Word by Word
June 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
noon
I am not an organized person. Or perhaps that's not quite right. I make stabs at organization, so that some of the spaces in my cupboards look like there's an obsessive compulsive person at work, and others show a certain, well, procrastination. Which is probably the flip side of obsession.
My writing is the same. The last couple of weeks I've established a routine of writing in the mornings, first thing after making a cup of tea. But that writing is by hand and onto paper. I haven't established in my mind obviously that this is not to replace other kinds of writing. But it seems to have done so.
So what am I trying to accomplish with this not-often-entered-into blog? Routine, for one. Don't laugh. But that's part of the thought, like doing scales on the piano. Practice, practice, practice. But this is the morning writing's purpose too, so there must be something else for this space.
One of the things that this blog thing has done, is allow people to know what's up with me. It's in a public spot, but not really public. I don't think there are too many by-chance readers; only people I've let know it's here. So if I want to get used to having an audience, perhaps I should switch to one of the public blog sites, which I am thinking about doing. Because there's a certain flaw in the idea of keeping contact with people who drop by here to see what I'm up to, and that's that I'm not psychic, and so don't know anyone's been here, And unless others keep blogs, well, I don't know what they're up to either. In other words, human contact is lacking, if that's what I'm after. At any rate, I'm not techie enough to figure out how to track who stops by, which is something the public blogsites do.
But the other thing is that if I'm really interested in writing with a thought to being read, then hiding in this corner is probably not quite the thing for me to do, either.
So, I'm going to muse on this for awhile.
Besides morning writing lately, I've been trying to hike frequently. It's another obsessive kind of behaviour maybe, but it's an open-air gym that I enjoy. Anyway, I'm stiff today, because two days ago my daughter and I started up, and found ourselves in a thunderstorm. Hail too. This was on Sunday, and the hail had no effect on the Sunday hordes that go up the trail, but my daughter and I had the thought that the gondola might not run in a thunderstorm, so we walked back down from the quarter mark. Not far, you might think, and my daughter doesn't have sore muscles, but then she's not 54. Give the old bod a couple days, and I could do it again, and my thought is that I should go down once in awhile, just to avoid this really annoying reminder of unused (old) muscles.
But I'm obviously not alone in the urge to keep going up. There was a steady stream of people hiking up through the hail (ouch, ouch). It's just that I got stuck up there once before, for several hours because of a windstorm, and if you're not carrying a pack full of warm clothes, it can be unpleasant waiting, especially in wet clothes, and you get wet, whether it rains or not. Sweat, you know. Most people are carrying a water bottle, and that's about it. The Grouse Grind is a real hike on a real mountain, but we city folk are lulled into complacency by how close it is to the urban landscape. I like to try and keep both ideas in balance, and respect the trail. At the same time as I love it's proximity to that urban landscape. So I can have a latte when I'm done.
Monday, June 19, 2006
7:30 pm
I've spent the day at World Urban Forum 3; a UN-Habitat event on sustainability in cities. I read about it by chance, and a few weeks back looked up the website, clicked on the register here button, and voila, I'm a participant, under the category of Other, though when I thought about it today, I could have claimed a loose connecting to the Planners of BC, because I've laid out their newsletter, or I suppose I could have called myself a grassroots person, from my volunteer years that came about because i had children. But really, I'm just an observer, at this point anyway.
The first Habitat conference was thirty years ago, also here in Vancouver, at Jericho Beach. I remember wandering into it (I was 24 then) and thinking, oh, cool. And that was about the extent of my international awareness. I don't know that I'm that much more aware now than then, so I thought it was a good reason to go sit in on sessions and see what goes on in a United Nations event.
This morning I sat for several hours at the Plenary session, listening to speaker after speaker, interspersed with some impressive entertainment. It might not hurt our 2010 Olympics people to take notes. A little networking?
Our illustrious mayor, premier, and prime minister were all there, and each had a chance to speak. Harper is an impressive speaker; I almost forgot that I don't support most of his policies. He didn't mention trying to cancel out same-sex marriage, but did harp a bit on terrorism, and crime prevention. No mention of harm reduction. He got a standing ovation though, because he'd managed to say a lot of the right things, I guess, and because he wakes you up. His speech diverged into a bit too much politicking for my taste, but the points he made about the strengths of our country as a welcoming and generous country were well received. And a good speaker is really appreciated in a session that goes on for over three hours (which I did not last through). Something about sanitation needs got me out of my seat.
The weather did a fine job too today of show-casing our city, by keeping a steady breeze blowing all traces of smog well away from the convention centre, while leaving nice big patches of blue sky showing. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.
I got home to watch the last half of the last period of the final in the Stanley Cup. I was secretly rooting for the Hurricanes, because of family members living in North Carolina. I'd still be happier if the Vancouver Canucks could get it together, though. Maybe next year.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
11 am
My brush with the international world took me right through last week, left me feeling very busy, though my business was really just as an observer. I was impressed though by a lot of what I heard, good and bad. The UN is quite the bureaucracy, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising. Government = Bureaucracy, and the UN is made up of member states. Some of the responses I read in the paper, about the forum, decried the expense as just an excuse for all these people to go on a junket to our fair city. Well, some of the people I listened to were from grassroots women's organizations; people who at home live in extreme poverty. But they do what women do; get on with it. Giving them a chance to meet in comfortable surroundings and talk to other like-minded women doesn't seem like such a bad idea. At least as valuable an enterprise as the extravaganza that's coming our way in 2010.
It was a busy week, because it happened that I had three evenings booked too. One, a Writers Festival members event; wine and snacks at the Granville Island Hotel, along with a sneak preview of who's coming to Vancouver next October. Two, a strata meeting at my building, and somehow I found I was chairing it. Three, book club at my house. We changed the way we pick books sometime last year. Put the decision on whoever is hosting the meeting, so once a year or so, I get to pick the book. I chose one that had fallen into my hands by accident, called Shooting Butterflies, by Marika Cobbold. She's a Swedish woman, resident in England, writing in English, and Shooting Butterflies is her fifth novel I think. I enjoyed reading a book by someone right off the radar as far as we Canadians are concerned; not that England is so very far off the radar. But I find that borders effect what falls our way. Something I learn when I travel, much as I did last week, which was travel of a sort. It's a pretty good story, inconsistent, but satisfying in spite of that. It's the story of a woman's life, hardships and tragedy, but it's not a victim story, which was refreshing. It engendered quite a bit of discussion, which makes it a fine book club choice. The book was hard to come by; not a standard in our bookstores or libraries. That border thing again. But it turned up at the giant bookseller's stores marked down to under five dollars, so I gifted it to my club members. What the heck.
This week I've donned a volunteer hat, and am doing layout for the next issue of WordWorks, magazine of the Federation of BC Writers. Guess that would be a networking thing. But I was ready for some kind of work outside my own little confines, and so went to the Fed's AGM last month. Discussion ensued about the magazine being a volunteer effort, and short of volunteers. So I volunteered, and turns out they needed a new layout person. Voila. Yesterday I was completely absorbed. It's like being sucked into another dimension. I completely lost track of time, and at about 5:30 put up my head and said, oh, coffee! So walked down to Granville Island for coffee and some groceries, thinking I should probably plan to eat something. Came home, watched Jeopardy, ate, and finished up the first draft. Sent it off late (I won't tell you how late) last night.
So this is how I work. I find myself worrying about not being able to schedule regular bouts of this and that - you know, I should write for a couple hours, exercise at such and such a time, shop on Tuesdays, clean on Wednesdays. That sort of thing. But no. It seems apparent to me that I am a binger.
Though I did hike three times last week. And wrote my morning pages most mornings. About as scheduled as I ever am.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
7 am
Woke up around 5 this morning. Well, earlier, but conceded defeat on the effort to sleep longer, and got up. It's lovely having the sun come up so early though. Not being able to sleep isn't such a frustrating thing, if there is daylight trickling in through the curtain.
Once I was up and sipping my tea, writing in my morning pages that are really early morning pages today, the thought occurred to me that 26 years ago I was having trouble sleeping. It was raining then though. A dark and stormy night, which starts many a good story (if described properly).
The reason I remember this date so clearly is that at twelve after midnight, June 29, 1980, my first child was born. Today marks the anniversary of the start of her story, which makes it her day, but my oh my, it does mean a lot to me.
© copyright Shirley Rudolph 2003-2009, all rights reserved
