"Don't ever look away"

I don't like boundaries. I don't like having to tell myself I can't talk to someone, or that I can't ask a particular question because it would be "insensitive". When someone dies, for instance, people have a tendency to tread lightly around the topic, or pretend it never happened. We assume that the people grieving simply want to forget and move on and keep busy, and somehow they'll fool themselves into thinking that whatever happened is not a big deal.

I'm revealing my geekiness here, but I think this is along the same principle as what JK Rowling said: Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself. All of the characters in Harry Potter refuse to say the name Voldemort. They want to believe he doesn't exist but in refusing to look at the reality they magnify his fear factor - and everyone is too scared to confront him.

The issues we refuse to acknowledge blow up in our minds until it's something we're convinced is too big for us to handle. We think the only solution is to look away and move on and pray to God that we never need to encounter the issue again. But things are never so black and white. Issues are not Satanic forces that will swallow us hole if we turn back to face them. The more we can face them and talk about them and work things through without fear, the smaller and more reasonable the issue becomes.

Call me nosy, but I don't like boundaries. I refuse to accept that part of my life is over, never to look at it again. I'm moving forward, but I'm not running away.

The Boulder

I heard a story once about a man whom God told to push a rock up a hill. It was a huge rock. It was taller than the man's head. But the man said OK - if that's what you want me to do, God, I'll push that rock up that hill. So he tried. And failed. And when the sun set he went away frustrated, telling himself he'd try again in the morning.

For nearly four years the man would wake up early every morning and push against the rock. Every morning, the rock stayed put. He wanted to please God, or at least prove he wasn't completely incompetent, but no matter what he did he could not get the frigging rock up the frigging hill.

Finally, certain that he'd been set an impossible task, he blew up at God: "I've been killing myself every day to move this freaking rock, and it won't move! Why would you give me a task when you knew I would fail?"

But God, in his omnipotent way, said simply, "It was never your job to move the rock. I only told you to push it. I will move the rock." And he did.

The man, exasperated, demanded, "Why bother getting me to push against it all these years?"

So God told him to look at himself. He's grown strong and lean; he now had some sexy muscles; he'd learned persistence, and had become more fit and energetic; he was a great critical thinker, after trying thousands of methods of moving the rock. He'd grown in many aspects, all from those long, hard mornings of pushing against the rock.

It's easy to get frustrated when we feel like we aren't accomplishing things, but maybe the accomplishment isn't the point. The attitude we do things with is more important than the things we actually do. That's the part we have full control over.

Last Day at White Spot

So I leave Vancouver today to head home to Calgary. Yesterday, I had my last shift at White Spot. Let me paint a picture: my belongings are strewn everywhere across the apartment, dirty dishes are in the sink, tiny ants are scurrying around (as usual), there are a billion plastic grocery bags filled with garbage to take out (also normal), I still haven't cleaned (...), and it is 20 minutes before my shift at White Spot is scheduled to start. This is a shift I'd been optimistic my manager could find someone to cover, being as he'd told me initially I wouldn't have to work this week.

20 minutes before my shift no fellow worker has come to my rescue, and I realize I've thrown away the shirt I used to wear at the White Spot Restaurant. I need to wear a white shirt. I call into White Spot 10 mins before my shift asking if they have any spares. "Of course not, and why don't you have a shirt??" was my response. So, I take 5 minutes to wash some dishes and then, with 10 minutes remaining, sprint out the door and 5 blocks away, into Winners where I grab any white blouse off the rack, pay for it, and dash 3 blocks to White Spot. (I made it on time, by the way. God bless downtown and it's tiny blocks.)

It is only then that I realize the shirt I grabbed is down to my knees, semi-see-through, and has no stretch whatsoever. Therefore, as I walk onto the floor for my last shift, I have a shirt that is completely bunched up under my pants where I tucked it in, it is extremely obvious I'm wearing a bathing suit under the shirt, and every time I move my arms a large section of shirt gets pulled loose of my pants and floats around my midsection so that I feel like a ghost from Mario and Bowser's world. One of the waitresses said I look like a hussy. Not sure if she meant it in a nice way or not, but I suppose I can be proud to at least be able to say I looked like a retard my last day at work =)

When my shift ended I returned the shirt. (It was still clean!) "What's your reason for returning the item?" "It makes me look like a mushroom." "Oh. OK then."

Cheers to Vancouver and terrible blouses everywhere.

Brevity

For any art form, talent is measured by an artists ability to convey something huge with the least amount of "effort".

Dancers can't just add a bunch of steps in.
Painters try and bring an image to life with the least amount of brush strokes.
Writers can't ramble on tangents in the middle of a poem.
Etc, etc.
It's the purity of the message being conveyed that is so beautiful to appreciate.

For those artists who are blessed with talent, I'll just say that I am exceedingly jealous.
For the rest of us, art is the product of much cursing, terrible first-drafts, falling down, smudging paint, and things that are sometimes truly ugly. We need first, second...fifty-second drafts, and marks on the floor to guide us, and sometimes a graphed-out Paint-By-Numbers Canvas to paint on is really awesome.

The truly great thing about Paint By Numbers is that YOU CAN PAINT OVER IT AND NO ONE WILL KNOW!
No one knows or cares how many drafts a novel went through before it became what it is; No one cares how many bruises a dancer has if they put on a great performance; And, if you created the Paint-By-Numbers grid for yourself after much experimentation and several layers of paint, no one will know that those ugly first attempts were the key to having so few brush strokes on your final canvas.

In short - just because the final product will be polished, don't be afraid to get messy in the earlier stages. Take risks. Experiment. Paint a bush orange to see what it looks like. Try writing from the perspective of a bunch of rabbits. Even if it's a complete failure, who cares? There can always be another draft. In the meantime, you'll be creating a paint-by-numbers diagram that is full of depth and creativity.

Reality

Science suggests that we can only see 10% of all the matter in our Universe. Matter is all the "stuff" that makes up our world, which includes liquids, gases and solids - The Universe contains 90% more "stuff" than we've discovered (called Dark Matter).

Reality is bigger than we can imagine. Even when we're trying to open our minds and look at the big picture I'm sure we're only seeing a fraction of what's out there and of what's possible.

Maybe animals really can talk. Maybe things like telepathy, intuition, psychics and hypnosis really do exist. Maybe God is sitting right next to me. Maybe there are such things as ghosts or alternate universes or magic. Maybe there used to be dragons in the time of the dinosaurs.

Maybe not. There's no proof for any of those things. But we're never going to discover the things we're missing if we dismiss ideas too quickly and limit ourselves to the status quo of common perceptions.

No Handlebars

Lyrics to Handlebars (Flobots)--
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

Look at me, look at me
hands in the air like it's good to be
ALIVE
and I'm a famous rapper
even when the paths're all crookedy
I can show you how to do-si-do
I can show you how to scratch a record
I can take apart the remote control
And I can almost put it back together
I can tie a knot in a cherry stem
I can tell you about Leif Ericson
I know all the words to "De Colores"
And "I'm Proud to be an American"
Me and my friend saw a platypus
Me and my friend made a comic book
And guess how long it took
I can do anything that I want cuz, look:

I can keep rhythm with no metronome
No metronome
No metronome

I can see your face on the telephone
On the telephone
On the telephone

Look at me
Look at me
Just called to say that it's good to be
ALIVE
In such a small world
All curled up with a book to read
I can make money open up a thrift store
I can make a living off a magazine
I can design an engine sixty four
Miles to a gallon of gasoline
I can make new antibiotics
I can make computers survive aquatic conditions
I know how to run a business
And I can make you wanna buy a product
Movers shakers and producers
Me and my friends understand the future
I see the strings that control the systems
I can do anything with no assistance
I can lead a nation with a microphone
With a microphone
With a microphone
I can split the atoms of a molecule
Of a molecule
Of a molecule

Look at me
Look at me
Driving and I won't stop
And it feels so good to be
Alive and on top
My reach is global
My tower secure
My cause is noble
My power is pure
I can hand out a million vaccinations
Or let'em all die in exasperation
Have'em all healed of their lacerations
Have'em all killed by assassination
I can make anybody go to prison
Just because I don't like'em and
I can do anything with no permission
I have it all under my command
I can guide a missile by satellite
By satellite
By satellite
and I can hit a target through a telescope
Through a telescope
Through a telescope
and I can end the planet in a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust
In a holocaust

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handle bars
No handlebars

I can ride my bike with no handlebars
No handlebars
No handlebars

The "What", Not The "How"

"I have a great idea for a story..."

"Oh yeah? How the hell are you going to write this story? How could a 20-year-old female possibly know what an 80 year old blind man feels like when he's bitten by a lemur?"

"Um...
So hey, I have a great idea for a story."


Dreams and goals are made of "Whats". Obstacles and deterrents are made of "Hows". It's easy to get bogged down in the technicalities (the "hows") and forget to keep looking at the big picture; the future; your biggest goals and dreams; the "What's" that you really want. It's hard to keep going.
Shoulder Devil says: "You've already worked hard. You've gotten this far. You could just settle with getting by. You'll survive if you never know what it feels like to be bitten by a lemur once you're an 80 year old blind man."

But... that would be boring.
(NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN ACTUAL STORY IDEA, NOR DO I PLAN ON GETTING A SEX CHANGE BEFORE I TURN 80)

But if I want to write a story about a transgendered geriatric with a love of lemurs, there's absolutely nothing standing in my way that I can't overcome. No matter what I choose, society will have it's perceptions: You're insane. You're weird. You're obsessed with lemurs. How do I overcome these obstacles? I don't. I keep my eyes on the "What", ignore the "How", and the world will deal with it.


"I'm going to be with my boyfriend again..."
"How are you planning on supporting yourself in a different country?"
"... And we're going to go to the zoo and find a lemur and..."