Red Cedar

The other night I was talking to my friend Brian and he asked me “What would you do if you didn’t have to work?” And I was stumped. Like, besides read and take pictures and write a bit more? I’m not sure, I said.

And then he told me what he would do and it reminded me that as little as three years ago I had a whole set of dreams for how I wanted to live my life differently. Somehow I had forgotten all about the piece of land and the communal living set-up and the alternative health stuff I wanted to do back then. (His vision, interestingly, was not so different from mine – it’s just that he seems to still be in touch with it). I seem to have stopped thinking about what I want to do, and shifted instead to what is right in front of me at any given time. Which I suppose makes sense when it’s all I can do to keep my days straight from one to another – I have stopped making the space for visioning. That’s just how time passes – I know – and it’s a wee bit scary.

This process I’m involved in with the union is going to take some time. My job has got me wrapped up in two places at once. I’m pretty sure that my animal being isn’t happy like this, but I keep reminding myself that it’s not forever. It’s just right now and it’s probably even for the right reasons.

Another conversation I had this week with my friend Michael helped me with the perspective I’ve needed to keep from being too angsty with this feeling of life moving away from me…. When I realized that perhaps the only point… beyond being successful or being right or being good looking or whatever the hell this is supposedly about… is to help each other out. Not me and him specifically, but all of us all the time. And if I reframe what I do in those terms then I’m a lot more relaxed about it – because as crummy as the union movement can be, I am also aware of a great many occasions when I’ve realized that it does help an awful lot of people live better lives, and become even more compassionate people.

It’s just that everything you do seems so small until you see it through the eyes of someone you’ve done it for – and we don’t often get the chance (as individuals or as organizations) to glimpse that view. A part of the curse of being raised privileged in a society that sells illusory choice is that you actually grow up thinking that someone you are supposed to live up to the potential set by every single other person – and while some people seem able to shrug that off – I find it impossible to stop making myself think of new things I *have* to do. It’s not enough that I’m working two jobs and traveling all over the damned country, writing every day and making art on the side, writing three letters a week to political prisoners and making time for the people I love – I am down on myself for not starting a novel too. Yeah. That would be some over-achiever complex.

It’s not as if all the doing makes me feel better. But connecting with others does…. And I suppose that’s a good goal for when I return home and get off the road for a bit – to take time for rest, time for people in my life, time to make space for what’s really important – at least while I have the chance.

The nice thing about photography (as opposed to writing) is that it is somewhat straightforward to look at work from over a couple of years and determine whether it has improved – whether the technique is more on, the shots more interesting, the camera more steadily focused. And I honestly think that mine has improved tenfold in the last year or so. Or at least, I get more good shots than I used to and am more quick on the draw when it comes to changing settings and readjusting the tripod.

In the last few months, I’ve been particularly interested in evening photography, which has given me a new appreciation of the quickness of shifting light. I had never noticed before that the shades of an evening sunset are ever-moving – and what is bathed in beautiful orange light can return to grey within seconds. It necessitates knowing a camera well enough to set it up quickly and keep changing to keep pace with the light. As winter comes on, the window shortens a great deal and the rush to shooting is that much more dramatic.

Tonight I decided to go out at the last minute and catch the sunset off parliament hill since it has proven to be a good venue for me in the past to practice working with light in particular ways – lots of dramatic ironwork and windows and a great colourscape on clear evenings. I have to say, that even though I felt hurried to get shot after shot in the dwindle of the day, I got several of which I am quite pleased colour and composition-wise. I have posted a small handful at my flickr account to document this one more fading day.

Photo from Parade of the Lost Souls last Saturday night (it looks much better in millions of colours than in the browser).

Had a bout of insomnia last night which got me out of bed earlier than normal this morning, so I’m making an update before meeting a fellow bargaining team member for breakfast. For those of you who don’t know, I’m in Ottawa at the moment as part of the national negotiating team for my union – something that has become a bit of a monthly affair as we trudge back and forth between home and the capital to sit across from an employer who pretty much refuses to negotiate. And yes, us unionists like to exaggerate these things – but *really* – they will not give us an answer to any of our proposals. Not one. And we’ve been at this for several months. Although I hate to engage in the predictions game, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be at this for at least a year before we have something – despite the fact that another bargaining table just settled in record time (difference being employer structures which I don’t want to bore you with).

Tomorrow I get to make my debut at the table with a full-fledged presentation on why our employer should provide a subsidized transit pass to members who take public transit to work. Beyond that, I don’t want to say too much, but I’m hoping I can share my notes on the subject at some point in the future.

For some reason, I am a bit homesick this trip which is unusual for me. It’s not as though Ottawa is at all foreign, but I really didn’t feel like coming out this time around and I’m here for a long time (10 days in total) which taxes my perspective on the whole thing a bit more. And it didn’t help to get here and then discover that one of my credit cards was maxed out due to a theft of my card-number which was then used at an office supply store in Brooklyn to ring up $2400 in charges a few days ago. Stuff like that just makes me want to curl up in my *own* bed as opposed to some overly-starched hotel monstrosity. Good thing is, I’ll get a lot into this trip vis a vis union and work and I have no plans to come back until the new year at this point. (Just in time for the really cold weather!)

I did have a moment yesterday (as I was reading an email from the student who’s been working for me and who has decided to return to school which necessitates hiring someone else when I get home) of wondering whether I’ve taken on too much this year. It’s not the time commitment so much as feeling the need to be in two or three places simultaneously – and because of things going on in my local office, I’m feeling like it would be better for me to be there right now. I also know that feeling is momentary and really, any one of the three parties I’m currently responsible to would get along just fine without me if I were to fugue* tomorrow.

Despite these (very) small misgivings (which are mostly just due to my tendency to be angsty anyway), I’m actually doing quite well at the moment and am very pleased with my presentation for tomorrow’s session. Three different people (trade union negotiators whose opinions I value) gave it a thumbs up yesterday with some suggestions and that really does give me a bit of confidence about the whole thing.

Hm. It really is looking about time for breakfast, so I’m signing off. Thanks for you folks who still talk to me when I’m away. It makes me feel less so.

* Fugue: Another long-loved word, not used in reference to music, but to the dissociative disorder that causes people to disappear into a new life. “A period during which a person suffers from loss of memory, often begins a new life, and, upon recovery, remembers nothing of the amnesic phase.”

I am here. Made it to Ottawa, but without the time to write until tomorrow most likely. Here’s a picture from Saturday’s Parade of Lost Souls fire show instead.

Not that I think this is a particularly fantastic shot of myself (I am not photogenic and I don’t care what anyone says)… but I got a haircut this morning for the first time in over a year and I thought I’d show it off.