This time last year...

This time last year, as I lay on the couch with the flu, I was days away from making a decision that would drastically change the course of my year. I had a sneaking suspicion that 2011 would be a big year. I willed it to be after 2010. I wasn’t sure what would happen but I knew that I wasn’t going to miss a chance at something big.

I would like to say I followed through with what I learned from last year. I didn’t remember that running was a way to get through stressful and emotional things but I did follow the other ones. Following my bliss, doing what I really should be doing was at the top of my list. As was taking responsibility for my life. Taking risks and being vulnerable to get what I want was essential to getting where I am now.

I said, at the end of last year, that in 2011 I would grow my business and this year I have written more than I thought I would ever do for anything other than school. This year my photograph was published. This year I took a step away from a job I didn’t love any longer and fell into something that has been exactly what I have been looking for.

I said I would learn as much as possible and that I can say I truly achieved. Looking back to where I was at the end of 2010 it is impossible not to compare how much more I know myself and the world around me. It has been exciting to not only learn in my classes but to have my peers and city to teach me as well.

I promised I would have adventure, take risks and reap the rewards. Within 6 months I had quit my job, applied and been accepted into grad school and moved cities. I have thrown myself into as much as I could, often into the deep end, and I am ever grateful for it. I would not be anywhere near where I am now had I not.

I also said I would love. After 2010 and what felt like heart ache for too many months 2011 was a clean slate. I rediscovered a city I love where the winter light is different than the prairies but still golden and beautiful. Not to sound too cheesy but I fell in love with my self again. Those first few months living alone in Calgary I had no option but to remember what it was like not to always have to rely on others for companionship and I learned that often, no matter how much support you get from those around you (and I am VERY grateful for the support I received during those months) at the end of the day it is just you and you have to be ok with who that person is. I also promised myself I would be open to letting people in this year. New and old friends, even romantic relationships should they arise.  I was not always the friend I wanted to be this year but I can say that there were relationships that grew and stabilized  and that speaks volumes about the people I am lucky enough to have in my life.

So 2011, I left a job I thought I never would, made leaps to get into a program I never thought I would love so much. I moved to a new city, had a new roommate, made new friends, reconnected with old ones. I was published, did more math than I thought I would ever do, travelled. Months of 2011 I learned to be creative to fill them and still feel productive, other months I worked harder than I thought I could and realized how much stuff is the ‘small stuff’ and that sweating it just takes too much energy. In 2011 I came into my own. Got what I wanted. Realized my value and my shortcomings. I truly couldn’t have asked for anything more.

2012 is going to be a good one too. I can sense it. Knowing what I know now makes me understand that I am probably in for some big shocks, some unexpected changes. But 2012, like 2011, I have big plans for you.

This year my writing will be published, I will graduate with the grades I want, I will find a job that inspires me. This year I will pursue physical challenges with excitement. This year I will not pass up opportunities presented to me.

It is with a little sadness that I say good-bye to 2011. I can say with certainty that thus far it was the best year of my life. But as ever I am looking forward to the next steps. So much in my life feels like just the beginning and I am excited to see what comes of it.

With that, Happy New Year to all!

The Distance Between You and Me

I wasn't sure what was missing. Wasn't too sure why I wasn't writing, taking pictures. I chalked it up to being tired, recovering from the semester, getting long over due errands completed. Today I decided to go to the Vancouver Art Gallery instead of walking straight home from down town. It was also instead of going to the gym but we won't discuss that further here. I bought an annual membership when I moved here in the spring and haven't got as much use our of it as I wished. While previous exhibits had been interesting they didn't move me to inspiration. Today what I needed was peace and mystery and that is exactly what I was given.

As I slipped my earphones in and turned up Bon Iver  I wandered through Shore, Forest and Beyond. Art from the West Coast in all its representations. The hall smelled of cedar and each piece was at home against the dark blues and greens of the walls or contrasted against stark white. Walking from mask to mask, painting to painting and lingering over sculptures of whales and totems I was reminded of why I love art. Why I connect to this art in particular and what has been lacking in my life lately. I feel at home among bronze and wood sculptures, feet or inches away from oil and acrylic, surrounded by ink and paper. The works that brought me home have always been the same. My mum took me to a Group of 7 exhibit at the Glenbow when I couldn't have been much older than 10. I fell in love with the clean lines, the bold colours and my startling landscape. The work of Lawren Harris and Emily Carr are particularly important to me and when faced with one of Harris's painting today I was brought nearly to tears. It is the way my mind sees the peaks and lakes around me. Friends of mine had one of their own Emily Carr paintings. It is small, maybe 8x10, subtle in both composition and colour but last Christmas I stood awestruck in front of it for nearly half an hour.

These pieces and the photographs in other parts of the gallery reminded me of why I produce art, even of why I write. They remind me that risk and vulnerability and potentially awkward moments are often necessary for art to be created. At least good art. They also remind me that this is part of who I am. The west coast, the dark wood and tall mountains and deep green grey ocean. They remind me that taking the time to photograph and paint keep my spark. And I need that.

Beyond the beauty of the individual pieces I was also brought into the idea of the whole being greater than just the sum of the parts. Another exhibit is An Autobiography of Our Collection. What was striking to me was what was written on the wall. The words used to describe the exhibit.

" A collection is a group of objects assembled with particular intention. While each object alone has its own history, together the collection suggests narratives far greater than the sum of its parts. Collecting might itself be understood as an activity propelled by the essential human need to tell stories."

I connect with this idea of an essential human need to tell stories. It is what we do in every aspect of our lives and while it can sometimes lead us to get into trouble it is something that resonates with me to my very core. Words are good yes, but visuals, to be able to convey life or love or loss and heartbreak through something that can be understood in any language is truly remarkable.

Times like these

I often have surreal moments when I sit across from my best friend and her son over coffee. The people in my life are there for a reason. Always. The ones that have sharp influence on my life, really help to change and transform me, sometimes only stay for a short while, others who seem to have been around for everything stay. Each are wonderful and important and each are unique. She has been through it all, thick and thin. She has been there for moments of quick turn arounds and drawn out evolutions. At some point we started off in the same place and no matter how different our lives seem we always come back to it. We lead parallel lives on different paths... often at different speeds.

What is surreal about it all is that I look at her and I see a childhood best friend. I see the young woman that i learned how to drive standard with, that I watched Crossroads and ate twizzlers on the couch with when we broke up with high school boyfriends. And boyfriends after that. Nothing has changed except that I also see in her how different her life is than mine in these moments and how, in so many other ways it isn't. How we both wonder what to do with our education. Where will we live? How will we let go of where we came from? I also see how she is truly meant to be a mother and how her son loves her beyond words. He is also four months so he can't really use words, but that's beyond the point. Sometimes I am startled at how far life has brought us from when we used to sit at Starbucks on 17th guessing where we would be in 10 years, who would be the first to marry, where we would work, what we would do. 10 years later and we got most of it wrong. For the better.

Funny enough I was lucky to have dinner with another old friend tonight. One who the ease of familiarity comes back quickly. It was a stark reminder of how much has happened in the last two years. All the people who became the ones that I call when I'm in town or the ones who have drifted out of touch. All the nights out, all the stretchy pants, then when it all changed. It is so mysterious, who stays part of our lives and who doesn't. I have realized how picky I am and maybe it is because I am lazy, likely it is because I crave space and time to myself. I don't necessarily mean to pick the ones I do but perhaps that's the point. Maybe friends are more like family that we think and they pick us, we don't get to chose who comes into our lives and how long they stay. At least not 100%. That being said I am ever grateful for all of them. It is those around me who inspire me and teach me. The ones far away and the ones just down the street.

Not quite a white Christmas

Christmas and the holidays can be a hectic time. It is easy to get caught up in material things with intentions as pure as gold. We want to provide joy to others, brighten their day, ensure they don't feel left out. For me it is easy to try to be 'fair' to those around me. Not having one gift out shine the others, adding often unnecessary additions just to make up for another 'really awesome' gift I got someone else. This Christmas has been different. Where I used to be able to do all my gift shopping on the night of the 23rd, thanks to Chip for a generous discount at lululemon, this year things looked different. I am a student, with no income and limited at best savings. Where last year my family got hoodies and stretchy pants this year they received black and white printed photos or the gift of second hand fashion.

As we all sat around our slightly bigger than 600 sq foot condo this morning we came to a realization. Christmas was getting smaller each year and as the number of gifts and the square footage of where we celebrated seem to shrink we enjoyed them more and more. In the cramped quarters we were able to spend a lot of time with each other but it also drove us out to explore our city a little bit today. Walking along English Bay and through the West End we say not only a large sleepy owl not more than 10 feet away but also four or five large bald eagles circling above the beach. It was a wonderful and uniquely perfect day.

I am grateful for what has changed in my life since the Christmas before this one. What seemed important, whether for positive or negative, now seems to matter less. All the things I wished for seem to be happening. AND I got to spend my Christmas just the way I wanted. That is quite a gift!