You Can't Go Home Again

It’s taken me twenty-two years but I think I finally do understand that you cannot go home again. It’s amazing what an impact that one small fact can have on your life ... how much one simple concept, the idea of home, can impact your choices and goals, your dreams for the future and the ones you have at night.

I wonder how much we idealize this concept of home – is it wise, to idolize this place to where you can never return? Not to get too philosophical but I wonder if that’s really what Heaven, Nirvana, The Summerland really is – just home – this perfect little vision of home that we all hold in our hearts and memories.

I haven’t felt like I’ve really had a home for several years now, but when I think about what home means for me, I think of it as a safe place. Some haven, a place to where we can retreat and just be ourselves and feel whatever it is we need to feel.

At twenty-two you can feel like all you are is emptiness and you spend half your time trying to figure out what exactly is in all that nothingness. There’s not being in your ideal career – not knowing what it is you want to do for the rest of your life; there’s not having your own place, or having a partner yet to share your life with; there’s not being pregnant and getting to share all the joy and pain that accompanies that miracle of carrying new life inside of you; and for many twenty-somethings there’s a loss of home.

You have a shelter, maybe you live with your family, you may even live in the same house you grew up in while you figure things out – but it really isn’t the same house at all. It’s not yours anymore and it never will be. Now you need to set out into the world and seek your own place, a place where you can settle down and build a home to call your own. And at twenty-two that seems like quite the daunting task, but I know now there’s comfort in that venture as well.

It’s true, you cannot go home again – but you can create a new home just for you.

Avatar

Words cannot express the glory that is this movie. I just saw it and let me tell you it blew me away. Just spectacular. I was originally going to wait to write this post until I had had time to calm down a bit and sleep away a bit of my excitement but I just can't wait to tell you how great this movie really is. My hands are shaking that's how good the movie is.

Now I know what you're thinking, "yeah yeah, I'm sure it's great but it's in 3D which usually sucks...etc etc."

You HAVE to go see it in 3D! When people talk about how this is a new breed of 3D movie - how this movie will change the face of the cinema in the same way that Talkies did and technicolor they are not lying or even exaggerating. I have never been a fan of 3D movies but I am telling you I was ducking out of the way of things in my seat. I was reaching out to touch things that were between me and the screen.

And what a movie to put into 3D - fantasies were made for this new .. new .. I don't even know what to call it .. new genre of film. It is so hard when you are creating an entirely new world to take people there, to really get them to see it and believe it, and when you're reaching out to touch these new magnificent plants that you've never seen or imagined before - you're there. This movie was like a dream come true for me. All my life I've wanted to experience a new world - when I was a child I wanted to be an explorer and at the very least discover an island never before seen by man. I decided that I wanted to be a fantasy writer so that I could create new worlds and share this passion, this desire that circulates through my very being with other people ... and this movie did that for me. It actually took me to a new world, a beautiful beautiful new world.

Go see it. Go experience it. You won't regret it. Your imagination will thank you.

Life Happens

So I promised to give a life-updating post in the near future and as I can't sleep at the moment (that's what comes of going to bed at 8 o'clock) it would appear that the future is here.

First off, I may have mentioned this once already but graduation did not happen for me. I am a few credits shy of my degree and currently so sick of school and all that "higher education" nonsense that I may never go back. At least it's unlikely I'll be returning to university - college on the other hand seems fairly interesting at the moment. So I'm trying to decide what I would like to take at college - a diploma in publishing would be highly rewarding but fashion design also has its draws (haha - "draws" - get it?). For one thing, I have this bizarre need to make things with my hands - I like to knit, I've dabbled in making pillows, and my latest craze is quilting (I am three quarters done my first patchwork quilt and it is a sight to behold if I do say so myself). There is also the fact that fashion design sort of runs in the family - my maternal grandmother was a dressmaker herself. She died when I was very young and every time I do anything involving sewing I feel connected to her in some small way. So - publishing or fashion design - these are my current educational plans for the future.

And by the way, when I say future I mean future because I am currently also planning a one year back-packing trip across Europe and Asia which will hopefully end in New Zealand. Of course I need to save a lot of money to be able to go on such a long trip so my plan is to work for a year and save and then travel for a year (meaning my collegial plans will not be bearing fruit for at least 2 years). I've only just begun to plan my route but currently I will begin my expedition by taking a plane to Reykjavik Iceland (exploring there for a day or two) and then taking another plane across to Scotland. I then intend to take in my fill of Scotland and England, cross the Chunnel and from there all of Europe awaits, which for my purposes will currently include France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. I plan to take a detour or two through Northern Africa - essentially being Morocco and Egypt. Once all this grandeur has been taken in, if my money will allow I will also see the wonders of Cherapunji India, Australia, and then finally end my journey in New Zealand.

I know it is quite the itinerary but this is my best chance to see the world and I intend to make the most of it. If there is some particular place which you think it is criminal of me to leave out of my plans or you have some expert travel advice please feel free to share your knowledge and opinions.

Now then, on to the next life-changing event/occurrence. Banana #2 and I are no longer together. We had two wonderful years together and I thought we had the rest of our lives to look forward to spending together. In my eyes he was my "grow old with me the best is yet to be" but unfortunately my "best" included children and his did not so we have had to resign ourselves to going our separate ways. I still talk/text with him on occasion but I miss him dearly and all in all I'm feeling very lonely of late. But at least I have plenty of things to occupy my mind with at the present. Once again if you have any thoughts on the sad state of my romantic life please share them with me - my mind is all befuddled with the matter at the moment.

I know there is a lot more going on in my life but at the moment that's all the matters of epic importance that I can remember so consider this update done for now.

Nighty night!

I Do Love A Good Book

This is going to be a really short post, and a longer, life-updating post will be arriving in the near future, but for now I just want to tell the world at large (or at least the few people who read my blog) that there is nothing like a good book to cheer you up.

I just finished reading Post Grad by Emily Cassel and I am slightly ashamed to admit that this is quite possibly the first book I have read cover to cover of my own volition in probably over a year. For quite some time now I've been starting books - maybe even getting half-way into them - and then leaving them on the floor by my bed to collect dust. And it wasn't that they weren't good books - they were great, interesting reads, but for some reason I just couldn't commit long enough. Personally I blame it on school. I remember people telling me how being an English Literature major would take the fun right out of reading (naturally I thought they were insane) but I kind of understand what they were saying now ... although I don't think it's English Literature that's the problem, just university in general. I was so stressed at school and I found that I always felt guilty when I read something for my own pleasure - and now, now I'm free. Beautifully and gloriously free to read whatever I like without even a modicum of guilty feelings! And a book about life not quite going according to plan after graduation was just what I needed (we'll ignore the fact that I didn't actually graduate at the moment).

I'm going to tell you right now that this book was not an amazing piece of literature. It doesn't forge ahead into a new genre, it won't reshape the thought patterns of an entire generation of people, it is purely and simply a fluff piece about life post-university. Things don't start out right but they end right and that's the sort of optimism I want to be hearing right now.

So, feel free to share a story or two of your favourite fluff books and may you all enjoy a warm blanket and a good book just as soon you possibly can!

The Closest Book

I've decided to partake in this new meme going around. I heard about it from Marilyn of The Stair Landing who decided to participate in it.

The rules are as follows:

Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write out the fifth sentence, as well as two to five sentences following.

The closest book to me is called The Dreamstone by C.J. Cherryh and I haven't begun it yet so technically I'll be reading ahead a bit to do this meme. lol. The book is a fantasy and it's from the early 80s so I'm not sure what the quality of writing will be like. Here's the selected passage below:

She brought out food of her own store, a gift of trees and bees and whatsoever things felt no hurt at sharing. She gave him a share, and he took it with a desperate dread and hunger.
"It's good," he pronounced quickly and laughed a little, and finished it all. He licked the very last from his fingers, and now there was relief in his eyes, of hunger, of fear, of so many burdens. He gave great sigh and she smiled a warmer smile than she was wont, remembrance of a brighter world.
"Play for me," she wished him.
He played for her then, idly and softly, heart-healing songs, and slept again, for bright day in Ealdwood counseled sleep, when the sun burned its warmth through the tangled branches and brambles and the air hung still, nothing breathing, least of all the wind.

Anyone else who would like to do this meme just follow the rules and let me know so I can come and check it out on your blog!

Happy Canada Day!

Throughout the ages Canada has meant a lot of things to a great many people. To the "first" explorers it was a new world, to generations of immigrants it has been a chance for a new beginning, to the First Nations people who have been here since the beginning it's home - and it is home for me too.

I've lived in Canada my entire life and I often dream about travelling the world and seeing the wonders of different lands and interesting cultures, but when it gets right down to it Canada is the place for me.

There's so much to love about Canada. The artwork of the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, the poetry and writings of Margaret Atwood, Gwendolyn MacEwen and so many others, the forests and lakes, the call of loons right after a midnight storm. There is something in the landscape of Canada that inhabits Canadians, some invisible golden thread that stretches and follows us as we travel and live our lives, that - no matter where we live, visit or are - that connects us to the land where we originated and causes us to forever think of Canada as home ... at least, that's the case for me.

I know Canada has its problems like any other nation in the world but I love this country with every fibre of my being. So I'll leave you with my favourite poem by my favourite Canadian poet:

Dark Pines Under Water
Gwendolyn MacEwen

This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is now a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.

Hope

It can be pretty depressing graduating in a recession ... it's even more depressing when you learn that you won't be graduating quite on schedule. I've been in quite a funk over the past few weeks and I imagine I'll be floating in and out of that same funk over the next few weeks as well but for the moment I'm actually starting to feel good about the future.

My summer classes are almost over now and I'm getting ready to move out of this horrible student apartment (nothing is ever quite as bad as student housing) - granted I'm moving back in with my Mum for a bit but that won't be forever and it'll be nice to be near family and friends for a bit, not to mention I'll be closer to Banana #2's work - should get me somewhere around 4 extra hours a weekend with him :D But what I'm really starting to get excited about is my upcoming job hunt.

Everybody is telling me to find whatever little job I can and go from there but I'm determined to try and find the best job I can right from the beginning - how can you ever find a good job if you've already settled before you even start looking? So I've set my sights on finding a job in a publishing house and so far I've found some pretty interesting possibilities. Tomorrow and Tuesday I'm going to start doing some informational interviews with a couple of the companies and I might even have found a lead into one of the publishing houses already and better still it's probably the one that I'm most interested in.

We'll see how things go but for now, well, hope floats and I'm up there floating along on top of it!

Wish me luck!!