Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Life at 4 km an hour.
Lynn Headwaters is my favourite place to hike in the Lower Mainland for two reasons: it is only a 15-minute drive from my house and it offers a variety of hiking challenge-levels depending on my mood. Along the river is a flat, easy walk. On the upper trails are steep grades to Lynn Peak and undulating forest paths that wind through to an old logging debris chute before turning back. And for distance, Norvan falls at 14 kilometres makes a satisfying destination. I have hiked all of these trails at one time or another over the past decade of spending time there – balking only at the rough back country trails up Coliseum Mountain or through Hanes Valley due to reports that they aren’t well marked and I’m probably not in the greatest shape for such adventures.
My last two Mondays off work however, I have started my day with the 5.5 km Lynn loop hike which provides a good mix of steep grade, undulating paths and a flat 1.5 km return to the trail head. It’s not only an opportunity to get the dog out on a decent run, but I have always enjoyed hiking alone – and while Lynn is busy most of the time, if I go early on a Monday the upper trails are all but empty (until around ten, when the power joggers come out). This is some of the first solo hiking that I’ve done in at least a year – and I had forgotten just how much I get out of such short jaunts. Just an hour and fifteen minutes of trail time is really all it takes.
One of my observations over years of hiking is how much differently the mind seems to operate when in the act of walking than when stationary or driving a car or even riding a bike. Herein lies one of the greatest pleasures of hiking alone – the uninterrupted spool of thoughts my mind reels though as I make my way. Not in the monkey-mind, chattery sense – but in a light, exploratory mode that moves along with my physical being and is let go the minute I step back out onto pavement and get into my car to go home.
This type of thinking seems qualitatively different than the kind I do when driving long distances, matched to to the footfall perhaps. One person I knew once commented that to walk everywhere was “life at 4 km at hour” and he figured that was the optimal speed for the mind to activate. But, like a moving meditation, I find the act of sitting to write and capture the flow of those thoughts nearly impossible. To be stationary breaks the moving spell and I am again tethered to a single place, my mind sluggish after its romp through the forest. It’s this conundrum of needing to sit still to write after the freedom of movement that makes good nature writing so difficult. To have the experience of outdoors and then to attempt to set it to the page has always struck me as something that must be practiced always in order to find the balance between the modes – outdoor/indoor, moving/still, forest/city, earth/computer, organic/artificial.
But tis something I would like to practice, as impossible as it seems to me. This act of fixing dirt to the page, of scribbling undergrowth in the margins of my prose.
I’m currently reading two books of nature essays which I will share my thoughts on later this week. (Nature-essay being a form for which I have great affinity.) The question as always is what makes it work and how do I get there? Perhaps we’ll get more words out this fall than I have for the past few months. These forest jaunts certainly make me wish that to be so.
More of this. Less of that.
I am having a difficult time keeping up with the week – my brain feels compressed and it’s all I can do to keep the tasks straight to get from one place to the next. It’s a result of no downtime, really – days of work and evenings packed full with social engagements, rehearsals, classes. Tonight, it’s The Accordion Dance party – which my band, The Flying Folk Army is headlining…. And in between all of this I’ve been trying to read a book my professor loaned me last week (Rousseau’s Dog – a popular history of the fight between Hume and Rousseau which I am gripped by), as well as work on my gift projects (I got four large quilt blocks completed this week and have been crocheting on the bus everyday on my way home from work).
And herein lies the struggle with busy that I have been working to disengage from for at least the last two years – starting with the last time I took on so much it almost destroyed me. (That was “emergency” collective bargaining that I got pulled into two years ago exactly – which sucked up three months of my life from start to finish and ruined my health, not to mention detracted from my wedding to Brian and the time I should have been spending just enjoying our being together).
Anyhow. Coming out of this period of what can only be described as institutional abuse, I made a firm commitment to *end* my relationship with my union on a leadership level – the single best decision I have made in the last decade. One way I managed to do that was by enrolling in a graduate program which gave me something to move into as more space opened in my life. And then I have also found that I have very naturally moved into more creative pursuits too – textiles in particular over the last year – but music has also made a reappearance in my life (somewhat spottily) in the last year.
Which just goes to show that once I ended one pursuit that was making me frantically busy, I just added a bunch more things that take up a great deal of my time.
BUT. After a year of being pretty much entirely free of union commitments (other than shop stewarding, which happens during work time) – I can acknowledge that even though I am doing almost as much as I was previously – THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN TIME QUALITY. Yes, I fill up my days outside of work – but I do it with
- art
- music
- camping
- cooking
- making, and
- socializing
…..instead of meetings, petty in-fighting, feeling bad about how I’m not doing enough, and engaging in power struggles.
I mean, let’s face it, the internal culture of power-based organizations is always going to foster toxicity – whether that be unions, political parties, or even (some) non-profit organizations. Even more than that, the internal culture of these institutions promotes the self-importance of BUSY in a way that robs us from actually LIVING an interesting life.
(PRO-tip: Rarely have I met a politician or union leader who seems to actually be an interesting person outside of their job. As in, they can’t talk about anything except work – and maybe the recent Okanagan wine tour they went on.)
Okay! So if I’m going to fill up my calender, it’s obviously better that be with things which bring me gratification and joy – rather than things which make me miserable and sad about the fate of humanity. But still. There is a balance to be struck – and these first two weeks of September are a reminder of how much I don’t want to feel frantic or burned out when I engage with activities I otherwise really enjoy.
Not to mention, I am trying to get away from being the kind of person who answers “BUSY” when asked how I am. I despise that answer (though it’s such a handy default) for all the reasons Penelope Trunk writes about here. The answer “BUSY” seems to me a lot like the people who won’t put their work-Blackberries away after hours — loaded with false importance.
And I don’t want to be that, despite the seduction of feeling included in everything. What I want to be is someone who is content with a variety of small moments – puttering at home, making things (even badly!), hanging out with my family, taking the dog for little walks . And while I think I have made a lot of progress on that front recently (this summer was just amazing for all the hanging around doing very little I got done), it’s very easy to suddenly get caught in the “I shoulds” and get overwhelmed by all the commitments I end up making.
So I’m going to work on prioritizing a bit better and actually “schedule” in some inviolable self-time every week. It’s about ego-awareness, really, and giving myself direction – and permission – to increase my capacity for healthy life-governance.
Still and all – I’m pretty excited about the gig tonight!
Wednesday bits and pieces
The geeky part of me that enjoys certain minimalist composers is somewhat giddy this afternoon at the release of a first track from a new Philip Glass remix album – Rework – set for release in October. In honour of his 75th birthday, the compilation includes the likes of Beck and Amon Tobin in what promises to be a new take on some of the Glass classics.
Technology is totally not my friend today. I am now on my third Internet browser, my credentials are being rejected on the ftp server at work, and I still don’t have my cel phone back from the repairs department of Bell despite them telling me yesterday it was fixed. It was not.
There are three events coming up at the Urban Crow Bungalow. If you live in Vancouver and are interested in any of the following, please let me know by email or via the contact page on this blog.
- September 21st – at the behest of some friends we are hosting a singles party. People invited are cool and we are striving for gender balance. So far ages range from 30-45, and it’s pretty much straight folks. RSVP required.
- Sometime soon – I’m organizing a Sunday-afternoon stitch and bitch – possibly to become a bi-weekly or monthly thing leading up to Christmas.
- November 8th – The next in our salon series featuring Bruce Alexander speaking on “Addiction as Window into the Political Insanity of the 21st Century”. As per the last two this will be a dinner and discussion event, and we collect a donation to cover the cost of food and a speaker honorarium. RSVP required.
(It occurs to me that I am not able to do almost a single thing without organizing other people to do it too. )
And also – I am quite excited about going sailing with the ladies from my writing group on Saturday after headlining the night before at the Accordion Dance Party as part of the Accordion Noir Festival. So many fun things!
Design notebook: Gift season
I know it’s spring when all I want to do is get my hands dirty in the garden… but come fall, I find myself stockpiling patterns, yarns and fabrics — while dreading the clean-up that awaits me outside. This is where I find myself right in this early (and beautiful) autumn – inspired by everything textile!
Right now I am working on a pair of “wristers” based on a pattern from Lion Brand (altered to fit my wide hands) – using some lovely variegated sock yarn that I picked up at Baaad Anna’s last week. I’ve got one done and now I am attempting to replicate my changes to the pattern from memory on the second one. It’s a pretty straight-forward pattern, and it’s a first in terms of working in the round, and using sock yarn. I’m digging the yarn so much that I think a matching scarf might be in order.
But before I start in on that, I’ve got to get a few more Christmas and birthday presents finished – the gift season officially begins!
Since my mother’s birthday is soon and I have some beautiful squares left over from this quilt, I am going to start a lap quilt in the same theme as my next sewing project: 
Then onto a quilt for my nephew in the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas II” Kaufmann prints:
I’m all kinds of inspired to make small gifts out of the book Zakka Style – which has 24 super-cute, easy-to-make projects. I’m also feeling a bit reckless about handsewing and so I’m going to start my first hexagon project which will culminate in a pillow for my niece’s birthday in January (I see a trip to Spool of Thread in my near future).
My focus for this gift season is *practice* – since I feel like my skills are improving these days – I want to focus on getting my work to the next level. With crochet that means following increasingly complex patterns. With sewing it means better finishing and attention to detail overall. I’m also interested in portable sewing – ie hexagons – as a way to incorporate projects into my daily routine.
To keep the inspiration on – I am attempting a balance between gifts for other people with items for my own home and wardrobe. I have my eye on a few garments to construct as well as some accessories that have been sitting in the pattern-pile taunting me. Now that school is back in session, I am worried about time! But still, by starting in September I’m giving myself lots of room – and I hope to have a very fruitful autumn!
First Christmas Present Finished!
A shawl for my sister-in-law – a first project crocheting in cables and with slits that make the shawl self-fastening. It’s not a great picture – and I really want to re-block it (just learning about blocking and I managed to “pull” it more than I wanted) – but it is done!
Red Cedar 