Red Cedar

My head is a blur today, my frustration levels raised by an early-morning conference call with Ottawa, and restless with the thought of more creative things than briefing notes and project plans. And so it goes – knowing that I’ll get through this day, and that my counterpart on this work-project out east is struggling with the internal bullshit politics even more than me.

Got back from Victoria on the first harbour-to-harbour flight of the day – a beautiful morning for such a tour of the archipelago, morning sun and mist coming off the sea below. It’s a funny thing coming to work by airplane – but it makes for a much shorter trip than the tedious chain of ferries and highways between the Island and the Sunshine Coast – and gives me a lot more time away than I would otherwise have.

Had a decent weekend in Victoria this time around and got to spend some quality playtime with Greg in addition to meeting the family obligations and visiting with some friends. Actually invited Greg for dinner to meet the folks and he accepted (which surprised me) – which then made me feel awkward because I haven’t brought anyone to meet the folks since Darren seven years ago. I think Greg was more relaxed about it than me, and of course, it was all fine and very civil and a bit funny. Still, I’m finding myself a bit tense about it, mostly because I am in the process of trying to resolve my feelings about this relationship in the context of what has been a difficult emotional period. I think my involvement in Darren’s case – his re-entry of my life in such a dramatic and pseudo-tragic fashion – has hampered my ability to see beyond loss and the full expression of my emotional connections… The only way I see to work through that is to keep at developing and redeveloping relationships that bring sustenance and support – so I am granting permission to myself to have more social time this summer as a part of that healing process 🙂

I am looking forward to having a couple of weekends on the coast over the next little while to do some garden-finishing and to work on a few sewing projects I’ve got rolling around in my head. I don’t know where this urge to make things again is coming from, but I’ve got lots of little experimental ideas and some fabric to try them out with, so seems a good time to get going on them.

(I just cannot believe how much faster this blog is running since the move to the new server on Friday. Woot!)

Oh yeah – Firetrap stayed up real late last night and got the two new Resist! servers up and starting to be functional. This blog is one of the first sites to be hosted on our new box “ash”. Which makes you one of the first visitors to the new servers of our very happy collective.

Thanks Firetrap! Resist! will rock once again!

For all the usual moon-related reasons, I am finding myself increasingly irritable this week, to the degree that I have now had to wall out my co-workers with louder and louder music through the headphones. Cocooned by indyrock and glued to my computer monitor with the pretense of working so intently I can’t participate in the distractions – I’m relying on this strategy to get me through until tomorrow when I can get a bit of a break from it. It’s not their fault, and I realize that – i’m feeling acutely my inability to relax – but in the meantime I don’t want to do or say something assholish. So I’m basically pretending to be a decent human on a day when I most decidedly do not feel like one. Of course, this monthly phase is always compounded by the fact I also appear intensely ugly to myself as well – and I can only suck it up for the 2 or 3 days I go through it and know it will soon pass (as in – Saturday can’t come too soon).

At least I have been getting good sleeps (albeit with bizarre dreams) in the last couple of nights. That definitely alleviates some of the stresses that seem to be pressing on me (work, union, jail support – all demanding a lot of thinking and writing and talking right now). And it has been nice to be going home on a regular schedule all week and spending nights in my own bed. I have found an increasing ambivalence about my home when I am on the road, but as soon as I get some solid time there, I realize how much I don’t really want to move and want to keep working on the place and making it more “mine”.

Got my passport application signed yesterday by my lawyer and the biography and project materials into the union they asked for and heard back today they are happy for all that. A good friend of mine told me last week he was disappointed that I was selected to go on the human rights tour and not him and now it seems that he is not really talking to me at all this week which does cause me some fretting even though I also recognize I haven’t done anything wrong and he’s probably just getting over his own issues (he has age, and more political power on his side, I think he was surprised by the outcome). I think I might be projecting a little because I worry so much about what other people think of me – and because so often my successes have been met with back-stabbing behaviour by others (so much so that I’m actually afraid to tell some members of my local executive about being selected for this tour).

I guess the objective – particularly as I want to run for higher union office – is to develop more confidence in myself and not let the unfounded criticisms of others stress me out so much (while still being able to hear constructive criticism and counter political analysis without getting defensive – that balance)…..

The past six months of having a lot of my political world torn apart and doing the support work has made me more brave rather than more fearful in general – because as I recently realized – I have been and will keep surviving this with as much integrity as possible. This is probably a lesson best extrapolated to other political arenas and life experiences in general.

The more I figure this stuff out the easier it is to be me.

And hopefully the less irritable I will be.

Happy Turtle Day everyone!

I’m back in the office today after an absence of a week between the trip back east and the long weekend – and it’s remarkable how much I don’t feel like being here at all. I’ve got a lot of work to get through in the next couple of weeks, I’m behind on everything I’m supposed to be on top of, and I got almost no sleep last night (plus, I just had the ugliest passport photo ever taken).

I have also been feeling a bit of the support-work stress the last few days for various reasons – which surprises me because I thought I had internally resolved a lot of my feelings about Darren and this situation – though apparently not and old things are coming to the surface suddenly. Last night mid-conversation with Greg I found myself incredibly angry about something, so much so that I had to get off the phone because I was so emotionally taken by it. Strange. Must be monthly-timing plus exhaustion in general making my skin a bit thinner.

The weekend was pretty good, however, and I really enjoyed being home for four whole days in a row and managed to get lots done – cleaned the house, put in one of the garden beds, ran errands, started a new quilt, and entertained guests – so I’m feeling a bit more connected to my home again (I’ve been feeling a bit homeless with all the traveling and suitcases lately). Of course this weekend I am going to Victoria again… which is another kindof home for me in any case (parents, old friends, Greg, apartment I am comfortable in)…….

Once I finally finish up with my garden (it needs more wood chips), I’ll post some photos here. I’m most excited about the peony tree I bought – which is really a small shrub that makes beautiful flowers. Besides that I put in some lavendar, rosemary, poppies, delphiniums, mums, lupins, lucifer’s tounge, honeywort, yarrow and beebalm. Once it fills out and goes into bloom I think the bed will turn out quite nicely – thought it’s all a big experiment as I have never done a perennial bed before. In a couple of weeks I’ll lay down the last of the bark chips, and will hopefully have the rest of the upstairs deck planted with seeds and starters as well (i’ve already fixed up my front stairs with pots full of colourful flowers, which make for a cheery homecoming). Despite my lack of hometime, I still want it to be nice when I am there. Later this summer the project will be raised vegetable beds and getting my front stair fixed – both of which I will be paying a friend to do. Despite the fact I have almost no yard and a small place – there is still lots to work with somehow….