Day #6

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"Life wastes itself while we are preparing to live." - Emerson


At theatre school, we were once given an exercise in which we had to draw where we were now and where we imagined we'd be five years in the future. Though I can't remember the specifics of my "now," I do recall that I entitled it "Waiting For It". My teacher circled the title in a thick red sharpie and wrote, "if you're just waiting for it, you'll never get it." At the time, I was resentful. How easy it must have been for her to write that, I thought; she's already living her dreams of working as an actor. Soon after that, I left school and although it wasn't because of that experience, my ever-growing resentment of the institution I was studying at was a big part of it.


Fast-forward ten years, and here I am working towards a different goal but nonetheless waiting for it in a lot of ways. I still find myself struggling with feelings of resentments when friends and acquaintances get ahead because of what often seems to me to be excessively cocky behaviour. What I'm beginning to understand is that what I reflexively perceive as cocky is really just self-confidence, or at the very least the result of an inner belief on the part of people that what they have to offer has value and deserves to see the light of day. 


My struggle now is to develop that belief within myself. To echo a post from a few days ago, I'm beginning to take small (and trying to make consistent) steps towards my dreams. Remaining strong in the knowledge that good things will come if I actively work for what I want instead of waiting for a fairy godmother to shepherd me off to the ball isn't always easy, and I fail more days than I succeed, but I'm fighting the good fight. I encourage you all to do the same; it's how we'll change the world.

Day #5

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I've had the great good fortune of visiting many of the cities I dreamed about as a child - London, Paris, New York, New Orleans, Boston - and each city in its own way appeared to me as a dream.  In New York, the sidewalks glittered like gold. The cafes of Paris were every bit as romantic as I had imagined they would be. New Orleans' French Quarter, with its cobblestone streets and neon lights, simultaneously concealed and revealed itself like a first-timer at Mardi Gras.  


I'm still very much a city girl at heart, but the one place I long to visit leaves the modern city behind and is less a destination than a journey.  When I was coming of age, Paulo Coehlo's The Pilgrimage made a huge impact on me and since then I've had a dream of walking the Camino de Santiago through France and Spain. Oliver Schroer, an incredible Canadian fiddle player with an equally incredible story also walked the path, and released a CD of recordings he made along the Camino that is the closest thing to God I've ever heard. Though I don't identify with any religion, instead considering myself an agnostic interested in the possibility of a higher power, the idea of spending three weeks on an ancient road with nothing but what fits in a backpack is irresistible to me. These images no doubt add to the mystique of the trip.

I don't have any current plans to walk the Camino de Santiago, but it's definitely on my bucket list. Maybe it sounds strange for an avowed agnostic to say, but I feel as though I'll make it there when I'm meant to make it there, that the details will take care of themselves. I have no doubt that one day I'll find myself on a dusty road in rural Spain, look around and think to myself, 'how did I get here?' 

Ira Glass on Beginners

I love this quote from Ira Glass, host & producer of This American Life and all 'round awesome dude. Today's Trust30 prompt seemed like a good excuse to post it. 


"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through." 

Day #4

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Day #3

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Swimming around in ideas is one of my favourite pastimes, and as such, I'm a big fan of intellectual sparring. I like to disagree, test my beliefs, and maybe even learn something in the process.   I think Plato's dialectic is fascinating, and though it may not result in the discovery of any ultimate truth as the Ancient philosophers held it would, it never fails to improve the minds of those who engage. I often have dialectic conversations with myself, and they haven't made me nuts yet, so the process can't be all bad...


All that's really a preface to say that while most of the people in my life share my views on the "important" things in life - ethics, politics, religion - we often engage in heated verbal battles over the little things. You know: Daniel Cleaver versus Mark Darcy, Pacey versus Dawson, Angel versus Spike. That sort of thing. And while preferring the tall, dark, and broody vampire over the blonde bad boy vampire may not amount to a passionate belief, it certainly makes for interesting water cooler talk.

Movie Review: Somewhere

It's not often that I get incensed by movie reviews, but much of what I've read about Sofia Coppola's Somewhere is missing the film's wider message, and as a result, is selling Coppola's new work short.  Most critics are focusing on Somewhere as a movie about the alienating effect of fame in contemporary culture, and proceeding to judge the film based on their sympathy (or lack thereof) for celebrities. While these reviews aren't exactly wrong, they ignore the fact that behind every celebrity persona exists a person like you or me; they fail to see the Everyman beneath the chosen one.

Somewhere tells the story of Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff, resurrected from career purgatory), Hollywood star bored by luxuries that most of us would kill for. He's not a particularly sympathetic character to begin with, and is made even less so when we see him drowning his sorrows in booze and pills or passing out in the midst of some pretty serious foreplay. But take away the insane privileges of celebrity, and Johnny Marco becomes just another person unhappy with himself and desperately seeking something that will pull him from his depression.  At it's core, Somewhere is a thoughtful meditation on the human condition, something we all share regardless of our material possessions.

Coppola's challenge in Somewhere is to expose how the trappings of fame and celebrity do nothing to elevate someone above self-loathing, depression, and boredom;  she must destroy pre-conceived notions about fame as some golden ticket to happiness. The success of the film depends on this, and it seems that for many critics, Coppola fails; I've read that the pacing of Somewhere is self-indulgent, that audiences are bored by Johnny's boredom, and that the lack of transformation or even resolution at the film's ending belies some fundamental lack in the character of Johnny Marco.  These selfsame criticisms, for this viewer, are what make the film so powerful.  The meandering tempo of the film crushes cultural assumptions about the glamorous, fast-paced life of a celebrity, instead highlighting that time runs the same for all of us, and that we are each responsible to construct our days in such a way as to create meaning. Johnny's boredom, far from boring, reinforces the film's overall message that achieving celebrity isn't a golden ticket.  As for the film's conclusion, I found the lack resolution further cemented the notion that the distinction celebrity and fame afford does nothing to combat the pains of being human.

I've never had pole dancers on call or a swimming pool in my hotel suite, but I have felt disillusioned and bored with my many blessings, dissatisfied with my day-to-day life, and even depressed by my own boredom. Though Stephen Dorff's Johnny Marco and the rest of us are separated by a host of luxuries and life experiences, we are bonded by the fact that we are all caught up in our own lives, unable to appreciate what we have, preferring to strive to attain, obtain and experience more. It's the human condition, and if you can't relate to that, then Tron's playing right down the hall. Maybe you'll find something in common with the Programs on the Grid.

Day #2

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After a fitful night's sleep full of macabre dreams, I awoke to another beautiful day in Toronto and pledged to spend as much time as possible in the fresh spring air.

Day #1

To see today's prompt, see here.

When the writing stops, I'll be gone. I guess that means it's time to say all the important things.

And immediately begin the self-sabotaging thoughts in a faster-than-I-can-type kind of inner monologue: I don't want to sound like a bad commencement speech that will be turned into a Top 40 hit with Vitamin C in the background. Oh boy, will anyone think that's funny? Should I type that? People are going to think I'm a lunatic. Sh*t, I'd better get back on track. But what to write? I mean, if I was going to die in 15 minutes, wouldn't I stop typing and call the people I love? But who to call first? Do you call those that you need to patch things up with, the ones who maybe you took for granted when life seemed endless? Or do you call the people who most comfort you, who might be able to make the last 15...crap, it's down to 11 minutes now...I'd better get back on track. Where to begin?

Well that was a fun stream of consciousness report. Now back to the task at hand.

What's the story that needs to be told if I'm about to die?

I'm just a person, like you. I've had dreams and hopes and fears and doubts. None of that seems to matter now that I'm down to my final minutes of consciousness. In the face of death, I don't find comfort in the philosophy that I've read, because I've never really let it sink in to the core of my being. Playing with ideas in your grey matter is great fun, but unless you're living there's not much point. So I guess what I'd say to whoever might read these final thoughts is that you've got to temper your brain play with actual play. Get out into the world and do things instead of just wishing you were doing things. Eventually, if you're not careful, that wishing will turn into jealously and resentment of those who actually are out there engaging with the world, and that's no fun, folks.

Maybe there's no way to keep final thoughts from being a bit twee-sounding, the kind of words that you might hear at a college graduation. But that doesn't make them less true. I've always had mixed feelings about the inspirational - "dance like no one's watching" is a great idea, but, c'mon, I'd always think...people ARE watching, so how can I pretend they're not? And there goes my grey matter again, think-think-thinking along, like a freight train keeping me from doing.

Do! Explore, feel, LIVE. Stop taking refuge in dark rooms in the afternoons when you should be outside in the world. If you must, think about Plato's allegory of the cave. Are you really happy to remain chained to a chair, watching ideas about the world instead of inserting yourself into things? At the end, I think you'll find that....

No. At the end, if this were really the end, I worry that I'll find that the path to happiness does not lie in an endless stream of movies & books. Sure, they're essential to living a rich life, but other people's works of art are not enough. So perhaps this has been an exercise in waking myself up from routine, comfort and change.

And then the timer goes off, signaling that my time is up. Gee, 15 minutes can result in a whole lot of words on a screen. Time is valuable, friends. Go out there and use it.

Self-Reliance

For an entire year, I've essentally forgotten that this blog existed. Yeah, I remembered creating it and posting something here and there, but for the most part time has gone by and so have I, squandering days and wondering why nothing exciting was happening.


And then along came the ever-inspiring Tricia Huffmann. I'd been a fan of Tricia for a long time - following her on Twitter, reading her blog, attending her online workshops - but this too had become a passive activity. I was no longer working with her words but rather just letting them swim around and dissipate in my brain and yet expecting them to make an impact in my life. When Tricia posted about Project Domino and the Trust Yourself Writing Challenge, I knew this was an opportunity I'd been needing, something small I could commit myself to that would start things moving in my life.

So, as they say, today is the first day of the rest of our lives, folks. I'm going to be writing here daily over the next month, producing whatever comes out of me from prompts I receive in my inbox. Who knows what will come of it? I guess we'll never know until we start...