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.

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.

Branded

You might have noticed that last night I quietly changed the name of my blog and made a few little adjustments to fonts and colours. I've been wanting to do a total rebranding for a while, but since I have neither the time to make massive changes myself or the money to pay someone else, the changes are relatively minor aside from the name. So, why change the name of the blog? Basically, it's just time for something new. "Shape of Your Looking Glass" served me well for almost two years, but for several reasons it hasn't been sitting quite right with me for a while. Yes, there were reasons I picked it that night I decided starting a blog was a good idea. However, I also decided to start this whole thing on a whim and the name was picked late at night while sitting in the apartment living room surrounded by books about Sylvia Plath, and so the significance of those reasons was relatively minimal. Also, the song that "Shape of Your Looking Glass" came from seemed to be part of a very particular chapter in my life. I loved it the first time I heard it. I still love it. But for a while it seemed to be a song of longing for me. I spent this period of time constantly talking about heading east. Toronto. Nova Scotia. Europe. This summer I moved across the country and literally was eastern bound. It's like the song saw me through a particular chapter in my life, and nicely closed it off for me. It was sometime in the midst of moving, of drastically changing my life, that I started to feel like I wanted to change the blog's name. My approach to photography has changed a lot in the last two years as well. I'm more serious about it now. I think about it more. I've invested a lot more time and money into it. But I'm also having more fun with it. It has become one of the things which allows me to balance my life and ground myself. Basically, the place photography has in my life has changed dramatically and my understanding of it has changed dramatically as well. "Shape of Your Looking Glass" began to feel too simplistic. It was unable to capture this new significance and meaning. This new name has a lot more significance for me, a lot more thought put into it. Tomorrow I'll let you know why. So, until then, thank you to those of you who have been on this journey with me. Welcome to those of you who have only recently joined me. I hope many of you stick around for what's still to come.

There are days...

...when the only thing that will make things better is looking at cute pictures.

This week has been exhausting and it is only Tuesday. I'm only making it through because I have plans to meet up with friends every single day this week. It helps.

So, in case your life is shaping up to look anything like mine, here are some cute pictures to (hopefully) help you make it through. Exhibit A: A hawaiian rubber duck that was the wedding favour at one of the weddings I went to this summer. Exhibit B: An old post with some adorable dogs. Exhibit C: A picture of of a teeny tiny kitten. (I can't look at this without making odd squeaking sounds.)

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.

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.

This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us

Rain Makes Its Own Night
Anne Michaels

Rain makes its own night, long mornings with the lamps left on.
Lean beach grass sticks to the floor near your shoes,
last summer's pollen rises from damp metal screens.

This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us,
clothes clinging to chairs, your shoes in a muddy grip.

The hard rain smells like it comes from the earth.
The human light in our windows, the orange stillness
of rooms seen from outside. The place we fall to alone,
falling to sleep. Surrounded by a forest's green assurance,
the iron gauze of sky and sea,
while night, the rain, pulls itself down through the trees.


The other night I stopped at Chapters with a couple of friends and discovered that their poetry section has expanded! I mean, it's still not huge, but it is certainly improved from the measly two shelves it usually is. Of course, I had to treat myself to some new books. Glorious. Simply glorious. It's been raining lately. There is something nice about weather like this. It's relaxing and contemplative. Life seems a bit slower when it's rainy; there's space to breathe and room to think. Rain and poetry are an excellent combination.

A Bit of Loveliness

Just something pretty for you. And me. I'm trying to inject some loveliness into this time of year for me. Also, my brain has no room for anything aside from paper writing right now so I'm having a hard time coming up with anything to post here.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Almost.
There.
C   r   a   w   l   i   n   g toward the end of this disgusting five day stretch.
It gets a little better after this.
Not fabulous.
But I'll be able to do crazy things like sleep and eat normal meals.
Right now, that's all I am asking for.

"My Day"

Dear Monday,

Thanks for having the word "mon" in you. That's French for "mine," in case you weren't aware, Monday, but it makes me think of you more as "my day," and frankly that sounds like a much more promising start to the week.

Best, Leah

I've had two good Mondays in a row now. What's that? Yes indeed, they are having a snowball fight in hell. It's so weird. Mondays are usually unpleasant. They have never been my least favourite day of the week, but they are generally just kind of blah days. But two weeks in a row now my Mondays have been fabulous. I know why they have been too, which almost makes it better. There is something deeply satisfying about knowing why I am happy.

The "Dear Monday" quote is from thxthxthx. I've only recently discovered this blog and am absolutely head over heels with it. I've actually started writing my own thank you notes to things and posting them on my wall. It's forcing me to look at things a bit differently. All part of my decision to surround myself with beauty. Leah's notes are just so charming and it is such a refreshing way to look at the world. I found this one about Monday to be so wonderful. And so appropriate. I might have to start thinking about Monday as "my day."

I'm asking, just this once

Dear Heart and Head,


If you two could agree on something, I would really appreciate it.


- B

If you can't wish, why bother?

"The Adams and Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can't wish, why bother?" -- Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood

If you can laugh, you're still alive. You haven't given up yet. -- Margaret Atwood 

I finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood today. I have this strange experience whenever I read an Atwood book though: when I finish reading I immediately have the urge to throw the book across the room. Seriously. Every time. It's the lack of a conclusion. I realize that this is intentional, that it is a post-modern technique, that it serves to draw attention to the fact that it is indeed a story, that it forces readers to not only be complicit in the creation of the story, but to realize that they have been complicit all along, but it still drives me nuts. You just want it all to work out. Or not work out. I'm not picky either way, I just want an ending. All that is not to say that the books aren't brilliant. I genuinely enjoy Atwood's books. They are challenging and provocative. They are also highly entertaining. I get sucked into the stories and invested in the characters. In fact, I enjoy her writing so much that I'm actually taking a whole directed studies course on it this semester. The Year of the Flood is brilliant. Especially if you have already read Oryx and Crake. Atwood has an incredible ability to pick out the trends in the world today and push them to their most ghastly extremes. The worlds she creates blow me away. This quote struck me though. In the midst of what is possibly the most dystopic world possible, there is suddenly this glimmer of...what? Hope? Human endurance? Promise? I'm not quite sure what the right word is, but the quote struck me. It reminded me of a quote I ran across a couple years ago when I was doing research for a paper on Oryx and Crake. Atwood was talking about the humour in the book, which is dark and doomsday-ish. There is something deep here, something that resonates in my life. The darkest times in my life have been times when I don't even have the ability to wish for something different. They were also the times when laughter is a foreign concept. Wishes and laughter. There is something here. Something that my mind is now mulling over.

This picture admittedly seems as if it has nothing to do with this post. However, there are two reasons I chose it. First, whenever I think of wishes or magic I think of light and sparkle. Second, it is actually a picture from the fireworks display in Disneyland, and Disney is intimately connected with the concept of wishes.

Delicate Beauty

I don't really have that much to say lately. Well, that's not true. I've been talking and thinking through some stuff, but I feel like somehow it isn't formulated enough for me to write about on here. So, instead I bring you a pretty picture. I like the tiny delicacy of the rose bud contrasted with the solidity of the boulder. I also really like the colours in this. The yellow of the rose is so interesting, saturated yellow that fades into the faintest hint of colour at the tips of the petals.

Yes, I'm still alive

You know how sometimes life throws you curveballs? Well the past couple weeks it seems like that is all I've been getting. Sometimes curveballs just throw you off balance for a bit. Sometimes though they smack you in the face and you end up crumpled on the ground with a broken nose. Those are the kinds of curveballs I've been getting. Sorry about the lack of presence here, but I neither had the time nor the motivation to post anything. I tried a couple of times. I sat down at the computer and opened my photos and tried to find something to post. I actually wrote one, but it ended up sounding a little too depressed for me to want to post it. Perhaps I will put it up one day though. Anyway, I am hoping that I will be back to regularly scheduled programing on here now. This week is a bit nutso for me so I can't promise anything, but I am going to make a concerted effort to be back on here.

Anyway, I just wanted to take a second on here to thank the people that have made me laugh the past couple of weeks. Even though they were pretty rotten by and large there were moments where I laughed harder than I have in a long time. I've had classes of uproarious laughter, moments of complete ridiculousness in the student publications office, laughter over meals with my family...there have been some brilliant moments. So thank you for being the bright sunflowery spots in my rather disgusting weeks.

In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
...
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
(from T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is one of my all time favourite pieces of poetry. I totally understand the utter terror that Prufrock experiences at making any sort of decision or taking any sort of action. Decision-making is not my forte. Even once I make a decision I am forever second-guessing myself. I wish that I could just make a decision and stay completely at peace with it, but I never do. No matter how certain I am of something when I choose it I will inevitably be bombarded with doubts later. It doesn't help that my moments of clarity and blinding insight into what I want to do with my life tend to conflict with one another. I will be certain that I want to pursue a particular path only to change my life a couple of weeks (or days, or hours, or minutes) later. Decisions paralyze me because of this. Even small choices, like what brand of shampoo to buy, stress me out. In the long run does it really matter what brand of shampoo I have? Maybe a tiny bit (after all some brands are really not all that effective...), but not enough that I should be left standing in front of the wall of shampoo at the grocery store for 10 minutes. If something like that baffles me, then you can imagine how terrifying I am finding the process of deciding what to do after I graduate. I made a pretty big decision today that is kind of related to the whole planning my life bit and even though I know that I made the right choice, the doubts are nagging me and I am starting to freak out that maybe I was wrong.

Part of the problem is that I just want everything. I don't want to have to choose. I wish I could be a wildflower. It doesn't matter that this little guy decided that half of his petals would stand straight up while the other half folded out nicely. In fact, it made him all the more interesting and photo-worthy. I, on the other hand, am just a mess who needs to figure her life out.

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.

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day

Or at least I have a sunflower. The sun finally came out in full force today. Even though it was still a bit chilly out, it was a welcome respite from the relentless rain. And it is supposed to be warm and sunny and indian summer-like for the next while. Yay! This picture is appropriate for today for more than just that. Yesterday was rough. Today was also a rather unpleasant day, so by the time I got to work I was grouchy and was worried that work would just make it worse. Instead it actually brightened my day. Now if I have told you work stories or you have worked where I work (not that a lot of my work colleagues read this...or any of them) then you know that this is something akin to a miracle. Normally the office is not the most uplifting of places; it tends to be rather stressful, especially on Thursday nights when I don't start work until 6.30 (3 hours later than a typical weekday shift). Maybe it was just the combination of people who were working tonight, but somehow it wasn't as insane as a typical Thursday and I actually had some fun joking around with some of the guys. So nice after two days of grossness. So there you have it, literal and metaphorical sunshine today.

This is yet another picture from Lacombe (I took a lot). The sunflowers in this garder were ridiculously tall and huge. I have never seen sunflowers like that before. They were really pretty though, with their bright yellow petals standing out against the grey sky. Love it!

New Beginnings

I know spring is supposed to be the time of new beginnings, but for me fall always holds more promise than spring. Maybe it is because I still operate on an academic year (and probably will for at least several more years), but September brings way more new things than April. This year in particular I am relishing many of these changes. New job, new school year, new perspectives on life. And smaller things too, like new clothes, new school supplies and a new haircut. I will admit that I don't always like change. This time around though I am enjoying every moment of it.

So in honour of these new beginnings, I bring you a picture of the new berries on the mountain ash in my parents' backyard. This tree is right outside my window, so I often mark the changing of the season by the changes in this tree. This picture is a few weeks old, but one of the things I like about the mountain ash is that it holds on to that promise of newness longer than most trees. It flowers around the same time as everything else but the berries keep looking new long after everything else has reached full summer blooms. It, like me, waits for fall before it changes itself.

So shall we take the occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers. - Leigh Hunt

 

So, this week was supposed to be awesome. Seriously. I was super pumped for it. Instead of being awesome and doing a happy dance on a daily basis, by Wednesday night I just wanted to scream until I lost my voice. Fortunately, over the past few days my beautiful and amazing friends have been incredible. There are four lovely ladies in particular who have been absolutely crucial to my survival lately. You know who you are. Thank you for saving my sanity. Thank you for putting up with my rants. Thank you for letting me vent even when I have already vented about the same thing to you. Thanks to you, my week started to turn around. There was definitely a bit of wreckage, but thanks to you I walked away from it without any life threatening injuries. No things aren't sensational yet, but in the past few days circumstances have slowly started to look up. I don't want to get too hyped up about things yet, because nothing is certain, but there are definitely some good things going on right now. I can handle the stressful and the downright awful and worrying as long as there is something positive to hang on to. So thank you to my friends who have been my anchors until those positive things turned up and who are now rejoicing with me over these things.