Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
sleep, news & experiments
the grasses and the sky at bull canyon on the way to bella coola – july 2005
news this morning upon checking the friend-blogs… ryefield is responding, albeit struggling to – but eyes fluttering and attempting to respond to voice and touch. i’ve been visualizing him as a small-being wandering around inside his own head… using this coma-state to figure out some of the “big questions”. if anyone is the type of person to do that, it’s him. of course, nothing else is known yet, but i know the people closest to him right now are more hopeful he will come out of it okay – seems there will be a long healing road in any case.
and there is talk of a general strike in vancouver – or at least – walk out of some unions tomorrow which my union is apparently not participating in (we aren’t in a “real” general strike situation yet, and the bcfed is trying to keep a lid on protest by keeping most workers at work except those directly affected by provincial bargaining) – but if transit wildcats (which they might if a picket line goes up at the transit yard), then i would hazard to guess we’ll get a one-day strike anyways. it’s pretty variable, but i’m staying in the city tonight for a union meeting, so whatever happens i’ll be somewhere for it.
i pieced out and pinned the hems for curtains and a tablecloth last night, and managed to get a good night’s sleep – so between the two things i’m feeling much better today – plus the news this morning on two fronts has been good, which is helping to lift the oppressive weight from my shoulders. my optimism in both cases is guarded, but it is still there amid the fortress that is the legacy of disappointments.
i also have decided to try a bit of a blog-writing experiment that i have seen elsewhere as a way of working on more than just diary-style writing… which is to randomly pick a dictionary word everyday and blogpost about it. i am giving myself permission to have that take any form – essay, fiction, poem, or even photograph – but with a minimum number of 250 words. the purpose being to extend my writing skills and kick this almost-daily writing habit up a notch or two. this doesn’t mean the end of my regular posts, but would be in addition to other writing and photographs already on this site. please let me know what you think as this little project progresses!
my word for the day (out of the French-English dictionary on my desk) is second-class. more on that later.
fabric goodness
besides all my weirdness – i went to dress-sew at lunch with one of my co-workers and spent an hour looking at pretty cloth and ranting about work. in the end i bought a lot of linen to use for a curtain, and a metre of beautiful red chinese brocade with gold and purple dragonflies on it to use for pillow slips.
it was the high point of my day.
homesickness
i am homesick for the city i haven’t lived in for over 10 years, which really begs the question of what home feels like anyways.
in part, it is because i am in the middle of an insomniac bout, and vancouver seems too large and populated and wet today. exhaustion thins my patience with the “message-factory” my workplace has become as we spoonfeed politicians soundbites the appease the public with. exhaustion makes the umbrellas moving above the sidewalks seem like an obstacle course of annoying colours and patterns, all impeding me from quick movement on my errands. exhaustion drives me to eat sugary things looking for a cheap high, despite the fact they make me sick to my stomach. all of which conspires to make me just a little bit miserable despite the fact it is payday.
but more than that off-kilter track, is the fact that ryefield, acquaintance of mine and close friend of my friends – is still in a coma which he has been now for 6 days (though apparently responded to voice yesterday by moving a little). my friend julia emailed me her blog address which she has been posting updates on, and from there i found the blogs of other friends from that way-long-ago-life in victoria – and there were pictures on them – some which i have taken in the last year – and despite the fact i have vowed never to return to live on vancouver island, i felt the unmistakeable tingling feeling of homesickness rising to the corners of my eyes as i wished that i was there, in a small city, curled up in the corner of an apartment in fernwood, with candles and incense and a small pot of coffee and a newspaper – and perhaps even a lover. it made me want to turn the corner down the street to enter the house where 4 or 5 people who know me would be, to smoke a cigarette on the porch and share a bottle of beer while whispering about fears and worries. it is what i miss about that place, those people ten years ago and now who imprinted on my as a teenager, and who always belong to me because of it.
i think i need to go for a visit to my friends in victoria soon, because i miss them like a warm bed on a rainy morning – and because every small tragedy calls me home. though each event makes home a different place because the people involved are different – obviously homesickness is about something much more rooted than place.
no trespass
taken at the local gravel mine, springs in a box:
to be discarded or used again?
a couple of days ago my friend anna called and told me that a mutual friend of ours had been hit by a car and was still unconscious in the hospital (it was going on 3 days when she told me).
he’s not someone i am particularly close to, though many of my friends are – but he is someone i enjoy intellectually an awful lot. i keep wondering if he has woken up yet, i have not heard anything since sunday and i’m worried that he won’t.
lawbreakers!
my friend richard wrote this letter – the point about who the real lawbreakers are here being pretty obvious.
“We can disagree on the laws that are passed, and we often do, but the foundation of our society is that once a law is passed, that we agree to obey it. We do not get to obey the laws that we like and disobey the laws that we don’t like, and that is the central issue here.”
Gordon Campbell October 17th, 2005.
Dear Mr. Campbell,
I find it appalling that your Government so flipantly states that teachers should abide the law, when your Government continues to flaunt the law. The Supreme Court of BC found your Government broke the law with regards to class size limits on February 18th, 2005 with Justice Shaw presiding.
Your Government-appointed Arbitrator, Eric Rice’s “closed eyed” stripping of our collective agreement was also ruled against the law by the BC Supreme Court on January 22, 2004. The Judge presiding cited, such, “fundamental errors of law” as to make the whole bargaining
process a sham.
Your Government has such high esteem for the law that you choose to disregard International law. “The ILO ruled that the BC Liberal law declaring education an “essential service” should be repealed. The ruling also called on the government to open talks with the BCTF to negotiate an agreement and to refrain from imposing settlements in the future.”
Futhermore, on a more personal note Mr. Campbell, you have such personal high esteem for the law that you drove drunk and were convicted of a criminal offence on January 10th, 2003 in Hawaii. “Anyone who drives while impaired to the level he was should be ashamed and embarrassed and afraid.” District Judgel Reinette Cooper.
My Campbell, I ask your Government to do the just thing and repeal Bill 12, open meaningful and productive negotiations with the BCTF and start abiding the law.
Yours,
Richard Biel
Red Cedar 