BallyHack

The BallyHack is the name of a small boat owned by my grandparents at thier summer home in Newfoundland. I spent many very happy hours in this little boat. Some of the happiest in my memory.

A Dream:
Last night I dreamt that I was in the Ballyhack again - it was a new and improved version....very shiny. I was in it with my Father and Mother and we were going to take it for a spin. My Father was driving, and I crawled into a space at the front of the boat. The boat started to go and I felt more exhilarated that I've felt in years...pure euphoria. It was a very very bright and beautiful day. I moved to the back of the boat and watched the wake...and relished in each bump the boat took as it ricocheted against the waves. Suddenly, the boat began to lift right off of the water and started flying through the air! It was as if it suddenly became a great bird and took us on the most breathtaking tour of the coast - at times swooping and flying low just above the water, and at times flying almost into the clouds.
It was a beautiful dream.

Louisiana nights

Sitting in my backyard. It's 10:30 pm and it smells just like Baton Rouge. It's that thick moist smell. The air just hanging, dead calm...and it's like I can smell the leaves on the plants....I don't know....but it smells just like Louisiana did at night.
Makes me ache for the deep south. Makes me long for a really long road trip, or plane ride or train ride.

yup - I've got that travel bug....bigtime.

I think I'm just restless after spending a month relaxing in Guelph.

I'm also thinking of my friends....Kate just left on a major Europe adventure, complete with 3 young children, and they are all probably having a picnic in some France countryside right now.
April is in Costa Rica, where she has been for awhile now, but I think of her and wish I were there experiencing the wonder of that place with her - drinking coffee in her new house on the hill. I do miss it. Jacob just came back from months in Africa. Then there are some of my fellow bloggers - Lisa globe trotter extraordinaire - and Esther playing her Ukulele in Korea. I suppose, when I think about it, people I know are periodically scattered all over the globe. I wish sometimes I could scatter myself all over the globe, experience the bounty of beautiful moments that only travelling can bring, and then just come back when I need to. That would be sweeeet.

Then again, maybe it's just restlessness that needs to be patiently dealt with and worked out of me. Who the heck knows?

Anyway - this was a bit of a rambling post. Whatev.

Peace to all near and far.

Narrative

So I know that in an era of twitters, smart phones and whatever else - blogging is slowly fading away into the technological past....but I will not surrender. No sir. Not me:

"I will still use a pen and pencil, I will still write in a journal that is just for my own eyes, I will still play cassette tapes, I will still use an embarrassing email address that I have had since I was 19 (Am I that old?), I will still use a human bank teller occasionally (OK - that one is a lie)....and yes, I will still blog!!!! Thank you, thank you very much."
[Insert crazy applause and moving orchestral arrangement here.]

So...do you ever feel like your life has lost it's narrative....or narrator...or any kind of of plot, sequence, structure, or...umm...point? I've been feeling like this the past few days. This is partly due to the end of 8 months of a nomadic lifestyle and somewhat feverish activity. Some people thrive on this, but all the activity, although much of it truly amazing, has left me feeling exhausted, scattered and without a cohesive "story-line". I am realizing more and more that I am someone who really needs time to process my experiences. Or else it all starts to feel like randomness. Too much randomness and I start to like a dismembered body...all my limbs floating around in search of each other. I struggle to root myself - and fight against it at the same time. I probably just have a bad case of ADHD. Heh heh.

Here's what I've been up to:

• My internship with Jumblies Theatre in Toronto extended until the beginning of June. It was a truly inspiring experience working with so many incredible, talented artists....and so many diverse communities. I learned SO much. It deserves it's own blog posting.

• Spent a week in Ottawa with the folks. Visited Ottawa peeps - great time.

• Came back and spent 2 more weeks in Toronto touring a Community arts play with Arts4All: "It Happened in My Apartment". A musical play based on true stories of people living in a Toronto community Housing building. Complete with beautiful puppets! I was in heaven!

• Came back to Guelph for 4 days and then took off for a week of camping in Bon Echo Park. Survived very close run ins with bears. Very exciting.

• Returned to Toronto to complete a 2 week intensive course for my 'Early Childhood Music Education' Program at the RCM. This course was great, but in a word: 'Intense'.

So I am actually back in Guelph. Sometimes I have forgotten where I live in the midst of everything. The reality is setting in right now as I listen to the cicadas, observe the tomato plants growing and watch the birds chase each other. Life is about to slow down.

Anyway, that's my update. I'll probably have more time to blog over the next little while....I am hoping.

Peace,
-jc

Insecurities = Boo.

Claiming the Sacredness of Our Being....
Are we friends with ourselves? Do we love who we are? These are important questions because we cannot develop good friendships with others unless we have befriended ourselves.

How then do we befriend ourselves? We have to start by acknowledging the truth of ourselves. We are beautiful but also limited, rich but also poor, generous but also worried about our security. Yet beyond all that we are people with souls, sparks of the divine. To acknowledge the truth of ourselves is to claim the sacredness of our being, without fully understanding it. Our deepest being escapes our own mental and emotional grasp.

*************************************

The above quote comes attcha' from Henri. J. Nouwen....source of all wisdom...or at least, a whole lot of it. I post this today as a reminder to myself, mainly because over the last 2 weeks I have had a really difficult time doing just this - that is - "claiming the sacredness of my being". I guess it's normal, but as I have been venturing out of my comfort zone lately into new and relatively uncharted territory in work and life, although inspiring at times, it has also brought out some of my deep insecurities. I have found myself lately thinking things such as "I am so bad at this...I am not as good as so-and-so...why do I even bother...I am so fat...I am so unaccomplished...I haven't done enough in life...what's the point...this is probably just a dumb idea...". The list goes on and on and on and on. There is just a lot of self consciousness happening that is really hindering me in enjoying things. And that bothers me. It's the demon of perfectionism creeping in. AAAAaaarrrg. It sometimes stifles every creative urge that I have. No good.

"Our deepest being escapes our own emotional grasp."
I think this really is the crux of the issue. I am mostly completely out of touch with my essential essence. It's a total mystery to my adult self. The only time I may have been slightly aware of it was as a very young child. And then.."poof"....it's gone.

Speaking of which: Today, as I was preparing for a class drinking a coffee I was observing 2 little girls playing total imagination games with each other. At one point they were playing "Dentist" and the one little who was the dentist girl says to the other "Wow - look at your tooth I just pulled out! So Yellow - you really need to come and see me more often" Then she held up the imaginary tooth for the other little girl to see, and she stared at the invisible thing, and as if it was totally real she exclaims "Wow - I see what you mean. Reeeeally yellow!"

I'm not sure what exactly it was about that exchange, but it made me really wish that I was 4 again and absolutely wrapped up in the moment, and not in my weird little inferiority complex.

Anyway - that is my thought for the day. totally
peace out.
-jc

Do it now

Hi! I'm back in the blogosphere after a very long hiatus. The photo above was taken by a friend of mine....he found it painted on a wall. Anyway, this will be my mantra for the coming year. And I feel that, so far, I have been pretty successful!

News Update: I am currently doing a 4 month internship with an amazing Theatre company in Toronto focused on community arts. The Theatre company is called Jumblies Theatre. It has been a very busy and extremely inspiring 2 months for me. After many years of trying to find truly meaningful work that does not burn me out, suck me dry, or leave me bored and bereft of creativity I feel like I'm finally in a place where the pieces of my somewhat insane life experience actually fit. It is a rather euphoric experience!

In addition to the internship I am also in school for Early Childhood Music Education. Busy times.

For those of you who may be wondering, yes, I am still technically based in Guelph, but I am splitting my time between the big city and the small city right now. This means that I spend a giant chunck of my time on buses or some other form of transit. But it's worth it, and also really nice to be able to escape the mad frantic pace of life in the big T dot. For example, not having to deal with getting through crowds of pedestrains staring at thier iphones is a nice break. Toronto's newest epidemic is the iphone. Arg.

So, this was my somewhat boring news update.
I leave you with the quote that bears repeating:

You don't need TIME
and perfect conditions
Do it now
Do it today
Do it for 20 minutes
And watch
Your heart....Start....Beating.

later skaters,
-Julia