Red Cedar

in case you are wondering why the silence – i am away this week at harrison hot springs resort for a week of union training in conjunction with the canadian labour congress winter school. i could go on and on about the excesses of the union movement but i won’t, precisely because i am enjoying the fact that besides getting some learning in (this is the 2nd part of a 3 part leadership course i am taking), it’s nice to spend time around other trade unionists in a social environment.

i’m watching the drinking of course, and making sure to get as much sleep as possible and get exercise every day (swimming, walking, yoga). too many sweets though – bad, bad. the course is quite intensive and there’s lots of homework every night, plus issues forums in the evening we are expected to attend. tonight instead of a forum is the choir competition between classes. i am the choirmaster for my class and i’m bent on winning (we are singing a song a sister and i wrote to the tune of gilligan’s island about the conservative party’s recent win). yes, labour is super geeky in some ways 😉

i should return to regular posting by the weekend or early next week. i’ll let you know if we win or not.

yes, still tired, but hoping the remedy from the naturopath will kick in this weekend and give me some respite. besides that, i got into work this morning and found a $135 phone bill on my desk from the first days after darren was arrested (he called me about 8 times on my work phone) – which brings my total in phone bills over 2 months up to about $800. it feels a bit oppressive, this private us phone system we are forced to use which charges me $20 per 15 minutes of conversation. what is this – a radiophone or sattelite uplink?

*sigh*

but here it is friday and four days in a row of sun. spent last night with friends who gave me two beautiful books of their own making, drank wine and ate chocolate. when i finally did go to sleep, it was a good one, just not long enough. had i not had to come to work this morning i think i might have even slept in! although jon and alison from the ffa are coming tonight to stay, i am plotting an early bedtime to take advantage of this state of near-lunatic exhaustion.

have booked spartacus books for the evening of march 10th to give a presentation on darren and the green scare trial. i have no idea quite what that will look like, but i have a month to put something together and make it interesting. mostly people want to know what is going on, or have observations to make – it feels like a good time to bring people into one place to process and get up to date. david and i are making plans to possibly do some more presentations early this summer. i also posted a new support update at freedarren.org today though there is little new to say.

i leave sunday for 6 days at harrison for union training, which i’m not looking forward to all that much except having access to hotsprings and not having to come into the office every day. my schedule right now is making me a little heady between work, union, darren and social life – there is a lot going on. i do prefer busy to blank however, particularly during times of acute stress.

looking foward to four o’clock today – time to get out of the city!

me at thirty-three. taken at the wise by east van halen (a couple of weeks ago, but sent to me last night). silly yes, but i don’t hate it.

lucky sun and blue sky for the start of my 33rd year which according to my annual horoscope is about completion and transition, letting go of old things and cleaning out dead wood. though it is not necessarily a year for new beginnings, it is a year for preparing. interesting, because that’s exactly how i see 2006 – getting through the trial and putting aside the past as it has been done, grieving those losses, and at the same time putting the pieces in place to enable having a child in 2007. it’s really a put your head down and get through it kindof year, as there is so little influence i can have on the larger forces at work.

last year on my birthday (as i wrote in my blog and clearly remember), i cried and cried for no particular reason other than the deep depression which i was just emerging from then. interesting to me now because although i have had moments of stunning despair in the past two months, the recent emotional grief nowhere near parallels the state of numb angst i found myself in a year ago. the fact i made any major life decisions in the midst of that (moving to the sunshine coast, buying a home) baffles me to this day.

i feel much more grounded in general these days, though still not exactly clear on the future. i am putting elements together in various ways – dreaming, visioning, timelining – but without making solid decisions because there are many external variables that must play out first. in a way those factors are giving me a little space in which to feel through the possibilities i am opening to. they both hold me back and give me breathing room at the same time – a balancing force. the fact there are possibilities and i can see what some of them might be, is exciting, even though i know it may take time and effort to bring them forward. hopefully i can keep at least a shred of this optimism up through the year to come.

right now i am very thankful for the relationships in my life sustaining me in various ways – and so grateful for the different roles friends and lovers have played in recent months. the tragedy that has befallen one group of people in my life has cast a new light on the importance of those who are here, tangible and touchable – who i can walk in woods or share a secret over a beer with. i know my future has to be made with those people present, as much as it is painful to acknowledge that means some people will not be (at least in the way i want).

last night i spent with the east van radical chicks, having dinner and pints. today has been marked by calls and emails from so many of the great people in my life. two of my co-workers took me for lunch, and then a walk to see a tree in full blossom in the sun. my evening promises a phone call with aaron, and i think a good night’s sleep.

striking me strongest at the moment is the feeling of containment – to have both lightness and grief co-existing within the cavity that is me – complexity and struggle and anger – desire and love and vision. never apathy. not at all in my thirty-third year.

my birthday is tomorrow and i will be thirty-three. i have no plans for tomorrow which i intended, but tonight i will be going for drinks at the wise. i will be there around 9 (and not staying too late), for those who wish to partake. last minute, i know.