Word by Word
January 2006
Monday, January 02, 2006
noon
The woman who lives upstairs was just out front of my patio, taking down the lights from the Japanese cherry tree. Taking down the decorations, turning off the lights. It's almost like we conspire to add to the letdown feeling that comes after the party. A combination of overeating, overdrinking, and then bang, it's real life again.
I will take down my lights as well, and the tree, as it grows dry and becomes less safe. Perhaps it's a metaphor. Something about balance, not letting things go to excess, else the house will burn down. In that spirit I told my neighbour that it was okay to take the lights down, as really, they've done their work. The days are getting longer now, though we can't really tell yet. Taking the lights down is optimism, putting them up was defense. Makes sense, right?
I spent New Year's Eve day at the Laundromat, and then in my apartment cleaning (washed myself too) so that New Year's Day would have no excuse but to look good. (I seek order, and purpose out of this exercise.) I only saved the mess on my desk to sort out, which I worked on last night, and will continue today. But then the mess on my desk signifies work left over from last year, and to be continued this year. (And I resolve to strive to keep it from becoming a mess on my desk; how's that sound?)
As I was vacuuming, the drain in my utility closet burped water all over the closet and kitchen floor. (rumble, rumble, burp, splash, repeat.) It was kind of funny really. A reminder of perversity (order. yeah, right). The drain pipe has been sitting open since the old washing machine was tossed out, but this was the first time water poured out of it, though I had heard it burp before, without the splashes; someone upstairs was doing laundry and for some reason, this time, the water backed up (I'd just returned from Pinky, with loads of clean laundry, so had lots of towels to mop up the flood). I've plugged the pipe now and the problem will be solved properly this week; I finally got all the parts I need, so have arranged for an appliance guy coming by to fit all the parts together.
I had a lovely evening, fed a feast by a good friend, shared a bottle of wine, and we swapped gifts (she gave me one of her paintings! I am honoured!). Then we went for a walk and rented two bad movies; watched the first, and part of the second, having fun hooting at them, then shared some bubbly, before calling it a night. Oh, and I washed all my soggy towels in her machine, so they are not rotting away in a pile. Now I'll have to work at having some more laundry to test out my machines when they become functional this week (she said optimistically) rather than pretty decorations in my closet.
And of course I've been thinking of resolutions, or perhaps more properly, goals for the year. For life. Like seeing taking down the lights as a positive thing.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
ten past one (afternoon)
Talking to my middle child during the holidays I realized that analog clock language is in the dinosaur realm, back there with dial telephones (which I don't miss). When I say ten past one she thinks ‘1:10' for it to have meaning, (the way I subtract twelve from any number over twelve in the 24-hour clock—thirteen hundred becomes one o'clock, and then I know what we're talking about). I also realized that the analog life is more flexible (some might say inaccurate). Ten past one means something around 1:10; no one says twelve past one, or 43 past one. They say 1:43 if they think digitally, or a quarter to two, if they are me. Analog is approximate. I type this in on my digital laptop, which I quite love, but promise that there will always be analog clocks in my life. I don't need to know where we are to the second in our race around the sun, always taking into account leap years and leap seconds and whether or not we are in daylight saving time.
I'm entering the new year with renewed resolve to lighten up, and not just physically—like most people in North America, I think I could lose some weight, but I'd like to lighten up about that concern too, knowing it's more a digital way of thinking than analog. No, what I mean about lighten up is how I travel on the planet (I suppose losing weight would help there too… but where does the weight go?). Squander fewer resources; remember the difference between enough and too much, need and greed. I started rereading Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin, reminding myself that enough is enough, and what we are is not what we do. I'll have to think about this. I have started in the last few years saying ‘I am a writer' when asked what I do. Writing is what I do, not what I am (or maybe it is, if we define by passion?). But no one ever asks “What are you?” unless it's rhetorical, as in “some kind of nut?” What we are is a little harder to put a finger on (more analogy). Saying ‘I am a writer, or I am a labourer, or I am a CEO', is really about status. I like the artsy status that comes with ‘I am a writer'. It's just you have to write.
It's funny, because lately I've noticed that status thing; a simple difference in labeling changes how people respond. “What do you do?” comes up in most social situations, and if I answer “Oh, I'm not working” then people look at me askance (disapprovingly?) but if I say “I'm retired” that's perfectly acceptable. If I say “I'm a writer” that's good, but then I have to explain that no, I'm not published (except here, and a few obscure other places) and then the askance look sets in again. Once upon a time I answered “I am at home with my kids” and found that that is not a good answer—might as well stick to “nothing” for all the status it carries. (Odd considering the widgets I produced.) All the above are true I suppose, but how to define yourself without a nine-to-fiver is not easy, certainly in a five-minute not-really-interested-in-the-answer conversation.
Hmm, a bit rambly here, aren't I?
Anyway, I have my living room floor covered in paper, which I am intending to sort through in the next couple of days (there's a lot of paper) as a precursor to the joy of doing my taxes, but also to reassess what's in those files, and why am I keeping them. I've been here for almost eight months, so if there's a program to keep me in my retired condition, I better figure it out. After all, my money or my life. (Good segue back to the point, eh?)
Because really, there's a poem I want to work on, and it's for some reason always kept waiting by other stuff. The stuff is in my head mostly I suppose, but really, there's less and less actual stuff here to stop me; I really am getting the junk cleared out. So I may leave to sorting the paper to this evening (in front of the news is always good), and actually open the file where I last saw the poem.
That is something I need to do.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
late morning
I did work on the poem last week. Spent Sunday afternoon at a writing studio session with Shauna Paull who is our leader, and Vaughan Chapman (a plum). Just the three of us, though there are three others who may come next time (a once a month gathering). But the small group was very nice, for me anyway, as I got to hog lots of the time. I took along my poem as far as it's grown (13 or 14 pages, maybe poem's not the right word) and read the whole thing right through. Not as incoherent as I was thinking, but certainly along ways from what I want. What I want is hard to pinpoint though; this isn't like rocket science. There's no blueprint.
I seem to have digressed since Sunday though, on the home front. I keep intending to get back to the work in the poem, and there's a novel there too, but other work gets in the way. (I still seem to be moving into my apartment. Someone told me it would take a year.) I'm still sorting myself out, discarding flotsam left over from the house, and getting this place arranged to suit me. I know how fortunate I am.
I was out with my younger brother on Monday night to have dinner, and to see a reading (that sounds oxymoronish doesn't it?) of a Chehkov play. (It was broadcast live on CBC from Christ Church Cathedral so some of our applause was choreographed; a benefit for PAL Vancouver.) He asked me “So, do you work at all?” and I said no, because I understood his question to mean, “Do you go to some irrelevant place and get paid to move papers around?” and I don't. (That's not what he does when he goes to work; he's a teacher, which can be quite creative, and his hobby/other work, is acting.) It's been about five years since I quit my last job, but somehow what I'm doing is always a bit slow to come into focus with my family (of origin, anyway). Or maybe that's how I choose to be seen. That's a bit what the poem's about. Out of Focus. A new name for the work? (Vaughan and Shauna will know what I'm talking about. You may have to wait for the book launch.)
But no, in that way of thinking, of “do you work?” I'm part of the leisure class. My writing won't be work until someone pays me for it, which may be never, in which case I guess I've retired. No gold watch though, although in reality, the real work I did, which shuffling papers got in the way of, was raising my family. Career? I guess so, though I didn't plan it that way. Well, that's not quite true. I planned to have all three children; what I didn't plan, because I didn't understand it until I was well into the project, was how utterly essential looking after the three of them was. Doesn't mean I didn't knock my head against the wall frequently—no guidebooks seemed to explain my bunch—but I knew that this was work with true soul, though I wouldn't have described it that way when I was in the middle of the process. So yes, I've retired, and my hobby is writing, which will become work should someone pay me. (My career has been process.)
I think perhaps my bunch of kids never fit into any of the guidebooks, because neither do I. It would have been odd to have three conformists arrive in my family; might have been easier, but it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting then or as it is now, as they move off into their own lives. And, now that they're all grown, I can take my accumulated overtime as time off (no, hold it, I said I was retired—really, I must have used up the overtime by now; there can't have been that many 24 hour shifts?) and get on with the other real work I have to do; more paper shuffling. But with the difference that what lands on the page now is the next stage of my soul's work.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
almost midnight
As you can see, I've been playing with my computer, to come up with a fancier page (if you can call trees fancy, that is). The picture I've used for my background is one I took on the trail up Grouse mountain, from last summer of course, the trail being closed for the winter now.
I've been quite sluggish lately, and can feel the proof of it in my tighter clothing. Something about hunkering down in the rainy dark season must be primeval. But the last two days have been bright and remind me that I should get my lazy self up and out exercising again. Funny, because I've also been telling myself to sit down more and get the writing done. And reading too. Brain exercise; we need that as well.
But fuss, fuss, there's work to do around the house. I still hope to have a functioning washing machine here soon. Last week was apparently too much to hope for, though I did hear from the repairman via voice mail that he has the part he needs. Now we just need to place him here when I am here, and I just might be able to wash some clothes again.
In the meantime I have an appointment with my renovator friend (renovater?) to sketch out the next few things I want to update in this apartment. So expect me to be squawking again in this space about crawling over debris from my closets as I get the innards rebuilt to suit me. It'll be worth it. Once done, I may actually start wearing some of the clothes hanging in my closet, because I'll be able to reach them without a ladder. Mind you, if I don't soon get to wash the clothes I can reach easily, then I'll just have to drag out the ladder anyway.
I know, there are people in the world with real problems. I watched the movie The Constant Gardener this weekend. Set in Africa mostly, showing the nasty kinds of things big drug companies get up to for the purpose of profit. Fiction of course. Watching scenes of poverty in Africa is like watching science fiction. This can't be the same planet can it? I'm fretting about having to go down the road to wash my clothes, and there are all these people who don't actually have any to speak of, let alone food to eat, or medicine.
Interesting how our minds deal with things like this, somehow able to be dismayed and grieved by what we see, and yet get back to monkeying around with a cooperative computer program and pretty pictures. Makes me think of the way we can laugh at the reception after a funeral, no matter how dreadful the death. Survival.
Saturday, January 21, 2006
late morning
It's been a busy week, I think anyway. I've neglected my journal and find that my memory is not what it once was. If it ever was; I can't quite remember.
I do know that I spent a lovely day on Thursday with Vaughan Chapman, one of the Plums, my writing group. We set up on her dining room table and wrote the afternoon away. I think I now understand how to do this. Leave my house, turn off my phone, and voila, I can get work done.
Vaughan is celebrating 2nd prize in the short story category of the Vancouver International Writers Festival contest. with her story, And No One Objected.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
almost noon
While I was puffing away on the elliptical trainer at the gym yesterday, I noticed that I could see the mountains. A good day for exercising outside, I thought. I'll go for a bike ride tomorrow, I thought. This morning I see from my bedroom window, only clouds, and the distinct colour of wet ground. Too bad. When I got up I could see Grouse Mountain, but alas, it has disappeared. So I may not go cycling today. First next sunny day though. I have this urge to pedal around Stanley Park.
It's funny how I can think I haven't been exercising, because I've not been to the gym. I don't seem to count things like pulling furniture around my bedroom as exercise, but I did work up a sweat doing that. Sometimes I chase one of the cats around the apartment. not long enough to break a sweat, but she needs someone to play with, and the old cat is rarely mobile. Though yesterday I gave them some catnip, and ever-so-briefly, the old guy looked playful. He stretched out a paw to Sadie, but she didn't respond fast enough. Shocked by the overture, I'm sure.
The cats are both on a diet, and it must be working because they are always hungry. Lying hopefully by their dishes right now. If they jumped by their dishes I could give them more food. But it's hard to explain the concept.
I've been enjoying the new configuration of my bedroom. It inspired me to clean up my desk, and the floor too. Almost there. I find that paper is the chief problem I'm dealing with. Files for everything, newspapers, magazines, books. Yes, even books, I admit, can become a problem when there are too many.
My mother used to pick up books in second hand stores, even though she knew she had a copy (or two) at home. Just didn't know where. It is this tendency that I fight. I am a funny mix of my mother's complete disarray, and my father's obsessive compulsiveness. With a little more work I can perhaps work it into a healthy balance. But you'll have to excuse me for now; I need to go make out a list. Of course then I'll misplace the list. That's the balance I've managed so far.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
5 pm
It's New Year's again, if you go by the lunar calendar; we're entering the Year of the Dog. There are so many people from Asia, and particularly from China, living in our soggy city, that there has always been a celebration in Vancouver, so much so that the smell of firecrackers reminds me as much of Chinatown, as it does of Hallowe'en.
So, Gung Hay Fat Choy (wishing you all prosperity) and Sun Nien Fay Lok (Happy New Year), and may this next year prove to be as reliable and dependable as your average dog. (Perhaps today is only raining dogs, and the cats are holding off out of respect. Yeah. Right.)
I'm off to dinner tonight with the two of my children who live here and their father. It's hard to say no to a good dinner of Chinese food, and what better night for it? My kids are of mixed race, and even though I didn't force them to listen to any Robbie Burns poetry in the last while, is no reason not to feast tonight on their other grandparents' cuisine. (I suppose we could pick up some strudel soon and sip some scotch with it, so that all the grandparents are represented.)
I did get myself off to a poetry night at the library recently, for a taste, so-to-speak, of Gung Haggis Fat Choy, a blending of Chinese and Scottish, because of the confluence of the two events (Robbie Burns Day and Chinese (lunar) New Year). No haggis, thankfully, just bagpipes. If you click on the link, you'll find where I realized we've all been wishing each other prosperity when we thought we were saying happy new year. Better than some of the stupid mistakes possible with languages as different as English and Chinese. (I've used the Cantonese transcriptions as they are closest to what my children's Chinese family spoke originally.) For instance, if I remember correctly, fun can mean about six different things in Cantonese, rice being one of them, rice noodles another, (but not fun or funny). It depends on the intonation, or tone. So who knows what we English speakers are really saying when we say Gung Hay Fat Choy. If we knew if might explain the laughter.
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