Manufacturing Content

Off to a good start

For many years, my New Year’s resolutions were comprised of two or three “buzz-words” that I would strive for throughout the year.  Of course, this was met with great success, given that the reporting and monitoring variables of said goals were wholly impossible to measure.

How do you tell if you’ve actually “actualized, initiated and streamlined” any aspect of my life.

This year, I’m going full circle.  My goal is to work out at least four times a week and to write more blog posts - goals were chosen because they will be a cakewalk.

In case you are living under a rock, or just not reading my wife’s blog, we’re a little more than a month away from skipping town (AAAHHH!!!!).  For some parts of our trip, I’ll have no choice BUT to exercise seven days a week (please see: the thirty day hike along the Way of St. James, or the back to back Everest Base Camp and Annapurna treks). 

And even during those long weeks we plan to spend on beaches in South East Asia, I can’t wait to get up and run along the water’s edge in the morning sun.  And maybe do some yoga while I’m at it.

This new commitment is in part due to the personal trainer I signed up with in November.  Now, being a dude, I’ve always been of the “bah, I know what I’m doing” school of working out.  Boy was I wrong.  Turns out, the only way to really know what you are doing is to listen to someone who really does know what they are doing. 

I’ve seen such a change in the last two months, and I can’t wait to apply this new ethic to a whole year. 

Bring on those piddly little Himalayas. 

And the writing?  Well, when I first started writing in earnest, I was, coincidently, traveling around Europe.  There’s something undeniably inspiring about being on the road, in a constant state or renegotiation with your surroundings.  I only hope it translates well to the blog, as my previous writing escapades were done in the four to five notebooks I carried around with me.

I am blogging today, but I missed the gym this morning.  By all accounts, this might have been a good thing.  As besides, it was, like minus-30 this morning.  The bed was too warm.

D.

Village lights

Village lights scatter in the night, the valley below is all a-twinkle.  Looking out, you’d think, swear, insist that this wasn’t a little village in Peru you were passing from a sinuous mountain highway at five a.m., nor is it the midnight view of the Swiss Alps from the roof of a hotel, half-drunk bottle of red in hand. 

You’d register your grievance with the powers of perception because this can’t be those things.  Peru is a dirty, rocky, forsaken little corner of South America; no such beauty can exist, surely.  And, Switzerland is nothing but jagged rocks and fine cuisine, maybe a blue sky or two.

No, what you are seeing is nothing but the long lost ghost of a memory, passed from synapse to synapse in a complex and fast-moving brain-game of telephone.  Nothing really was as it seemed, it’s just been corrupted like an email forwarded from your grandfather through four sets of aunts and uncles, and a dozen cousins. 

And they weren’t that similar either, really.  One was in the dead heat of winter, and the other in the cold snowy clear blue summer.  You remember it so clearly, don’t you?  Clear as day.  Clear as the dark– morning or night, it doesn’t matter – in which you recorded them.  Clear as the crisp air – of summer or winter, it doesn’t matter – that you slowly took in as you looked down and wondered who lived in each light.  Clear as a memory.

They seemed casually dropped from above.  A giant walked through these parts once with a sac full of little houses lit up by little oil lanterns, and tossed them like chicken feed here and there.  Where they landed, they stayed for hundreds of years.  Little crouched-over German women with long chin whiskers went to fetch the water from the river, flowing fresh from the Andes.  Little chicos and chicas slept soundly in their beds dreaming of cheese and chocolate.

No, these memories are not the same, they are on opposite hemispheres, different continents even.  Language, culture, government, wealth and opportunity separate them even further than geography could.  In the dark night, when all is quiet and peaceful, and everyone sleeps, they are not the same.

D.

New leaves

Spring has long passed, but the time for new leaves is still upon me.  I’ll turn one or two in the coming months, just to see what’s on the other side.

Some I know hide potential, remarkable gifts and fresh insight into the world around me.  Other hold salvation, freedom and weak knees.

But the poison leaves, like those of mistletoe, invite with promises of fleshy joys and hidden agendas.  I think I’ll skip over those ones, leave them for someone else to unwittingly stumble upon.  Choose your leaves carefully.

I’m turning one over right now, while these very words hit this very screen.  New surroundings, new people and places and things, and new weekday pastimes until such time as time will be meaningless – which isn’t really much time.

This new leaf hides a tie, maybe a brief case and a most definitely a silver fountain given to me by my sis long ago – finally put to good use!

D.

Swimming

Gasping for breath and clawing for surface is useless when the water keeps pouring over you.  Aim for the light and paddle as hard as you can, they tell me, there is air to breath somewhere up there.  Keep going, we’ll hold your ankles and come with you, how many can you carry?  Three?  Four?  How about five?

The ship is sinking and the crew are still asleep.  It’s been a long night, fraught with slimy things, wet things, things that you’d rather have slept through, even unto a watery grave.

But Van Gogh once told me: the fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.

There is air, up there somewhere.  There is reprieve and solace, calm and even sailing with but a hint of turbulence.  The calm seas beacon, the waves invite, and the salty wind sings a song over the never-ending flat surface.  There are crews both noble and swarthy, raucous and loyal.

Back under the surface, there is still swimming to be done, at least two days worth – likely two of the longest days of my sea faring life.  The lungs burn and the eyes ache, and my poor arms and legs strain under the lack of nourishment and excess of effort.  The distorted images of the surface, seen though the polished roof of water above, tease and taunt, and tell me I’ll never emerge, and if I do, I’ll just sink back down.  It’ll only be a matter of time.

But when all is said and done, when I’m old and dried, I’ll look back and laugh, and with a grin of thanks and understanding I’ll say quietly: a smooth sea never a skilled mariner made.

D.

Before we were bloggers...

My entry for this month's "travel" themed writing challenge

I wrote this over seven years ago.  It was the first entry in the precious notebook that K gave to me.  I had just flunked out of first-year computer science and decided to bugger off to Switzerland for a year to regroup.

She inscribed the following into the first page:

March 18

Every traveler must keep a journal – it is an unspoken rule.

Record all the treasures you find, be they tangible or ethereal.  They will someday make up the map of your life.

May you find yourself.

This was the first log I ever kept - my first steps towards blogging, if you will.  I was young, naïve, and honest.  Reading through the many notebooks I filled up that year, I am reminded of how important travel is.

March 29, 2000
Residence room, Carleton U.

So, this is to be a chronicle, a collection of memories and goings on throughout my journey.  You might find this premature but I believe that the journey starts when you know where you are going and why.  I guess, for me, the journey starts with a realization.  Whether or not this sudden idea is put into my head, forced into it, or simply appeared as random brain cells got triggered to cause this is immaterial, although I suppose it was forced upon me.  I spent eight months at Carleton University doing what should be done.  I spent the vast majority of those months in utter bliss, I mean, come on, this place is every kid’s dream!  No parents, all the people your age you can handle, and more beer than you can shake a stick at, all for the great price of just under $12,000 – what a deal.  So what do I, the protagonist of my own life, do with this fabulous opportunity?  I fuck myself.  I fuck myself out of the opportunity of a lifetime, all for the sake of doing what I want.  Fun quote for you all…

Jack’s parents: You’ve had four years to have fun and do what you want, Jack, it’s time to give up.

It’s all about Glory Days. 

But for myself, I had one year of giving up before I realized that I want to have fun and do what I want.  So now, the journey begins, with me at the helm of my own destiny…forging my way ahead into the great wild unknown and tackling my dreams.  By the end of this log who knows where I’ll be, but remind me to look back on this entry and ask myself if I am where I want to be.  If not…kick me.

D.

On the third day

It’s a funny fate that we are bound to wait in glee for that most special of weekends - the three day weekend.  We are tempted to make it so much more by tacking on a day fore or aft, and why not.  Especially when the weekend is so full of promise, of relaxation, solace, rebirth and recharging.

Three days is just long enough.  By the third, I always find myself so entrenched in the flow that I can hardly believe that it’s almost over.  Jobs, commitments, bills, and the rest of that pesky real world have slipped away, only to return with the soft buzz of the seven a.m. alarm.

Walking home on Monday, we passed into the neighborhood green-space.  The crown of thin robust leaves at the centre of the crack park, guarded by the tribe of ancient thai-chi warriors, has a powerful mysticism about it.  The children play nearby, without a thought of school, homework, or classes.  A lonely old man or two, looking very at-home on the park bench, watch the rare weekday incursion into his territory with curiosity and mild fear, not for the loss of the space, but for the flying sports projectiles and disks.  Young hipsters learn chess with internet print-out instructions, and old ones sit and read on blankets in the wild grass.

The ring of thick forest-green leaved trees blocks out the two busy streets, and the other two residential streets.  This place is neither here nor there.  For this one extra day, the crack park exists in perpetual Sunday, exercising a will of its own, forcing anyone nearby to stop, exhale, and enjoy.

We walked down our street towards our picturesque mustard house, under shadows of lush green trees against pure blue sky.  Some days in Ottawa, in the green, lush centre of Ottawa – not the touristy market, or the grey depression of our minuscule downtown, or the cookie-cutter ‘burbs – are absolutely breathtaking.  The old houses, mixed with the new low-rise modern condos and mid-century row-houses, lined by huge gnarled trees, and humanity barbecuing dinner, mowing the lawn, or playing in the street, don’t seem to fit, but the puzzle works.  The finished product is an unimaginable blend of colour, sound, and smell.

K points this all out to me with an uncharacteristic silence and a soft word here or there.  I sit back and grunt in male monosyllabic agreement.  We are both too enchanted by the neighbourhood and that third day to properly communicate.  More and more, this small little capital, its three day weekends, and its hidden beauty feel like home – like the sort of place you’ll miss one day.

D.

Just in time.

Time passes differently the older you get, which is only logical. That first year at school, when you are four or five, takes up almost a quarter of the time you’ve had so far. It hardly seems fair that those with less time under their belts enjoy relish in it so much more.

In our mid twenties, as I find myself now, time starts to speed up. Without school to break up the year into neat little four month segments, the danger of having time slip away from you is ever looming. You could turn around at any moment and realize that winter’s over, or that you’ll be married next week - and still don’t have a tux.

I hear people in their mid-thirties and up say time passes even faster at that age. At forty, another year is only adding another 2.5% onto your life, and it goes down from there.

You change in concert with this. Between one and ten, when each year adds on average 20% to you life, you’ll from being a helpless, pink, wailing little thing, into a thinking, talking, bike-riding, creative four-foot tall person. You’ll have phases; the terrible twos, the awkward grade-school years, and so on.

From ten to twenty-five, you learn to drive, drink, and discover your sexuality. The phases are a more individual and seem all the more important. You’ll be a goth, or a punk, or a jock. You’ll start to dislike your parents. You’ll rebel with petty crime, or focus on being a good student.

Then, the twenty-five to whenever phase kicks in. It’s a big lump of time, and you are the only agent of change in your own life. You decide, either directly or not, to be a worker, a leader, a panhandler, a parent, a lowlife, or a hero. The great thing about this part of life is that you get to do anything you want, make your own choices, and live as many lives as you want.

You can start by being a panhandler, then become a hero, then maybe try parenting for a few decades, then become an artist, and then, the best part of all, a venerable old fart.

I’m looking forward to my time ahead, and the different lives I get to live. I’ve enjoyed everything so far, the ups and downs. I am, in the end, a fan of this whole “time” thing.

D.

Along Came Paulie

Another Ottawa vignette

Riding my bike along Sussex this afternoon, fighting pre-rainstorm gale force winds, trying not to spill the fillet mignons and fancy cheese I bought for tonight’s dinner, I was forced to stop at a red light. Striking the biker pose, with one foot on the pedal, one on the ground, boldly standing in the middle of the left-turn lane, I look down to fix the straps on my bag, letting the traffic build up behind me and the pedestrians cross in front of me, paying them no more mind than an actual motorist would.

The best moments in Ottawa are definitely those rare “only in Ottawa” moments, whose sister moments in Toronto (vagrant with a cell phone, maybe), Montreal (vagrant with a record deal, perhaps), and Vancouver (uh, vagrant with a Starbucks I would guess) are equally moving. Who should pass in front of me but a former Prime Minister. And not just any, the only one I’ve met to date, Mr. Paul Martin.

The “only in Ottawa” part was that absolutely no one else on Sussex noticed. Not one person gave him a sidelong glance. He was wholly forgotten, forsaken, and he even looked a little forlorn. I imagine he was on his way to a dinner, or a drink. Two years ago, I would have stopped him, fought through the entourage, and asked him what he thought of, say, the state of Canada-US relations, or how short Bono really is, but all I could do was watch him hobble slowly past, alone and unnoticed.

D.

So it goes...

It’s a tricky proposition to try to attribute your literary leanings to one person – and even trickier if you don’t actually have any literary leanings (evinced by the lack of literary content being manufactured) – but, gun to my head, I’d have to say that Kurt Vonnegut is a good candidate.

An Irish, bearded, bespectacled, tweed jacket and scarf wearing, gum chewing English teacher from second period grade twelve English once encouraged an uninspired class to read “whatever the hell you want” for our ‘independent study’ project. The rest of the semester was spent watching "Top Gun", throwing spitballs, and whatever other mischief a slightly introverted seventeen year-old could get up to.

He had written a book, this Irish pseudo teacher, but was obviously on the jaded end of his “Dead Poets Society” phase – next step: lecturing to bums at the local homeless shelter. No good came out of that class (unless you’re name was D.T., and you were shamelessly awarded the grade twelve English award, even though we did not a lick of work) save for two things. First, I read and presented 1984 (and was given a copy of Anthony Burgess’ response 1985 by the Irish dude – gaining bonus points and staving off my plans for a less than flattering end-of-term review) and second, a fellow named Mike, who sat behind me, read and presented Slaughterhouse Five.

After school that day, I stopped at the public library to get a copy. A few days later, I got more books by Vonnegut. By the end of the year, I had read most of his books.

Vonnegut’s writing was fresh and clear. To a teenager, his voice was that of an old koot, angry with the world, but armed with a wicked sense of humour. He wrote with great imagination, using whatever would pop into his head to convey his ideas, no matter how absurd. Somehow I always identified with him as a writer, if not his characters – although I wonder what a re-read of his many middle-class anti-heroes would bring.

If you haven’t read his novels, do so, especially Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. His last published work, A man Without A Country, a collection of essays on everything from current events (read: Bush bashing!) to the same old Vonnegutian themes, is just as relevant as anything he’s written.

In case you haven’t heard, Mr. Vonnegut dies last week, and the ripe old age of 84.

So it goes.

D.

p.s.: if you get a chance, read this interview.

 

Odds and ends

Something’s funny today. Somehow, I can’t seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes.  It’s kinda disturbing me. Usually, when I feel like this, it means I’m about to fall victim to a bad cold, or flu, as if my body is overreacting to its own urge to shut down.

I feel like I’ve had too much coffee, and as though I’m about to crash from this crazy caffeine high, but it’s been going on all afternoon. There’s no sign of relief, unless its tonight’s basketball game. The team I’m on, made up of “individuals” who couldn’t even come together enough to name ourselves (our official title, as it will appear on our 10th place trophy, is “team 11”). And despite the card giving us free wings and nachos, we have yet to take advantage as a group. Tragedy has struck our team and we’re going to be short four of our best players tonight. Maybe I’ll sweat it out. 

I learnt a new Simpson’s reference the other day. The classic fishing story, wherein Homer catches General Sherman only to release him to save his marriage, is apparently based on an old Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn called “On Golden Pond”. That got me thinking about how great the Simpsons are. You feel two different intellectual levels when you watch a good episode. On one hand, you enjoy the ass-scratching, the violence, and the blue-collar humour, which almost everyone enjoys. Then, your inner intellectual sadist enjoys all the references to pop culture, history, literature and art, which you either get or, better yet, don’t. You mind screams “yeah, that’s right, make me feel stupid. Oh yeah, just like that. Yeah, Andy Warhol was a genius before his time.  Yeah, more of that” and so on. 

The exact opposite of that, by the way, is the film 300, which only asks you to use the primordial male nerve centre whose only purpose is to exude manliness and the capacity to vocalize the most basic of grunts. Personally, I think the point that “Spartans don’t surrender, and don’t retreat” was made pretty early on, the rest of the movie could have been better devoted to the gardening habits of the Spartan people, or maybe a discussion of how Spartan literature has informed today’s military/NFL/American politics. But, I’m obviously not a Hollywood film director, yet.

 

D.