Those That Were Magic.

The news of my grandmother’s death reached me half a world away, in a small Italian town on the edge of the world. Vernazza, Italy was where I found myself. After having spent my entire childhood struggling to break free of the chains that bound me in my father’s house, I uprooted to the farthest place I could think of. Vernazza is a haven away from the chaos that was my life back home. The message came from my hysterical mother, not a surprise that she was creating a whirlwind of disaster around something that affected other people, and not just herself.

Skylar! Skylar! You must come home, Baba is dead and the whole house is upheaval. Your father is maniacal; he spends all of his time going through her things. He just sits in her room, with old photos in her lap. I can’t possibly cope, Skylar. Come home now! Call me the second you get this. Oh! And bring that piece of man-candy you call a boyfriend. You can’t hide him forever!

I heard her shout at someone as she hung up the phone. Baba had been sick for a long time, we knew it was coming but it didn’t make it sting any less. Everything is always worse when my mother is around. My mother. Our childhood was her play of which she chose to play her part as she saw fit. My father took on the load of the household while my mother was off gallivanting. So often she would return home past midnight, alcohol on her breath. She’d come into my room, sitting beside me while I pretended to sleep. She would brush the hair away from my face and whisper with gin breath that she was sorry she wasn’t a better mother. My sweet father did everything he could to facilitate her dreams. They uprooted to a small town in Eastern Canada, into a house by the ocean so she could work on her novel that never quite got past the first page. I used to hear her scream at him, up late in a never-ending tirade.

I simply can’t work under these conditions, John. You know that! I need space, I need freedom and that fucking kid is eliminating any possibility of me actualizing my dreams!

My Baba came with us wherever we went, of course. She always knew my mother was a train wreck. She used to say to me, “That’s just your mum, Sky. You’ve got to just accept how she is. Some people aren’t capable of carrying all the weight, that’s why we carry it for them. We don’t fault or punish them, you just learn not to expect anything from them.” She’d cook all our meals, clean the house and always make sure we had clean clothes and linens. She taught me how to read my first novel, and spell my first words. “You’ve gotta learn to take care of yourself, Sky,” she used to say to me, “the world is sometimes unfair, and you have to learn to survive.” She taught me that resilience comes in the form of education and that we were fortunate to be provided with many good opportunities and that we would be fools to not take advantage of them. “I worked for 25 cents an hour at the ice cream parlour, Sky. When I got pregnant with your father, I was forced to rely on your Babi for everything. And now look at what a pickle we’re in, chasing after your father cause I can’t manage on my own. You better pray you don’t end up in the same position as me.”

I remember looking up at her while she’d kneed dough, or cook dinner, eyes wide. Back then, she seemed so tall; a matriarch of our family. Visiting when she was sick, I remember she had gotten so frail, so small. Her husband, my Babi, had died when I was a newborn. She spoke fondly of him, remembered him as a gentle, soft soul that wouldn’t hurt a fly.

“That’s not what we saw…” my mother used to whisper to me under her breath, “Baba could rip a strip off of him like no other.”

__

I remember countless nights were spent alone with Baba while Pops worked and Mum was gone. “Baba where’s mum?” I remember asking her, tugging at her pant leg.

“Oh hush now Sky. She’s out.” She scoffed. “You won’t get anywhere good, bein’ soft like that. Your mother is a complicated woman, you might as well not put so much effort into worrying about her.” But I did worry about her. I wanted so much to be like my mother, admiring her endless supply of life. But, as the older I got, the more I realized it seemed exhausting to be her, and the less I wanted to resemble her, in any way. Though my grandmother was a good stand in, teaching me invaluable lessons, I yearned for someone soft to embrace me and teach me about the more humane, the more visceral. So, I worked relentlessly, in a simultaneous effort to both be as far away from the house as possible and to accumulate as much money as I could. From a young age, I worked around our neighbourhood, shovelling walkways and mowing lawns. Baba was of course proud that I was making a living, but it always came back to my studies.

“Baba, I’ve got a 3.8 grade point average, that’s more than most people can say for my age and working full time.” I’d whine exasperated when she’d come down on me.

“Sky, 3.8 isn’t a 4.0 and you’re not going to get a scholarship without a 4.0.” She barked at me. When I become of age to get my first full time job, I was hired as a hostess at a café in town. Every cent I made went into my savings account. Once a month I would treat myself to an ice cream cone. I’d sit by myself at the beach and eat the entire thing, ensuring not to waste anything. Baba’s voice would always echo in the back of my head.

You gonna throw that out? Back in my day it took an entire days labour to buy a loaf of bread, you best be grateful.

I got accepted into the University of Waterloo out of high school. Earning an academic scholarship allowed me to live on campus free of charge for one year. Despite my continual effort at school and at work, I found that I could never do right by Baba. I’d check in with her and life at home once a week. Slowly that faded into once and month and suddenly I’d be lucky to see her on special holidays. Fortunately for me, it was the acceptance into a research position with a university abroad was my ticket out of that life, permanently. I feared that I would ache too much to be with my father, but I knew I must go. Before I left, Baba placed her hands on my shoulders and said, “You better not screw this up. We’re counting on you to make a life for yourself. Lord knows we don’t need any more suckers bottom feeding your fathers income.” Yes Baba. When I told her that I was doing research into the affect social isolation has on the mind, she wanted nothing to do with me. “Why don’t you go into engineering like your father? What kind of a living are you going to make doing that?” The day after I graduated university, I packed up my things and left for Italy.

__

“Babe?” Enzo smiled at me from across the table. I had been sitting there staring at prices for airline tickets, lost in my own head. I glanced up at him. “Have you decided if you’re going to go?” I looked into his dark eyes. They were tilted upward, always looking like he was smiling.

“Well I have to…” I muttered to myself. I scrolled through pages of listings while Enzo cleared the table off. Half filled cups of coffee, plates with crumbs on them. Papers littered the table and the floor. After an hour of arguing with myself, I finally settled on going.

Enzo offered to help pay for the trip, but I wouldn’t let him. Nor would I let him come either. I flew out on the Sunday. I spent Saturday night pacing my living room and biting all my nails off. Did I have everything I needed? Should I stay in a hotel? I imagine mum will probably insist I stay at the house. “Babe you’re panicking.” Enzo chuckled from the couch, looking past me to try and catch a glimpse of the television.

“I haven’t been home in over 7 years, Enzo!” I retorted. “I never call, I only visited the one time and it took everything in me to not run back to the airport 10 minutes after landing there. What will my mother say? Lord knows.” Enzo listened well, as he always did. He’d nod, every time I found myself in an anxious fit. I often wondered where I found such a caring man. Fortunately, sleep finally found me after a heavy sedative.

It was first thing in the morning that Enzo had to drive me to the airport. The drive was quiet; I listened to the breeze and took in my last breath of ocean air. I’d read somewhere that for people who are born by the sea; salt water runs through their veins. Enzo broke the silence, “Just remember Sky, it’s only for a week and then you’ll be back here. I’ll make sure everything is in order for when you come back.” I sighed, relived. I grasped his hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Skylar! Mum shouted at me, drink in hand. I could hear the ice cubes clanking around in her glass. One day! She barked, you’ll be all grown up and you won’t need me anymore. Jesus Christ, Caroline. Baba would mumble from the corner of the room. Get a hold of yourself. Mum barked something at Baba, slurring her words as she continued to talk at me for the next hour. I learned to tune her out.

__

“Ma’am? Ma’am?” I snapped out of my head, the stewardess was leaning over me, “Can I get you a drink, ma’am?”

“Oh yes. Sorry. I’ll have a dark rum and coke please.” I folded my tray table down. The stewardess passed me my drink; a tiny little napkin folded under it. The stewardess waited while I fumbled to get money out of my pocket, my hands were clammy. The man sitting next to me waved me off,

“I’ll take care of her drink, and a scotch on the rocks for me please.”

“Thanks. You really didn’t have to do that.” I stammered, careful not to spill anything on myself while I tried to take a sip.

“Don’t worry about it.” The man said. We clanked our plastic cups together and I drank my drink in one foul swoop. I suddenly felt queasy; it must be so apparent that I’m in emotional upheaval. The rest of the flight was turbulent. Fitting.

I landed 20 minutes later than expected. I knew that if my mother managed to show up, she’d make a fuss about having to stand around for 20 extra minutes. As if the world was constantly doing her a dis service. Surprisingly, she was there, oversized sunglasses on and a ridiculously large sunhat.

“Skylar!” She was waving and elbowing her way to the front of the horde of people. I expressed a weak smile, reflecting my exhaustion, which was completely lost on her. “Skylar, I’m so glad you’re here. It’s been so draining. Your father just mopes around all day, he doesn’t talk at all! I just don’t know how I’m going to manage. We have to go through all her things, and make funeral preparations and it has to be done soon! Where are we supposed to get the money? I mean your father does well for us, but for this?! God Skylar, I don’t know how we got here…” I eventually tuned her out, as I always did. If Baba were here, she’d be telling Mum to shut her trap. They didn’t get along that great when Baba was alive, but they had an understanding. We stood by the luggage carousel, her talking, me staring into the distance.

“Sky? Sky?” she caught on that I wasn’t listening.

“Yes mum?” I replied.

“Are you even listening?” She complained, frown painted on her face.

“Of course.” She continued talking as we made our way out of the airport, through lines of people and into a cab. I smelt the faint smell of body odour and damp clothes. Her complaints flooded the car as we drove home. I stared out the window. The sky was cloudless.

__

When we got into the house, it felt empty, too empty. The warm embrace of my father met me at the door. He breathed out a sigh of relief, “I’m so glad you’re home,” he whispered.

“Me too, Pops. I’m so sorry about Baba.” His eyes were red; lack of sleep. Tears welled in his eyes, he turned away from me and walked toward the kitchen.

“Something to eat?” He hollered from the kitchen. I set my suitcases down by the door and shouted back,

“How about some of Baba’s famous grits?” I found my way to the kitchen and sat down on a stool. I remember the stools being much bigger. He turned to meet my gaze, small smile in the corner of his mouth,

“I don’t think I can make them quite like she can, but I’ll try.”

The key to good grits, Sky, is to make sure you salt your water and you whisk ‘em real good. With all of your force! She passed the whisk to me and held my hand as I stirred as best I could. There you go! She’d beam. You’ll make a great cook one day. There was a time when I was too little to disappoint her.  

We ate in silence, both knowing that everything had already been said. Small exhales found the stillness. With full bellies, pops and I made our way up to Baba’s room. “We’ve gotta clear it out, before the funeral.” We stood in the doorway, scanning over the small space. An entire lifetime, stuffed in the corners and closets of this small room. I found my way to the bed with a box of photos and placed them on the bed next to me. Pops shuffled to the closet, trying to pick out something for her to wear, for eternity. I held a stack of photos in my hands, flipping through images of her life. Weddings, graduations, first grandchildren and then seconds. A hollow grew bigger in my heart.

Sky you need to do something good for yourself, no more of this research, crap.

I put all the photos in one pile, careful to ensure they didn’t get wrecked. We filled garbage bag after garbage bag of donations to the local second hand store. Clothes, trinkets, books and shoes. Every once in a while, I’d come across something I couldn’t bear to give away. Misty eyed I’d look at pops. “Of course you can keep it, love.” I kept all of the items that reminded me of the good parts of Baba. Like her quick wit, her wry sense of humour and her unbelievable cooking. I kept old recipe books, pictures of her smiling while holding me as a baby. How the time slipped away from us all.

Amidst piles of old papers I found textbooks that she had found at the used book stores including a beginner mathematics book and a university geology book.

If I had time to do it all over again, Sky, I would have gone to school. Woulda been a geologist. Funny how life sometimes happens too fast and dreams fade away. Your father was my whole world, but I knew that I would have been capable of great things.

It took us a full day to pack everything up. We hauled bags and boxes downstairs into storage, or into the car. We took a final look at the room, now empty save for a bed and a night table. “Shall I get us a drink?” Pops asked. I nodded. I went over to fluff the pillows, smell them one last time. I picked up the pillow and brought to my face, burrowing into it, a photo fell to the ground out of the pillowcase. I bent over to pick it up. Looking at it, I started laughing hysterically. Tears streamed down my face as I remembered the day of the photo. “What is it?” Pops asked from the doorway, two Tom Collins’ in hand. Baba didn’t drink often, but when she did, a Tom Collins was her favourite. He came to sit next to me on the bed, arm wrapped around my shoulders. I wiped the tears from my face.

“It’s us. Baba and I, at the zoo when I was maybe 6 or 7.” I laughed.

“Looks lovely, but why is it so funny?” He asked as he took a sip of his drink.

“Baba had me convinced that she could make lions roar. For weeks she talked about this gift that she had. I didn’t believe her, of course.”

I’m telling you, Sky. It’s a gift. Passed down from my grandmother, to me. With a flick of the wrist, I can make a lion roar.

No you CAN’T Baba! I don’t believe you. I’d laugh.

Well…you’ll just have to wait and see.

“She had me convinced. So finally, she took me to the zoo to ‘prove it’. I was so excited when the day finally came. I didn’t sleep at all the night before, giddy with anticipation. We made a day of it; we packed a lunch and everything. I had my pink, Mickey Mouse backpack that I loved, remember?”

“Oh yes, I remember. You wouldn’t go anywhere without that thing!” Pops chuckled.

“I know! It was filled with everything I thought I needed. My disposable camera Baba bought me, water, my favourite toy and my note pad. I remember we took a bus there and it was the first time I’d ever been on a bus before. She even gave me the money and let me pay for my own fare. I had this huge grin plastered on my face the entire trip there. When we got there, I was so excited I started running like a maniac in all directions. Baba had to chase after me and tell me I was going the wrong way. We passed monkeys, giraffes and even cheetahs! We finally find our way to the lion enclosure. There were only two lions wandering around, a big male and a smaller female. My eyes were so big, I remember Baba laughing at how my face must have looked. After about 10 minutes of watching them, the bigger lion ended up roaring, and I was 100% convinced that Baba did it. You should have seen my reaction pops! It was like finding out that magic existed. My mouth dropped open and Baba just gave me this look like, ‘told ya so’.” I let out a deep sigh. “I remember thinking, ‘Baba is magic!’ I told all my friends about it at school the next day. None of them believed me, but I knew. I knew Baba was magic. And you know what? Even though I eventually figured it out that she didn’t make the lion roar, I know she was still magic.” I leaned my head on pops shoulder, my tears leaving a dark, circular stain on his shirt.

“She really was, love bug. She really was.”

___

Snapshot Stories

Musings.

So I wandered around in search of myself. New smells, new people. Familiar sights, lost friends. For however long I searched, I still couldn’t put a finger on the ever-elusive void. What was it?

I found things to attach myself to. Yoga, writing, mediation. Something. What could I be good at? I yearned for a common breath, shared with people who seemed to have had it figured out. I screamed into the abyss of questionable existence. Silence.

So aggressively shaped by what I wouldn’t do, wouldn’t participate in. I yield to the experience of yes. Don’t overwhelm yourself, love. Stick to what’s manageable. Baby steps and I promise, it won’t eat you alive.

The Great Unravelling

Religion to me has always been far to eerie for me to be a part of. I’ve never been able to amass the courage to blindly accept or follow the principles set forth by organized religion. Dare I say spirituality has been more so my thing, but even saying that word aloud bring me shivers. It seems almost cult like. Anyway, I understand the need to attribute our existence to something so that we don’t have to swallow meaninglessness in a big world. I understand the need to be a part of something bigger than yourself, to see the whole picture and to feel accounted for in an otherwise lonely world. I understand the basic pillars of religion like: don’t kill your neighbour or covet them. Don’t be mean etc. etc.

But still, among all of this, I still see it as the club that I could never belong to. Moreover, I’ve finally gotten to a point in my life where I don’t look down upon people who ARE a part of the club. I see it as a useful tool in some ways, but I mostly see it as a dangerous power, that ought to be treated carefully. Dare the notion of a omnipotent being land in the hands of someone power hungry, it’s disconcerting.

I just watched the documentary God Loves Uganda, and it left me feeling very hopeless for the current state of affairs happening in Uganda right now. A church based out of Kansas with dangerous dogma and a cult like following has taken to Uganda with their extreme evangelicalism to rid Uganda of homosexuality for good. It is their creed that homosexuality is to blame for the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS in this particular African nation. They’ve convinced local leaders to back their notion that homosexuality should be punishable – and since having aired the documentary, homosexuality is now a lifetime in prison should you get caught engaging any form of homosexuality. How terribly, terribly sad.

Now I know what you’re thinking. This kind of extremism can exist in all cultures and people with certain ideologies. There exist extreme Atheists alongside extreme Muslims. I know. I certainly don’t spend my days lumping them all together in this awful religion cesspool of hatred and anger. But this worries me. This business in Uganda. It is for this reason and so many more that I could never identify with any kind of church, extreme or not. Regardless, I will respect those that choose to be a part of a religion that choose to not confront me with my non beliefs at inappropriate times. I’m trying to eat dinner here okay? Don’t bother me.

Here’s what I do believe in, and let me tell you, it’s terribly warm and fuzzy. I believe that we are an advanced form of a virus, running freely on this beautiful earth. (Okay I was kidding about being warm and fuzzy) I believe in the Gaia Hypothesis. That the earth and all of the creatures that live on it, interact to form a self regulating system. This self regulating system rids itself of pests – like us, in the form of extreme weather and inhospitable habitat. Whew – sounds a little doomsday-ish. I promise I’m not accumulating canned goods and keeping them in my basement…for now.

I just believe that we as people are a part of a much larger system. This system being the ecosystem. I believe there is an availability of goods and resources here to be used AS NEEDED, and with enough regeneration time in-between for the resource to be naturally replenished. I believe that western culture has, mostly gotten it wrong. I believe we’ve been given a beautiful place to sow our roots, create a home and have families. However – the great unravelling (as my grandmother would say), is occurring. We’re headed in a bad direction and we need a fundamental paradigm shift to turn it around.

So believe in a God, or don’t. Whatever you fancy is no matter to me. Just be smart, take only what you need and give back what you can. Find peace wherever available and try not to let yourself become jaded. (Ha! That’s rich coming from me)

On Restlessness

I’m restless. I have been my entire life. On a constant basis, I’m always searching for something bigger, better. Compounding the difficultly of never being fully satisfied, I often struggle to figure out what exactly I’m searching for in my never ending restlessness. Is it a job I’m passionate about? Fame? Happiness? I can never figure it out and it eats away at me. Every. Single. Day.

As a kid we moved around a lot. My mom was a single mother and we often had to jump from place to place by virtue of a new job, lover or just cheaper place. Mom would always make sure that we were comfortable, well fed and happy – all things considered. Looking back in my adulthood, it now seems to me that she was restless in her own right. Never knowing where to dig roots in, or what job to take or even who to settle down with. She is a fiercely independent woman, and despite her constant searching in my youth for whatever it was she needed, she never fully found what she was looking for. Or so my assumption is.

So we moved, a lot. In a way I am grateful – I’m now blessed with a good circle of friends from a great many places, but I mostly just find myself unsettled and feeling like I needed to be on the move. This preverbal feeling still persists in my adulthood – always moving, always changing jobs and prospects. Somehow dreaming and wishing was always more alluring than execution itself. Receiving my freedom at the ripe age of 16 allowed me to escort myself around to wherever I fancied. Still being in high school I couldn’t have gone very far but I relished in a drive through the city, or even along the country side. As soon as I could, I got far far away – as far as possible.

This mentality took me wonderful places. Graduating high school, I immediately moved to the other side of the country in a desperate attempt to get as far away from the suffocation of the small town I grew up in. There I met beautiful people who partied with me, sang with me and taught me how to play the guitar. Despite being in a culturally rich environment, I still struggled with the notion of contentment. Why was I still feeling mostly empty? I flip-flopped through the rest of my first year of university and then promptly dropped out. I went into university with rose-colored glasses on, dreaming of saving the world and falling deep into enriching academia. I quickly decided that I would never become anything with a bachelor of arts. Frustrated and defeated, I threw in the towel and wound back into the place I ran fervently from just 9 months prior.

Square one! I was here so often – for someone who hated starting over I was here far more often than I should be. So I bounced, in-between living at my moms house, and my dads. Back to my moms and then again with my dad. Desperate to free myself from parental control, I made the snap decision to move in with my boyfriend of 3 months in the middle of nowhere. (Northern Canada). He told me that he could get me a job at the local pub, and I could live with him in his – ‘furnished’ – basement suite. I arrive in the dead of winter to the most desolate place I’ve ever been. A town with a population of 700 people, I ended up in the apex of isolation. I trucked on – worked behind the bar for the 5 people that came in on a regular basis. Made microwaved steaks and drank my entire $20 in tips away every night after work. I never saw my boyfriend and frankly, I didn’t care. Eventually, I got restless, as I do. So I left. Not surprisingly, my boyfriend wasn’t at all shocked that I was leaving only 2 months after arriving. I thanked him for putting up with my flakiness and left back to my hometown.

Second snap decision later, I’m living with my spawn of satan ‘best’ friend. Our relationship being years of torridness (Is that a word?) and false promises, why wouldn’t I move in with her? I got a job cleaning houses, which sucked the soul out of me on a daily basis, and continued on my miserable path of no way to get me out of my persistent hole. We rented a shack of a house for $1000 a month. Two bedrooms and what could be just barely passed off as a ‘loft’, we lived there together with our other male friend. When I say shack, I’m not being dramatic, I promise. Exhibit A: in an attempt to set up a dresser in the second bedroom, it promptly fell over due to the extreme slant in our floor. Exhibit B: a party train of ants was constantly walking all over our bathroom floor. Where were they going? They always came from a hole in the wall of the house! In an attempt to make our unhappiness known with the state of the house, we stopped maintaining it (including not mowing the lawn). This was shoved back in our faces by my landlord coming to mow our lawn at 6:30 AM on a saturday! Slowly tensions roused in the house. Jilted lovers and destroyed personal belongings made for a very toxic environment. Time to go, again. Despite having 9 months left on our year lease, we left without warning and I moved back in with my mother in an effort to get as far away from her and her toxicity.

Square one again. The city was too small for the both of us to be in it. Imagining running into her at various points across the city made my stomach turn. So I did the only logical thing there was to do. I moved to another country!

Mexico is where I found myself this time. I responded to an advertisement masquerading around as a legitimate job opportunity, only to be discovered later that I ended up with a timeshare sales job. The company I worked for flew me, and several other recruits, out from a couple major cities in Canada to Cancun, Mexico.  We were offered free housing and food in return for work with a menial promise of commissions on any sales we made. The job turned out to be everything you’d expect it to be. Sleazy, awful and not at all having any morality. I did meet some wonderful people while I was down there. Surprisingly, I met the most genuine, kind hearted people! People that I saw a lot of myself in, running in the hope that they’d eventually run into something. The worst day of my time there happened when I was shadowing a senior employee. We were trying to make a sale to a woman who had just recovered from a bout of malaria and was clearly unwell. If you’ve ever been to a timeshare presentation, you know how it is. High pressure sales tactics are used in the hope that they’ll break you down into committing to a 2 bedroom condo for the rest of your foreseeable future. The man I was shadowing told her that if she didn’t sit through the entire presentation she wasn’t entitled to her gift. Several sales people were brought in to see if they could break her. She ended up storming out, yelling that she has never been treated so poorly. It was such an awful day. I stood outside smoking and crying for the rest of the afternoon. How could I be a part of something that treated people like a pocketbook? That’s the day I knew I had to leave out of principle alone. So I quit, and because I did so amicably, they didn’t offer me a flight home and I was left to my own devices to try and scramble for an air fare.

Square one, for the last time. Feeling lost and sort of empty, I decided to hit the local pub for a little liquid therapy. I called up my ex who I was still friends with to come with me and we headed out on the town. Live music and many beers later I was finally feeling like I could forget about my restlessness for a while in lieu of a good time. Thats when I met my future husband. Full of charm and a smile that lit up the room, I entered into a relationship that I would never regret. He swept me off my feet so fast I didn’t even notice my feet being lift off the ground and into his life. We found ourselves living together very shortly after we met. It was such an organic situation, effortless and easy, I didn’t have the time to over analyze if I was making the right decision or not. Turns out it was the right one.

I ended up with a man who balances me and who understands the most important lesson my restless self  has a hard time learning: be content. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself to be happy all the time. If you can learn to be okay with what you have and where you are, your life will be so effortless. He knows this, and learned it early.

So I swim on. I still struggle against the current of: “there’s something better out there” and “You’re better than what you’re currently doing”. I’ve come a long way in the time that I’ve been in the same house and relationship for the past two years. (It’s a long time for me!) I’ve learned that neutrality is a much better path than overwhelming, unachievable constant happiness. I’ve learned to work at being content, that for me it doesn’t come naturally. Most importantly, I’ve learned that I need to be patient with myself. I will continue to learn to accept the role of the past in shaping the future.

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

I’ll continue to write to liquidate my mind of the ghosts swimming around, fogging my vision of the future. 

Begin: Writing Through the Monotony

So I needed a hobby…

With my days seemingly blurring together, I struggle with the notion of routine and mundanity. Is that a word? (Turns out it is) Daily rides on the train packed with people all looking through the screen of their phones. Coffee here, coffee there. All of my belongings on my back, it occurred to me that my life was pretty heavily set in a daily ritual.

Step 1: Struggle to get out of bed.

Step 2: Maybe take a shower? Nah… Is it obvious how greasy my hair is?

Step 3: Realize I’m out of clean clothes, put on oversized sweater and leggings.

Step 4: Make a smoothie – that’s better than bacon right? Ha!

Step 5: Visit with the husband, hop on the train.

Every morning. The exact same. Weekends are somewhat of a breath of fresh air, what with all the sleep ins and treat breakfasts laden with pork and potatoes. However for the most part, my days consist of managing to struggle through work/school without hitting the preverbal wall, coming home and plugging myself into my television. This ritual ends with watching re-runs of a 90’s sitcom in bed, sleeping pill, sleep.

Monotony turned frustration. Repeat.

My weekly Brain Pickings article landed in my mailbox. Every Sunday it flys in compiled with articles, clever anecdotes and musings from writers everywhere. Complete with reviews of great books, and teachings on how to be alone, Brain Pickings has been a source of peace and solitude in an otherwise turbulent life.

A section titled “Bertrand Russel on the Vital Role of Boredom and “Fruitful Monotony” in the Conquest of Happiness” caught my attention immediately. Discovering great authors that struggled with the same perplexing human dilemmas as myself has always been a relief. In this section of the article, clips of Bertrand’s insight are quoted amidst commentary on his book entitiled: “The Conquest of Happiness“. Bertrand points out how monotony is not only a part of the human experience, but the acceptance of routine and boredom is vital in the pursuit of happiness and wholeness. Bertrand is quoted saying:

“The special kind of boredom from which modern urban populations suffer is intimately bound up with their separation from the life of Earth. It makes life hot and dusty and thirsty, like a pilgrimage in the desert. Among those who are rich enough to choose their way of life, the particular brand of unendurable boredom from which they suffer is due, paradoxical as this may seem, to their fear of boredom. In flying from the fructifying kind of boredom, they fall a prey to the other far worse kind. A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.”

Surrounded by noise and busyness on a day-to-day basis, it never occurred to me to not only stop fighting the monotony, but embrace it as a vital component of a balanced life, and ultimately a content one. The ever elusive state of “happiness”. So here I am, breathing in the monotony and breathing out acceptance. In search of wholeness, I’ve decided to write through the monotony. (Hence the name) I’m going to attempt frequent writings in the hopes that it gives me a good platform for all my thoughts, and within, the ultimate acceptance. 

And hopefully, it does for you too.

–M.H