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.

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.

Light limited, light specific, light like a name

from "Lake of Two Rivers"
Anne Michaels

     3

Sensate weather, we are your body,
your memory. Like a template,
branch defines sky, leaves
bleed their gritty boundaries,
corrosive with nostalgia.

Each year we go outside to pin it down,
light limited, light specific,
light like a name.


Like any good academic, I have moments where school just isn't my favourite thing in the world. This blog is certainly a record of that, if of nothing else. Right now I'm working on my thesis. I have to hand in a chapter by Saturday, which is incredibly daunting and stressful if I think about it too long, but is also thrilling and exciting. Right now I'm working on my chapter on Anne Michaels, which means that I've been spending my time immersed in her magnificent poetry. The particular little excerpt from "Lake of Two Rivers" is particularly relevant for my thesis topic. And it captures a little bit of how I feel about light and nature and photography. Plus it is just blindingly gorgeous. On top of this I've been reading essays by Anne Simpson and Jan Zwicky to use as critical material in the chapter. It is moments like this that I feel profoundly blessed to be doing what I am doing. It is moments like this that I seriously contemplate taking a PhD because I don't know what else I could possibly be doing with my life.

The way to fairyland

There is such a place as fairyland - but only children can find the way to it. And they do not know that it is fairyland until they have grown so old that they forget the way. One bitter day, when they seek it and cannot find it, they realize what they have lost; and that is the tragedy of life. On that day the gates of Eden are shut behind them and the age of gold is over. Henceforth, they must dwell in the common light of common day. Only a few, who remain children at heart, can ever find that fair, lost path again; and blessed are they above mortals. They, and only they, can bring us tidings from that dear country where we once sojourned and from which we must evermore be exiles. The world calls them its singers and poets and artists and story-tellers; but they are just people who have never forgotten the way to fairyland. -- L.M. Montgomery

I love this idea. If you read this blog on a regular basis you've probably figured out that I'm rather fond of the idea of fairies and magic. After all, one of my all-time favourite books is J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy, and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens is also way up there, so you can't really expect anything else. This is one of those little things that helps make me who I am, but that I avoid talking about with most people. It tends to make you sound like you're six if you start talking about how cool fairies are. So I would like to thank L.M. Montgomery for validating my affection for all things magical. And for reminding me that I'm not a totally bitter curmudgeon just yet.

Focus

Sometimes you just have to focus on one thing at a time. That's what I've been doing lately and it is helping me keep my balance.

What the Light Teaches

from What the Light Teaches
Anne Michaels

     4

Sometimes I was afraid to touch him,
afraid my hand would go right through him.
But he was alive, in a history
made more painful by love.

I prayed to the sky to lift our father's head,
to deliver him from memory.

I wished he could lie down
in music he knew intimately, and become
sound, his brain flooded by melody so powerful
it would stretch molecules, dismantle thought.


I went on a photo excursion today. I didn't really have time, but the weather was gorgeous and the sun was beckoning me to come out to play with my camera. So I obeyed it. It was the kind of light that begs to be photographed. The kind with weight. The kind with soul. The kind that has something to say. I'm a bit obsessed with light, and I realize that I might sound crazy, but I'm okay with that. If photography has taught me one thing it is that sometimes I have to get over myself and just sound or look crazy (I had more than one bemused look today from other people out enjoy the weather). As I was walking the title from this poem kept popping into my head. This is possibly my favourite section from this long poem. I know it's not about light, but I don't think that's the point. When you get this kind of light it has something to tell you about more than just itself.


More from What the Light Teaches.

It's here!

Fall, my absolute favourite season, officially arrived on Friday!

Here it came in with lots of rain and lots of good times with friends. The leaves have just started changing, and the weather actually feels like fall now. I can't explain how happy this makes me.

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.

Misfit

Do you ever suddenly get struck by the feeling that you just do not belong where you are in your life? Tonight I was suddenly overwhelmed by this feeling. I have this picture of what I want my life to be like, I just have no idea how to get from here to there. In fact, so much of getting to that place depends on other people (obviously a factor beyond my control) that I often wonder if there even is anything I can do to shape my life into what I long for. There must be though. There has to be. If there wasn't why would I be hit with these sudden waves of frustration? It feels like I am trying to jam myself into a space that I simply don't fit into. I am not a patient person, and change takes time, so instead I just feel frustrated and desperate, as if my life will never change, as if I will never get where I want to go. Sorry about the not-so-sunny quality of this post. This is just raw emotion that I am trying to process right now.

I feel like this baby tree growing right beside our garage. He is surrounded by leaves from deciduous trees and yet he is a conifer. Not to say that I am not surrounded by people I love, because I am, or that I am not surrounded by people who I identify with, because for the first time in a long time I feel like I am, but just that sometimes I look around myself and feel profoundly isolated and alone. Moreover, this little guy is growing right beside our garage. And I mean RIGHT BESIDE. He shouldn't be there. And sometimes I wonder if I am where I should be. Sometimes I know I am, but sometimes I wonder.

Cold and Grey

from The Grey Islands
John Steffler

scoured sky. wind
and open miles.
all morning we climb the bright
hills cresting across our course,
pitching us up, sledding us sideways
down, wallowing, walled in water.
                     quick. near us
and gone,
              slim birds flit low, banking,
twisting, skimming the closing troughs,
and I feel it,
                 know it a laughing
fact: the harder your hungry eyes bite
into the world (the island cliffs pencilled
in blue haze, and there, Nels pointing:
whale spray!
                 huge flukes kicking at the sun), the more
you spread your arm to hug it in,
the less you mind the thought of diving under,

eyes flooded, gulping dark.

...

what can we do in such elements?

rock hills only recently
softened with green, some moss
and boggy hollows

vast migration of cloud

the wind in invisible glacier
wearing the island down

I keep warm burning
bits of a house

the work of people who tried to live here.

...

not man's time here,
sun's time.
rock's time.
I begin to feel it.

days blink by - light
and cold flowing over - tide
breathing smoothly, evenly, I

slip between half-seconds, flash
light-beam pinball-style, do
ten thousand vanishing things
in a breath.

...

jagged island
island of noise.
the sea serious as ever, breaking
all that it touches.
wind tearing itself to pieces
pounces with all its weight, stops, flattens
grass again. tramples the waves.

the mountains cinder grey
cinder jagged
handsome as animals
hunt the passing clouds.
gathering trouble.

...

warm sounds: the gas lamp's
loud hiss

the stove snaps and flutters

outside
the wind
the cold wash of gravel and sea

John Steffler's The Grey Islands is one of my favourite pieces of Canadian literature. It was probably reading excerpts from this work in the second half of my Canadian lit class that sold me on Canadian literature. This is how my Can lit textbook introduces this work: "This mixture of prose and poetry describing a pilgrimage to the islands that lie off the east coast of Newfoundland's norther peninsula is the story of an individual seeking solitude. 'A way to corner myself is what I want,' he explains on the first page; 'Some blunt place I can't go beyond. Where excuses stop.'

I realize that I live in the middle of the prairies and as such am completely landlocked. Despite this I not only love these excerpts because they capture one of the qualities that I love most about the east coast, but because they capture a huge element of the Canadian relationship with landscape and weather. This is something I've been contemplating a lot lately since it is part of what I want to study in grad school. With the arrival of winter this week though (snow yesterday) I've been reminded of it anew.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago over the Thanksgiving weekend. I like how grey and flat the sky is and how much the red of the berries pops against it. It captures the cold perfectly. My mom looked at it and said it kind of looked like a piece of modern art, and she is right. That's probably part of why I like it as well.   

Crunchy Autumn Leaves

There is almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf. (Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, J.M. Barrie)

I dearly love J.M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy (as evidenced by my post about fairies). This semester I am lucky enough to be studying this novel in one of my classes. The copy that I have for the class also has Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and naturally I read it as well, not because it was required but because I'm not about to pass up the opportunity to read more of the development of the character of Peter Pan. For those of you who don't know, the character of Peter Pan first made an appearance in Barrie's novel The Little White Bird in 1902. In 1904 the play, Peter Pan, was performed for the first time. In 1906, Barrie took the parts of The Little White Bird that centred on Peter Pan and compiled them into Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. Then in 1911, he published a novelized version of the play entitled Peter and Wendy. I've seen a stage performance of Peter Pan and have read Peter and Wendy several times now. This semester I read Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, so now all I have left to hunt down is a copy of The Little White Bird and then my exploration of Peter Pan will be complete. One of the things I find so delightful about Barrie's writing is his turns of phrase. He is a master at evoking child-like delight and wonder and fantasy. I enjoyed this personification of autumn leaves skipping down a park pathway immensely.

This picture is from Sunday afternoon when I wandered around my parents garden for a bit taking fall-like pictures. It was quite delightful. One of my favourite things about autumn is walking through crunchy leaves on a crisp but sunny day. Delightful.

PS - I hope those of you who are in Canada had a delightful Thanksgiving weekend full of turkey, friends, family, and long naps. For those of you who aren't in Canada...I hope you enjoyed your non-holiday Monday.

October's got those orange eyes

Broken Horse

Freelance Whales

October's got those orange eyes

But somehow I still lost sight

When you lifted the lid off of my pumpkin head

And kissed me goodnight

Should it be a thorn in my side

We never quite broke that horse

She slept in the cul-de-sac rye

Seven miles from my front porch

Bundle up and come with me now

Down the road to the burnt down barn

We could make a blanket of coats

And breathe our souls into the neighbour's front lawn

But oh God that look in your eye

Trouble that does not search words

It sprung from the biblical vine

And are waiting to return to the dirt

The stiches in your winter clothes

Your cello bows

We stole your hair to make them

We're sorry for the iron shoes

We nailed to you

And stuck you in the rain

Then you sprinted away

Sprinted away to where I don't know

God's moving in your bloodstream

Where the crossbeats aren't so slow

You swept all the red from my cheeks

I didn't hear you come back inside

And light up the gas in the den

And stand there in the thin winter light

But oh God that curve in your spine

A question mark

A doctor's sign was framed by the windowsill

And you saw something I did not in the night

You saw something I did not in the night

The stitches in your winter clothes

Your cello bows

We stole your hair to make them

We're sorry for the iron shoes

We nailed to you

And stuck you in the rain

And then you sprinted away

Sprinted away to where I don't know

God's moving in your bloodstream

Where the crossbeats aren't so slow

I first discovered this song a couple of weeks ago via one of little chief honeybee's Monday Mixtapes. I adore her mixtapes. They have introduced me to so many new artists that I am now profoundly in love with. The opening lines of this song seemed rather appropriate for October 1.

This is another picture from last weekend's trip to the river valley. I like how the leaves are just starting to turn red and orange on this particular branch. Plus the light was just so profoundly amazing for photos.

Just Relax

chamomile (noun)
an aromatic European plant of the daisy family, with white and yellow daisy-like flowers

Okay, so these aren't chamomile flowers (obviously since they don't look like daisies), but they reminded me of the dried chamomile flowers used for tea, only these are bigger. Traditionally, chamomile tea is considered calming and soothing. It's good to drink just before bed because it relaxes you and allows you to fall asleep faster. One of my favourite teas right now is called Dulce & Banana and it's a chamomile based tea with caramelized bananas in it. It's probably a good thing that I like it because calming and relaxing effects are something I need by the the bucketful during the school year.

This is another picture from Saturday's jaunt in the park. I love taking pictures while wandering around outside because it forces me to look at things differently. In particular, I notice the small things, the things that would just get lost in the big picture if I wasn't consciously seeking them out. Walking through nature with my camera in hand is actually a very therapeutic and relaxing experience for me. Almost as good as drinking a mug of chamomile tea.

Welocme Old Friend

I can't remember a time when autumn was not my favourite season. Maybe when I was a kid and kind of thought summer and winter were the only seasons (we have really short springs and autumns here, they are easy to miss). Fall officially began this week, which makes me super happy. The weather also turned from rainy and cold to sunny and warm. I think we have a bit of an indian summer right now, which is super exciting because for a while it looked like we wouldn't get one. It was gorgeously warm today so a couple of my roomies and I took advantage of the weather and went down to Goldbar/Rundell Park to wander amongst the fall foliage of the river valley. It was the perfect time of day for pictures since the sun was just starting to set and casting a beautiful golden hue on all of the beautiful fall colours. This is a picture of one of the birch trees we passed whose leaves have all turned yellow. My one roommate loves birch trees and her face just lit up when we passed this one. It was really a perfect way to spend an hour of the day.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Today was the first day back at school. I absolutely love this time of year. Everyone is still excited to see each other, classes haven't started to get stressful yet, it's autumn so the weather is lovely and the fashion is awesome, there are new books and notebooks and pens...everything about this part of the year makes me smile. I know I'm a dork, but I'm totally okay with that. Besides, someone has to be excited about academics. Although apparently once you get into senior level classes the profs stop taking it easy the first few days. In first year classes the first day is usually just going through the syllabus, maybe having a minor class discussion, but that is pretty much it. Second year is similar. By third year you usually have to stay for the full class time and have an actual intellectual discussion. But in fourth year they apparently start assigning homework on the first day. It's like the profs figure you've been at this long enough that you no longer need an adjustment period. For example, in the one class I had today I was informed that I need to read all of Great Expectations and write a one page reflection on the character of Pip by next Wednesday. Crikey.

Funny story from class today. Well, I think it is funny at least. So since I'm at a small school and there are not that many four year English majors, we pretty much all know each other (there are only nine people in the class I had today). We are all sitting there at the start of class and our prof (who we also know really well) comes in and jokingly says "Well, you guys don't know each other at all! You should really introduce yourselves." We are all laughing about this when suddenly some random guy walks into the class. I turned to the girl next to me and asked "How is there someone in this class we don't know?" and you could see that everyone else was asking each other the same thing. We were floored. Turns out he was a first year who was lost and looking for his intro English class. I would have felt bad for the guy except that when he discovered he was in the wrong class he made it seem like it was somehow our fault for being in that classroom. That attitude lost him my sympathy. I just thought the timing of that was too great not to share though.

In honour of back-to-school, I have here a picture of an apple. A crab apple on my parents' neighbours' tree to be specific. How did apples get associated with teachers anyway? Whenever I think about apples the first thing that pops into my head is "An apple a day keeps the doctor away". So why is it traditional to give your teacher an apple? Why are there so many ridiculous knick knacky gifts for teacher that are apple shaped or have pictures of apples on them? Intriguing...

By the way, sorry about the sparse posting lately. Since moving I've been dealing with unpacking, catching up with people, slow internet (the thought of uploading pictures scares me, although this situation should be remedied on Saturday when we get our high-speed installed), working Regestration Confirmation and the ensuing exhaustion, and a delightful cold to top it all off. Hopefully I will soon be resuming a more normal posting schedule.