Everything is mostly in boxes now. There's a movies box and a few books boxes and a shoes box and a fragile kitchen stuff box and even a box with my jewelry/knick-knack boxes in it. A boxes box. The walls are bare and the cupboards are empty and everything I own is piled around me in a big cardboard maze.
And I'm here, on the couch, dwarfed by these behemoth possession piles, stuffing my face full of blueberries and chocolate milk in a whole-hearted attempt to empty the refrigerator before moving day. I am fully equal to the task.
Everyone I talk to lately is giving me pats on the back and sighing their faces off and saying things like, "Oh, moving. Moving is the worst. You have to have a garage sale; you find all this junk that you didn't know you had, and then you have to go through it all and throw it away. You're like, 'Why did I keep this?' It's the biggest hassle."
But, like I said yesterday, we've had no room to accumulate that kind of stuff, so the packing process was pretty short and sweet. Box, label. Box, label. Box, label. Done. And tomorrow, we move.
If you have any last-minute tips for moving day, let me know!
PS: My ultimate moving tip: I used expressaddress.com to change my addresses on bills and accounts and to schedule disconnects and reconnects for all my services (power, internet, library card, driver's license, etc). It took about 15 minutes and it's all good to go without having to phone/visit every single place separately. MAGIC.
On the edge of the Cathedral Village, close to downtown, close to out-of-town.
480 square feet (that's 240 per person).
Enough space for things, but not enough for junk.
Enough room to have, but not enough to collect.
Enough places to go, but nowhere to hide.
A room for music, a room for food, a room for creating, a room for sleeping.
A friendly neighbour, a quiet one, a snoopy one, one who maybe deals drugs out of his house.
A white picket fence. (In need of paint.)
A short walk to good friends.
A short walk to a good coffee shop.
A short walk to the library.
Memories packed into every square centimetre, seeping into the insulation in the walls, back out of the electrical sockets like smoke. Thick smoke that I can barely see through. Thick enough to feel on my face when I walk through it.
Maybe almost more like cotton balls. Almost something physical that I could pack into a suitcase and bring with me to the next house.
Some new people will live here soon.
I don't mean to be selfish or ungiving, but they'll have to make their own memories because I'm taking all of mine with me.
One of my favourite things about New York was its soundtrack. In the subway stations, on the street corners, floating out of shops and restaurants, day and night, instrumentalists and vocalists and percussionists, bluegrass and hip hop and classical and soul and rock and blues. In my memory now it's all one big, brightly-coloured explosion of a song, though it doesn't make any kind of sense musically. It's just everyone playing whatever they want, all at once, on a million different instruments. Which, if you think about it, is a perfect embodiment of the city itself.
One of my favourite musical moments of the trip happened one afternoon in Central Park. Barclay and I were walking along the endless paths, picking at hot dogs and pretzels from the food carts and stopping once in a while to lay on some grass or sit on a bench, when we discovered the passage beneath Bethesda Terrace.
Apparently Calvert Vaux, one of the architects who proposed the master plan for Central Park back in 1858, once told a newspaper reporter, "Nature first, second and third; architecture after a while." But after seeing this great hallway, I'm not sure the architecture doesn't steal a little bit of the Park's spotlight.
It's this giant, echoing place, ornate designs covering every surface, which opens out on one side to a gorgeous view of the lake, and the acoustics make it a busker's dream. When we first entered, I thought a massive choir was singing--the voices seemed to be coming from everywhere. But there were only eight or nine of them. It was beautiful.
It was more than beautiful, but I don't know how else to describe it. I took a video on my camera, but the sound quality is poor and doesn't even come close to capturing it. I am working on a time machine, and will let you know when it's done so that we can all go back to that moment together. I'll show you what I mean when I say "beautiful".
I took my laptop out to the lake this morning, cracked the windows of the car and tuned into CBC. The Byrds' cover of Mr. Tambourine Man was playing. I put my feet up on the dash. I read. I ate an orange. I picked at my nail polish. I sent an email to a friend that I haven't heard from in a while.
I think it's funny how people seem to think nature and technology are so discordant with each other, because I really, really love the little junction where they meet. Taking a walk in the mountains with my headphones on, blogging in front of the lake, snapping a picture of a landscape so I can take it home with me in my purse.
Nevertheless, I jumped at the chance to see it live. Live theatre is one of those things; do you know what I mean? You're right there. Jean Valjean is right there. And Cosette, and Fantine, and Javert, and the orchestra. There's nothing between you except the bated breath of hundreds of other theatre-goers and concert hall air thick with music and emotion.
I had goosebumps right from the start of the thundering open number, and I cried straight through the next seven songs. It was just so beautiful and perfect and sad. Who was this Hugo guy, and why was he so sad? (I mean, seriously. The Hunchback of Notre Dame?) I wonder if he was, like, the Ben Gibbard of his time. People were probably all, "Oh, that Victor Hugo. He gets me."
But the point is not that.
The point is that the play opened last night, but it's playing every night at 8 pm through until Sunday with weekend matinees. You can get tickets hereor at the Conexus Arts Centre box office. Let me know if you go and what you thought of it. PS: If you go, pay special attention to the set; Barclay and I couldn't get over it. It was inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, and it was probably the most amazing one I've ever seen. Oh, that Victor Hugo.
Someone asked me the other day, with big concerned eyes and an unsure squeak in their voice, "So. Is everything ok? You haven't been updating your blog that much lately."
It's true. I'm in the middle of a bit of a word famine. But, just so you know, it doesn't mean that something's wrong. I go through seasons where I want to write every little detail of every life event down and upload every single picture and work through every little thought in this public space because I like the feedback and it feels like writing a letter to a whole bunch of friends, who then reply in comments and emails and text messages.
And then I go through seasons where my memory card stays in my camera, pictures unsorted and mostly forgotten about, and even though things are happening I can't think of anything to say. I go out and do stuff and occasionally think, "I could blog about this." But I don't, because it feels more like a chore than for fun and I have enough chores to do.
And it doesn't feel like a big deal, because I know about how seasons are. And I feel like this one is starting to thaw and maybe there are little green buds on the proverbial word trees in my head.
Today the sky is an ashy white, like it's sick or scared. I hope it rains and rains and rains. I want solid thunder and jagged lightning. I'll take a walk in it.
But first I have a few things to do around the house, so I'm puttering and listening to Wake Owl.
I first heard their song Wild Country a few months back on the CBC. (Back before the car speakers stopped working entirely.) The windows were down and the sun was kind of setting so everything was golden and Barclay was there and we were holding hands and I had my seat back a little and was almost dozing and then this song came on. It's one of those things where I'm not sure if the moment made me love the song or if the song made me love the moment, but I went home later on and listened to the song again 60 times in a row and still love it.
I saw them a couple weeks ago at the venue down the street, and it was pretty beautiful. If they come to your neck of the woods, absolutely go check them out.
The other day, Amycommented on the cute little set that we film my TV show on (from this post). I meant to tell you about it.
My friend Justine was the set designer. She's absolutely amazing at that kind of thing, and at all of the other kinds of things that she tries her hand at. Back in February (I think?) she posted her preliminary sketches, the process that went into translating the ideas in her head into a real, physical space, and the final pictures of the set. I thought the whole thing was fascinating, especially since I've gotten to play on the set and sit on the couches so much this year.
Doesn't it make you want to be a set designer? What a sweet job.
PS: Fun fact: some of the black and white pictures hanging on the wall were taken by Justine at my wedding! I didn't actually notice this until a couple weeks ago. Anyway. I thought that was, you know, "neat".
So, I don't know if you remember this blog postfrom almost exactly a year ago (give or take 12 days). If you don't, you could go back and read it so that today's makes sense.
Long story short, the cable people did call back again. They offered me a little spot on a weekly entertainment show talking about live music and upcoming shows. And, like I promised, I said yes even though I still felt vastly under-qualified.
I went for coffee with the host and she reassured me that everything would be fine, "As long as you stop doing that with your hair." I let a twisted strand of hair drop from between my fingers, folded my hands in my lap and nodded dumbly. Yikes.
As expected, the first few tapings were completely jurassic-shark-tornado-dentist terrifying for me. I shook and stuttered and said dumb things, played with my hair too much and didn't know what to do with my hands. I watched my first show with my parents in their hotel room one Thursday night when they were in town and found myself apologizing for my awkwardness over and over and saying, "I'll get better...I hope." It's amazing how many subconscious tics a person can have, how fast you can get talking when you're nervous, how hard it is to remember how you usually hold your mouth in between sentences.
But at some point in there, I guess I just got used to things. I got used to the other people in the studio audience, and I got used to the mic and the cameras and the teleprompter, and I got used to hearing my recorded voice in front of other people (the ultimate in cringeworthy experiences, usually).
And the point after getting used to things is actually enjoying them.
I actually started to look forward to the green room meetings with that day's guests and meeting new people and getting constructive criticism and working on a new "skill" that I didn't really ever see myself needing or using, but which is pretty dang fun. I write my own script now and compile my own video clips, usually minutes before actually rushing downtown to the taping.
Anyway, we just wrapped up Season 1 last Wednesday, and the producer has offered me my very own half hour show all about live music. I don't know if I'll go for it, just because it seems like quite a big commitment, but at least if I say no, it won't be out of fear or whatever. Because fear is a stupid motivation for anything. The only thing fear should motivate you to do is run away from knives and sharks.