Don't ruin it!

(or less PC: Don't fuck it up)

I drove to PEI yesterday. Elliot has a hockey tournament. The drive was uneventful, we missed today's storm by well, a day, and the weather was perfect for driving - a lucky break for January. Heaven help us on our trip home tomorrow, hopefully the storm is done.

The drive from Halifax to Summerside is about three and a half hours of straight highway and a lot of farmland. I was amazed by the trees. (I want to say 'besotted', just to use the word, but I don't think that applies to trees.) I was transfixed. As I drove I studied the trees trying to figure out how I could draw them. I finally got Elliot to take a picture for later use:

Beautiful, no?

But how do you paint that on white paper? Because the magic of the tree is the white ice on the tips. If you take a white piece of paper, you'd need to draw in the trunks and branches delicately enough to leave nothing as the stunning part - you'd have to lay out the visible and let the nothing of the white ice be suggested. Suggested. For the viewer to experience without the interference of the artist's clumsy attempts to recreate the magic of... nothing.

Sounds like writing, no?

N

Lost

I had my blog post already composed in my head... then the ending changed.

Yesterday when I was towelling off from my shower my necklace caught on the towel and opened so that the pendant slipped off. When I noticed it the necklace was open and the pendant was gone.

I was given the pendant by my parents several Christmases ago. They had it adapted at the jeweller to replace four of the diamonds in the design for my kids' birthstones - two blues, a green and a purple. I've worn it pretty much every day since, never really taking it off.

And just like that it was gone.

I knew it was in the bedroom or bathroom but I'm not all that tidy of a person. My husband and I have a unique filing system, the piles of clothes and stuff get kind of out of control...

I couldn't take much time to look for the charm when it went missing - it was nearly 6:00 am and I had to race two chicklets out the door for hockey practice. I thought about it all day and when I finally had some time at 8:30 last night I went through every pile in the path I supposed it might be, shaking each piece of clothing out listening intently for a ping of the charm falling on the laminate floor. Nothing. I put away my ginormous collection of hoodies. I even found my missing car keys in the process... but not what I was searching for.

There's something about missing a thing that has become a part of you. A thing that you don't really even think of much until it's gone, and its absence becomes bigger and more pressing than it's quiet presence had been. After I'd shaken out and 'refiled' the last of the piles I didn't know where to look next. Steve assured me "it's here somewhere, it'll show up" but that didn't help much. Or at all. Without any further place to look, I got ready for bed. As I changed, the pendant fell out of the clothes I was wearing, the clothes I'd worn all day.

Even as I'd looked, it had been there with me hidden and safe. So you can draw your own hokey conclusions to this story - "you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone" or "what you're searching for is nearer to you than you can imagine" or "you'll find something once you stop searching"... Me? I'm getting a stronger necklace.

N

Reincarnation

I suspect in a past life, I was a bear.

I put flannel sheets on the bed Sunday night, and all week I've pined away for the soft, warm cocoon that happens when I curl up under the covers and tuck them in around my shoulders.... sigh.

When I get overwhelmed I shut down like that... I want to hide. If the kitchen is a mess, instead of digging in and getting it cleaned up, I leave the room so I can't see it. If the world is caving in, demanding too much, stressing me out, I retreat and cover my head. It's not a helpful strategy, but sometimes it's exactly what I need.

Today though, I'm not stressed or overwhelmed - there's no immediate mess or eminent cave-ins... the bed is just so warm and cozy... maybe just a quick nap...

N

Love stories?

I am a sucker for a love story. I loooove chick-
flicks - you know? the predictable girl meets guy and they fall in love, then they face some obstacles in their relationship and either break up or get separated some how and the end of the movie comes with a chase of one to the other to resolve all their problems in one fowl swoop and they kiss and live happily ever after. You know those ones? Here's a few of my favourites:

And who could forget THIS moment:

We went out to see The Theory of Everything last night. I'd seen trailers and thought it was about how Stephen Hawking and his wife fell in love and faced adversity and triumphed together... Yeah. Silly me. I guess it's common knowledge that they're divorced. The movie was beautiful, the acting was phenomenal and I came away with a new appreciation of the smartest man on earth as a person... but I didn't get my fairytale chick flick.

It was real.

Real challenges, real characters, real love that grows and wanes and changes. Complicated and messy love where no one is all right and no one is all wrong. I think that's the challenge of creating a real love story, isn't it? Creating that conflict without villain-izing one or more of the characters. Imagine a love story where the love continues to exist between two people who just can't make it work?

Maybe someday I'll graduate from chick-flick fairy tale love stories into writing one of those.

N

Twice a year reset

Seems like twice I year I need to dig my desk out from under the dump-it-here pile and dust off my intentions. I've been coasting lately... With two projects in the early stages of publication I've been nervous? reluctant? superstitious? to start anything new. And for the past month or so both projects were in other hands... soooo what do I do? I watch Netflix if the truth be told :)

Not today. The desk is clear of clutter and my chocolate stash is well organized. I'm going to do some mini-stuff, writing exercises, drawing, creative output with short term or no obligated deadlines so when the big stuff bounces back to me I'll be already running to catch it.

Oh and I'm drinking diet Coke again, blast it. I thought I could sneak a few in on vacation - especially with our loooong drive home - and quit when I got here, but I forgot about how miserable it is when it's cold and snowy and dark and how I typically get sick when I get back from vacay and how, if only momentarily, the neurotoxins in diet Coke make everything seem.... fine.

I might be crazy.

Oh and how distracting are kittens? Com'ON look at that face!

SQUIRREL!

N

Happy New Year

Happy 2015!!!

I ran away to Disney World with my family the past couple of weeks... we had a fantastic time riding rides and seeing shows. Though I feel now that we've all seen it, we've seen it... it was fabulous, but no need to go back again - our next family vacay will be a different adventure.

I thought I'd read a tonne of books while I was away! In fact, I loaded up my Kobo with several I've been meaning to read. I finished one. And got part way through another. I guess I just picked big books.

I finished All the Light we Cannot See, which was wonderful. It was poetic and sad, uplifting in parts and unpredictable in a way that most WWII stories are not. Very good, pick it up if you get a chance.

I also made headway in Far from the Tree, which is a non-fiction a client shared with me some time ago. It's heavy and slow but fascinating - a discussion about how difference (including disorders and such) can drive unique identity and how those identities contribute to our world. It's LOOOONG, each chapter is over 100 pages! But interesting on every page.

N