Red Cedar

I’m attempting to manifest a big thing right now and I’m not sure if we can make it happen or not. But I’m going to let you in on it anyway because the more I talk about this big thing, the more real it becomes (it’s a long shot, but there is a slim chance of pulling it off). Perhaps you have an idea that can help make this a reality, or you can just send good vibes our way.

The big thing we are working on is purchasing a property that could be used to expand the Birdsong vision Brian and I have been working on for the last six years. In our current location we have done that by building a welcoming space for musicians and the community to come together for concerts and gatherings, as well as offering a small-scale residency program in our home for songwriters. The vision for the residency was limited a bit by Covid, but we are preparing to welcome our second “resident” this fall and hoping to offer a more structured program in the near future.

Folks who have come to Birdsong for our shows know what we are doing is important and culture-sustaining work. In a time when musicians have few outlets for concerts, and streaming services rob them of their cultural production, we provide a no-cost venue and have built a community around our shows that ensures a decent-sized audience limited only by the space we have available. We put our performing musicians up overnight and feed them at least two meals (sometimes more), and residents at Birdsong get a room and a songwriting studio all to themselves during the time they stay here (also for free). We see ourselves as providing a community service for both musicians and our neighbours who get to see award-winning musicians in an intimate setting. We have the privilege of good jobs which allows us to fund these activities out of our own pockets.

Anyhow – back to the property for sale. It’s just down the road from us and has been on the market for over a year now. It’s ideally outfitted to expand Birdsong into a functional non-profit residency for creatives of all kinds. Purpose-built as a B&B, it has 3 large guest rooms with lots of space for working in, as well as 2 large living spaces ideal for hosting concerts, dinners, community events, and workshops. There is even a perfect lawn area for an outdoor stage for summer shows, and another spot where a garden could go in to help feed our household and residents.

There is a history to why we haven’t previously offered on this property – though we considered it once – it was snapped up far out of our price range (and has since sat empty the current owners decided not to move in after all). Its status of “out of our price range” still holds unfortunately, which is why this really big thing is somewhat daunting to me at the moment as the possibility isn’t clearly in view just yet. We have a potential partner in this project, and even if we sell his place and ours, we will still be half a million short of the current asking price. While a small mortgage is possible, anything onerous will negate the vision of being able to offer low-cost and free residencies to artists. And so it goes – as I said, this isn’t clearly in view yet.

There is a part of me that feels foolish for reaching in such a way, for wanting to move from the comfort of my current life to the next big project that will surely be stressful and require a great deal of work on my part. But the felt sense of this is persistent and steady, the project I have dreamed of (on and off) all of my adult life going back to my twenties when I schemed for a ranch in the Interior of BC to which all my East Van community could move to and get out of the confines in which we lived. It’s never been enough that I get out or provide for myself (something Brian and I have done well together), I want to create something that helps sustain others as well – and nearing fifty this feels urgent. To dig my shovel into the ground now before the time for grand visions has truly passed from my life.

But even as I feel foolish (and anxious), I also am certain the world needs our shining lanterns to burn brighter against the darkness right now. By which I mean we need to find ways to become beacons to one another, to climb up out of the despair and offer a hand to the next person struggling to do so. That is really the vision for Birdsong now, and for the way we would like it to evolve in our community over the next few years – whether we get this property or simply continue what we are doing at the home we have now.

Whatever happens, I will post about it here, for I am aware that things unfold as they should, and this may only be the first thought in a long line that comes to fruition in a totally unexpected way down the line. In the meantime, I am working out ideas for structure and governance, and re-writing the vision until I can very clearly articulate what I can already see unfolding.

“A fulfilling writing life is one in which the creative process merges with other necessary processes of good living, which only the individual can define.”

Melissa Febos, Body Work

Noticing and gratitude are two things which spring to mind here – two things I am trying to practice with more attention. Or better said, two things I am trying to practice. To do every day so I get better at them.

Recently I’ve gotten better at living with less discipline and rigor. These are supposedly good traits but they have a tendency to produce moralism and rigidity. I am not interested in an inflexibility of spirit in my life or creative work and yet that’s the kind of structure I had erected around my life. Post-illness (covid), I don’t have the energy to rebuild those edifices – and approaching mid-life transition, I’ve got other places to be in my mind right now.

Without my structure though, I find it hard to fit in everything I want to do, let alone should be doing. I’ve had to narrow down on things somewhat, or simply practice them half as often. I don’t weave and sew every single night anymore. Sometimes I write instead because I didn’t get to it in the morning. Writing and physical exercise have remained as daily non-negotiables – though I am treading water with both a bit right now.

It’s interesting to see what remains when we get more spare with our lives.

This week I went to a ceremony for new judges being welcomed to the BC Supreme Court, as a friend of mine was appointed to the bench just prior to the start of the pandemic. We had been invited to this ceremony back in March of 2020, but of course it was cancelled in that flurry of early days when no one knew what they could or should do in the face of a deadly virus. Walking the Vancouver streets at rush hour on Monday I noted that even with many activities having resumed, the city is not nearly as busy as it was when I still lived there and went from office to home by public transit or bicycle every day.

This becoming-a-judge thing seemed like a big enough deal to travel over for, to see this old friend in their robes in an official proceeding, and congratulate them in person. I am impressed, of course. It’s not a simple thing to achieve this kind of social standing – and it’s a big commitment to public/civil life. As a judge, you give up a certain right to a private life in the sense that what you do reflects on the office, which is a big responsibility to carry around.

When I was in regional union leadership, I felt a shadow of this in my own life. Putting oneself in front of others in any capacity invites appraisal and criticism after all, and I found that aspect of leadership exhausting. I also found that my time was no longer my own, and that the role demanded I spend time with a people who I sometimes didn’t like very much. At a certain point I had enough, and I left union leadership at that level to pursue a Master’s degree and spend time with my partner and his child – all things that were much more satisfying to me on a day to day level than flying back and forth across the country and living out of hotels. It was 100% a choice that I made – to step out of office and off the treadmill of political ambition – nothing that was forced on my through losing an election or any other mechanism.

And yet…… sometimes when I see people in political or civic office these days, I feel a kind of envy, or perhaps it’s more that I feel like I have not done enough with my life. I’m not really sure if that’s the right way to describe the feeling. What do we call it when we feel we have not achieved anything of importance in our lives? And further, what do we call that feeling when it is groundless – based on social ideas that we don’t find particularly relevant to our own beliefs about society and how life should be lived? I feel like there must be a Japanese word that describes this combination of envy and disdain for accolades of life, but when I Google that phrase nothing turns up.

I have long struggled with the feeling of not being enough, and having quit my big career opportunity in May (for excellent reasons and I am not sorry I did), I am once again facing feelings of inadequacy. It’s ridiculous, as my partner likes to point out, especially as I have a good job to return to and another opportunity that I’m trying out at the moment. I want for nothing material, nor do I want to make more money or have more things. But I suppose it comes down to being at this mid-point of life, almost fifty, and wondering if anything I do is relevant, or carries weight outside of my own tiny sphere. The answer to that is not really, but that is true for almost all of us on the planet, and so I’m not sure why it should be any different for me.

My union is having its convention virtually this week and I’ve been watching the speeches and debates off and on in the background while working. I know everyone running for office, having worked with most of them in years past, and I know what it feels like to be in front of a large audience answering questions about what one brings to the leadership table. When I watch them perform for the audience, there is no part of me that wishes I was in that spot, or that I had made different choices in my life years ago. When it came down to running for the next political office, I chose not to so that I could spend more time with my partner and his step-daughter, and then I went on to get a Master’s degree which lead to meditation and Zen Buddhism, writing, weaving, and eventually (somehow this is all connected), moving to Gabriola Island.

And this is what I have to remind myself when I feel a bit unaccomplished – that I could have spent my life in a single-minded pursuit of one thing, but by nature I am a generalist and I would never have been happy doing that. Instead I’ve wandered all over, using my (sometimes boring) job to fund the rest of a life that has kept me engaged, and hanging out with people I actually want to be around. Though these regrets are transitory, they remind me that so often we struggle with the what and why of existence. We seek things that are unhealthy; we strive for things that take us away from our purpose and our joy. And in so doing, we fail to be present for the real truth of our life. This is a lesson I return to over and over, hoping one day I’ll learn it so I can move on to the next one.