Newf
Andrew
Sammi
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Vancouver Bike Couriers
These aren't my photos, but they are some of my closest bros. Somebody did a good job.
Newf
Andrew
Sammi
Newf
Andrew
Sammi
Monday, October 19, 2009
A Very Subjective Reading List
I just transferred my whole booklist from my old blog, I'm Up Next, to this one. Item by item, cut and paste, book by book. I started questioning whether it was worth it, and whether I didn't have better things to do. But I need that list. Going through it, I realized that not even a photo album would give me a better chronological account of what I've been up to since 2007. I don't have this cross-referenced or written down. All I have is a list of books; the rest I remember instantly, the way a smell or a song brings back a time.
I was reading Summer Gone, I the Divine, and White Slaves of Maquinna during Sarah's and my Nootka sea kayaking trip. I used the advice from First Things First during the planning of the trip.
Everything from The Success Principles up to Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates was read while living at Lennie's. I'd just been told I would soon be out of a bike courier job, and I was planning what to do next, considering going to Barcelona and couriering there on my EU passport. With The Success Principles I was trying to orchestrate a massive, final vision to achieve for my future.
Then I received a scholarship to take Humber College's Summer Writing Workshop in Toronto, and study under Wayson Choy. I read his book The Jade Peony, and started All That Matters, and then everything from there up to around Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach reflect a concerted effort to read quality fiction and become a serious writer.
Then I was planning and packing, and not going to the library. From A Brief History of Everything to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I was just scrounging books up around the house, from Lennie, Morgan, and Jimmy.
With The Piano Tuner, I was at Mum's place in Victoria before flying to North Carolina before flying to Central America, the destination on which I'd finally decided. I talked her into lending me the book for the flight.
I didn't read much at Dad and Liza's, just The Sea of Trolls. I think Cowboys Are My Weakness was a Christmas present, and I read it in an airport between flights, before I even reached Central America. Left it on the seat for the next person, because I'd forgotten all travellers trade their books for new books. I regretted it later.
I read The Poisonwood Bible, Bel Canto, and Immortality in a hostel in Nicaragua, sick sick sick. I was so sick it was all I could do to walk to the toilet to shit and puke, and make it back to my bed. I was sick for ten days and lost about ten pounds as well.
Then Lisa met up with me in San Juan del Sur, and between surfing and cooking over a bonfire for all our meals, and hanging out with my man Allam, and loving happy hour and real lettuce and blue cheese at Pelican Eyes hotel, and lounging in hammocks, and surfing and surfing and surfing, I read from The Samurai's Garden to The English Patient.
Then Lisa left, and I went alone to a new town, and from P.G. Wode's The Code of the Woosters to The Tipping Point I made my way through Honduras to the river-based border of Guatemala. I read Fight Club in a jungle hostel where we swam in a green green river.
By Thornyhold I was in Tikal, an ancient former kingdom in the highlands of Guatemala, and by East of the Mountains I was Xela's newest resident. I stayed in Xela through Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man, taking Spanish lessons, doing capoeira, and hitching up to hot springs, and then by Ask and It Is Given I was back at Mum's, in transition.
And with Hey, Nostradamus, back at Lennie's, in transition. Scrounging up books while they were out guiding a kayak trip or something. Shortly after, I was in my brand new apartment on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, starting work as a bike courier and reading Susan Trott's books as a kind of comfort food. With Wisdom of the Elders, I began seriously considering applying to graduate school for archaeology and anthropology.
Three Cups of Tea, along with Late Nights On Air, was the start of a short stint in Gabe Barrow's book club. I don't know what my problem was. I kept flaking out and not showing up. I think I felt like a dirty skid, broke and working as a bike courier. Felt out of place at the book club meetings. I read Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters on a curb on Pender Street, hoping my dispatcher would leave me alone for a while so I could finish the chapter, knowing I should really be getting lunch while I was clear of calls.
I think Women Who Run With the Wolves was the book that spurred me on to get out of my broke, admittedly failed and going nowhere existence. I'd tried to apply to the UBC graduate writing program and had been denied. Unless I got accepted to an archaeology program, I had no reason to be there anymore.
But my courier friends got me through. I started hanging out with Dominique a lot, and every weekend we'd take Easy Hikes Around Vancouver with us and get a dose of nature.
Simon gave me To Siberia, Tessa gave me The Earth's Blanket, and Away by Jane Urquhart . . . blew me away. I felt like I could breathe again, and I began applying to B.C. Parks for a position as a ranger. I read A New Earth, that Jason gave me, and things started to happen. By the next book, All My Friends Are Superheroes, I was pretty much packed up and ready to start work as a conservation officer with Alberta Parks. B.C. Parks had had too many cuts, and although I was hired with them, they passed me on to Alberta. Grande Prairie. Northern Alberta -- I didn't care. Anywhere to get out of the cycle of poverty that was living in Vancouver, although I would miss miss miss all my good courier friends.
I read Osprey Island during my last days in Vancouver, a score in a box on someone's front lawn. By Small Ceremonies, I was in Grande Prairie and my new friend Carrie was asking what books I'd taken out of the library. The first thing I did when I got to GP was pay twenty bucks for a library card. And from Creation's Heartbeat all the way through Tears of the Giraffe, I underwent a sea change. I regained a sense of the spiritual, a connection to nature, and a new connection to inner guidance. All this in the heart of redneck Alberta, while tearing around on a quad giving out violation tickets, while 4x4'ing in my F150 work truck, while drinking good whiskey around a campfire with the hottest grizzly bear researcher ever. Books. It was books that did it.
And then I came home to Courtenay. And Serina lent me The Book of Negroes. And Lennie lent me Outliers. And I left it all behind to move here, brand new, to Tofino, and here I am now, hoping against hope that the Raincoast Education Society will hire me for Permanent. Full-Time. Work. Work where I can just say, this is my purpose and this is my town. Here I am, here is my job, a job where I can do good things and make a real difference and work in a field I love protecting an area I love, this is where I live and I am Not. Moving. Again.
So I write this in my brand new little cabin just across the street from Chesterman's Beach, where people come from all over the world to surf. I'm finally in my own place again, in the mist and rain and fog, with the waves to listen to crashing at night, surrounded right now by boxes of kitchen gear yet to be unpacked, still sighing over the perfectness of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, hoping to call this home.
I was reading Summer Gone, I the Divine, and White Slaves of Maquinna during Sarah's and my Nootka sea kayaking trip. I used the advice from First Things First during the planning of the trip.
Everything from The Success Principles up to Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates was read while living at Lennie's. I'd just been told I would soon be out of a bike courier job, and I was planning what to do next, considering going to Barcelona and couriering there on my EU passport. With The Success Principles I was trying to orchestrate a massive, final vision to achieve for my future.
Then I received a scholarship to take Humber College's Summer Writing Workshop in Toronto, and study under Wayson Choy. I read his book The Jade Peony, and started All That Matters, and then everything from there up to around Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach reflect a concerted effort to read quality fiction and become a serious writer.
Then I was planning and packing, and not going to the library. From A Brief History of Everything to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I was just scrounging books up around the house, from Lennie, Morgan, and Jimmy.
With The Piano Tuner, I was at Mum's place in Victoria before flying to North Carolina before flying to Central America, the destination on which I'd finally decided. I talked her into lending me the book for the flight.
I didn't read much at Dad and Liza's, just The Sea of Trolls. I think Cowboys Are My Weakness was a Christmas present, and I read it in an airport between flights, before I even reached Central America. Left it on the seat for the next person, because I'd forgotten all travellers trade their books for new books. I regretted it later.
I read The Poisonwood Bible, Bel Canto, and Immortality in a hostel in Nicaragua, sick sick sick. I was so sick it was all I could do to walk to the toilet to shit and puke, and make it back to my bed. I was sick for ten days and lost about ten pounds as well.
Then Lisa met up with me in San Juan del Sur, and between surfing and cooking over a bonfire for all our meals, and hanging out with my man Allam, and loving happy hour and real lettuce and blue cheese at Pelican Eyes hotel, and lounging in hammocks, and surfing and surfing and surfing, I read from The Samurai's Garden to The English Patient.
Then Lisa left, and I went alone to a new town, and from P.G. Wode's The Code of the Woosters to The Tipping Point I made my way through Honduras to the river-based border of Guatemala. I read Fight Club in a jungle hostel where we swam in a green green river.
By Thornyhold I was in Tikal, an ancient former kingdom in the highlands of Guatemala, and by East of the Mountains I was Xela's newest resident. I stayed in Xela through Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man, taking Spanish lessons, doing capoeira, and hitching up to hot springs, and then by Ask and It Is Given I was back at Mum's, in transition.
And with Hey, Nostradamus, back at Lennie's, in transition. Scrounging up books while they were out guiding a kayak trip or something. Shortly after, I was in my brand new apartment on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, starting work as a bike courier and reading Susan Trott's books as a kind of comfort food. With Wisdom of the Elders, I began seriously considering applying to graduate school for archaeology and anthropology.
Three Cups of Tea, along with Late Nights On Air, was the start of a short stint in Gabe Barrow's book club. I don't know what my problem was. I kept flaking out and not showing up. I think I felt like a dirty skid, broke and working as a bike courier. Felt out of place at the book club meetings. I read Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters on a curb on Pender Street, hoping my dispatcher would leave me alone for a while so I could finish the chapter, knowing I should really be getting lunch while I was clear of calls.
I think Women Who Run With the Wolves was the book that spurred me on to get out of my broke, admittedly failed and going nowhere existence. I'd tried to apply to the UBC graduate writing program and had been denied. Unless I got accepted to an archaeology program, I had no reason to be there anymore.
But my courier friends got me through. I started hanging out with Dominique a lot, and every weekend we'd take Easy Hikes Around Vancouver with us and get a dose of nature.
Simon gave me To Siberia, Tessa gave me The Earth's Blanket, and Away by Jane Urquhart . . . blew me away. I felt like I could breathe again, and I began applying to B.C. Parks for a position as a ranger. I read A New Earth, that Jason gave me, and things started to happen. By the next book, All My Friends Are Superheroes, I was pretty much packed up and ready to start work as a conservation officer with Alberta Parks. B.C. Parks had had too many cuts, and although I was hired with them, they passed me on to Alberta. Grande Prairie. Northern Alberta -- I didn't care. Anywhere to get out of the cycle of poverty that was living in Vancouver, although I would miss miss miss all my good courier friends.
I read Osprey Island during my last days in Vancouver, a score in a box on someone's front lawn. By Small Ceremonies, I was in Grande Prairie and my new friend Carrie was asking what books I'd taken out of the library. The first thing I did when I got to GP was pay twenty bucks for a library card. And from Creation's Heartbeat all the way through Tears of the Giraffe, I underwent a sea change. I regained a sense of the spiritual, a connection to nature, and a new connection to inner guidance. All this in the heart of redneck Alberta, while tearing around on a quad giving out violation tickets, while 4x4'ing in my F150 work truck, while drinking good whiskey around a campfire with the hottest grizzly bear researcher ever. Books. It was books that did it.
And then I came home to Courtenay. And Serina lent me The Book of Negroes. And Lennie lent me Outliers. And I left it all behind to move here, brand new, to Tofino, and here I am now, hoping against hope that the Raincoast Education Society will hire me for Permanent. Full-Time. Work. Work where I can just say, this is my purpose and this is my town. Here I am, here is my job, a job where I can do good things and make a real difference and work in a field I love protecting an area I love, this is where I live and I am Not. Moving. Again.
So I write this in my brand new little cabin just across the street from Chesterman's Beach, where people come from all over the world to surf. I'm finally in my own place again, in the mist and rain and fog, with the waves to listen to crashing at night, surrounded right now by boxes of kitchen gear yet to be unpacked, still sighing over the perfectness of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, hoping to call this home.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
October 1st
It's October 1st today. I'm going to live right, moment and action by moment and action. I'm not going to spend anymore time waiting for it all to come together, and then start living. I have to try my best to live my best life all the time.
Get up at 6:30 every morning, and get 8 hours' sleep.
Work out every day, and stretch.
Write down and interpret my dreams.
Do Tarot.
Drink water.
Eat healthy food.
I know all this. I also want to think about my actions from an environmental viewpoint, and try to have integrity. Make the small extra efforts that make a difference. The thing I'm going to commit to doing now, to make it a habit and then go on to the next thing, is having a shower only after I work out. Not twice a day, etc., and not if I haven't worked out. And baths. For now, I'm going to limit myself to one a week.
I'm going to get and stay organized. Stay on top of email and Facebook, now that that's organized. Go through everything I've got right now and get rid of anything I don't want. It's a good time to do it because a lot of my stuff is packed right now. Have a First Things First kind of list going, and use it. Sort my photos and music.
The last thing is that sense of alive, blossoming creativity, self-expression, sexuality, and potential that's growing in me. Wild. I can be that. A Fool on her journey.
There I am on my journey: living by the wild ocean, letting my hair tangle, wearing big jewellry. Working to protect the earth, and acting with integrity. In Tofino, I become more free. I commit to one place and go deep, and let everyone see who I am because I'll be there forever anyway. I'm right beside the whales and the water. A tattoo of an anchor on the inside of my left wrist. A raven on my chest. Artwork. I create. I play classical guitar. I surf and do yoga. I am me.
Should I commit right now, today, to 3 hours a day of something? I could. It's a lot, but I could. Writing, or drawing, or both. Music practice would count too. And research. It's just three hours for my soul. That would be nice.
Get up at 6:30 every morning, and get 8 hours' sleep.
Work out every day, and stretch.
Write down and interpret my dreams.
Do Tarot.
Drink water.
Eat healthy food.
I know all this. I also want to think about my actions from an environmental viewpoint, and try to have integrity. Make the small extra efforts that make a difference. The thing I'm going to commit to doing now, to make it a habit and then go on to the next thing, is having a shower only after I work out. Not twice a day, etc., and not if I haven't worked out. And baths. For now, I'm going to limit myself to one a week.
I'm going to get and stay organized. Stay on top of email and Facebook, now that that's organized. Go through everything I've got right now and get rid of anything I don't want. It's a good time to do it because a lot of my stuff is packed right now. Have a First Things First kind of list going, and use it. Sort my photos and music.
The last thing is that sense of alive, blossoming creativity, self-expression, sexuality, and potential that's growing in me. Wild. I can be that. A Fool on her journey.
There I am on my journey: living by the wild ocean, letting my hair tangle, wearing big jewellry. Working to protect the earth, and acting with integrity. In Tofino, I become more free. I commit to one place and go deep, and let everyone see who I am because I'll be there forever anyway. I'm right beside the whales and the water. A tattoo of an anchor on the inside of my left wrist. A raven on my chest. Artwork. I create. I play classical guitar. I surf and do yoga. I am me.
Should I commit right now, today, to 3 hours a day of something? I could. It's a lot, but I could. Writing, or drawing, or both. Music practice would count too. And research. It's just three hours for my soul. That would be nice.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Maybe I'll Say Yes
Late-Night Black: My late-night thoughts are black and delicious. I want to let sexuality and creativity roll up to the surface, spill over. I think of getting a tattoo of a raven in flight, across my chest, across my heart and ribs and cleavage. I think of taking a tab . . .
Certain posts, like this one, I'm not going to show everyone. It's like the stars on the girls' nipples at nerve.com -- you need premium to get rid of the stars. All you have to do to get premium at Sea Changes is ask. Maybe I'll say yes.
Certain posts, like this one, I'm not going to show everyone. It's like the stars on the girls' nipples at nerve.com -- you need premium to get rid of the stars. All you have to do to get premium at Sea Changes is ask. Maybe I'll say yes.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Hazelnuts and Blackberry Wine
Tore it up on the trails again today. I went with Serina and Serena. Took a few hills I haven't done yet this season, stuff I've had to walk down other times. And I did a little drop, maybe my first! First real one. My head way down, my back up in the air. A real drop. It felt crazy. I rode a few skinnies, too. Good day. More sunshine, still tanktop weather, and just the girls. We did Two and A Juice to Buggered Pig again, then took Spanker to Tied Knot, a new one we had to walk a lot of, and it spat us out at the gate even though I thought we'd get to go down Mama Bear too on the way out.
Earlier today I was out harvesting hazelnuts, and Roxy came and joined me. It was nice to hang out with her, get to know her a bit better. She picked two weeks' worth of blackberries, she told me, and she's making blackberry wine. She told me Jimmy wants to have Thanksgiving out at their cabin at the Alders. It'll be so perfect. There's a big communal firepit out on the beach, and knowing Jimmy he'll do up oysters and mussels and all that. He's great like that. So probably it'll be Cait and I out in Clayoquot kayaking a few days before Thanksgiving, and then I'll make the drive back to be out here the day of. I love my community. I'm so lucky.
Earlier today I was out harvesting hazelnuts, and Roxy came and joined me. It was nice to hang out with her, get to know her a bit better. She picked two weeks' worth of blackberries, she told me, and she's making blackberry wine. She told me Jimmy wants to have Thanksgiving out at their cabin at the Alders. It'll be so perfect. There's a big communal firepit out on the beach, and knowing Jimmy he'll do up oysters and mussels and all that. He's great like that. So probably it'll be Cait and I out in Clayoquot kayaking a few days before Thanksgiving, and then I'll make the drive back to be out here the day of. I love my community. I'm so lucky.
Seeds On the Wind
Thank you, Spirit, for a warm place to stay here. Thank you for my awesome friends. Thank you for this coastal life that revolves around friends and outdoors and health and good times. I'm very lucky to have stumbled into this. Thank you for a chance at the perfect job in Tofino. Thank you for Carrie, a good friend who will be in Tofino all winter. Thank you for Serina, and our wine-on-the-couch sessions. Thank you for the garden in the backyard. Thank you for Lennie, who I've known for so long now, and Jimmy and Jordan and all the solid guys. Thank you for Sarah and Carolyn and Denise and Serena Rotter and for Bev in Vancouver and Michelle in Revy. Thank you for Mum and Fred and Tess and Eleanore and Margaret and Tim and Gran. And Simon and Becca. And Dad and Liza. Thank you for the line of work I fell into this summer, and for new direction that will give me solidity.
I've got this dandelion, and I'm sending the seeds out on the wind.
I want to live in Tofino, and work for the Raincoast Education Society. I want to be there, right in the fog and firs and rain and surf. I want to surf, and take long walks on winter beaches, and wear toques and gumboots, and ride my single-speed around, and my longboard. I want to hang out in the coffeeshops and bakeries, and go to all the good shows that come through, and be a local for the next Grey Whale Festival. I want to get a sea kayak, and go kayaking all the time in Clayoquot.
I want to put down roots. I want to live in one place, the transient moving over and done with. I really want to grow a garden. Plant garlic this October, and be there to harvest it in August. Plant herbs. Follow the Cortes Island growing guide. I want to have my own cat.
I really want to live in my own little cabin in the woods, near the ocean. No roommates. Just me, and my garden, and the wild. Somewhere for my soul to stretch out. Quiet, and close to Tofino. Easy biking distance. I would write and do artwork and work on this blog. Cook good food and bake bread. This is what I want. To live a solid, down-to-earth life in Tofino. Mixed with the adventure of the ocean.
So I'm sending it out on the wind.
I've got this dandelion, and I'm sending the seeds out on the wind.
I want to live in Tofino, and work for the Raincoast Education Society. I want to be there, right in the fog and firs and rain and surf. I want to surf, and take long walks on winter beaches, and wear toques and gumboots, and ride my single-speed around, and my longboard. I want to hang out in the coffeeshops and bakeries, and go to all the good shows that come through, and be a local for the next Grey Whale Festival. I want to get a sea kayak, and go kayaking all the time in Clayoquot.
I want to put down roots. I want to live in one place, the transient moving over and done with. I really want to grow a garden. Plant garlic this October, and be there to harvest it in August. Plant herbs. Follow the Cortes Island growing guide. I want to have my own cat.
I really want to live in my own little cabin in the woods, near the ocean. No roommates. Just me, and my garden, and the wild. Somewhere for my soul to stretch out. Quiet, and close to Tofino. Easy biking distance. I would write and do artwork and work on this blog. Cook good food and bake bread. This is what I want. To live a solid, down-to-earth life in Tofino. Mixed with the adventure of the ocean.
So I'm sending it out on the wind.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Food for the Off-Season
I love the Moosewood cookbooks. Mollie Katzen is rad. She writes them by hand, and Ten Speed Press lets her illustrate them herself. When I was in Grande Prairie this summer, one of the park interpreters, Sarah, was working her way through the Moosewood Cookbook, cooking every recipe. She would eat one portion, freeze the rest, and have lots of food in the freezer to get her through when she didn't feel like cooking. 'When I get home for the winter,' I thought, 'I'm doing that.' So here I am, cooking the first recipe: Cream of Asparagus Soup.
Last Mountain Bike Ride of the Summer
I just got back from riding the Cumberland trails. I have a whole gang of girlfriends who ride with me, but this time I headed out alone. The leaves are changing but it's still hot and sunny out, and it's a bluebird day. The last remnants of salal and huckleberries are still on the bushes, but the rosehips are coming out. In half an hour, it'll be Autumn.
Vancouver Island's renowned for its mountain biking, and Cumberland's a key area. I got my first full-suspension bike this summer, and I've been loving the difference. Today I went straight up the gravel road to Two and A Juice, connected that with Buggered Pig, and came down Bronco's Perseverance. A nice familiar little loop. Fun on my own, just rode it non-stop as much as I could. I think I'll invite those girls for dinner, though.
Vancouver Island's renowned for its mountain biking, and Cumberland's a key area. I got my first full-suspension bike this summer, and I've been loving the difference. Today I went straight up the gravel road to Two and A Juice, connected that with Buggered Pig, and came down Bronco's Perseverance. A nice familiar little loop. Fun on my own, just rode it non-stop as much as I could. I think I'll invite those girls for dinner, though.
Autumn Equinox
This summer I underwent a sea change. I had plenty of time at Two Lakes to stop and look at mist over the fields, listen to rain, and follow ravens. I got down to soul-level.
Today is the Autumn Equinox, and I'm all about keeping the soul-level close at hand. Rosehips, blackberries, fresh-baked bread, soup from scratch, tall wet grass, spiderwebs outlined in dew, leaves showing through the fog, blue smoke . . . Keep me grounded, Autumn; keep me with you.
Today is the Autumn Equinox, and I'm all about keeping the soul-level close at hand. Rosehips, blackberries, fresh-baked bread, soup from scratch, tall wet grass, spiderwebs outlined in dew, leaves showing through the fog, blue smoke . . . Keep me grounded, Autumn; keep me with you.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Crows Low Lie
Neon trees in a slate blue sky
-- storm coming, storm coming.
Crows in the rowans in the ruins of the kye
-- storm coming, storm coming.
Gather, huddle, ruffle feather,
ride the storming out together;
crows low lie.
-- storm coming, storm coming.
Crows in the rowans in the ruins of the kye
-- storm coming, storm coming.
Gather, huddle, ruffle feather,
ride the storming out together;
crows low lie.
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