clearbluecup

Yep, I've gone crazy from wool fumes.

When I'm feeling stressed and anxious, I feel like I need to write. It's like a survival mechanism or something. But when I'm coping, happy enough and feelin' fine? You got it, I'm busy enjoying life and less likely to stop and write about it. This phenomenon means that if anyone does inherit my paper journals after I'm dead, they will think I lived a totally miserable life or was just a big complainer. They are filled with page after page of whining and moaning.

So: the good news is that I'm happy. The bad news is that I'm not writing about it and sharing my peaceful existence with you all.

What's got me so happy? It's springtime, for one. The city is shrugging off the cold, damp winter air and we're starting to see the sun from time to time. A street full of cherry trees in full bloom makes me very happy. I've also come to terms with who I am right now, and doing so has really freed up a lot of energy that was being wasted by beating myself up over not being who everyone else thought I should be. Or even who I assumed other people wanted me to be, which is even more inept than bowing to the clearly stated opinions of others. In short: I gave up one of my writing gigs, stopped telling myself that I HAD to have a career in order to be a worthwhile person who had something to give to the world, and generally chilled right out. And you know what? I'm happy! Phew, that wasn't so hard.

So I spend my days hanging out with Bea, talking with her about everything we see and do and showing her how the world works. I get to sleep through the night more and more often, I dye and spin my own yarns, read interesting books and never have to deal with office politics.

I think part of the reason I don't often write about being happy is that I don't want to sound like I'm bragging (and I don't want to jinx it either). There also seems to be some kind of correlation between happiness and my writing ability, with happiness being directly related to sloppy writing and bad grammar, so it sounds like I'm happy but dumb. Yet, despite all that I just had to tell you: I'm happy.

I'd also like to tell you that due to being slammed by comment spam (300+ in the space of a few hours!) I've tweaked the comment settings here and you will now need to be approved by moi before your comment appears on the site. We'll see how it goes, but please - if you're a real person don't hesitate to leave a comment. I love getting feedback from you guys and I'd hate to shut comments down due to spam.

So spring has sprung here in Canada, even in some of the most frozen, buried under heaps of snow parts of Canada like Saskatchewan and Ontario. I'm in Ottawa most of this week, tagging along on Tom's work trip and taking the opportunity to see a bit more of my home country. After my first full day in the city, here are my observations:

Canada really is bilingual! Or at least Ottawa is, much more so than Vancouver. It seems every other person I meet is speaking French, the signs are much more rigorously bilingual, and all the help wanted signs on shops and cafes list bilingualism as a requirement of the job.

I was even shouted at in French today, halfway over the bridge between Gatineau and Ottawa. A very polished looking French-speaking jogger wearing the latest in athletic performance fabrics and a perfect ponytail of blond highlights went past me shouting something I didn't understand and pointing at her ass. Was there something wrong with my ass? Did I sit in something horrible? It turns out my admission ticket for the museum of civilization was sticking out of my pocket a little. In retrospect, I should have known that she was talking about my pocket when she said "poche" and not "derierre", but I have a tendency to realize that I did actually understand something said in French only after the moment has passed.

If Vancouver is a sandal-wearing, long haired games programmer who works from his apartment overlooking the beach two days a week, Ottawa is a razor sharp politician in a perfectly tailored suit. There is a distinct lack of hippie, with a corresponding lack of patchouli and prayer flags. Even the ByWard market, which I was hoping would be a groovy mix of traditional cheap market clothes and lots of fresh fruit and veg vendors is actually a whole lot of gastro pubs and cheap market wares. I guess those sharply dressed businessmen have to go somewhere to unwind.

So far, it's been fun. One of the highlights of the day was the cat shelter behind parliament hill - we went there specifically to see the cats and found a big old raccoon there instead, shoving food into his mouth as fast as he could. Then he turned around and washed his little raccoon hands and face in the water dish.

When I got my first digital camera I took pictures of everything - our armchair, in several different lightings, colour, black and white, and sepia. The view out our back window, in daytime, night time, summer and winter. We have hundreds of pictures of each other and of ourselves together in those days just before we got married and left Canada. These days I dodge the camera and seem to almost pathologically avoid taking pictures. We just got back from a beautiful week-long holiday/work trip and I realized that I took a grand total of about 10 photos. I don't know if Tom took more, but I don't think so. Why did I take hundreds and thousands of photos a few years ago and hardly any now, in these first few years of Bea's life that she really won't remember that well?

I think part of my reluctance to take tons of photos is that it seems to distract me from actually living the life I am in during the moment. When I do take pictures I dally behind Tom and Bea, I have to run and catch up as they continue along the hike. People get annoyed if you've always got a camera in their face... I know I do. But secretly I wish I had more good photos of myself. You know the ones, those creative arty shots that make great avatars and facebook brag photos. So why not bring out the camera and mug for it a bit more? Eh, I just can't be bothered.

Maybe it's just laziness, which is why I feel like I need to get to the bottom of this laissez-faire attitude. It seems that part of the responsibility of being a parent is to document the trajectory from baby to teenager, so that you can hand your kids a fully complete photo album when they leave home. Don't forget who you were, it says. Don't forget the fun things we did, the interesting places we went. Remember the faces of your relatives and friends for years to come. All that is worthwhile, I think.

Worse than not taking pictures is not even writing about our adventures. Sigh. For the record, we had a wonderful time visiting tom's mom. Everyone at the monastery was friendly and sincere. The weather was like a little taste of summer, all balmy sunny days beside the lake with the geese honking every morning and evening. Two baby goats were born first thing on Friday morning, and Beatrice and Tom got to see them an hour after they arrived. The little girl goat had to be kept from her mother so she wouldn't get an illness that her mom was carrying, so she was carried in church and around the house wrapped up in blankets and fed from bottles. We shared the guest house with a very jolly old priest who regaled us with stories from his long and varied life as a music teacher, technical writer, priest and winemaker. Bea slept through the whole return flight, curled up on the seat between us with her little bear held tight and eyes dreaming.

You can see the rest here.