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.

Well hello, long weekend!

I am currently listening to the soundtrack from Smash and getting ready to meet up with a couple friends to sip beers on a patio in the sunshine. I think this long weekend is off to a rather excellent start.

Flesh-knowledge

I want to feel what my father felt, Avery repeated, sitting on the edge of the bed on the Nile, what the marmisti know, what the blind man knows when he's on Ramses' knee. What my mother calls 'flesh-knowledge.' It's not enough for your mind to believe in something, your body must believe it too. If I hadn't witnessed  this particular pleasure in my father when I was a child perhaps I wouldn't feel the lack of it. But I do. I can imagine what a chemist feels when he looks in a microscope, how his mind can practically touch what he sees. Or a physicist who can feel an equation tearing molecules apart along the shear, like tearing a handful of bread from a loaf. Or the tension in a meniscus. The closest understanding I have of this is when I look at a building. I feel the consequences of each choice; how the volume works, how the building eats teh space it inhabits, even how it carries its ruins.-- Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault

I love it when authors articulate things for me in such an eloquent way. Because, honestly, despite being someone who adores language and has chosen it as her life's work, sometimes it refuses to do what I want it to or need it to. I love this description of the physicality of any sensation. It's something I know to be true for myself.

Let's go on an adventure!

Thursday and Friday were full of adventures, which made for a rather delightful end to a week full of theory readings for my thesis. On Friday three of us jumped in the car on a sunshine-y blue-skies day, rolled down the windows and went for a drive. We originally intended to find one particular spot that we've heard really good things about, but instead we ended up getting lost and just driving around. Along the way we found this building that was absolutely falling apart, so we stopped to take some photos.

These are the kind of outings I associate with summer. Good friends, good weather, and nowhere in particular to be. I'm hoping for a lot more of these kinds of afternoons this summer.

Dear Montreal

Dear Montreal,

Thanks for the jazz and the croissants and the crepes.

Thanks for the lights and the graffiti and the old buildings.

Thanks for the countless opportunities to take photos.

Thanks for reminding me of all the reasons I love cities. And all the reasons that I don't.

Thanks for reminding me of my love for French. And for making me determined to become fluent.

Thanks for providing a jumping off point for some new and crazy dreams.

Thanks for providing the space for me to relax all the way into a friendship.

Thanks for allowing me to immerse myself in art in so many forms.

Thanks for leaving me aching and disoriented in my normal life. That sounds bad, but it is actually very, very good.

Hopefully I'll see you again soon.

Bree

Hello Grad School

Hello grad school, I'm Breanna. You're a bit scary, but I think I like you.

I kind of ripped that sentiment off from a friend. He just started law school, and wrote the same thing (substitute law school for grad school) as his facebook status. It made such perfect sense to me that I had to steal it for here. I hope he doesn't mind.

Orientation was Tuesday. Met some great people. Even though I was completely overwhelmed by all of the stuff I am required to do, in the end I am feeling far more positive about this whole experience. The excitement-fear balance is now tipped toward excitement.

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.)

The End

I am officially finished my undergrad degree.

It's weird. I'm so excited to be done. And I'm proud that I made it through. And I'm just tired because I've been pushing so hard for the last month or so. But the reality is starting to hit me now. Sitting in my room at my parents' house typing this I am beginning to realize just how final this is. Yes, there is still grad, but not everyone goes to grad. I have friends that I likely will never see again. I feel like this last year at school I finally found a community that I really loved. And having that ripped away is a bit painful.

There I go again, turning something that should just be plain old exciting into something deeply melancholy. Not one of my more attractive qualities.

This is the sunset from a couple of days ago. Shot through my window at an exceptional distance, hence the haziness. But I really love the colours. It was almost as if the sky was on fire. It seemed appropriate for this moment in my life. Both beautiful and a little bit scary.

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me
Walt Whitman

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.


This photo makes me think of hideaways. Cabins and forts. Places you can run to when you need to get away from the world. I'm at my parents' for the night. I just had an overwhelming need to get out of the apartment and away from campus. I guess I was kind of looking for a place to hide away from the world for a little while. This is exactly where I need to be right now. If only I didn't have to go back tomorrow...