from large pulley systems, sitting on a swing outside my floor to ceiling windows? NOT hypothetical.
Surely I’m not the first person to be caught unawares by a window washer? And surely I’m also not the first person whose cat made no bones about how fascinated he was by the creature floating outside and, thus, proceeded to press his kitty cat face into the window, leaving intermittent nose smears everywhere, and every now and again breaking into a chorus of mewling set to the beat of his paws scraping against the glass. When the window washer descended further, Logan spent the rest of the afternoon pacing the window sill and contorting his head to get a better view while making that gargling, percussive chirping noise that cats make when they see birds. That kind of “Ah! Ah-ahh! Ack!” noise. Which I always thought translated to “Ack! Blue Jay. Must. Kill. Blue Jay. Ack! Blue Jay. Flying! Must Kill.” But apparently it can also mean “Ack! Floating man. Outside. Window. What. Does it all. MEAN?” [Paws at window in consternation].
Shamelessly staring at the window washer
[Ed note: Once again I am reduced to using the Photo Booth application in my MacBook and taking pictures of very poor quality because our camera is broken. Again. Only this time for good. Last time, Kieran was able to take it apart and put it back together and make it work again. This time…it’s too far gone.]
To break away from the nostalgia that has dominated Top Five Tuesdays so far, I’m doing a list that is current with my whims and moods as of right this very moment: Top Five Songs I’m in Love with Right Now. I’ve largely avoided talking about music on this site lest I give off the impression that I fancy myself to be one of the Cool Music People. Which…I’m just not. My taste in music is schizophrenic at best and and quite possibly atrocious at worst and it would just be too much effort to try and tailor or refine it to the point where I could fit in with any particular sect of the Cool Music People. Besides, I think I’ve been banned for life from the Cool Music People clubs because I went to a Britney Spears concert and it wasn’t as the chaperon of a 12-year-old. And, not only did I pay to go, I liked it. OK? And, if you must know, I also briefly kinda liked that Paris Hilton song “Stars go Blind.” It was catchy and it sounded like Blondie, so what can you do?
The thing is, I just like what I like and I don’t question it, you know? And sometimes I’ll listen to, like, maybe four albums for a year and not change things up because that’s just what I like and nothing else seems to do. Those are the kind of albums that, even once I’m over them, I can always revisit when I’m in a particular mood. Other times I have torrid affairs with songs and will replay the song feverishly for a week until I’m sick of it forever. So, given my strange listening habits, I thought it would be fun to occasionally take a snapshot of what I’m listening to.
As always, I’d love to know what you’re listening to too, so let me know in the comments. And, remember, I just admitted in front of God and the entire Internet that I listened to Paris Hilton, so we’re all friends here. If you’re secretly listening to Hannah Montana, then we here at Blue Yon Belly are way less likely to judge than to run out and download so that we can join you in your sick obsession. Deal?
So here we are today:
Feist, “Secret Heart”: My love affair with Feist continues unchecked. I’ve been listening to her latest album since before we left on the bike trip, had one of her songs in my head practically every day we rode, and she was the first thing I put on when we came back to the land of iPods. For the last month, though, it’s been “Secret Heart.” Especially the live version. The album version has a sweetness that I also like, but this live version is mad sexy. First it made me girl crush on Feist and now I just want to be Feist. I want to have long, thick bangs, and to be willowy and play a giant guitar and to seduce Parisian audiences with my raw talent and je ne sais quoi.
Ron Sexsmith, “Secret Heart”: Yes, the same song! Ron Sexsmith, forever the musician’s musician, wrote “Secret Heart” and I discovered his version while watching Feist’s live version on YouTube. Ron Sexsmith’s version is like…an aching lullaby. It has grown on me and, actually, I’m not sure which version I love more. [Note: This one doesn’t embed.] Ron Sexsmith, “Secret Heart.”
Ben Harper and Jack Johnson, “Please, Please Me”: I don’t know how I managed to miss out on discovering this song until now, seeing as how I’m a fan of both Ben Harper and Jack Johnson. This song makes me think of the summer I lived in Tofino, when I spent many an evening sitting around a bonfire on the beach, looking up at the stars while my friends played their guitars. At the moment I’m nursing a huge crush on Jack Johnson and Kieran’s going to get humorously ruffled over that, so I’ll take a moment to point out that in this video Kieran and Jack Johnson kinda look alike, with the same hair and similar profile, right down to the flip-flops and raglan shirt.
Carla Bruni, “L’amour”: I haven’t listened to Carla Bruni in a while, but I’ve included this song because I caught myself singing it today while standing on the corner and waiting for the light to change. I also caught someone staring at me. Whoops! You mean it’s kinda weird to tunelessly mutter French songs to yourself on a busy street? Who knew! Anyway, I came home and put Carla Bruni on and…sigh. I still love her. “C’est un blues…”
Yael Naim, “Far, Far”: I think my time with Yael Naim has been on its way out for a little while, but this song still resonates with me. It’s pretty and sweet and I love the notion of a “beautiful mess inside.” And, as an aside, since I’m asking things of the Universe these days…Dear Universe: if in my next life I could be a French gamine with exquisite bone structure and a beautiful singing voice, that would be GREAT. Anyway, I couldn’t find a decent version of the song on YouTube, as this live version is oddly muffled. There is a video that has a clear version of the song from the album set to video footage of the American flag (sans stars!), but, uh, that seems weird to me so I’ll have to make do with the muffled live version.
My final assessment is that I seem to be going through some kind of phase where I’m drawn to melancholy guitar songs. Funny, because I’m in fairly good spirits.
One of my main goals in life is to live to be 100. I’m not even kidding. My great-grandpa lived to be 102 (that’s right—a HUNDRED AND TWO) and he had a fine old time and it’s struck me as a good idea ever since. I mean, he started to forget certain things and walked with a cane and, in the last three or four years, starting having trouble with the stairs so he began sleeping in the guest bedroom downstairs, but seriously? At 100? I mean, COME ON. He was also learning to speak Japanese—in addition to the other seven languages he already spoke—and fixed cuckoo clocks in his spare time and could still remember the price of wheat in 1939 and one time he made a clock out of a potato because he’d heard that that’s something that can be done and wanted to see for himself. And, oh my God, I miss him. But, anyway, if that’s what living to a hundred looks like, then sign me up.
For one thing, I really want to know how things turn out. Things. Everything. I’m dying to know what we’ll be wearing in 2076. And what will we be eating? Will food have been entirely phased out at that point, replaced by chemical powders that don’t even pretend to be food anymore (”Nutritious Monsanto powder—available at your friendly neighbourhood space pod. Try some today!”)? Or will we swing in the opposite direction, with an organic agricultural revolution towards eating like, well, like my great-grandpa did? (Oh, please, Universe, let that be a yes!) And when will the Oilers win the Stanley Cup again? When, Universe, WHEN?
But the other thing is that I’m slow on the uptake. I appear to be a perpetually late bloomer and I think I’m going to need at least another seventy years before I’ve got the whole game of life figured out. If I maintain my current pace, I should reach a state of emotional and intellectual fulfillment by about 78. I know that sounds defeatist and self-effacing, but I mean that in the most optimistic way. It’s nice to have something to look forward to. And, I think, regardless of whether you think of yourself of being resigned to something as opposed to committed to something (for me, the perspective oscillates in response to sleep deprivation and blood sugar levels), if that something happens to be emotional growth, then you’ve set yourself up for a pretty rich life. And if life is rich, then who wouldn’t want a full century of experience?
In any case, I’ve had a wee taste of success these last few days and I must admit that…I’m surprised. Pleasantly surprised. I am, as of today, officially a freelance writer working from home. A freelance writer who, like, gets paid. I have a hunch that I’ve finally gotten something right such that I’ve had exactly what I wanted to happen fall out of the sky and into my lap, but I’m such a newbie to the world of optimism and positivity that I don’t know what the “something right” is. Is it an attitude? Or a combination of attitude, luck, and timing that’s impossible to replicate? Is it because I just told the Universe what I wanted? Should I be providing the Universe with an itemized list of my demands? Or is it all random and I’m wasting emotional energy by wondering these things? Like, you know, I spend months trying to find the magic keys to the kingdom, get what I want, and then tomorrow I get hit by a bus*, proving that we’re all just random aggregates of carbon molecules wandering around thinking we matter but really, just molecules, until BAM! That’s that. No more carbon molecules. (Well, okay, the carbon molecules don’t just DISAPPEAR but instead decay according to a predictable half-life for the next 50, 000 years, etc., etc., but you know what I mean.)
Anyway, I simply don’t know. I DON’T KNOW. And I’m scared to make any further moves for fear of screwing it up! Most certainly, when I’m 78, I’ll look back at this confusion over how life works and shake my head that I was once so naive and silly. Then I’ll slip on my gravity Isotoners and bounce across the moon rocks in the courtyard to go play shuffle board in the holodeck.
The one thing I’m not confused about is that I’m happy with things just the way they are, which is an attitude I know my great-grandpa would approve of.
