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.

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.

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.

When the light's like this...

...I have to take a picture. Or two. Or ten.

Obsession

obsession, n.
3. An idea image or influence which continually fills or troubles the mind; a compulsive interest or preoccupation; the fact or state of being troubled or preoccupied in this way.


I may have a bit of an obsession with photos of sunlight through tree branches. I hope this doesn't bother anyone.

Bragging Rights

When I decided to move out east I was frequently asked "Why would you want to move there?" (Most notably I was asked this by someone who was considering moving to Saskatchewan for a retail job...I asked him the same thing.) Well, this post is for all of you Albertan folks who couldn't fathom why I would want to come out here. 
Consider today's weather in the afternoon: 
Wolfville: 3C
Edmonton: -26C with -43C windchill
Friends, this may not be why I moved out here, but I sure am enjoying it.


(PS - We do now have some snow. Not a lot, but more than this photo.)

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

When the bells all rings and the horns all blow
And the couples we know are finally kissing
Will I be with you, or will I be among the missing?

Maybe it's much too early in the game
But I thought I'd ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?

Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it's exactly 12 o'clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year, New Year's Eve

Maybe I'm crazy to suppose
I'd ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations you receive

But in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?

Oh, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?


This song, originally by Nancy Wilson, is one of my favourite seasonal songs. I particularly love Diana Krall's version, but right now it's super famous because of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's incredibly delightful cover. If you haven't heard it yet, check it out. So adorable.

Happy New Year! I hope you have a wonderful night.

Sparkle and Light

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. I hope your day was full of sparkle and light.

This is the beauty of strength broken by strength and still strong

The Lonely Land
A.J.M. Smith

Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs 
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky;
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.

A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and the ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones -  
are lost
in the lapping of water
on smooth, flat stones.

This is a beauty
of dissonance,
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.

This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong.


I fell in love with poetry thanks to a really fantastic prof in my first year of university. I fell in love with Canadian poetry when I read this poem in my second year. Right now I'm preparing a mini seminar on it for my Canadian ekphrasis class. It's moments like these that make me feel richly blessed to be a student.

I need a bigger umbrella, and other lessons learned on a rainy day

It rained today. A lot. I know, big shock since I'm in Nova Scotia, but I'm still unused to rain kind of coming out of nowhere. Here are a few things I learned today, some because of the rain and some just coincidentally on the same day as the rain.

1. I need a bigger umbrella. I have a great little umbrella that folds up and fits in a purse, but it is kind of too small for the intense amounts of rain that fall from the sky here. It keeps my head dry, but that's about it. I keep passing people with these awesome giant umbrella and thinking, "Man, I need one of those. I wonder where you get one."

2. I need a rain coat. Like an actual, full-on, waterproof, hooded rain jacket. I know, it's shocking to hear me say that. I have actively fought against wearing rain jackets for as long as I can remember. They are generally kind of ugly and don't breathe really well so I get seriously sweaty. But there is just no way I am going to survive out here without one. That being said, does anyone know where I can get a good, cute rain jacket?

3. I need to invest in a second pair of wellies to leave in my office. See, the rain today didn't start until mid-afternoon so I was already on campus. I was wearing ballet flats, which really aren't the best footwear when the street has become more like a river. If I had an extra pair of wellies stashed in my office, I could just pop them on when there is a surprise rain storm.

4. I can't type the word "nature." This is a problem since my thesis is on the depiction of landscape and how it influences identity. I have to type "nature" fairly frequently. I keep typing "natuer." I finally set my Pages auto-correct to just change it automatically.

5. I can remind myself of why I'm here by simply reading Anne Michaels. All doubts that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing are immediately erased. Even if the stress remains.

A little something pretty

Just a little something pretty for the middle of your weekend.

Harry Potter

I just got back from (finally!) seeing the last instalment of the Harry Potter films. So good. So so so good. At the risk of sounding like a total nerd, I am sad that they are done. Perhaps I will have to go see it again.

I know that this photo has pretty much nothing to do with Harry Potter, but it is a castle. Blarney Castle to be specific. And one of the things that I've always loved about Harry Potter, again, at the risk of sounding like a total nerd, is imagining that such a world does exist, all full of magic and amazing things. I mean, come on, how cool would it be to go to school in a castle?

The Search for Safety

This weekend I had the great good fortune to go to my friends' wedding. It was an absolutely lovely day, ending in a very late hour and a half drive home. I've told you all before how being in a moving vehicle makes me feel rather safe. Well, this was just driven home on Saturday night. Life has been stressful lately. Apartment hunting, everything involved in preparing to move across the country, working two part-time jobs, and trying to maintain a social life has left me feeling like I'm one of those circus performers spinning plates. This isn't to say life hasn't been good. I'm lucky enough to really enjoy my jobs, I have some wonderful friends with whom I've had some grand adventures, and in general have been loving my summer. However, I've been stressed, and worried, and constantly on the verge of tears, especially lately. But for almost all of Saturday I was able to forget about all of that and just enjoy myself. And then about halfway home I realized this. I realized that sitting in the back seat, in the midst of conversations with my travelling companions, I felt totally safe. As if as long as I stayed in the vehicle with these people and we kept driving I had the chance of outrunning my worries. And in that moment I thought to myself, "Don't ever forget this feeling." Because really, that is what I am always looking for. I am constantly searching for people I feel safe with and people who I feel care for me. It was a rare moment for me to feel that way, and to be quite honest I didn't want the drive to end. I didn't want to have to climb out of the car and back into reality. But, alas, all such drives must come to an end. Since then though, whenever I start panicking too much, I try to recall that feeling. It's peaceful and calming, and is helping me cope just a little bit better. So, thank you to my Saturday travelling buddies. I don't think you know how much that trip meant to me. And congratulations to my newly married friends. I am so happy for you both.

Emily Carr

So I tried to post this last night, but blogger was being weird and refusing to upload pictures the right direction. Anyway. On Sunday Sally and I went to the art gallery. It was the last day of the Emily Carr exhibit, which I hadn't made it to yet, so I was pretty stoked. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. Standing in that room was just incredible. I adore Carr's landscape paintings so much. The lines and the movement are amazing and yet despite that sense of motion in her paintings they exude stillness - it is as if the world is collectively holding its breath. She captures the duality of nature being both beautiful and threatening so perfectly. Nature is alive in her works. It counter's humankind's creations and thus underscores our powerlessness in the face of nature, but at the same time her works are infused with a sense of spirituality, a connection between people and the land. Yes, Carr's nature could kill us, but it is beautiful and draws us into itself at the same time. She not only advocates for human creations, striving to preserve the totem poles she was so fascinated by in some form, but she also advocates for nature itself with works that reveal the decimation created by unrestrained logging and open pit mining. There is a real sense of the tug-of-war between humans and nature in her work. Neither seems to come out on top in the end. It was fascinating to see the changes in her style, the progression and development of her work over time. If you're unfamiliar with her work you should really check it out (one of my personal favourites is Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky, 1935). So, inspired by Carr (particularly The Red Cedar), I present to you this photo from my last trip out to Victoria.

The vivacity of one of those moments would burn us

from "A Tale of Two Gardens"
Octavio Paz

A house, a garden,
                           are not places:
they spin, they come and go.
                                        Their apparations open
another space
                    in space,
another time in time.
                             Their eclipses
are not abdications:
the vivacity of one of those moments
                                                   would burn us
if it lasted a moment more.
                                      We are condemned
to kill time:
                so we die,
little by little.
                  A garden is not a place.
Down a path of reddish sand, 
we enter a drop of water,
drink green clarities from its center,
we climb
            the spiral of hours
to the tip of the day,
                             descend
to the last burning of its ember.
Mumbling river,
                      the garden flows through the night.


I mark the changing of the seasons by these trees, but my absolute favourite time is when the bloom in the spring. The flowers never last very long because the first good gust of wind blows the petals off the trees and creates what my mom likes to call an impromptu wedding in our backyard. The other morning, a couple of days after I took this picture, I actually looked out the window and thought it was snowing because all of the petals were raining down. The weather is a bit gloomy right now, so I thought that sharing something simple and beautiful and summery was a good idea.

I love the opening of this poem. Octavio Paz writes truly stunning poems. The idea of gardens being loci for nostalgia is wonderful and enchanting. They are no longer places but time itself in some way. They capture moments and feelings and then unleash them on you when you return. I think any place is like that, imprinted by the past, imbued with memory. Objects, places hold history within themselves. Not just our personal memories either. I always feel as if locations and objects hold historical memories. Perhaps this is why old buildings or vintage objects are so fascinating. They hold countless stories. And perhaps this is also why sometimes it is nice to have something brand new, something that is blank, that has the room for you to create your own memories without becoming mixed up in those that came before you. I've never had a garden like that, but I can imagine one. It's really lovely to think about.

Back in the Saddle

There is nothing to motivate me to pick up my camera again like the silhouette of my neighbours' trees against a lovely sunset. This brief excursion, however, only cemented my desire to go somewhere for the sole purpose of enjoying myself and taking photos. Now if I could just think of somewhere to go in the city...

Aftermath

Aftermath
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowan mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.


Welcome to the aftermath of exams. I have been walloped by my annual end-of-the-school-year sickness. It happens every year; I run on adrenalin mixed with stress and add in a dash of sleeplessness for about a month and so as soon as exams are over and I relax for a second my body succumbs to some illness or another. Last year it was the flu, this year it seems to be a deadly cold. Of course, I also have to work all weekend/most of next week, I need to move out of the apartment on Tuesday, I have an interview to go to on Thursday and grad is in a week. So, in short, a rather inconvenient week to be sick. As long as I have meds in my system I can do a convincing impression of someone who is not dying. It's a tricky balance for me though. If you know me, you know that my stomach and I have a bit of a testy relationship. Well, one of the things that does not generally go well is medication of any kind. I seem to have found a balance that works. At least, it has worked for one day. We will see how long I can make it last.

We read this poem in the second half of intro English in my first year of university. That was the class that made me fall in love with poetry. Every time I hear the word "aftermath" I think of this poem now. It is so beautiful.

Just Give Me a Sign

I am someone who is constantly asking for signs. I am Gideon asking for sign after sign, never satisfied. Well, I feel like I've been continually confronted with small signs over the past week or so. No two-by-fours to the head, which is usually how God has to get my attention, but a slow and steady build-up of things pointing me in a certain direction. The signs are there. I just need to work up the courage to follow them.

Enchanted

I am not normally one for New Year's resolutions. They seem pointless in many ways. Unless I really want something it isn't going to happen regardless of whether I put it on some list on January 1. This year though was a little bit different. This year I resolved to look for and cherish beauty, to surround myself with things that are lovely. Or, rather, I decided to continue to do so in a more deliberate manner. This all started some time in the summer, I think it was with the decision to paint my room, and is something I firmly believe I have been growing into the past few months. Where I was at this summer I don't think I could have simply decided to live this way and stuck to it. It was a journey I needed to start before I could come to this place of deliberate searching. Let me tell you, looking at the world this way is truly wonderful. I'm not saying this is always how I look at things. I'm naturally a glass-half-empty kind of person, so it's a struggle, but I'm making a profound effort to find things in every day that resonate with me, that inspire me, that make me smile. I find myself using words like "magic," "enchanting," "lovely" and "beautiful" far more often than I ever have before. And I like it.