...but I was alive
Friday, June 25, 2004
This is going to be my last post at this web address. I've moved over to an Ashtanga Yoga collective (how thoroughly yogic!), Ashtangi.net where you can find a whole neighbourhood of Ashtanga blogs (well...soon there will be a whole neighbourhood, for now there's like, a city block), my portion is still called "...but I was alive" and I moved all my archives over as well..that's where you'll find me from now on.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
I'm bored again. Just sitting at home watching High Fidelity. I read the book when I was in Asia (I highly recommend Nick Hornby books to anyone who wants a very funny, but not too heavy read), the movie is nowhere near as good, but that's generally to be expected.
I went to a meeting for my new job on Monday night (the restaurant is supposed to open this weekend) only to find out that the meeting had been cancelled (although for some reason the five of us who showed up hadn't been informed) and rescheduled for last night. I couldn't go last night, because it was my brother's graduation and there was this whole dinner thing that I had to go to, so now I have no idea what's going on with work. I've emailed my boss twice and received no response. I don't have his phone number because he never gave it to us, I don't even know his last name, and the resto doesn't have a phone yet...so I have no way of knowing if/when I'm supposed to work this weekend.
What's nice to know though is that I got a phonecall yesterday when I wasn't home (just got the message today) that a PR firm that I applied to in Montreal called and possibly wants to interview me. This is good for two reasons (1) I would have to go to Montreal for the interview, which is perfect because everyone knows I love Montreal and there are a few people, one in particular, who I wouldn't mind seeing right now. (2) If (and this is a big if) I got the job then I could quit the restaurant and move to Montreal, as it would be a full-time job with a full-time salary and that, being back in Montreal over the summer, would be just about the greatest thing right now.
So, other than that: went to my brother's grad last night, it was nice because all the families were there for dinner and awards and then we left and the kids had a dance. It's so funny to watch kids that age and watch all the social dynamics that are going on and constantly changing. They're trying so hard to be adults but they really are still kids, but they're trying so hard. Tonight we (my family) took out a former employee and her husband for a somewhat belated 'goodbye' dinner. It was a really nice meal, it was great to see her, because we were co-workers for the past four summers and we became quite close, so I was excited to tell her about the new developments in my life and to hear about all her great recent successes.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to do a primary series workshop with Katie and Cheryl, unless of course I have to work, which I would really appreciate knowing at this point! Otherwise my weekend is wide open, because I haven't made any plans assuming that I'm going to be working most of the time..who the hell knows though.
This movie is so bad compared to the book. I'm reading another Nick Hornby book right now called How To Be Good, which I'm quite enjoying, but it's going to have to move over, because I received the new Bill Clinton book in the mail today and Bill takes precedence over everyone (Bill and I are on a first name basis), because I loooooooooove him!
Still happy, head spinning, stomach doing somersaults, heart going pitter-pat...you do the math.
Monday, June 21, 2004
I feel that it's time for a new post, but I actually don't have much to say. Everything's pretty much the same as it was last time I posted. In short, life is delicious and I'm splendidly happy...
I'll let everyone know why in good time.
Sunday, June 20, 2004
Not too much new to report. I'm still in Hamilton, it's still brutally Hamiltonian. I miss Montreal so much. I was reminded of this last night when I was out with a great friend of mine from HSC. We went out for drinks and a chat. I haven't seen her in so long, what with me being in Montreal, she in Toronto, the whole Asia thing and that fact that last summer when I was home I was entirely too busy going to school and trying to remain sane to have any kind of social life at all. It was nice to go out and catch up. The thing that I love most about this friend is that she's always herself, everything else may change, but she stays the same. Her realness is deeply appreciated. Anyhow, we were chatting about mutual friends (i.e. the people we both went to school with from the time we were three until we were 18) and I was somewhat shocked to find out that all the people from high school are all still friends with each other, and, to a great extent, only each other. Now, it's not that I've been purposely excluded from this group in any way, it's just that I graduated high school a year early and then moved to another province, which effectively cut me out of the loop. I did the rest myself. I got a wonderful new group of friends in Montreal and I moved on and assumed everyone else did the same. But they didn't. I don't have a problem with their choices at all, and I hope that they don't with mine (although if they do, I don't care), I just find it strange how our paths which both came from the same place followed such divergent routes. I am so happy where I am now, wouldn't want to go back. I might try and hang out with them this summer, but I kind of wonder why. I moved to a new city, got new friends, had tons of experiences that they aren't aware of, and I feel that to go back would be to erase everything that's happened in the past four years, the progress and the evolution. To them I am the same Andrea that I was when I was ten. I've changed. A lot. Maybe I've become a heartless, jaded city-dweller. At least I'm a happy, heartless, jaded city-dweller. Besides, I can buy beer and wine in my corner store, which is more than the Ontarians can say (irrelevant, but important nonetheless!).
Went to yoga this morning. Katie was teaching again and Cheryl was assisting. It was a nice practice. I was very happy with my backbending today, getting more and more weight in my legs and less in my arms. But my left hamstring is really starting to kill me again. I'm supposed to do a primary series workshop on Thursday, but I might have to cancel, because I think it might require a rest. Today after class and throughout the day pain was radiating from the top of my hamstring up through my left 'buttock' (to be clinical) and into my lower back. Probably not a good thing. I think that the cold, damp weather may have affected it today..it only started bothering me in India when the monsoon started. I'm starting to think about getting something done about it (any suggestions? Rolfing? Deep tissue massage?), because this can't keep happening. Luckily my savasana was peaceful and without any teariness, as I was in a splendid mood, I've been happy and smiley lately on account of...stuff. Time to get back to the subject of my 'stalking' (it's a joke)and the extraordinary thing that is gmail.
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
"Noon comes and turns this campus upside down/I watch the students in this
college town/You would think they're carefree, I have seen their trials/
Frowning into Shakespeare and practicing their smiles/Even underlining
Nabokov/When I am not in love, in love/It happens every day/With their journals in cafes/Looking up at their reflections on the other wall/With every new idea, wondering if they've changed at all/Then they turn away/It happens every day."
--Dar Williams, "It Happens Every Day."
It happened again. It seems that whenever I go to yoga now, since I've been home, it's turned into some strange, emotional experience by the time savasana rolls around. Katie was back teaching her first class since she left for Mysore in the winter, and I was so excited to see her. She made a special introduction to the class, noting that there was someone she had a special Mysore connection with in the class, that being me. We chatted after class, it was nice to have someone here who has also been there. Anyhow, during the opening invocation something hit me, I think it was her intonation. She was using the same intonation that was used in India and it made me smile, made me feel like I was part of something, belonged to a community of crazy yogis with whom I really fit.
Class was good, but my left hamstring is still really bothering me in the prasarita series(A, B, C and D) while in Mysore my head was on the floor in all of them except B, it's now hovering a good 4-6 inches off the ground in all of them, because my hamstring is still too sensitive. Otherwise it was a nice practice that moved at a pretty good pace. My backbends felt good and I got an awesome Sheshadri-esque adjustment in sarvangasana. Then the rest of finishing and savasana,and *bam* the emotional thing happened again. I was just there, on my mat, trying to relax, feeling really very spaced-out (in a wonderful, calm, meditative way)when I started to feel a little teary. What is it that's opened or is in the process of opening that's causing all this? Is it just the realization of my experiences in Asia that's causing so much stuff to come to the surface? So there I was, a touch emotional and I was thinking about everything that's changed in the past year, and not the obvious stuff like graduating and travelling, but the more subtle, personal stuff.
A year ago where was I? Here, at home in Ontario, working full time and going to school 4 nights a week. It was a horrible summer, but I did what I had to do to graduate early. Sure I went to school without a break for 16 months straight, but it was worth it. Where was I emotionally though? I was unsure, kind of unstable. My heart was somewhere, with someone who no longer wanted my affections. I couldn't let go, my grasp couldn't be loosened. Despite the heartache and the years of on-again-off-again instability I was grasping for something, anything, and the thought of nothing was unfathomable and heartbreaking. I was unsure of where my life was heading, scared, nervous, shaking at the thought of sending out law school applications. I got information packages sent from a number of schools, and to this day they're sitting untouched, unopened, because I was too stressed and too worried to even open them.
And now, it's as though I've been visited by a fairy godmother and circumstances and outlooks have been magically changed, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no pumpkins appear at midnight. That person that I couldn't let go of has been set adrift from my heart and my memories. There was a time when I would fantasize about not thinking about him every day, and I had the realization while I was in Mysore that that has come to pass. What happened? Well, I tried once more, valiantly and with all I had to make it work even though I knew it was a stretch and that his heart had slipped away awhile ago, and then I got my heartbroken all over again. Something I should have seem coming, something I did see coming, but chose to ignore...selective intuition. Was it India? Was it Singapore (or rather, stuff that happened in Singapore)? I have no idea, but I do remember driving home to Delhi from the Taj Mahal and realising that I'd let it all go. It must be drifting away on Bali's waves, or sitting lonely on a Singaporean subway car, but wherever it is, it's vanished, and for that I am very thankful, and a little bit wistful. Detachment is tough, but it's good to be without the weight of it on my shoulders. It was with me for four years and finally, at long last I have been liberated, or rather, I liberated myself.
And my future, while certainly still unsure to some degree, at least it no longer causes me to break out in hives or hide from the mail carrier. I came to accept something that I'd known deep down for awhile: while I'd make a good lawyer, I didn't want that life. I want more freedom and a lot more creativity. I want to write. And I will. Just knowing what I want to do has made my life a lot lighter. I'm excited. I'm motivated. I'm happy.
Since I've come home to Canada I've realised that I'm a lot more secure. Anyone who knows me knows that self-esteem has generally not been a problem for me. I'm a pretty confident person with a lot to say and I'm not afraid to say it..sometimes I should probably be more afraid! But only after coming home and living in my normal context for awhile have I noticed that the little insecurities that I carried around with me have vanished (which is not to say that I'm without insecurities). I feel wonderfully secure and content and without worry. I think that a lot of the insecurities must have been tied to some of that baggage that I was carrying around, but now that that's been dealt with I feel renewed. And so tonight in savasana that's where I was: thinking about all that I was, all that I am now, how far I've come and getting emotional with the memories of how painful some of those times were, how proud I am for overcoming them and how somewhere, deep down I am so sad about letting that one person out of my life, because he was in it forever, but so happy, invigorated and grateful to be free.
I realise that this is just a lot of babbling, and somewhat inarticulate, incoherent babbling at that, but it's nice to articulate it in whatever fashion possible, and I like that I now feel secure enough to share these thoughts with the wide world (okay, the five or so people who read this!). It's on days like these that I am so thankful for yoga, for Mysore, for Asia and for my own evolution. Om shanti.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Yay! I got the job! I'll be hostessing at an haute Japanese resto/cocktail lounge that's opening in the heart of my city's bar/resto district. And tonight I have to go for a tasting to try all the items on the menu...poor me!
Obviously it's not a job that I want for the rest of my life, but it's exactly what I was looking for for this summer. It should be a great way to meet and mingle and an outlet for my innate need to work with people. It was so easy.
P.S. What's with the people who show up for job interviews wearing halter tops and shirts with bare midriffs, not to mention the ubiquitous far-too-tight jeans???
Sunday, June 13, 2004
I have a plan. Thank God. I felt like I was going crazy this whole past week. Crazy with confusion, lack of direction and too much yoga in too little time (2 classes in 12 hours...one Tuesday evening an then again Wednesday morning, bad idea!). So I spent the whole week feeling useless and unproductive as I bumped around, staying at home, visiting with my families (2 houses, 4 parents)and reading the classified ads, I was like the caricature of an unemployed person.
Much to my relief I headed up to the cottage on Friday afternoon with my mum and stepdad and was able to chill for the weekend: shopping in a little town nearby on Saturday, sitting on the deck, watching the lake, reading the Globe and Mail and eating fresh Ontario asparagus and strawberries. On Friday night my mum sat me down, told me I needed a plan and proceeded to help me formulate one. Where would I be without her to shove me in the right direction when I'm feeling depressed and being complacent?!? So, the plan is this: spend the summer at home here in Ontario and get a short-term job and hold on to my apartment in Montreal. In September I'll return to Montreal and to my sublime apartment to start finding a real, grown-up job for a year before I head off to the States (fingers crossed) for grad school. It seems so straightforward and simple now, but last week I was so confused that a cohesive plan was far, far away for me.
I've got my C.V. together and I'm starting to plan where I want to work/what I want to do. I'm going tomorrow afternoon to a new high-end resto that's opening and looking for staff, and I'm pretty sure that I'd be a superb hostess, so...maybe that will work out?
Ran into a great friend of mine from high school (and elementary school) today, which was fantastic. I'm looking forward to getting back in touch with my friends here in Ontario. Katie's supposed to be back in town today and will begin teaching classes again this week, which I'm so looking forward to, although I'm not sure that I'll be able to take her seriously anymore after all our crazy antics in Mysore!
Yesterday my photo and a little blurb were in the announcements section of our local daily (not TOO local, still has a circulation of like, 400 000+). My parents put me in there for my graduation, but I wrote the blurb. Now my mum has been telling everyone she sees about it, and canvassing the neighbours to see if she can have their left-over newspapers!
Here's the blurb:
It is with immense pride, and memories of a few tears and much more laughter shared along the way, that we announce Andrea’s graduation with distinction from McGill University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and political science. Andrea plans to take a year off from school before returning to attain her Masters degree in magazine journalism. Congratulations Andrea on the successful early completion of your degree in December and your safe return from your four month journey throughout Southeast Asia and India. May you continue to chase after your dreams and to seek joie de vivre in all that you do.
With love, pride and elation,
Daddy, Gail and Jonathan, Mummy and Bobby.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” –e.e. cummings
I was happy with it, and it was certainly more original than the other "Congratualtions on your graduation, may the future hold great things for you.." run-of-the-mill announcements.
I suppose that that's all I have to say for now.I'm falling back into the whole Ontario routine, slowly getting used to it. It's hard to get used to anything after having been in Asia for four months. I am looking forward to reconnecting with friends though and hopefully making new ones, which is why I'd really like a job working in a resto. After all that time in the pro-shop at the golf course heaven knows that my people skills are well-honed and now I just want a change of scenery. It feels so much better to know where i'm heading, for the next couple months at least. My feet are finally on the ground again, and I'm wearing my new black mary-janes.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Well, I think that it’s finally setting in, the trip and all that it meant and will come to mean, it’s starting to settle, start to make sense, coming together, starting to. Last night I was taking a yoga class at Katie and her Mum’s shala in Burlington (I’m home in Ontario right now visiting my family and trying to figure out the next year…still) and I had a pretty good practice, although my mind seemed to be wandering more than usual, but when it came time for savasana, there I was and for the second time in my short yoga history the whole crying thing hit me. The last time it happened was in Mysore when on a particularly low day, I was sick and couldn’t finish practice and therefore frustrated with my body, I went into the finishing room and sobbed because all I wanted was to be at home with my mum to look after me. Funny, because last night all I could think was that I wanted to be in India, back practicing in Mysore, hanging out with the crowd there who I miss so much more that I can begin to say or even understand myself, hearing Sharath say, “very gooood,” and shopping for glass bangles at Devraja Market and yogic books at Ashok Book Centre
…But I’m back at home, back where I was so desperately longing to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be here, I find myself having newfound appreciation for everything so innately Ontarian, like the endless stretches of green, rolling farmland and the small-town mentality of so many people here who insist that Stephen Harper should be the next PM because he wants to get rid of the gun registry and who say, “India? Why’d you wanna go there?”. I even find myself enjoying the massive shopping centres and power centres that litter the landscape of the GTA. I love how the Canadians (and particularly the Calgarians) have rallied around the Calgary Flames even though they lost the Stanley Cup, everything about it is so damn Canadian and it makes me smile, but I guess I’m starting to see how much the trip has affected me.
So last night I was thinking about Mysore, and thinking about how lucky I am to have been there, how lucky I am to have had the experience throughout Asia that I did and how it’s all over now. It’s like that post-trip depression is setting in. Don’t be alarmed, it’s nothing serious, it’s just that I’m home now, the excitement about my return is over, graduation is over, I’m back in Ontario and it’s all normal again and the thing that I was looking so forward to for the past year and a half, hell, for longer than I can remember, is over. My trip is over, and I don’t know what’s next, and I don’t belong anywhere right now. Before I was always a student, a Hillfield student, a McGill student, then a backpacker and a yogi and now, now what am I ? Unemployed. Unsure. Without a place or a plan. This huge, defining, punctuating trip has ended, school has ended and the path is unclear and I’m fucking scared, I am. I’m confused and I want to be in Montreal, but I like it here, but I need to make money and I feel like I’m wasting time etcetera etcetera etcetera. Okay, in retrospect I can see how all that might bring about a few tears, it’s a time of transition and change and lack of routine, but soon, soon it will all work out, I will have a routine again and things will make sense….
"But some things they stay the same/Like time, there's always time/On my mind/So pass me by, I'll be fine/Just give me time..." --Damien Rice, "Older Chests"
Saturday, June 05, 2004
"These are the days that I've been missing/Give me the taste, give me the joy of summer wine/ These are the days that bring new meaning/ I feel the stillness of the sun and I feel fine/Sometimes when the nights are closing early/I remember you and I start to smile..." --Jamie Cullum, "These are the days"
I've been back for a week, and it's funny how so little time can change so much. I came home to Montreal with every intention of spending the week here and then slaving away packing up my apartment, heading home to Ontario, stashing everything in storage until I could find an apartment/job in Toronto and then moving to the big, bad T dot. Well, it's very easy to make such huge decisions from the other side of the world from which persepctive is totally different, but come home, come back to Montreal in summertime, sit in sidewalk cafes drinking bols of cafe au lait, hang out on friends' back patios laughing, reminiscing and eating waffles, get back to your beautiful apartment with its washer and dryer, dishwasher and pretty flowers scattered all around, and then try to leave. Is not possible madam.
This week I graduated from McGill, got my B.A., my exciting Latin diploma in its exciting mahoghany frame, got to wear the robe and the hood and the mortarboard, so now McGill isn't my excuse to stay in Montreal anymore, and so here I am, trying to find a new excuse to stay here (aside from the obvious: friends, I hate moving etc.). Anyone who knows me at all knows that I've been having a torrid love affair with this city for the past four years, and it seems that we're still in the honeymoon phase. Who can turn down the shopping, 99 cent pizza after drinking, Darby's shala and Fairmount bagels? Who? So, you're asking yourselves, if Andrea is so in love with her city, why did she decide so quickly and easily to move to Toronto while she was away? Well, when you're not actually in Montreal it's easy to believe that you can escape from its clutches, and furthermore, it was an issue of practicality. I need to make money for grad school and there is not much money to be had in Montreal. People keep telling me, "Andrea, follow your heart, do what your instinct tells you." Well, my instinct tells me to stay put, and if my instinct had a bank account with $50 000 in it that would be great, but it doesn't, thus pragmatism. But I was sitting with friends the other day, having fallen right back into the grrove with them, feeling as comfortable as ever, new copper highlights in my hair and thinking, screw pragmatism, what about quality of life? What about fun and joie de vivre?
I walk around this city with a huge grin on my face, smiling at the squeegie kids and the wealthy elderly women from Westmount and the pomp and circumstance of convocation and I think, 'I fit here, this is me, this place makes me happy.' I have the greatest time doing the most mundane tasks, like going grocery shopping, just because I'm doing those mundane tasks in Montreal and there's something in the air here, in the water and now its in my bones and in my heart and I don't want to go, and if I have to it will be with regret and anger and I'll be kicking and screaming and thinking about that first day when I got here and I all I wanted to do was leave, thinking about how far I've come and how I want to continue on that path. When I first moved here I hated it, I wanted nothing more than to go back to Ontario and hide under my sheets, but now, now this is my place, I've built a life here, a home and I'm not quite ready to forfeit it to the powers of money and practicality, why should I start being practical now?!?
