Unpopular opinion: Us is one of the most overrated, overhyped movies to date, and the more I think about it, the more I dislike it. (I eagerly anticipate my friend James’s take on this, since he seems to think this film is the best thing since sliced bread [even if Penicillin was also invented the same year, which is *way* better than easier sandwiches.])

I was SO excited for this film. I loved Get Out SO much, and that, I truly feel, was deserving of its universal acclaim. It was a perfect, innovative, intellectual film that brought something new and exciting to the horror genre, and executed it brilliantly. Us? I couldn’t have been more disappointed. I still admire Jordan Peele for his mind. I do. And I appreciated the imagery and metaphors. I just think this movie was a garbled mess of too many ideas that didn’t work together, too many things that weren’t explained properly, and so many plot holes I feel another surge in trypophobia coming on. I feel it needed a focus group after this version to report back to Jordan Peele before he released it. Spoilers ahead, but first, the elements I did appreciate before the stuff that’s driving me crazy.

THINGS I LIKED:

The subtle metaphors: the Thriller t-shirt/werewolf mask/Michael Jackson duality; the literal rabbit hole; rabbit ears/scissors; Incy Wincy Spider (and spiders showing up ahead of the Tethered/the song’s spider that climbs up the spout and gets washed down again); Us/U.S. (Hands Across America, “we’re Americans”); the prison-esque uniforms; the younger kid’s obsession with his pyro trick and his doppelganger’s burns; the acting; the explanation of why ‘Adelaide’ had a speech problem that resulted in her being put into dance to express herself; the name Adelaide itself (it’s pretty!); the term “outernet.” (James may have added it to his dad joke repository.)

THINGS THAT MADE ME HATE IT:

1. Logistics. Where did they get the jumpsuits? And the scissors? Not just any scissors, but beautiful gold pairs for everyone. I want a pair to hang on my wall, but they don’t seem easy enough to come by to be produced in such mass quantities.
2. Why didn’t they just leave the underground? “There weren’t any armed guards or anything.” – James
3. The twist that wasn’t a twist. This one was even more obvious than Jigsaw lying “dead” on the floor at the beginning of the first Saw movie. It’s on the bloody poster, for crying out loud.
4. The government. Why? Why the experiment? Who? When? What for? How? Souls? The explanation for the entire existence of the Tethered was non-existent. And if it was an abandoned government experiment, why were these clones just left to wander about feeding and raising rabbits and terrorizing their counterparts?
5. Why Hands Across America? I get that it was one of her childhood memories. But why make that your entire purpose as a leader? After the closing scene… now what?
6. Was this a commentary about “us” being our own worst enemies? About slavery? About imprisonment and institutionalization? Or about government conspiracies and cloning? PICK ONE, JORDAN.
7. It seemed like it was going the route of the Tethered being the complete opposites of their counterparts, and that the reason our core family were able to survive (because they were good people), while the neighbours, portrayed as uncaring, insecure (I did enjoy doppelgänger Elisabeth Moss’s knife-to-the-face moment echoing the facial nipping and tucking she was so excited about earlier) alcoholics, were not. But nope, let’s introduce a weird government experiment and not explain it AT ALL.
8. The character development. It seems like the characters are pretty sheltered, due in large part to Red’s “childhood trauma”, but they seem completely unphased by what’s happening. They’re not terrified; Gabe is still making dad jokes, and everyone is totally ready for the end of the freaking world like they’ve experienced it all before. They’re even bragging about their “kill count” like they do this on a regular basis. Also, if Adelaide’s sum of formal education ended around the time she was about five, and with no other forms of intelligent life around her her whole life, how was she able to mastermind this entire operation?
9. The scene with the Tethered mirroring the actions of those above the surface. Was that really necessary? All I can think of is them miming showering in the hallways and not getting clean, or walking into walls. Where is the line between crude imitation in real-time, and making your own decisions? And why did they only do this in ONE SCENE?
10. Jeremiah 11:11. This is featured MULTIPLE times. “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.” Aside from being one more reason I’m an atheist, this concept’s relevance isn’t exactly clear, and it’s hard to tell which meaning Jordan Peele wanted to get across.
11. I also hated Adelaide’s monologue. It left me feeling even more confused at this point in the film, and nobody should have to listen to what someone else described as “a lawnmower trying to speak English” for more than thirty seconds at any one time.

I feel like this should have been a TV-length episode of something, and should have picked one plot/story/idea to go with and done it well, rather than a feature-length movie with way too many holes and concepts to even be remotely satisfying.

A similar premise, executed WAY better, was the Doctor Who two-parter The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People with the “’gangers.” Save yourself $11, and watch that one instead.

4/10

“It’s a new year, and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world. So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we’re faking them. And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it’s joy we’re looking for; we can take joy in the act of creation. So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.”

“I hope the world is gentler to us in 2018. And that we do not forget how to be kind.”

Neil Gaiman, one of my favourite authors (and humans in general), has a habit of releasing beautiful thoughts into the world around the time one year expires and makes way for a fresh one. I was reminded of something I’d written a year ago on Facebook recently – I say recently; this post has been growing for months between feedings, calmings, pumpings… – something about the first day of a new year holding such wide open promise, unknown adventures, and with nothing bad in it yet, and it seems an eternity ago. From the first day of 2017 to now, I went on the biggest physical and emotional journey of my life, and now I sit in the small hours of the morning in the warm lights of a Christmas tree with a whole other person in the room. A person I grew and gave to the world and who needs me as much as I need her. I need her. My eyes are sore, dry and tired, my back aches, my breasts are shooting and leaking, and I feel like my body’s been broken for a year, but I can’t possibly describe how worth everything this girl is.

I don’t want to sound like a Parent – you know, the types of people who change their personality after having children and begin to look down on those who don’t, claiming they couldn’t possibly know or understand the type of love that comes along with a baby. I know that every form of love is unique and different and can be felt as deeply as you allow it, but the moment Zaiah was born, I know I surprised myself. That first night, I looked over at her in a cold hospital room, my husband curled up on a small pull-out bed, and remember tears streaming down my face as I felt an overwhelming need to protect this tiny thing and to love her more than anything I’d ever known. Over the years, I thought I’d ventured to the very furthest corners of my heart, but this girl has arrived with a lantern, leading me to chambers and great halls I never knew existed, and emotion poured in like a tsunami.

It’s been three months, and although Zaiah Astrid (pr. “ZAY-ah” – like “Isaiah”) has been the biggest part of our lives for less than a hundred days, it feels as though she’s been here forever. I haven’t had much time to reflect on my birth experience, but today I was gifted a couple of hours to simply sit and write; something I’ve been longing for since her arrival.

She came exactly one week early, the day the very first snowflakes kissed the ground this winter. I remember I’d had a rough night’s sleep, believing she was probably kicking at my cervix or making her way gradually down (not realising this had actually been the start of labour), and had got out of bed close to 7:00 a.m. after reading various Facebook posts about the arrival of the white stuff. I got up to look out of the window and took a photograph of the rooftops starting to be covered in snow, fully believing that would be the most exciting thing to happen that day. Two hours later I was back in bed, when I heard a loud crack in my back and happily announced that for the first time in nine months, my tailbone had finally cracked again. Seconds later, I felt the water. ALL of the water, gushing all over the maternity pillow my poor friend had lent me. “I don’t think this is pee,” I told my husband, half laughing and half panicked. It didn’t stop. I got up to go to the bathroom, where it kept gushing all over the floor, and remember being told to stand in the bath, where it kept pouring. We’d hired a doula for the birth, who’d been wonderful and had told me not to hesitate to phone if we had a question or needed her help. We called, and were told it definitely sounded like my waters had broken, but that labour wasn’t necessarily imminent – until a minute or two later I began feeling what I assumed were contractions. I had no idea what contractions were supposed to feel like; all I knew was that you didn’t go to the hospital until they were four or five minutes apart. Which they were, immediately. The only way I can describe the feeling is ever so eloquently: it felt like having the absolute worst constipation in the world, except your body is forcing you to take the world’s biggest shit at the same time, and it just won’t come out. That’s what contractions feel like.

We decided to go to the hospital – I had a shower and had wanted to eat, but by the time I got a biscuit (Digestives), the contractions were too intense to really even talk through, let alone eat (something I regretted the entire day, as they do not let you have food after this point until after that baby’s out!). James’s cousin Chris drove us, and we met our doula shortly after arriving. I remember going in a wheelchair to a tiny cubicle and putting on a gown, and being told I was already at 6 centimetres. I remember asking for an epidural and hearing my husband and the doula whispering that I might be too far along to have one, and panicking. I remember them saying something about having to do a spinal something or other before I could get an epidural, but that I could still have one. I remember being taken to the room in which I eventually gave birth, and having a series of different nurses come in and tell me how my baby would be here “within the hour,” and learning how to push (like you’re going to take a crap) every time your body went into another contraction. I remember feeling them weirdly in the side of my thigh after I had the drugs. I watched an episode of The X Factor and listened to Chris Moyles while I was given an hour to stop pushing. I learned that there is no longer such thing as modesty.

Eleven hours after my water broke, Zaiah was born. The doctor had been called in after the nurses discovered I was bleeding a fair bit and that they could no longer find her heartbeat, and had attached a monitor to her head while she was still inside. They soon found her signs again, but also that something had happened with the placenta, causing the bleeding, and that they were going to have to get her out now. She’d been in the right position (head down), but had always favoured my right side (so much kicking in the ribs), and apparently she’d remained facing that way through labour, causing her to get stuck in the birth canal for such a long time. I was told that if she didn’t come out on the next contraction, they were going to have to do a Caesarian, at which point (after this many hours) I pushed harder than ever. I saw the scissors as they told me they were going to have to do an episiotomy (the part I’d dreaded most) and felt a pressure, but no pain as they made the cut. I’m not sure if they pulled her out with tools (she had some scabs and still has a scar on her head) or if she just came out, but as she did, I felt such a strange mixture of thoughts and emotions. She was blue, and she wasn’t crying. I knew she was in safe hands. I knew I couldn’t allow myself to panic. I trusted the medical team as they whisked her off to try and get her breathing properly. I cried because my husband cried, and that’s something he doesn’t do. I was so excited about eating. I was terrified of peeing. “Of course that’s what she looks like.” Meeting her face for the first time. Her little patch of hair, only on the back of her head, like Friar Tuck. Staying calm alone with the doula as my husband went with Zaiah to NICU. Guessing her to be over eight pounds, having no idea what eight pounds felt like, and her coming out at 6 lb 4 oz. Hearing the nurses’ confusion as to what to do when a baby lies exactly on the tenth percentile and not on either side of it. Her little pink hat being far too big for her head. Seeing myself be stitched up. Giving up on peeing and getting a catheter. The cold of the room we spent the night in, and the overwhelming, borderline euphoric love that came streaming down my face for my daughter and my husband. Thinking it hilarious the first time I saw my nipple in a pump. Zaiah’s blue steel face. Chicken nuggets and a chocolate milkshake. Remembering feeling I’d rather give birth five times rather than go through nine months of pregnancy ever again. Even if it did yield some pretty awesome photos.

The first week after coming home, I was confined to my bedroom as a result of being far too sore down south to even attempt stairs. It wasn’t a bad place to be, as the tree outside the window was positively bursting with the oranges and reds of autumn. Zaiah was tiny and we were afraid of everything. Passing her to each other, falling asleep and rolling on her, changing nappies… my stitches etc. were too painful to really walk, so James took on absolutely everything. Looking after our newborn and looking after me. Pregnancy had been more than hard on both of us, and I was scared of how we’d be with each other at the beginning of this new chapter, but I cried every day in gratitude and disbelief of how he was rising to the challenge. I’d felt isolated, scared, and entirely alone in pregnancy. I suddenly felt cared for, and safe. Major points to anyone who’ll hold my hand as I sit on the toilet scared to shit, bleeding, crying, and leaking breast milk on their head. Within ten days I was able to go downstairs, had dropped most of the weight due to some severe engorgement and pumping enough milk to feed an army of babies, and ventured outside for the first time. There’s nothing quite like crisp air and autumn sun after being cooped up. The view may have been beautiful and the company amazing, but breathing in the fresh air of the outside world filled me with an energy and a renewed sense of appreciation for living where I do.

At three months, Zaiah is finally over ten pounds, still struggles with sleeping flat on her back, makes all the faces in the world, loves cuddles and hates sleeves. James took six weeks off up until Christmas but is now back at work, but rather than taking night and day shifts and passing each other like ships in the night, we now both attempt to sleep at the same time. For a while, Zaiah was only up once or twice; lately as she’s grown, that’s at least doubled. I think she gets hungry in the night like I do. He changes and feeds, I pump and wash bottles. We collapse and get up again two hours later and do it all over again. It’s immensely hard but I look at her face every time and feel nothing but love.

My breasts and oversupply issues have been the most challenging part of all of this. After two weeks, I developed mastitis. High fever, unable to stop shivering, and with lumps throbbing like the ends of hot pokers, I went to the doctor dressed in five layers and still unable to keep warm. I got some antibiotics but was in no state to do anything, so Zaiah had her first sleepover at fourteen days old and went to my dad’s. The next few weeks were filled with conflicting advice from all sources. Clinics, nurses, doctors, and the internet all told me different things. I’ve been asked several times why I chose to pump exclusively when it’s so time consuming and difficult. Honestly, I was always planning to incorporate pumping into Zaiah’s feeding – I wanted her dad and grandparents to be able to hold her close and feed her as well as me, and I’d heard from others that it was sometimes an absolute nightmare to transition babies to bottles later on, so why not start from the beginning? I tried breastfeeding, but the engorgement meant my breasts had basically doubled in size and were pouring and squirting milk at such velocity that poor Zaiah could not only not get a latch, but couldn’t regulate the flow to manage swallowing without almost choking. She started gnawing at the nipples to the point where they became cracked, cut, scabbed, and I had to discard bottles upon bottles of milk that were red with blood. Breastfeeding at the actual boob wasn’t going to be an option, but pumping still meant she’d get the same product with far less difficulty. I didn’t realise there was such a battle between your wishes, needs, and your body. Pump too much to relieve the extreme excess supply, and your body will make more to replenish the vast amounts being drained. Don’t pump enough, and the milk will back up into the ducts, form lumps, clog them, and make it so painful you can’t even hold your baby close. After fourteen weeks, ultrasounds, antibiotics, various timed pumping strategies, growing somewhat of an extra boob, donating a mass supply to a baby in need and being put onto birth control not for contraception, but for hormonal reduction of milk, I think I am finally starting to normalize. I can go four or five hours without pumping now (which means no longer having to lug a machine around with me everywhere I go, and also not waking up in a white puddle several times a night), and I have a deep freeze of extra which will sustain Zaiah as we get closer to her being able to start solids.

Pregnancy was also an enormous challenge. I had to stop one of my anxiety meds as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and at times I was on the phone in hysterics to my doctor begging for some other way to get through to the end because I couldn’t cope. My initial withdrawal resulted in a trip to the mental health crisis centre and about two weeks of intense sobbing, delusional and fully believing those closest to me were lying to me any time they’d say anything positive and that they all despised having me around. If I received a compliment or a kind word, it was almost as if my brain would say reflexively, no you’re not. They’re lying. None of this is true. I fully believed I was hated and alone, and it did not do good things for my marriage. I also ended up fracturing my foot, having my hips and tailbone subsequently out of place, limping through a summer of photography gigs (coming home crying from the pain at the end of each one), dislocating a couple of ribs, and going on maternity leave ten days early in a fit of tears from the relentless back pain toward the end which prevented me from being in pretty much any position except laying flat down. I did however manage to avoid morning sickness, and only went through a brief phase of being thoroughly nauseated by the smell of barbecued meat or burgers, so that was a bonus, but a year after conception and still not in control of my body, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t possibly do this ever again.

But as much as the inevitable questions of when the “next one” is coming have arisen, I don’t feel pressured to even think about anything of the sort. Right now my role has been handed to me, glowing with certainty. Someone is depending on me to exist. To feel loved. To learn about the world and to be comforted when she’s sad and celebrated at every milestone. To fall in love with the best music (she’s already started music classes for babies), to be sang to, to laugh with, to hear stories and to socialize with. People told me during and after pregnancy that they were surprised I wanted to have a kid, because I was “so creative and ambitious.” My own husband even feels I’ll be longing to find a new job to start before my maternity leave is over because “that’s the sort of person I am.” And I feel, by the rest of the world, entirely misunderstood. When I fall in love with something, whether a new venture I’ve committed myself to, a creative endeavour, a project, a skill… I throw myself at it with everything I have. It becomes a part of me, fuelled by thoughts and desire, ideas and dedication, and I want to make it the very best thing it can possibly be. At the end of it all, I want to look back on what I’ve committed myself to and know I gave it everything I could. I work tirelessly on making my business the best it can be, on improving my skills, and though I have a long way to go, I’m going into year four and each year has been bigger, better, more joyful and more profitable than the last. I did complete an EP, which was a musical journey through battling my anxiety and proving to myself that something my heart longed for was something my brain wasn’t going to stop it from achieving, and though my time right now isn’t exactly prime for recording sessions, it doesn’t mean that in time, I won’t finish laying down another five or six songs and finalizing an entire album. I’m determined. I’m also determined to finish the book I started a few years ago, and have recently been struck once again with immense inspiration. Lengthy hours at a writing desk aren’t in the cards right now, but it doesn’t mean that in time, they won’t be, and that this labour of love will never see the light of day. And now there is my daughter. I’m one hundred percent committed to being the best mother I can be – not just in terms of nurturing and teaching, but in terms of raising an amazing human being that will live on in this world long after I do, whose actions, dreams, thoughts and personality will touch more lives than I could ever imagine. My job is to make sure she’s equipped with love, enthusiasm, a thirst for knowledge, a dedication to kindness, a soft heart and a strong spirit, a passion for creating and a desire to make others’ lives better so that she can be a shining light on an often dark planet. All my creative dreams, socializing, and sleep-filled nights are worth putting on hold temporarily. Without a shadow of a doubt. Because of everything I’ve done or ever will do, she will be my greatest legacy. I love you, Zaiah Astrid.

…with my current name. In eleven days I will be marrying the love of my entire life, the one who has shown me more laughter, deeper feelings, bigger dreams, and magic realities than I ever could have dreamed of. I’ve been a little absent from this corner of the Internet lately, but all for very good reasons!

So I didn’t win the Searchlight contest. I did make the top Manitoba pick in the semi-finals though, and I did however also release the EP!! I needed to do this before 30 was up. From about last November to mid-June, we started with a living room cellphone recording of a song I was going to throw away, to a 5-track record that’s currently in international hands, in local shops, playing on some radio stations, and on iTunes and Spotify (please follow!). I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the outpouring of kindness, encouragement, time, and talent from others, half of whom I didn’t even know existed a year ago. I can’t believe people wanted me to sign it. I can’t believe some things I wrote on a tiny ukulele are now so full of depth and richness and other voices and instruments. I can’t believe it’s real.

How do you do justice to the amount of gratitude you feel when your feelings are so much bigger than the language that exists to describe them? I’m more than thankful. There’s no word for that. So many hours were put into this – not just by me, but by everyone involved – other musicians, my producer, who spent countless hours working not just on the songs but the videos too – oh yeah, there’s a new one of those too – all those involved in mixing, mastering, shooting, being on film, and everyone that came to the launch/birthday party. To have had a dream literally be plucked out of my head and taken safely into the hands of the most incredible team, and then given back even shinier and more magical than I ever could’ve imagined… it’s more than humbling. It’s a gift from the universe.

This video was released the same day as the record, and involved almost two months of filming, several trips to different parks and forests, lots of mosquito bites, singing in the woods to passers-by, stepping repeatedly in deer poo because I love being barefoot and can’t see anything without my glasses on, wood ticks, viking vests, piggy backs, drumsticks made of branches, climbing abandoned houses, and battles against the weather, but I am THRILLED with it and everything was so worth it. This one was directed, filmed and edited by Dave Swiecicki, mastered by Jamie Sitar, colour graded and stylized by Jeff Gordon of JAG Videos and Photography. Huge thanks also to Jason Gordon at Studio 11 for producing along with Dave, Murray Krawchuk, Luke Janzen, Sari Habiluk, Roger Fournier, Paul Little, James Culleton, Jason Gordon, Dale Brown, Rob Watson, Alex Edye, Rahim… and Robert Wilson for the use of his trunk! I hope you like it:

(Click here if you’re getting this via e-mail and the video isn’t showing :))

People seemed to like Polaris a lot, but the response to this one has been equally positive, which takes me by immense surprise considering it was the first song I ever wrote in my life!! It’s definitely come a LONG way (wanna see something terrible?? #progress!!), and it’s all thanks to the magic of what others can hear in something new, unfinished, and awful lol. I did a lyric post for Polaris, and I think it’s really interesting reading the story behind other artists’ lyrics, so I should probably do a quick one for this, too. Polaris was written about a job I quit because I was surrounded by people focused so much on the unimportant trivialities of life and losing sight of the big picture – it’s something I find we do all too easily, getting caught up in fleeting emotions that won’t be remembered a week from now, and I think it’s important to recognise that and ask ourselves, is this worth it? Because the answer is usually no, yet our pride convinces us otherwise.

The Triad and the Harvest Moon, as I mentioned, was the very first song I wrote. I wrote it just to see if I was able to write a song – if you know me, you’ll know that brevity isn’t exactly my forte, and it was a challenge to myself to see if I could tell a story in under four minutes. And somehow it worked! I caught the songwriting bug and I kept going. This was based, three years ago, on a midnight adventure I’d had with my boyfriend at the time. We’d gone for a walk down by the river, and there was this giant orange moon suspended in the sky. I’d like to think it was a harvest supermoon 🙂 We’d stopped to look at it, and from where we were on the path, the branches of a tree formed a triangle that framed it. “Triangle” had too many syllables, however, for my song 🙂 The chorus, about looking “to the stars, a reminder of the place that we call home” is a nod to the star stuff from which we’re all made; interconnectedness with other human souls.

It turned into a “very Manitoba” (as my neighbour said) upbeat folk love song, about new love, secrets adventures, and the beauty of the universe; one I’d like to think anyone in those new stages of excitement can relate to. It’s a happy song, not too entrenched with symbolism this time, but a hand clapper and hopefully a bit of a foot stomper. I hope you like it 🙂 Oh, and there’s a mailing list now! I’d love it if you joined. I promise no spam, only fun, news, events and adventures.

Now? Well, first step, get married, and then straight back to the studio! Three more songs are written, with another three underway, and the goal is to have a full-length album in time for the new year. If I can get a band together (we all recorded our parts separately at different times!), then maybe even some live shows. I’ve learned I can perform (something I never thought I could do) if I’m up there with other musicians, but I still struggle to do so solo. And I think that’s okay. Maybe I’m not meant to perform solo. Maybe I was just supposed to get these songs out into the world. And now they’re out there, floating about, falling into different people’s lives. I’d love to know where they’re being heard. In kitchens, cooking; in cars on the way to an adventure… the world becomes pretty magical when you’ve made something that wasn’t there before. Especially when so much of that magic is thanks to such an incredible team. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who’s shared this journey with me. So much love to you all.

So if you’re a subscriber, you would’ve recently witnessed my “oh… crap” moment in which I hit the blue “Publish” button, which looks an awful lot like the blue “Save Draft” button. Everybody’s hit the wrong button – even the head of Twitter accidentally (and rather embarrassingly) tweeted something meant to be in a private message – so I figured I’d get on actually writing the post those notes were intended to be, stat! It takes me a while to compile a post. I have to have a good chunk of information and thoughts to share before sitting down to share something, and I’ll often spend weeks jotting things down to later revisit – events, stray fragments of opinion or imagination floating around inside my head whose home will eventually be on this page, or articles I’ve read that have given me food for thought. Such was the case when my cursed fingers hit that button today, so hopefully everybody just hit the delete button and didn’t read the part where I called somebody an asshole. #WishfulThinking #StupidBrainWhereAreYourManners

Anyway, enough about cock-ups, and on with the actual piece! Life has continued to be busy and wonderful, filled with good friends, art projects, big strides in music, expanding my photography skills with classes, and lots of love and excitement. J. and I booked an epic trip to Europe for the end of July in which we’ll be jetting off to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Krakow, Warsaw, Paris, and London – all within 16 days! It’s going to be an absolute whirlwind, but I can’t wait to see new friends and old, take in breathtaking sights, learn and be moved by our human history, and watch with glittering eyes vast cathedrals and structures by night. Not only do I get to see some of the things I’ve wanted to my entire life, but I get to see them with the love OF that life. We’ll be spending our half-year as well as the Perseid meteor shower under foreign skies, and it’s going to be nothing short of incredible.

The downside is it has left me thoroughly poor with a hefty chunk of debt to pay off, and short of selling my furniture (seriously, come and take a look at my empty house!) I’m looking for opportunities to earn extra income to get me out of this hole. It’s just money – we have one life, and this is going to be massively up there in terms of memories, joy and experience – and I’ll always make more. But I hate being tied down to this. Need an extra job doing? I can burst into song for you. Make you a costume. Cook you dinner? Take your photograph? Clean your house. I’ve already turned down my dear friends’ suggestions of prostitution and drug lording it up, but any suggestions that don’t involve either of the aforementioned career avenues or online surveys would be more than welcomed. Especially if you’re in the development stages of some new Fringe drug and need test subjects; I’m all for the potential side effect of random super powers.

I’m hoping that in time, photography will be something I might be able to earn from. It’s become such a huge passion – I’ve fallen in love with not just simply capturing images, but creating art – telling stories, and transporting people to magical worlds through whimsical photographs. I want to create more magic. But it’d be nice if it occasionally paid. Over the last couple of months I’ve been developing my skill set in taking classes at our photography school, and I’ve learned a lot. I just started a second class, but with all this new knowledge (and determination) comes the sad realization that I just don’t have the equipment to create things as brilliantly as I want to. I have a camera that cost me $500, two kit lenses, and my MacBook Air, upon which I do all my editing with a tiny screen, no mouse, and a little trackpad. It’s basically finger painting. Now I know things about aperture and ISOs and shutter speeds, I know what I need to be able to create REALLY good images. But these things are expensive as all hell. I did finish my website, and I finally got approved as an Official Registered Business (like a real grown up!) with the province of Manitoba, but I think my next step has to be looking into grants, perhaps? I can’t take on another loan. My friend Jen, who’s created some amazing images with me lately, is currently working on a “downgraded” series after her lens broke and she’s stuck with an old kit lens herself. To show that no matter what your equipment, if you have the drive and imagination you can still create great art. And that’s exactly what I intend to do. I have big dreams for this summer, and every intention of making each one something real. Besides, although being successful financially would be nice, I consider being of value to others more a success than having a healthy bank balance.

Some of Jen‘s amazing work from our shoots

People keep asking me lately how (and why) I do so many things. If you looked at my Google calendar, you’d probably get a bit of a headache. It’s quite impossible for me to entertain the thought of leaving work for the day at 5:00 and going home and not having plans. Sitting on the sofa and watching television? Nope. I can’t do it. I have to be actively socializing (sometimes that entails sitting and watching things, but with company, it’s a shared experience you can bond over), being productive, or creating. There are so many ideas, projects, visions and dreams in my head, and it kills me to think of their existence ending there. They need to pour out into the world and I must be their vessel. It’s not a chore – it’s a continual awareness that a) our time on this earth is finite, and I don’t want to look back and say I wasted a single moment, and b) I already did waste far too much time up until a few years ago, when something catastrophic happened that turned my world upside down and propelled me toward changing absolutely everything from the inside out. Sometimes, I think the universe tries to guide you with whispers and little signs, but our inner monologues can become so loud, we don’t hear it. Then sometimes the universe shouts louder. Shoves consequences to your current actions in your face until you have no choice but to look them square in the eye and ask yourself, is this really who I want to be? My answer was a massive no, and the road has been rocky, but as I’ve mentioned recently, people I’m meeting now describe the person I was as unrecognizable. And that means more to me than I could ever say. I’m not saying I’m done yet. I don’t think any of us are ever finished products. We’re works in progress. Beautiful, half-finished paintings on this canvas of life so vast and ready to be filled with colour and stories and adventures. Empty maps awaiting the paths of our travels. Even if we don’t know where we’re going, we all have the power to shape the way we want to get there, and foster the spirit with which we go. Starve the mental voices that tell us we can’t and feed the ones that fuel our growth as people. Changing our habits can be such a powerful thing.

I’ve been thinking lately about that. The power of choice and control over our own lives. We’re all given the same 24 hours in a day, and we all get to choose what we do with them. I’ve posted the jellybean video before, but it’s worth a re-watch. Look at how much time is spent on sleep, work, chores, running around, commuting. Look how much has already been used up. And look how little is left. How much is already gone? That residual time is yours. You may feel the need to be filling it with obligations to others, to catching up on chores, to responding to e-mails leftover from the day… but none of us are going to look back on our lives and remember all the time we spent fulfilling duties. We’re going to wish we had more spent with our loved ones, or pursuing passions, learning new things, going on adventures. Loving. Listening. Laughing. And guess what? We can all do that right now. It might sound a little morbid to look at your life “from the deathbed”, but the good news is we’re not on our deathbeds. We have the rest of our lives, and we get to choose how we spend that extra time. Fill life with what makes you happy. Fill it with what makes you grow. Fill it with experiences and build memories and blanket forts and go and see things on the other side of the world. Learn people. Truly and deeply, from the inside out. Build bonds that transcend the everyday into something sacred and beautiful. Don’t be afraid to share your heart or tell others how much they mean. They could be gone tomorrow. You don’t have to answer the phone every time it rings or respond to a message the moment it arrives. The world won’t end if you wait until you’re ready. And don’t feel you have to keep people in your life who aren’t contributing to it positively. You get to choose. Choose wisely, and happily. Be a leader.

I’ve thought lots about the idea of leadership lately, too. I’m not sure why – perhaps it was the article I read in Time recently about career choices of all things, or perhaps it was that John Maxwell book I read a few years ago, but I don’t think the term “leader” has to be restricted to positions of authority. Anyone can be a leader, a person of influence. I think a true leader doesn’t stand at the top, barking down orders, telling others what to do. I think a leader is someone you find beside you, who just by being who they are, inspires you to see potential within yourself – but more importantly, inspires an intrinsic motivation to reach it. The ‘traditional’ leader will tell you what to do and you’ll do it because you have to. And it won’t mean a thing, because the choice wasn’t yours. A true leader inspires and encourages, shows interest in you as a person, and sees you for what you can be. That can be the most powerful catalyst in the world in terms of motivation. I wouldn’t have been led so quickly and deeply into this world of photography and making music had I not met J. He has a gift of seeing potential and making you just want to go out there and make it happen. It’s quite remarkable, and something I aspire to – I’ve always wanted to help others, those who are stuck with dreams believing they can’t ever achieve them. I’ve always wanted to show them they can. I think we can all be leaders in this way. By seeing people, and encouraging them. Making them feel they can do anything. I feel extremely lucky, these days.

“It is our duty to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.” So proceed. “The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.” (And isn’t it wonderful, to do impossible things?) And a favourite, from my all-time favourite television programme: “Only one who risks going too far can truly find out how far he can go.” That one was Walter Bishop. A cornucopia of wisdom. 🙂

Life is good. I feel more real, more myself, happier and more confident than I ever have been, and I’m truly happy. I hope with everything that in your world, all is good too.