New New New

Thousand Ways
The Tallest Man on Earth

Oh, I have lived for ages
I'm a thousand turns of tides
I'm a thousand wakes of springtime
And a thousand infant cries
Oh, a thousand infant cries

I got sixteen hundred tigers now
All tied to silver strings
When they're put out in the pasture
Oh, the mighty heart will sing
Oh, the mighty heart will sing

But I'll always be blamed for the sun going down with a sigh
But I'm the light in the middle of every man's fog

I bend my arrows now in circles
And I shoot around the hill
If I don't get you in the morning
By the evening I sure will
By the evening I sure will

Because I'm the fire on the mountain
You have lit up in your dreams
But also water on the fountain
You could send myself on me
You could send myself on me

But I'll always be blamed for the sun going down with a sigh
But I'm the light in the middle of every man's fog

And, no, I never meant to say these words
But, yes, you ought to know
That the dark in what I've always been
It will not ever go
No, it will not ever go

So if I've lived a thousand years
A thousand turns of tides
Just a thousand leaves in autumn
And a thousand ways to try
Oh, a thousand
It's just a thousand
Ways to try


I felt like some new music tonight. I wanted something with a bit of an edge to it, but still soothing and calming. And then I remembered that a while back one of my friends posted a video of an artist that I had really enjoyed. So, I went off hunting through friends' blogs and, voilà, I had found The Tallest Man on Earth. I am in love with his voice. It has this beautiful raspy quality that is awesome. There is something about the musicality of the songs combined with his voice that is really working for me right now. It reminds me of my favourite kind of beaches, the kind that are in abundance out here on the east coast: rocky and with the promise of danger if a storm blew in.

Somehow finding new music just seemed to suit my day, which was full of new things. I went and registered at Acadia, so I am officially a new student. I met one of my fellow English grad students (there are only three of us total) and I had dinner with a couple who are friends of a friend, so I was meeting new people. Somehow it seemed fitting that I would come home and find some new music.

Proud of Myself

I would just like to take a moment to brag about how much furniture I have assembled over the past few days. All of my stuff arrived on Friday night, and most of my furniture was from Ikea, so it was flat-packed and needed to be assembled. This seemed like a great idea. It takes up way less space that way and is less likely to be damaged in the move. Plus, when I planned this, my stuff was supposed to arrive when my parents and Sally were still here to help me. This didn't pan out, and come Friday night it was seeming like the worst plan in the world. Since then I have, all by myself, assembled a double bed, a dresser, a nightstand, a vanity table, two arm chairs, a bookcase, a desk, two stools, a kitchen table and two kitchen chairs. I actually have the beginnings of calluses on my palms and thumbs from all of this, but I feel so accomplished. Plus I am now basically a professional Ikea-furniture assembler. I could probably go into business. All the hard work has totally been worth it though. I pretty much hated the apartment when I arrived, but now at least I have real furniture, and real dishes, and actual knives. I was so excited the first morning I could use my toaster. And I am now in love with my little living room setup. It's so cute and happy and full of lamps. Seriously love it. So now I am almost done. I just have to organize my office supplies, organize my closet, and hang pictures. I am rather proud of myself.

How Gothic

I took a break from assembling furniture and unpacking this evening to watch the new Jane Eyre movie. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to watch it when it first came out, not because I'm a purist when it comes to book to film translations, but for other reasons. Generally I can separate books and films. There are very few times that I feel as if a film is a total travesty and unworthy to bear the same name as the book. In fact, I find it kind of fascinating to see what is done in film translations. The problem, rather, lay with the fact that it was Jane Eyre. See, I like 19th century novels. A lot. The Brontë sisters and I have a bit of a rocky relationship though. I made it about halfway through Wuthering Heights before the combination of being profoundly creeped out and profoundly bored forced me to put it down and move on. I will go back and read it eventually, but it has taken me a while to get enough distance between it and myself for me to want to return. So when I first read Jane Eyre it was with a bit of a bias, even though it's by a different sister. I surprised myself by enjoying it. Then I took a women's lit class. It was an awesome class, one of my favourites actually, but one of the books we had to read was Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. If you haven't read it, here is the ten second explanation: it's basically a feminist re-writing of the back story to Mrs. Rochester from Jane Eyre. It tells the story of Bertha from childhood through her marriage to Mr. Rochester and up to when they have moved to England. It's a well-written book and accomplishes its purposes effectively. I didn't enjoy it though. At all. Other than Rhys's stunning ability to paint a lush landscape so alive that it is practically a living, breathing character in the book, I really just didn't like it. And a sad side-effect of this class was that I was kind of turned off Jane Eyre itself. I just couldn't discuss or read or think about Jane Eyre without Wide Sargasso Sea floating up in my mind. It was kind of like when you eat something right before you get the stomach flu and then every time you smell, see, or eat that again you get a bit nauseous. So, when this latest movie adaptation of Jane Eyre came out, I was hesitant. I shouldn't have been. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is well-cast (I would disagree with the allegation that Mia Wasikowska is too pretty to play Jane) and visually stunning. Plus, I think that it does a fabulous job of dealing with Bertha in a way that makes neither her nor Rochester look like a monster. Every couple of seconds in the movie though I kept thinking to myself, "How gothic!" It was really rather striking, and part of what make it such a visually lush and pleasing piece to watch.

Perhaps the only gothic convention that the film was missing was an old graveyard, preferably the heroine ought to wander through it as a storm is rolling in and there is lightning on the horizon. The film had the storm, since it's an important element in the book, but lacked a graveyard (as far as I recall the book didn't have one either so this is by no means a reflection on the quality of the movie). Wolfville, though, has a lovely old graveyard. A lot of the headstones are really worn and unreadable, but most of the dates seem to be from about the mid-19th century. It is so cool. I went and sat in it and drank coffee the other afternoon. I might have to wander though it when a good storm is kicking up, just to have a little bit of the gothic in my life.

Historic

One day I will own a historic home. 

I can't get over how gorgeous historic buildings are. I could spend so much time photographing them. The incredible details are so striking. Old buildings have something that just doesn't exist in new buildings: history. They tell stories. They somehow hold parts of each person involved in building and inhabiting them. They are a physical manifestation of countless memories. I almost feel like they are alive sometimes.

One of the perks of living out east is that history is much more present than it is out west. It's just a logical consequence of the way in which Canada was settled. I told Lycidas, my dear history-loving friend, that the east is steeped in history, and that you can't help but find it, even if you aren't looking for it. There is a connectedness with history that is tangible when you are out here that just doesn't exist in Alberta.

It might be an actual house, it might be an apartment in a historic building, but one day I will own a historic home.

Looking Crazy

I took this photo on my sojourn to Waterfront Park, before I started throwing rocks in the mud. As I was standing there taking photos a guy who was walking his dog came up to me and, with no preamble, said "Once you've seen one mud flat haven't you seen them all?" I explained I was taking a photo of these bolts and we laughed about it, but I didn't explain that I had indeed just spent the last 15 minutes of the mud flats. Who would have guessed that wandering down to the mud flats would garner so many stories?


This little exchange left me thinking. How often do people see me taking photos and think I'm totally crazy? Even I occasionally think I must look crazy. I enjoy looking at things in new and different ways that others might not see. If this makes me a little crazy at times, then so be it. Especially if the result is a shot like this one.

Nine

So, if you follow me on facebook, allow me to apologize now because many of the photos I'm posting on here will probably be things you've already seen. Hopefully you are okay with this. And maybe you'll see some of these photos in a new way, or I'll pull out something that didn't strike you when flipping through the photos. Who knows?

The other day I wandered down to Waterfront Park, which right now isn't waterfront at all. It's basically a bunch of mud. It was still pretty cool though. I was sitting there, reading a book and sipping a coffee when this little girl came up to me and asked me to watch her stuffed dog for her. I said she could leave it on the bench with me and I would make sure it stayed safe. Well, she was really chatty and before long I knew she was nine and lived a couple of streets away. She was spending her afternoon doing something particularly kid-like: throwing rocks into mud. She would clamber down the sides of the pit and grab some rocks, haul them up to the lookout point and then throw them over the edge into the mud. She loved the sound it made and the way the mud splattered really far when she made a good shot. She also really loved the big rocks. I was amazed by the size of some of the ones she was moving. I mean, this kid is nine and she was picking these ridiculous rocks and then refused to give up before she actually got them to the lookout deck. Before long she had roped me into helping her. So for the next hour or so, the two of us climbed around gathering rocks and then throwing them into the mud. I felt a little silly at first, but then I started to enjoy myself. Sometimes as adults we forget how much fun the most random activities can be. We feel weird. We wonder whether we should be doing this, whether we could get in trouble for it. Sometimes it's good to let loose and just throw some rocks into some mud.

Also, something about how this girl talked and the fact that she was nine (and therefore turning ten sometime) made me think of "On Turning Ten" by Billy Collins. I could just imagine her saying the things in that poem. Maybe that is part of why I was uncharacteristically comfortable spending the afternoon with her; it felt a bit as if we were kindred spirits of a kind.

Here I Am

Well, here it is. The reason I have moved across the country. 

I have arrived, vacationed, and returned. And I now have internet! Although I don't yet have furniture, and let me tell you that an air mattress is not the best all-purpose piece of furniture.

Today I wandered around campus and took pictures. It is so gorgeous. The architecture actually made me tear up. I am starting to get that tingly excited feeling about going back to school. Eeeeeeee! (That was a squeal of excitement in case you couldn't tell.)

Eastern Bound

Turn Back Around
Lucy Schwartz

Show me the world in the shape of your looking glass
Beautifully bold when the colours unfold
Yes it's easy to see but it's harder to find
That I'm thinking of you and it's clear in my mind

So I turn turn turn
I turn back around
Turn turn turn
I turn back around
And I'm eastern bound

Almost let slip all these words at my fingertips
Still unaware of pen in my hand
But I'm making my way day by day coming back to you
Here unafraid of the path that I choose

So I turn turn turn
I turn back around
Turn turn turn
I turn back around
And I'm eastern bound

Turn turn turn
I turn back around
Turn turn turn
I turn back around
Yes I turn turn turn
I turn back around
(Eastern bound)
Turn turn turn
Turn back around
(Back to you)


So, this song is kind of my theme right now. See, in about 9 hours my plane leaves for Nova Scotia. So I am, in a very real sense, eastern bound. I don't know what my internet situation is going to be like for the next few days, but I will be back on here as soon as possible.

Ps. This is also the song that my blog title comes from, in case you didn't guess.

The Week of Goodbyes

I hate goodbyes. I'm awful at them. I'm one of those people who would rather avoid them if at all possible. I tend to regret this decision afterwards, but in the moment it always seems like the better plan to just leave as quietly as possible. Well, if you are going to move across the country there are a rather insane number of goodbyes to be said in a rather short amount of time. It all started last Saturday after the wedding: all the goodbyes to my former roommates and schoolmates, the acknowledgment of how weird it was that we weren't all moving back in together in a month. Then Sunday it was brunch with Sinead, a goodbye to a dear friend. Then Wednesday was coffee with Lycidas, a goodbye that was even harder than I expected. Friday was goodbyes at work, which, since I honestly love the people I work with, was kind of difficult, and goodbye to Margaret and Jasmine, more good friends. And Saturday I face saying goodbye to Gabby, possibly the goodbye that I am most dreading. Fortunately I'm taking my parents and Sally with me, so that's at least three less people I have to say goodbye to right now.

Contradictory Phenomena

If you've been following me for a while you might remember that back in September I shared a sepia version of this photo. It's from an afternoon I spent on my roommate's family farm in Lacombe. And I couldn't resist sharing the colour version with you as part of this Iconic Alberta series I've been doing for the last couple of days. Here's why: the sky. I know I've been talking about blue skies and white clouds, but there is this thing that the sky does here that I haven't experienced anywhere else I've travelled and this picture captures it perfectly. It can be completely cloudy out and yet it is so bright out that you feel the need to wear sunglasses. Perhaps this happens elsewhere and I just haven't been around at the right times, I don't know. But I always think of this as a curiously Albertan phenomenon. It's right up there with sun showers. The joke here often goes, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes. Because it will change. And with no warning. And as a result we get these strange contradictory phenomena existing at the same time. Rain and sun, or, in this case, sunlight and clouds. It's kind of cool.

For miles and miles

One of the really awesome things about Alberta is the space. Once you get out of the city there is just an abundance of room and air. I suppose this is true of almost anywhere, as I'm sure my friends from places like Ontario and Saskatchewan will attest, but having grown up in Alberta, I feel like we just have an abundance of this space. You won't run into trees for miles. Or buildings. It's just land and sky. And sometimes I appreciate this. I'm a bit claustrophobic at the best of times, but when I get stressed out I always want nothing more than to stand in the middle of one of these giant fields and scream at the top of my lungs. (And if you just read that and wondered how on earth a slightly claustrophobic girl came to love big cities...don't worry, it is profoundly confusing. I'm often a walking paradox. You get used to it eventually.) Space, room to breathe, is definitely part of iconic Alberta imagery. The fields that stretch for miles and miles are one of the first things I think of when I think about this province.

Iconic Alberta

As we were driving from the ceremony to the reception on Saturday, we rounded a curve and I said "Now that right there is an iconic Alberta scene." And it really was. This got me thinking about the things I'll miss about how Alberta looks. As someone who love photography, I'm always aware of colour and light and how it changes over the seasons here. Nova Scotia will be profoundly different. It is an absolutely gorgeous place and I am so excited to live there, but there are those moments driving down an Alberta highway that I am struck with how much I love this province. So, since I'm moving on Sunday, I figured over the next few days I would share some of these iconic Alberta scenes with you. I hope you enjoy them.


I love photographing rural scenes. I am a city girl at heart, but I love how the country looks so so much. Especially on a sunny day, with the blue sky, white fluffy clouds and green grass.

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good

I'm rereading the Harry Potter series right now. After seeing the final movie I figured I should get it in before I'm swamped with school-related reading. I'm a little over halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban. You know, the one where Harry gets the Marauder's Map and there's a secret passage that leads to a trap door in the cellar at Honeydukes? I think the Marauder's Map is fabulous. Next to the bag Hermione charms in Deathly Hallows so that she can put as much as she wants in it and still be able to carry it around, I think the map is the thing I would want if the Harry Potter world was real. The bag wins though. I mean, the map is amazingly cool, but the bag is would just be useful. This book also happens to be the one where two of my favourite characters show up, Sirius and Lupin. Yup, an all-around good one. But as I was reading today I came across this:

Harry climbed the spiral stairs with no thought in his head except how glad he was to be back. They reached their familiar, circular dormitory with its five four-poster beds and Harry, looking around, felt he was home at last.

This just seemed so appropriate in light of yesterday's musings on home. As we were leaving the wedding on Saturday night, and during brunch on Sunday, my friends and I were talking about how weird it is to not be returning to dorms. I'm working at the school right now and orientation excitement is building all around me and it is the weirdest feeling to not be getting caught up in it. Because this is exactly how I felt every time I headed back to dorms. 
Ah, books and your amazing ability to capture any situation perfectly and to be mysteriously related to whatever is going on in my life at that moment.

Home?

You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden, even though you have someplace where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone...You'll see one day when you move out. It just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this right of passage, you know? You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself. You know, for your kids, for the family you start. It's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know? (Garden State)

Home is a concept that has been on my mind a lot lately. When you're in your 20s, home is a puzzling concept. It's particularly bad if you move into dorms, I think. Your parents' house kind of stops feeling like home. Oh, you still call it home. And in some ways, I guess it always will be home, but now there's this other place, this place that you live eight months of the year, that feels more like home. At least, it does if you're like me and you're lucky enough to live with people who you genuinely feel at home with. And then summer comes and you move back "home." But you can't help but feel like you are moving away from home at the same time. It's confusing. You wind up with two separate worlds, a foot in each one. It only gets worse when you graduate. You've spent four years in this limbo, but you've also been carefully constructing a home for yourself. I know I did. And it had more to do with the people than the place, but I think that spaces hold significance, so the place probably had a role to play as well. The people are the really important part though. I just went to a wedding of some dear friends this weekend and sitting at a table amongst people I had spent years in school with, living with some of them, I felt profoundly at home. So, now that I'm moving across the country, and we are all scattering like shards from a dropped glass, where is home? What is home? I've loved this quote from Garden State for a long time because it just seems to capture this homeless kind of feeling so well.

Mission Packing: Phase 1

Your mission, if you should choose to accept it, is to take everything you own and put it into boxes. Don't forget to retain clothing, towels, toiletries, and anything else you may desire in the next two to three weeks.

So, packing, not so much fun. I've never enjoyed it, but every time I have to do it I am just reminded all over again how completely un-fun it is. It's time consuming and exhausting and inevitably give me a headache and insomnia. Today, thanks to some help from my mother and Sally, I managed to pack all of my kitchen stuff, all of my books (which, let me tell you, is no small feat), all of my movies, frame and pack my new art, and start on my clothes and shoes. Tomorrow is phase II: clothes and shoes. Wish me luck.

We could all use a little change

I am a rather odd creature. By and large, I'm a creature of habit. I tend to eat the same things, wear the same colours and style, and go to the same coffee shops. I like routine and knowing where I'm going next. And I get attached to things. Usually for aesthetic reasons; if I like how something looks a certain way then I am unlikely to change it. Once I get an outfit a way I really like I don't tend to change things up too much. Once I find a wall colour I like, I want every wall to be that colour. Once I find a meal I love, I eat it all the time. But there are some things that I get bored by easily. I think it's particularly true of things that don't please me visually. My hair is often the victim of this boredom. This blog seems to be another. I just haven't found a really awesome design for it yet, so I keep changing it. Ah well. At least it is more easily fixed than my hair if it turns out horribly. And sometimes a little change is good.

Looking Forward

Want to know one of the things I am most excited about for when I'm living in Nova Scotia? Four seasons. That's right folks, they have four seasons. Edmonton theoretically has four seasons, but autumn and spring hardly count out here. They last for about a week. And it's really a shame because they are such gorgeous times of year. Okay. They ought to be gorgeous times of year. Spring in Edmonton is mostly associated with brown sandy sludge all over, the emergence of garbage that has been under the snow all winter, and a really annoying pattern of thawing and freezing that means the city basically turns into a giant skating rink. That's unpleasant, but what really bums me out is the fact that we get gipped out of an autumn here. What we do get can be just plain amazing, but it is so short that for someone who is an autumn-lover like me it is rather disappointing. So, I'm super stoked to live in a province with an autumn that people rave about. I'm hoping for days like the one pictured above: soaked in golden sunlight and saturated with rich colours. I know it's only August, but I am already so excited for autumn that I can barely contain myself.

My dear friends

this evening i'm feeling really thankful for good friends who mean the world to me. friends that challenge and inspire me. friends that i feel i can confide in because they're trustworthy, they listen, and even if we don't see eye to eye on many things, they're there for me, because they're just good people. simple as that. -- from this post on rockstar diaries

When I read that a few days ago, it instantly grabbed me because it was so exactly what I had been feeling lately. I have some friends who mean the world to me. They are the kind of friends who feel more like family than friends. The kind where you swear you are telepathically linked because somehow they always know the perfect moment to send a little love or encouragement your way. The kind that are brutally honest when need be, but are also understanding and sympathetic when it's needed. The kind of friends without whom you are quite certain you would not be able to function. This is one of the biggest things I'm struggling with as my move looms ever closer. I feel a bit like I am scattering pieces of my heart across the country. And it's funny because it's not like we've never been apart before. I've had these friends scattered across the country before. In fact, two of them don't live in the same city as me now. Somehow it's harder this time though. Maybe it's because the distance is so much greater. Maybe it's because we are all growing up and it is becoming harder and harder to find time to travel and see each other. Whatever the reason is, I am scared to be without these ladies and I am so thankful for letters and emails, phone calls and text messages, facebook and blogs because they allow us to stay together even when we are apart. So I wanted to take a moment here to say thank you to all of my friends who are so fabulous. I love you.