You know, it's funny, but sometimes I feel like I want one of my friends to secretly be reading all of this.
It's weird, the secrets we keep.
So, since my last post in October, I...
-Kissed one of my best friends for NO REASON.
-Made a new friend.
-Got closer to some old friends.
-Suffered some horrifying realizations.
-Realized how much I miss my sister when she's away.
-Saw the last days of a man's life, and saw him dead.
There is this peace in death, one that surpasses all understanding. I think that's out of the Bible, but wherever it's from, it's absolutely true.
To me, death isn't a black void. It isn't this terrible, inevitably ending. It's more like a beginning, or the connection of a circle. It's part of life, and I accept it entirely, into my soul. I don't fear it, or anything else like that.
There's this one moment of my life that I know I will remember until the end of time. I was sitting there on my grandmother's bed, holding my grandfather's hand, even though he was dead. And my father walks to the doorway, and he looks at his father, but he can't come any closer, and I see his face, and he is so afraid that he can't step into the room. I look at his eyes and realize that I am a braver person than my father will ever be, and I felt proud of myself and sad for him at the same time. The funny thing is, I don't even like him, and I pity him. Family is weird that way.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Why You Should Eat Organic Food
1. Protect Future Generations
Children receive four times the exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. The food choice you make now will impact your child's health in the future.
2. Prevent Soil Erosion
The Soil Conservation Service Estimates that more than three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. But in conventional farming the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, American and Canadian farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.
3. Protect Water Quality
Water makes up two-thirds of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. Despite its importance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimates pesticides (some cancer-causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.
4. Save Energy
Farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from the family based small businesses dependent on human energy to large scale factory farms highly dependent on fossil fuels. Modern farming methods uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the United States. Organic farming is still mainly based on labour-intensive practices such as weeding by hand and using green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic inputs. Organic produce also tends to travel a shorter distance from the farm to your plate.
5. Keep Chemicals off Your Plate
Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides and 30% insecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimate that pesticides might cause an extra 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.
6. Protect Farm Workers Health
A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a greater factor of six, than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14% a year since 1973, and doubled between 1975 and 1985. Field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state. Farm workers health also is a serious problem in developing nations, where pesticides can be poorly regulated. An estimated 1 million people are poisoned annually by pesticides. Several of the pesticides banned from use in the United States are still manufactured here for export to other countries.
7. Help Small Farmers
Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small independently owned and operated family farms of less than 100 acres. It's estimated that the United States has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. With the US Department of Agriculture predicting that half of this country's farm production will come from 1% of farms by the year 2000. Organic farming could become one of the few hopes left for family farms.
8. Support a True Economy
Although organic food might seem more expensive than conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect hidden cost borne by taxpayers, including nearly $74 billion in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden costs include pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and environmental damage.
9. Promote Biodiversity
Mono cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients. To replace the nutrients, chemical fertilizers are used, often in increasing amounts.
10. Taste Better Flavour
There's a good reason many chefs use organic foods in their recipes. They taste better. Organic farming starts with the nutrients of the soil which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and ultimately our palates.
Children receive four times the exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer-causing pesticides in food. The food choice you make now will impact your child's health in the future.
2. Prevent Soil Erosion
The Soil Conservation Service Estimates that more than three billion tons of topsoil are eroded from the United States croplands each year. That means soil is eroding seven times faster than it is built up naturally. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming. But in conventional farming the soil is used more as a medium for holding plants in a vertical position so they can be chemically fertilized. As a result, American and Canadian farms are suffering from the worst soil erosion in history.
3. Protect Water Quality
Water makes up two-thirds of our body mass and covers three-fourths of the planet. Despite its importance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), estimates pesticides (some cancer-causing) contaminate the ground water in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.
4. Save Energy
Farms have changed drastically in the last three generations, from the family based small businesses dependent on human energy to large scale factory farms highly dependent on fossil fuels. Modern farming methods uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12 percent of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops in the United States. Organic farming is still mainly based on labour-intensive practices such as weeding by hand and using green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic inputs. Organic produce also tends to travel a shorter distance from the farm to your plate.
5. Keep Chemicals off Your Plate
Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases had been established. Now the EPA considers that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides and 30% insecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimate that pesticides might cause an extra 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.
6. Protect Farm Workers Health
A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had a greater factor of six, than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticide poisonings among farm workers have risen an average of 14% a year since 1973, and doubled between 1975 and 1985. Field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state. Farm workers health also is a serious problem in developing nations, where pesticides can be poorly regulated. An estimated 1 million people are poisoned annually by pesticides. Several of the pesticides banned from use in the United States are still manufactured here for export to other countries.
7. Help Small Farmers
Although more and more large scale farms are making the conversion to organic practices, most organic farms are small independently owned and operated family farms of less than 100 acres. It's estimated that the United States has lost more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade. With the US Department of Agriculture predicting that half of this country's farm production will come from 1% of farms by the year 2000. Organic farming could become one of the few hopes left for family farms.
8. Support a True Economy
Although organic food might seem more expensive than conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect hidden cost borne by taxpayers, including nearly $74 billion in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden costs include pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste disposal and clean up, and environmental damage.
9. Promote Biodiversity
Mono cropping is the practice of planting large plots of land with the same crop year after year. While this approach tripled farm production between 1950 and 1970, the lack of natural diversity of plant life has left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients. To replace the nutrients, chemical fertilizers are used, often in increasing amounts.
10. Taste Better Flavour
There's a good reason many chefs use organic foods in their recipes. They taste better. Organic farming starts with the nutrients of the soil which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant and ultimately our palates.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Summer
This summer was insane. It was both the best and worst of my life to date. And I haven't recorded any of it, apart from that last, rather angry post. I was angry, and sad. It's just so weird.
But I'll begin at the beginning, because thats the only really proper place to begin a story. This summer started with two weeks of fun. After exams, I started hanging out with some friends, not exactly my usual group, but not baddies, like you're thinking. It was me, my best friend Lollie, her bf of the time, Pip (not his actual name, but besides the point, all bf's of hers will be referred to as Pip from now on) , and Pip's best friend, Benjo (again, not his actual name.) We hung out in the parks around our houses, of which there are many, we joined pickup soccer games and spend our evenings in the basement of my or Benjo's houses, watching movies. Well, me and Benjo watched them, Pip and Lollie generally spent that time making out, and eventually taking the mickey out of them for it got boring. Occasionally, we were all joined by some other friends, always guys, because thats just how it worked out.
Because we were often pushed together by the fact that the other people hanging out with us spent a lot of our hangout time snogging, me and Benjo became friends. Good friends. I'd met him back in November, at the place where I go to listen to ska and dance, through other friends, but we'd never really talked. Besides, he was different in June than he'd been in November. Quieter, more thoughtful, a bit less overly impulsive. And I liked it. And, after a while, I liked him. But, me being me, I didn't really say anything about it, we just carried on like we had been, as friends.
One cool Thursday night in the end of June, the last Thursday night in June, actually, the four of us plus one other friend were hanging out in Benjo's basement, watching a movie called Cloverfield.
Now, if you have not seen Cloverfield, I recommend that you go see it. However, if you are prone to motion sickness, squeamish, pregnant, arachnaphobic, prone to nightmares about monsters taking over cities, pacifistic, if you have heart problems, if you live in New York City, if you don't like the song West Coast by Coconut Records, if you're morally against drinking and skanky outfits, if you think high heeled shoes are a misogynistic plot to keep women unstable, unable to run, reliant on men, and out of touch with nature, if you get bored extremely easily or have the attention span of a gnat (which is actually surprisingly long, for what you'd think of a gnat, but short for a human) or if you just plain don't like indie monster movies, this movie is not
for you. Personally, I loved it. I fall into few of the categories above (being the high heeled shoes one and the skanky outfits one). But anyhoo, I digress.
So, the five of us were sitting on the couches in the TV room in Benjo's basement. Or, more accurately, Benjo, I and the other friend were sitting on one couch, (in the order me, scrunched into the corner, because I like corners, Benjo beside me, and then way over at the other end of the couch, the other friend, who likes his bubble rather a lot) and Lollie and Pip were half lying down on the other couch, macking and whispering sweet nothings, etc, etc, etc. (Ick. PDA much, guys.) And when the movie was almost over, Pip and the bubble loving friend had to leave, as they had a curfew. And so we paused the movie and said goodbye, and then returned to the movie, but now Lollie, who had no idea what was going on at this point, was falling asleep on the other couch, and then she was sleeping on the other couch. And so, when the movie was over, we turned off the TV, and I looked up at Benjo, and I kissed him, or maybe he kissed me, who knows how these things start?? And then I kissed him again, or he kissed me, whichever, who cares about the details. And this may have gone on for quite some time, except for the fact that Lollie stirred, and then she woke up entirely, by which point we were sitting quite a respectable distance apart. And then we remembered that we were late getting home too, so we said goodbye and left. And then that Sunday, we ended up kissing again, while hanging out at Lollie's house.
And then I left on Monday for what may have been the most informative and illuminating two weeks of my entire life. I was working as a dishwasher/bathroom cleaner/ all around slave kid at a Christian camp on an island just a few hours ferry ride from my hometown. Well, town doesn't really do Vancouver justice, but you get the gist of it. And I'm not sure whether I'm any denomination of Christian, whether or not I believe in God, whether or not I believe in the Bible or Jesus or anything of that nature. I was once informed by a friend that I was Jewish. He just looked at me one day and said so. Not that he was really telling me, or asking me, he was just stating it to the world, maybe to see how it sounded. I kind of liked the sound of it, which is interesting, but I'm not really Jewish either. I'm not really any kind of religion, which is just fine with me. Regardless, through a series of fortunate and unfortunate events akin, I had ended up in a Christian camp, where we had prayer every morning, first thing, and Bible studyish in the evenings, after Watch, which is, quite honestly, pure magic. I don't know if I believe in God, or if I believe in him, then think he's worth worshipping, but I would like to think Him (Her, It, whatever) for creating this belief, this faith that brings people together in a way that changes you life just to witness it. And so I was sleeping four solid hours a night on the front porch of a broken down old cabin, because it was nicer outside, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and waking up a couple of times with deer who thought that my blanket was a strange sort of food. I spent a night on that porch shivering through one of the biggest wind storms I've ever seen, one that cracked a few trees, broke a gate completely off it's hinges, and went straight through my blankets and clothes. I worked about 8 hours a day for no pay, I washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms and took out garbage and went on food runs and cleaned the grease trap and turned the compost, and spent HOURS mopping the basement when the grease trap flooded, and learned to deal with idiots, and learned how to mop, and learnt the wonders of Sheila Shine, and laughed so hard that I though my ribs would crack. I twisted my wrist, took a flying skid in the mud while running downhill that ended in me flying six feet and bumping my head on the road, mildly concussing myself, I got a bug bite on my eyelid that swelled so that I couldn't see, so I was given Benadryl for it (which I, not being allergic to anything, really, had never taken before) and as a result, couldn't walk in a straight line and was sent to bed, where I slept for six hours solid, a record for my entire time there. I learnt every word to Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, and sung it at the top of my lungs in a big field with friends that I'd just made. I tried to wakeboard, and failed miserably. I was late for curfew nearly every night; I was always off doing something. I got to listen to Lollie wail over yet another Pip, this one who'd already broken her heart once, and who is an extremely charismatic ass. I was scarred by boys bathrooms, and told people about my panic disorder, which I never do. I had the some of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life, and learnt things that I now realize I needed to learn. And after two weeks of overworked insanity, with a knees down tan and a permanent coat of grime from the terrible showers, I hugged my mentors goodbye and got on the boat home. I'm not ashamed to say, I cried when I left. And, as we pulled away, I realized that I could never go back, not really. I had learnt what I was supposed to learn there, and that was it. I had to try something new. I had to find a bit more of myself somewhere else. And sure, I'm working there for a weekend in February, for pay this time, and maybe I'll visit next summer, or spend a weekend of paid prep work in May, but essentially, I'm not going back for very long at all. I feel like that place is just over for me, now. Done. Everything but gone.
So I came home from that, steamed the grime out of my pores, and slept for two days straight. Well, not exactly, I woke up a couple of times to eat. Then, nine days after I got home, I was off again, this time, on an aeroplane, zooming across this enormous country that we call Canada, to spend time in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Cape Breton, a few hours in Port Aux Basques (or was it Rose Blanche??) and a week or so in La Poile, a tiny fishing output in The Middle Of Nowhere, Newfoundland.
So, for me, this was HUGE. I'd never been on a plane before, and now I was suddenly at the YVR airport, Vancouver, for all you's out there who don't know what that means. I'd never been to the airport either, and it was so huge and full of uniforms and scanners, and people who knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing, with their sleek, professional suitcases. I felt like a bit of a bumpkin, with my already messy braids, my servicable non-tourist denimn jeans(not touristy!! I despise tourists, although they pay for a good amount of my city!!) my men's button-up shirt, and my overstuffed, ridiculous lime green and black backpack, which has travelled a fair distance with me and has served well the entire time. The backpack's name is Roderick, in case you were wondering. So, I was running through all sorts of security, and checking in my backpack, relinquishing it to strangers who said that it was going on the plane, and I only half believed them, even though I knew enough to know that they were right. I just don't really trust anything anyone says, but I had my money, my camera, my ID, my notebook, etc in my carry-on, so it was no big deal. It's just clothes, really.
So I was on this plane, screaming down the runway, and when you go down the runway, it makes sense that you would keep going down, but, against all odds and laws of gravity, instead, we were rising up into the air. Very weird. Kind of novel, really. And then we crossed BC, then the Rockies into Alberta, which was flatly frightening, and so was Saskatchewan, and so was Ontario after that. I know what you're thinking, you're going 'HA!! She calls herself a Canadian and she missed a province!!' But you're wrong. I didn't forget Manitoba, I simply don't believe in Manitoba. And so we landed in Toronto for all of 45 minutes, and I instinctively didn't like it there. Being born and raised halfway up a mountain (which isn't half as impressive as it sounds) and near to the ocean, I hated the flat dryness of it all. It looked like someone had taken a bone dry sponge and scrubbed the land with it. Except for the Great Lakes. They were wet, for sure, but they seemed...wrong. I don't know. Like, they seemed too big to be lakes, but they were most definitely not oceans. The Great Lakes just rubbed me the wrong way. Actually, so did the rest of Central Canada, which is saying something, because this country is ENORMOUS. And after our nasty layover in Toronto, we were in a lovely city in Nova Scotia, the capital, actually; Halifax. Well, we weren't in Halifax proper, and we didn't pass through it until the end of the trip, but thats for later. We landed in the beginning of darkness, and by the time we'd got our luggage and made it outside, it was fully dark, and the air was thick and warm with pea-soup fog, the kind of thick, heavy stuff you never get on the West Coast. We reached the rental car, and after a few minutes confusion, managed to get the keys to it, and figure out how to use it. Then we packed in our bags (their three enormous duffels and my little backpack) into the trunk, and we were off. Our interior clocks said that it was early, only six or so, even though it was ten pm there. So we drove, and then we stopped a couple of hours later, to try to decide where to spend the night, and we opted to keep driving on, so we drove through the thick fog, and slowly the other two dropped to sleep, the little one first, and then Lollie, until it was just the driver, who was extremely focused on the foggy, under-construction highway, and me, who was stretched across the back seat, my long legs resting on the edge of the other door, across the lap of the sleeping Lollie, hunched down with my hood up, looking out the window at the sky, and all the millions of dead stars. No, really, actual dead stars; most of the stars you see in the sky are dead, they burned out years ago, possibly centuries or millenia, but they're so far away that the light hasn't died yet. So we drove, and drove, and drove, five hours nearly straight in near silence, until we reached Glace Bay, Cape Breton. (Thats the big island thats part of Nova Scotia, for those of you who don't know) We arrived at 3 am. And what could we do then?? We woke Nan up. At 3 am. An I-have-no-idea-how-old grandmother. Why?? Because what else?? So we got inside, and we all said hi, and our niceties, and then we all collapsed into bed, still in our travel-grimy clothes and fell into a dead sleep.
We all showered in the morning, and spend a couple of days there, seeing the sights; we saw lots of boats, and water and such. We went to the beach once, and I found loads of beach glass and this really cool rock with the print of a seashell on it. Not a clue what it is or where it came from, and quite frankly, I don't give. It's unique, and strange, and beautiful, and I found it myself, and that's what matters.
From there, we had a few more adventures. Lots of time on the road, driving through warm fog. We slept on an air matress in a living room with two other people, I tried moose, we explored a haunted house (which i will detail later, complete with pictures). We drank too much rum that a drunk guy bought us, and danced until 3 am. Good times. I got covered, head to toe in mud when i was ATVing, and went slogging through bog to see an old graveyard. By the time we got home, I felt years older than I ever had. As we came in over Vancouver, I felt so happy, just because I could see my city. And I'm telling you, she's beautiful. Best city in the world.
By the time we'd landed, my head said it was 4 am. I was covered in travel grime, and ridiculously sore and full of muscle cramps and supporting a Melatonin'ed, sleep-derpived ten year old. I was hungry and dirty and every other weird thing you get from travelling, and I was also so happy I couldn't keep the grin off of my face. This was probably the best summer of my life, as well as the worst, but why not see the best of it?? I wouldn't take any of it back, not one single second of it. And now school has started again, and life is back to normal, except for a couple of scars and some awkwardness. And now its back to square one, but a different square one, this one more like corn starch and water, if you get my analogy. If I stop moving, I'll sink.
But I'll begin at the beginning, because thats the only really proper place to begin a story. This summer started with two weeks of fun. After exams, I started hanging out with some friends, not exactly my usual group, but not baddies, like you're thinking. It was me, my best friend Lollie, her bf of the time, Pip (not his actual name, but besides the point, all bf's of hers will be referred to as Pip from now on) , and Pip's best friend, Benjo (again, not his actual name.) We hung out in the parks around our houses, of which there are many, we joined pickup soccer games and spend our evenings in the basement of my or Benjo's houses, watching movies. Well, me and Benjo watched them, Pip and Lollie generally spent that time making out, and eventually taking the mickey out of them for it got boring. Occasionally, we were all joined by some other friends, always guys, because thats just how it worked out.
Because we were often pushed together by the fact that the other people hanging out with us spent a lot of our hangout time snogging, me and Benjo became friends. Good friends. I'd met him back in November, at the place where I go to listen to ska and dance, through other friends, but we'd never really talked. Besides, he was different in June than he'd been in November. Quieter, more thoughtful, a bit less overly impulsive. And I liked it. And, after a while, I liked him. But, me being me, I didn't really say anything about it, we just carried on like we had been, as friends.
One cool Thursday night in the end of June, the last Thursday night in June, actually, the four of us plus one other friend were hanging out in Benjo's basement, watching a movie called Cloverfield.
Now, if you have not seen Cloverfield, I recommend that you go see it. However, if you are prone to motion sickness, squeamish, pregnant, arachnaphobic, prone to nightmares about monsters taking over cities, pacifistic, if you have heart problems, if you live in New York City, if you don't like the song West Coast by Coconut Records, if you're morally against drinking and skanky outfits, if you think high heeled shoes are a misogynistic plot to keep women unstable, unable to run, reliant on men, and out of touch with nature, if you get bored extremely easily or have the attention span of a gnat (which is actually surprisingly long, for what you'd think of a gnat, but short for a human) or if you just plain don't like indie monster movies, this movie is not
for you. Personally, I loved it. I fall into few of the categories above (being the high heeled shoes one and the skanky outfits one). But anyhoo, I digress.
So, the five of us were sitting on the couches in the TV room in Benjo's basement. Or, more accurately, Benjo, I and the other friend were sitting on one couch, (in the order me, scrunched into the corner, because I like corners, Benjo beside me, and then way over at the other end of the couch, the other friend, who likes his bubble rather a lot) and Lollie and Pip were half lying down on the other couch, macking and whispering sweet nothings, etc, etc, etc. (Ick. PDA much, guys.) And when the movie was almost over, Pip and the bubble loving friend had to leave, as they had a curfew. And so we paused the movie and said goodbye, and then returned to the movie, but now Lollie, who had no idea what was going on at this point, was falling asleep on the other couch, and then she was sleeping on the other couch. And so, when the movie was over, we turned off the TV, and I looked up at Benjo, and I kissed him, or maybe he kissed me, who knows how these things start?? And then I kissed him again, or he kissed me, whichever, who cares about the details. And this may have gone on for quite some time, except for the fact that Lollie stirred, and then she woke up entirely, by which point we were sitting quite a respectable distance apart. And then we remembered that we were late getting home too, so we said goodbye and left. And then that Sunday, we ended up kissing again, while hanging out at Lollie's house.
And then I left on Monday for what may have been the most informative and illuminating two weeks of my entire life. I was working as a dishwasher/bathroom cleaner/ all around slave kid at a Christian camp on an island just a few hours ferry ride from my hometown. Well, town doesn't really do Vancouver justice, but you get the gist of it. And I'm not sure whether I'm any denomination of Christian, whether or not I believe in God, whether or not I believe in the Bible or Jesus or anything of that nature. I was once informed by a friend that I was Jewish. He just looked at me one day and said so. Not that he was really telling me, or asking me, he was just stating it to the world, maybe to see how it sounded. I kind of liked the sound of it, which is interesting, but I'm not really Jewish either. I'm not really any kind of religion, which is just fine with me. Regardless, through a series of fortunate and unfortunate events akin, I had ended up in a Christian camp, where we had prayer every morning, first thing, and Bible studyish in the evenings, after Watch, which is, quite honestly, pure magic. I don't know if I believe in God, or if I believe in him, then think he's worth worshipping, but I would like to think Him (Her, It, whatever) for creating this belief, this faith that brings people together in a way that changes you life just to witness it. And so I was sleeping four solid hours a night on the front porch of a broken down old cabin, because it was nicer outside, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and waking up a couple of times with deer who thought that my blanket was a strange sort of food. I spent a night on that porch shivering through one of the biggest wind storms I've ever seen, one that cracked a few trees, broke a gate completely off it's hinges, and went straight through my blankets and clothes. I worked about 8 hours a day for no pay, I washed dishes and cleaned bathrooms and took out garbage and went on food runs and cleaned the grease trap and turned the compost, and spent HOURS mopping the basement when the grease trap flooded, and learned to deal with idiots, and learned how to mop, and learnt the wonders of Sheila Shine, and laughed so hard that I though my ribs would crack. I twisted my wrist, took a flying skid in the mud while running downhill that ended in me flying six feet and bumping my head on the road, mildly concussing myself, I got a bug bite on my eyelid that swelled so that I couldn't see, so I was given Benadryl for it (which I, not being allergic to anything, really, had never taken before) and as a result, couldn't walk in a straight line and was sent to bed, where I slept for six hours solid, a record for my entire time there. I learnt every word to Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, and sung it at the top of my lungs in a big field with friends that I'd just made. I tried to wakeboard, and failed miserably. I was late for curfew nearly every night; I was always off doing something. I got to listen to Lollie wail over yet another Pip, this one who'd already broken her heart once, and who is an extremely charismatic ass. I was scarred by boys bathrooms, and told people about my panic disorder, which I never do. I had the some of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life, and learnt things that I now realize I needed to learn. And after two weeks of overworked insanity, with a knees down tan and a permanent coat of grime from the terrible showers, I hugged my mentors goodbye and got on the boat home. I'm not ashamed to say, I cried when I left. And, as we pulled away, I realized that I could never go back, not really. I had learnt what I was supposed to learn there, and that was it. I had to try something new. I had to find a bit more of myself somewhere else. And sure, I'm working there for a weekend in February, for pay this time, and maybe I'll visit next summer, or spend a weekend of paid prep work in May, but essentially, I'm not going back for very long at all. I feel like that place is just over for me, now. Done. Everything but gone.
So I came home from that, steamed the grime out of my pores, and slept for two days straight. Well, not exactly, I woke up a couple of times to eat. Then, nine days after I got home, I was off again, this time, on an aeroplane, zooming across this enormous country that we call Canada, to spend time in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Cape Breton, a few hours in Port Aux Basques (or was it Rose Blanche??) and a week or so in La Poile, a tiny fishing output in The Middle Of Nowhere, Newfoundland.
So, for me, this was HUGE. I'd never been on a plane before, and now I was suddenly at the YVR airport, Vancouver, for all you's out there who don't know what that means. I'd never been to the airport either, and it was so huge and full of uniforms and scanners, and people who knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing, with their sleek, professional suitcases. I felt like a bit of a bumpkin, with my already messy braids, my servicable non-tourist denimn jeans(not touristy!! I despise tourists, although they pay for a good amount of my city!!) my men's button-up shirt, and my overstuffed, ridiculous lime green and black backpack, which has travelled a fair distance with me and has served well the entire time. The backpack's name is Roderick, in case you were wondering. So, I was running through all sorts of security, and checking in my backpack, relinquishing it to strangers who said that it was going on the plane, and I only half believed them, even though I knew enough to know that they were right. I just don't really trust anything anyone says, but I had my money, my camera, my ID, my notebook, etc in my carry-on, so it was no big deal. It's just clothes, really.
So I was on this plane, screaming down the runway, and when you go down the runway, it makes sense that you would keep going down, but, against all odds and laws of gravity, instead, we were rising up into the air. Very weird. Kind of novel, really. And then we crossed BC, then the Rockies into Alberta, which was flatly frightening, and so was Saskatchewan, and so was Ontario after that. I know what you're thinking, you're going 'HA!! She calls herself a Canadian and she missed a province!!' But you're wrong. I didn't forget Manitoba, I simply don't believe in Manitoba. And so we landed in Toronto for all of 45 minutes, and I instinctively didn't like it there. Being born and raised halfway up a mountain (which isn't half as impressive as it sounds) and near to the ocean, I hated the flat dryness of it all. It looked like someone had taken a bone dry sponge and scrubbed the land with it. Except for the Great Lakes. They were wet, for sure, but they seemed...wrong. I don't know. Like, they seemed too big to be lakes, but they were most definitely not oceans. The Great Lakes just rubbed me the wrong way. Actually, so did the rest of Central Canada, which is saying something, because this country is ENORMOUS. And after our nasty layover in Toronto, we were in a lovely city in Nova Scotia, the capital, actually; Halifax. Well, we weren't in Halifax proper, and we didn't pass through it until the end of the trip, but thats for later. We landed in the beginning of darkness, and by the time we'd got our luggage and made it outside, it was fully dark, and the air was thick and warm with pea-soup fog, the kind of thick, heavy stuff you never get on the West Coast. We reached the rental car, and after a few minutes confusion, managed to get the keys to it, and figure out how to use it. Then we packed in our bags (their three enormous duffels and my little backpack) into the trunk, and we were off. Our interior clocks said that it was early, only six or so, even though it was ten pm there. So we drove, and then we stopped a couple of hours later, to try to decide where to spend the night, and we opted to keep driving on, so we drove through the thick fog, and slowly the other two dropped to sleep, the little one first, and then Lollie, until it was just the driver, who was extremely focused on the foggy, under-construction highway, and me, who was stretched across the back seat, my long legs resting on the edge of the other door, across the lap of the sleeping Lollie, hunched down with my hood up, looking out the window at the sky, and all the millions of dead stars. No, really, actual dead stars; most of the stars you see in the sky are dead, they burned out years ago, possibly centuries or millenia, but they're so far away that the light hasn't died yet. So we drove, and drove, and drove, five hours nearly straight in near silence, until we reached Glace Bay, Cape Breton. (Thats the big island thats part of Nova Scotia, for those of you who don't know) We arrived at 3 am. And what could we do then?? We woke Nan up. At 3 am. An I-have-no-idea-how-old grandmother. Why?? Because what else?? So we got inside, and we all said hi, and our niceties, and then we all collapsed into bed, still in our travel-grimy clothes and fell into a dead sleep.
We all showered in the morning, and spend a couple of days there, seeing the sights; we saw lots of boats, and water and such. We went to the beach once, and I found loads of beach glass and this really cool rock with the print of a seashell on it. Not a clue what it is or where it came from, and quite frankly, I don't give. It's unique, and strange, and beautiful, and I found it myself, and that's what matters.
From there, we had a few more adventures. Lots of time on the road, driving through warm fog. We slept on an air matress in a living room with two other people, I tried moose, we explored a haunted house (which i will detail later, complete with pictures). We drank too much rum that a drunk guy bought us, and danced until 3 am. Good times. I got covered, head to toe in mud when i was ATVing, and went slogging through bog to see an old graveyard. By the time we got home, I felt years older than I ever had. As we came in over Vancouver, I felt so happy, just because I could see my city. And I'm telling you, she's beautiful. Best city in the world.
By the time we'd landed, my head said it was 4 am. I was covered in travel grime, and ridiculously sore and full of muscle cramps and supporting a Melatonin'ed, sleep-derpived ten year old. I was hungry and dirty and every other weird thing you get from travelling, and I was also so happy I couldn't keep the grin off of my face. This was probably the best summer of my life, as well as the worst, but why not see the best of it?? I wouldn't take any of it back, not one single second of it. And now school has started again, and life is back to normal, except for a couple of scars and some awkwardness. And now its back to square one, but a different square one, this one more like corn starch and water, if you get my analogy. If I stop moving, I'll sink.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Late Evening Stupor
Do you ever think about point of view, about the story of the earth?? Each of us sees the world as, more or less, our story, in first person, everything that happens to us, everything we think and do and hear about. But sometimes, we try to look at the big picture, and even that is biased because we see it through the lens of our experiences. No one could ever really see our world for what it is, because everyone has their own bias, no matter how much they try not to. And even if someone from another planet were to see it, they would have their own bias. Only a celestial type of being would be able to see it for what it was, maybe. And even then, it'd have to be a celestial being that we couldn't comprehend, one that has no body, or thought, or personality, only raw life force and the ability to gather facts.
Strange thoughts. Whats your take on it??
Strange thoughts. Whats your take on it??
Friday, July 18, 2008
Death and Life and Loneliness
In March, or was it April, over Spring Break, I went to stay with my Tia y Tio in Victoria for a couple of days. While I was there, they got a phone call saying that their son had died in a car crash. They hadn't seen him in a long time, and he had some problems, but still, he was their son, and they loved him unconditionally. I saw my aunt's face when she heard, and thats one of those things that I will never forget, that look of complete pain and sorrow. She looked like the sun would never shine again, and it shook me all the way through. I stayed at a friend's place that night, and then came home the next day, but it stuck with me these four months. And then today, I found out that their son's, my cousin's, girlfriend had died in a car crash a couple of days ago. The same cause of death, only four months apart, and people who had been dating. What are the odds?? And it makes me think, what if her death wasn't accidental? What if she was just so emotionally shattered by his death that she caused her own? I guess we'll never know.
I never even met her, but I still feel sad for her, for a life ended too soon, for her friends and her family, just like I felt bad when my cousin died. I hadn't seen him since I was a toddler, I don't even remember his face. I just remember the way he smelled, and the doll he gave me, and his black runners. I remember sitting on the arm of the old brown sofa in our house that we lived in then, holding my new doll and looking up at him and his girlfriend of that time. I remember that she was blond and wore a jean jacket. I still have the doll they gave me. It's funny, the things you remember.
I find myself talking to dead people sometimes. Not like having a conversation with them, not like a psychic, but more like just chatting, in case they can hear me, when I'm walking to the bus stop, or cleaning the bathroom, or washing the dishes. I talk about what I know about them. I talk about their families sometimes, whats going on, in case they can't see it for themselves. It makes me feel better, I guess, the knowledge that maybe I'm making them feel better.
The last three and a half years, so many people I know have died. There was one week, a couple of January's ago, when a whole bunch of people I knew died; a man named Ken Moore, who I'd known since I was a toddler, my friend's Grandma, the Nan of the guy who sat next to me in school, even my pet hamster died that week. It really shook me. I was only twelve, and it was like the entire world was slowly dying off. Every morning for the next couple of weeks I woke up and wondered if anyone I knew had died overnight. It's not a good way to live. It makes you sad, and scared, and lonely. You separate yourself from people, in case they die next.
I used to have dreams when I was a little kid, about my mum leaving me alone. It was always the same dream; I was playing on the rocks outside of my sister's school; I was too little to go to school yet. I was wearing my red party dress and my white stockings and my little black mary janes, with my hair down, which I hardly ever did, because it was so long and tangled so easily. I was jumping from boulder to boulder, like I always did. My mum was talking to another adult while I played. I was jumping, and I landed wrong and slipped and cut my knee, ripping my white tights at the same time. I can remember when that actually happened. I got blood all over my tights and had to throw them out. But when I really did that, my mum picked me up and took me into the school and cleaned and bandaged my knee. In the dream, though, she just looked at me, and got on her bike, her old yellow and silver one, and rode away, with my standing there screaming after her. I remember waking up from that dream crying in the dark, and climbing into my sister's bed, because I was too afraid of being left alone. I had that dream again last night, for the first time since I was a little kid, probably for the first time since I started kindergarten. I'd nearly forgotten about it, and then I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, crying in the dark like I did when I was little. But my sister moved out a couple of weeks ago. She's not here anymore. I have to grow up and deal with it myself.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Growing Up
So this is growing up. Making these difficult decisions, making calls that you don't have to make. Doing things for other people, giving up the things that mean the most to you so that other people are happy, even when it means sacrificing your own happiness. Right now, I'm so sad that I feel all raw inside. I've given up something that I've been looking forward to for two years, to save my family stress. A lot of stress, and I feel glad for them, but I'm still selfish enough to be sad for me. I feel like my heart is breaking, and I feel guilty for feeling sad. It feels so self-absorbed of me. I guess that every once and a while, you need to take a little time to be sad, and then you have to suck it up and get on with your life. It's been less than 24 hours since I made that call, and it's still too fresh. I can pretend, but every so often, I need to let it out. Or maybe I don't. I guess I'll just hold it together and pretend that it's all okay. I can do that.
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