Red Cedar

It’s been awhile since I just provided an update. You know, one of those newsy, how things are going kinda posts absent of angsts and melodramas. And since I’m fresh out of angst this morning (which I am giving thanks for) it seems time I simply recount a bit of my life instead of aiming for lofty philosophy.

It’s been about a month since returning from my last traveling, and five weeks or so since the end of the hearings in Eugene. After a fairly intense spring of work and approaching-court-stress, I was released back into East Van to recapitulate myself in the aftermath of a psychically tumultuous time. Quite seriously, I was not clear on how deeply I have been marked, and am only now coming to self-honesty about so many of the things that have been just under the surface for the past 20 months or so, waiting for the case to be “done” in order to come up into the light and air.

And so, there have been some lifestyle changes and introspective moments and even some tears (though not many, I don’t cry readily). I have sought out friends both old and new to give me perspective and comfort, and one person in particular (Michael) has proven to be a catalyst for bringing out much of what has been pickling inside me as well as a welcoming heart to my sorrows. Firetrap says it is as though I have hit a reset button on my life – and this is the most apt description I have heard – the suddenness of flicking a switch, with the recognition that what I knew all along was right there waiting for replay.

Shutting the door on some parts of my life seems to have opened me up to a whole different set of experiences which are simply a sliver of what is available to me should I give myself permission. Suffice to say, it has been an interesting phase, giving birth to new ideas and obessessions, and one which I thankfully have a summer off traveling to mull over.

And on the more grounded plane, I have started a new job as part of a national project team doing web development for the next 18 months or so; I have been to Victoria and the Sunshine Coast in the last few weeks to visit friends and family; I have almost achieved the discipline to do movement practice every morning (qi gong, stretching, yoga, meditation) and work out 3 or 4 times per week; I am reading voraciously; my diet right now is irreproachable – full of summer’s offerings and the occasional fine beer, and; I have been bringing more discpline to my writing in the last few days. And while my existential crisis of sorts in the middle of June derailed some of these things ever so slightly, I have found myself in the last two weeks able to rediscover my routines without much effort.

As noted yesterday, Darren was moved unexpectedly last Thursday and has been unable to contact me since. A friend of ours who went to visit him on the weekend at Multnomah and was turned away was the first alert I had, and he was able to bum a stamp and an envelope from someone to mail a letter to another friend who emailed me yesterday with his instructions. This of course is jarring for both him and myself, our routine of communication broken; though after so many moments like this I am well aware it will restart in a new pattern as soon as he is settled (and the money I mailed yesterday makes it into his prison account). This moment, like so many, just another reminder of how alien this system is from humanity – a refrain chanted to me so often now that it rarely upsets me anymore even as I acknowledge it. And by that I mean, I can’t let it upset me or these things would have me continually in tears (as they did in the beginning of this mess).

And so the important things I suppose are that I am writing in a more disciplined fashion (and that, my friends, is a struggle for me), I am taking care of myself in the midst of the psychic upheaval, and I am honestly beginning to find peace in the hardships of the past 20 months (a definitive shift is taking place). There are other discoveries as well, to do with faith and truth, which I will not expand upon here (trite it seems to blog about these matters) – which I am coming to accept and integrate slowly, questioningly, hesitantly – but accept nonetheless. An interesting time, yes. And I am grateful for all of you who have fed these interactions since my return. One thing I have learned (despite myself) is that I need other people in my life, and to have this need is not a weakness. So thank-you friends, it is only through you I have found my voice again.

I bought myself a pair of reading glasses today. Of which I am not particularly happy about, having fought with myself about it for awhile now. It’s just getting ridiculous, this swimming of the letters and eye strain. I’m hoping that low-diopter glasses will do the trick until I can take a break from screens and books for awhile. I am fairly certain this is being brought on by eye fatigue more than anything – which I experienced in university and wore glasses for then.

I’m not sure why it irks me so much except that I feel, well, defective. Ridiculous. Yes. But irksome just the same.

The glasses were cheap and aren’t very attractive, but they will do for when I’m working or reading I suppose. Humph.

In anticipation of some serious hiking at the end of the summer, I finally made my way down to MEC yesterday to purchase a new pair of hiking boots. An undertaking I do not take lightly, and so it took me some time to muster up the courage to do so. It’s not just a purchase, you see, but a commitment to something that will be in my life for a long time. And so all needs must be met – aesthetic and physical – Do they support my bad ankle properly? Could I wear them with a pair of jeans in the city and not feel like a dork? Do they feel solid? In them, do I feel sure of foot? What will they feel like when my feet become inflamed by hard hiking? Do they meet my old-school idea of what hiking boots are supposed to look like? And on, and on.

But I do expect them to become a part of my life and stick around for a good long time, so really, it’s important we make friends right in the beginning. The pair I am now retiring became mine eight years ago, and in them I have made many journeys – have tipped a kayak, summitted a mountain, walked a thin mountain ridge dizzy with a steep drop on both sides, gathered firewood for an evening of warding off bears, broken my ankle, gotten lost, and been rescued. Hundreds of kilometres were put into those boots as I learned who I was was in relation to the wilderness, was stopped short by irrational fears that confronted me on one particular trail, and was driven to seek the beauty in solace time and time again. Whether solo or in the company of others, I am in continual reflection when I am am “out there” – a moving meditation broken by the very real survival needs that come with the terrain. Forest or desert. Mountain or valley. Inland or coast. There is not one particular landscape more important to me, though each is so vastly different and provides messages of a different sort. Whether I talk to a cedar tree or a barrel cactus or a bay laurel after a long climb up a hill to watch moon rise – it is all the same to me in the end – communion with the earth, with other species, with myself.

If anything, the forest is my cathedral, the desert a foreign temple, the ocean the loving embrace of the creator-god. And while it may sound trite in this medium, it is nothing less than sacred to me – the epiphanies, the emotional floods that come, the wonder of seen and unseen, the prayers that I have made in times of need or contentment. And part of what makes this pristine magic, what makes it separate from everything else, is the reality of pilgrimage in order to attend. The laborious walking with extra weight at my back, the blisters, the minor accidents, the mountains knocking the wind out of you hour after hour, the ripping of the calves, the occasional navigational misdeed, the humbling of being the slowest one in a pack…. It is a dedication to something higher, this self-effacing willingness to throw oneself into circumstances of challenge time and time again. What that higher thing is, I am not sure, but I feel it out there more than anywhere else. And in return, I allow it inside me in a way I am guarded against within the confines of the city.

It is this way for me. I suspect it is not for everyone. But I suspect there are others who will read this and understand.

And so back to the boots – an essential acquisition for such sojourns into the forest and soul – and so an agonizing purchase on one level, though on another I knew which ones I was going to buy as soon as I looked at the rack (I just needed to torture myself about it for 45 minutes). Without the solidity of this footwear, my journeys would be much more difficult. Without the support under my ankle fraught with metal pins and plates, I would not make it far. Without the deflection of water and elements, my trips would be much more miserable indeed. I am giggling as I write this, I am so pleased by what ones I have bought and are on my feet right now. And I am so grateful to know there are travels coming up in my life that will require that these be broken in and ready to go.

And so it is. Now to break them in. For all my waxing rhapsodic, this is no fun at all.

One of the things about being a union steward I find interesting (and more often than I will admit, frustrating) is the glimpse into other people’s lives I get while working with them through stressful and angry situations. Although my role is as advocate only, I find myself at turns either compelled to give or asked for advice outside of the normal collective agreement interpretations. Advice. Which no one ever wants to receive, and I should know better than to give. But sometimes I can’t help it, especially when I deal with fellow beings who seem blind to the ways in which they are hurting themselves, or don’t have the self-care tools that seem so essential to me.

I am currently representing such an individual in a very serious case who is insistent that she does not need counseling, nor are there any stress reduction/self-care measures that will work for her. And she’s not sleeping. And she thinks about her case non-stop. And she’s having chest pains. And she is getting visibly frailer before me everytime I see her. So as much as I am loathe to, I give advice beyond my role, which I’m pretty sure is not even going in. She can’t hear it. And even worse, who the hell am I 20 years her junior to be giving life advice? It’s very frustrating to me, not because I believe myself to be a sage beyond my years, but because I know all to well that a self-care discipline can keep me buoyant when the worries are submerging my decks and putting holes in my craft.

There is certainly a part of me that wishes I could refuse to represent people on the basis that they are not doing their part or taking care of themselves, but of course, this would be a legal “failure to represent” and is also not in the spirit of accepting and working with people where they are at. (And of course I have to be honest and give gratitude to all the people who have supported me even when I wasn’t doing the things I knew I should be doing to support myself). It’s always a question of separating my pride from my cases, and that includes a certain pride in being able to fundamentally help shift people from one mode of thinking into another, healthier one. I have certainly been involved in situations where I have witnessed and/or participated in wholesale transformation – and I suppose on some level that’s what I am always aiming to achieve rather than a technical win on the collective agreement or some other policy. Who cares about the mumbo-jumbo of law and process, I want life-altering moments for everyone involved!

Oy. There it is. The truth of why I am frustrated has less to do with my compassion for others and more to do with the way I wish to perceive myself. Or the impact I wish to have. Simultaneously self-serving and altruistic, it’s good to recognize where some of that frustration comes from – a judgement of myself more than anything or anyone else. Of course I want to help only the people who will be self-successful, which is not unlike forgiving only those of egregious behaviour who you assess will change because of it. The motive is not pure in either case, an indictment on the self which provides much fodder for self-righteousness and self-criticism.

A recognition to sit with before I wreck upon the rocks in my attempt to right myself.

Rather than another long, introspective, heart-wrenching post – I merely present you this: my friend Michael (who I took to the Sunshine Coast on the weekend) looking as happy as one person can.  New photos on my Flickr account. And yes – I am having an excellent day which I’ll post more about later.