When all the noise fades away

Friends. Coffee. Sunshine. Work. Good news. The past three days have simply been good. And that is something I haven't been able to say as frequently as I would like lately, so it has been extra delightful for all of the noise in my life to fade away for a bit so that I could just enjoy myself.

Starting again, again, and again

I picked up my camera again tonight for the first time in what has been an abnormally long time. And while there are a lot of issues with this photo, it's nice to be back at it.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

Last night I had the weirdest stress dream I have ever had. It involved participating in a group heist at a dance hall, being arrested by fake cops and taken to a jail which was actually a bar that we had to work in, having people try to force me to eat food I can't have, secret doors in bathrooms, and uncovering the fact that this was all an elaborate ruse to try to get me to buy the bar. There was a lot of running and screaming at people in the dream, and when I woke up I felt like I had spent the night running and screaming rather than sleeping. Not ideal.

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It's been a while.

I needed to get some distance from this blog, I think. Also, what little time I have between work, school, and a couple of other projects, usually finds me too tired to do much more than watch TV. And sometimes even that is too much and I just end up sitting and staring into space.

There are some big and exciting changes rolling out soon in terms of my photography. When's soon? When the big hand hits the 's' and the little hand hits the 'oon.' Bonus points if you get that reference. Honestly, I can't give you a firm date, and for now I'll still be here. Posting sporadically. Hopefully that's okay with y'all.

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Also, I really like this picture. Just, you know, in case you were wondering.

Birthday Blessings

2013 started off really well. I had high hopes and a good feeling about the year. Then the next week and a half walloped me with stress and anxiety and pretty much every other unpleasant emotion you can think of.

And then my birthday rolled around.

I just had a profoundly lovely, low-key day. There was skating and Beaver Tails, beautiful presents from my family, brunch with a couple ladies who I haven't seen for far too long, a leisurely wander through Chapters, good news on the job search front, good news on the PhD applications reference letter front, delightful news about a dearly missed friend coming to visit in about a month, and semi-plans for some future social outings. I've been crying a lot of happy tears today.

P.S. Remember the first time I took a picture of these bolts? I've accumulated...oh, one or two other shots of them since. I took this one when my family was down at Christmastime.

Twenty Thirteen

Generally speaking, I'm not one for resolutions and goals. Too often, I feel like chasing a dream is also chasing failure, and the risk is just too great.

I like Rachel of elephantine's approach though: listing things I'm looking forward to. It's kind of like a goal list, but feels a little different to me. So, in 2013 I am looking forward to:

Finishing my thesis. (I will do this, and it will feel fantastic when it is done.)
Opening an Etsy shop. (I'm finally just going to go for it.)
Starting a PhD program. (I really hope so!)
Getting serious about writing a novel. (I haven't told too many people about this one, but there it is. I'm working on a novel.)
Publishing some poetry. (Hopefully in more than just school-based publications.)
Taking up French again. (Super excited about this one.)
Learning more about photography. (My brother gave me a new camera lens for Christmas - whaaaaaaaat?!?! - and I want to take Apple & Arrow's lighting course.)
Travelling to Europe in the spring. (Dear budget, please allow this.)

2013, I have high hopes for you. Let's do this thing.

Merry Christmas!

"Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest."

To all of my fellow Charlie Browns, I hope that you have managed to find some magic in the air this Christmas.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Happiness is a line of gumdrops

Happiness is a line of gumdrops on the roof of a gingerbread house.

Happiness is an evening spent with a bowl full of candy, a piping bag full of icing, a goofy dog, and a friend you're so comfortable with that you have no need to filter out the weirder aspects of your personality.

So find Dodge and then get out of it

That old restlessness is back, making my heart flutter like a caged bird.

Although perhaps that is more related to my cold than my wanderlust.

On Taking Myself Out On Dates

I am not the kind of girl that guys are lining up to ask out.

If you are my mother or best friend, you probably scoffed at that statement and feel the need to say something like "Any guy would be lucky to go out with you." Please don't. I'm not being self-depricating and looking for reassurance of my worth as a human being. I'm not bemoaning the fact that my dating life is basically non-existant. At least not this time. No, this time I'm just stating a fact. Guys are not lining up to ask me out, literally or figuratively.

When you have no dating life and your best friends live on the other side of the country, you have two options if you want to go out: repeatedly ask the few friends you do have living near you if they want to go out or just go out by yourself. Since I start to feel annoying and needy if I ask the same four or five people to hang out all the time, I've started to take myself out on dates. I'll go to the movies, or out for coffee, or to a show. I went to see Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell and loved it. I went to Starbucks, got a gingerbread latte (decaf soy, naturally), and wandered through Chapters looking at books. I went to Jian Ghomeshi's book tour stop in Halifax. Yeah, I would have liked someone to discuss the movie with afterward (go see it, it's so good), but it's nice to not have to debate what movie to watch or worry about whether the person you've come with will talk or text during the film. And, sure, coffee and book-browsing aren't the same without my Edmonton bestie with whom I used to do it all the time, but they still make for a pretty enjoyable way to spend a rainy evening. And, yes, I would have liked someone to grab coffee with after the book tour, but I got to laugh with abandon and shift in my seat like nobody's business without worrying about what people thought of me (because, really, I'm never going to see the people I was sitting with again). So, I am slowly starting to love these little dates with myself.

Although, you know, a real date might also be nice.

Lest We Forget

To the men and women of the armed forces and their families,

Thank you.

If you can't get around it...

If you can't get around it, get into it.

I don't know where I came across this quote, but it's been bouncing around my head the last few days. I put it into practice this evening by tackling the pile of dishes while listening to jazz music and talking to my mom on the phone.

The Good Things

I am finally done my SSHRC application.

I move on Tuesday.

I went out for dinner with a friend last night.

I spent Thursday evening catching up with some good friends.

I am lucky enough to work in a store that is already kitted out for Christmas.

I have some really wonderful coworkers.

I am currently drinking a lovely soy rooibos chai latte.

And, yesterday, while I was walking, the wind was blowing giant autumn leaves all around me.

Hard Choices

Decisions. I am not good at them. And I seem to have found myself in a position where no matter what I choose it feels wrong. Of course, this also means that no matter what I choose it feels right. I am not sure what to do with this. Unfortunately my trusty pro-con lists are failing me. They balance out, making them as unhelpful as consulting the ocean and its ever-changing tides or looking for the truth in the strange combination of seagrass and acorns.

Old Haunts

Despite the fact that I am technically living in Halifax now, I seem to be spending a lot of time in Wolfville. I miss the place. Also, Halifax and I are having a rough go of it, so I often want to escape and try and think things through. And, of course, I have no desire to spend my days off in a mouse-infested apartment, and Wolfville seems like as good a place as any to get away rom that situation. I had a couple of days off at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend and came out here. My friend's family adopted me for dinner on the Monday night, and basically for all eternity with an open invitation to stay there any time I want, and it was lovely to be around a family. On the Tuesday evening I wandered down to the train tracks with my camera, and it felt like a homecoming. The light was beginning to fade, but the colours of the turning leaves were incredible, and I spent about an hour walking and taking photos. Sometimes going back to old haunts is exactly what I need. Although I am slowly acquiring new haunts in Halifax, it is a long and arduous process. It's nice to have a place to come back to where I can just slide back in effortlessly.

I should probably apologize if this post isn't the most coherent thing ever. I'm deep into SSHRC proposal writing and have very little brain power left for anything else.

Parallel Universe

I'd been rehearsing this moment for hours, and I had outlined a hundred different scenarios. Mr. Jensen once tried to tell us that there existed somewhere a set of parallel universes, unreachable but real, where every possibility came true; whatever didn't happen here happened somewhere else, each option unfolding in a separate universe. But in this one world, at least, the outcome that morning was reduced finally to just this one version. 

-- Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles

Maybe in some parallel universe there is a Breanna who lives in an apartment that doesn't make her cry on a daily basis. Sadly, it isn't this one.

Halifax, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

Okay, to be fair, it isn't so much the city that is bringing me down. In fact, I really do love this city. It's more like my apartment. Not even the whole apartment, really just the mouse problem. When I say mouse problem it sounds like we have one mouse. We don't. We have several. We have a mice problem. I kid you not, while editing the photo for this post I saw two scurrying through our hallway. This was a slight improvement over finding one in my breadbag last week (try picking up a loaf of bread to make a lunch for work the next day and finding a small beady-eyed rodent staring at you from inside the plastic...actually, on second thought, don't do that, it is a rather scarring experience), but is still not really okay with me. I've tried naming them, since this was a suggestion someone gave me when it came to dealing with the spiders that really liked my last apartment and it actually proved to be a useful tactic. It's not really proving so effective with the mice though. Harold, Tom Thumb, Hunka Munka...really, I just don't want to be living with them. On the bright side, I am writing this post with a poodle sitting in my lap, and while she doesn't actually care about the mice until they are dead, I feel slightly more confident as long as she is nearby.

The Brutal Mechanics

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Cow Head. The sign briefly points, a small road branching, winding among dunes and I want to follow it, imagining long-legged piers, sand spits trailing houses into the sea, but the pavement unrolls smoothly pulling me north, motion itself a tunnel, a spell, and I miss the turn, my chance of seeing Cow Head the way so many chances beckon flickering past, the streams, the little graveyards fenced with sticks, and high on a gravel beach a man spreading nets, his single boat perched on a spruce pole ramp and I want to talk to him, follow into his words, find him alone at dawn launching himself off the earth's edge, I could do it, stop here, let this be the spot it starts, rock, sea opening to whatever they really hold, but I don't, he's gone and I'm still zooming on, the car packed with bedding boots maps and the camera ready for use, I take the hills and valleys in a swoop as though the force it took to tear me away from home has not yet spent itself, and I just grip the wheel and go.

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The brutal mechanics of having a wish come true.

(John Steffler, The Grey Islands)

Sometimes life is hard. This is not the same as saying that it is bad. In fact, sometimes the hardest things in life turn out to be the best for us. The past month has been hard. Really hard. There have been adjustments, and setbacks, and rejections. There have been failures, and sickness, and sadness. There have been heartwrenching situations with friends, the kind where there is nothing I can do, but I want so badly to be able to do something. I think pretty much every day I say (usually out loud), "I don't want to be a grown up." I have, at times, wondered why I didn't just move back to Edmonton.

Don't get the wrong idea. It's not like my life has become some kind of catastrophe. There have been moments of exquisite happiness, and love, and wonder. There has been satisfaction, and contentment, and the feeling of being in the right place. There have been some excellent times with friends. And when all else has failed, there has been a dog to make me feel incredibly loved. Every time I drive the highway between Halifax and Wolfville, or take a walk near the ocean, I say (usually out loud), "I love living here." I have, at times, wanted to stay here forever.

It's been a while. And honestly, this blog might become much more sporadic. And it might become something entirely different than it is right now. I've been mulling some things over in regard to it, so we will see what shape it takes as time goes on. My life is shifting a lot right now, so it seems only appropriate that the blog shifts right along with it.

Hazy, Lazy, Crazy Days

I'm kind of over summer. I want to wear sweaters, and flannel, and pants. This  happens every year at this time. I'm such an autumn addict that I always long for it before it is really seasonally appropriate to do so. I am also like this with Christmas.

However, if I must be subjected to summer for an appropriate length of time (at least according to some people), I would like it to look like this. A lake, and a book, and a dog, and some friends, and a camera. We escaped from the responsibilities of theses for an hour or two yesterday afternoon, and I got this shot. I love it. When I think of late summer, this is the kind of sun-soaked, hazy image I come up with.

Give Me Fog

If I had to pick a favourite weather-related phenomenon, it would probably be fog. I think it is simply gorgeous. Every time I come across it I feel as if my heart and soul are deeply satisfied. There are very few weather patterns that do this for me. I am not one of those people who always wants sunshine and heat, I only enjoy snow for brief periods of time, biting cold is only okay when I can curl up inside with friends or a book, rain is wonderful until I have to walk a long way...but fog, fog and I are always friends. Sure, it wreaks havoc with my hair, but I love it anyway. I love the mystery of it. I love the comfort of it. I love the staggering beauty of it.

When I left the pub last night the entire town was blanketed in fog. It was beautiful, and I wished with everything in me that I had my camera with me. Since I didn't, I just walked home as slowly as possible, enjoying every second of it.

Tiny Concrete Slab

There is something about summer evenings that just calls for time spent relaxing outside. Unfortunately, I really have no outdoor space to speak of here. My door opens into a little parking lot behind the house. I do have a tiny square of concrete though, and I have taken to treating it like a porch. I haul a dining room chair out there and read or write or talk on the phone. Tonight I decided that the addition of some candles would be a good idea, so I got some cheap tea lights and put them in some mason jars. They are rather gorgeous actually, and I have become a big fan. Plus, super budget-friendly. I'm excited for the new place though, since it actually has a deck. I'm excited to sit out there as summer winds down and fall rolls in. For now, I am happy with my tiny concrete slab and my mason jar candles.