Bye Lemmy

It shouldn't be a death that resurfaces an interest, but it was.

                Lemmy Kilmister. Lead singer of Motorhead, guitarist, musician is dead. Well not everyone would call him a musician, not when they find out he's from a metal band. Perhaps they know he is from general knowledge.

                I only just knew of him in the last six years? It's strange to say, that I am a metal head. People wouldn't guess it, often commenting that I don't look like one.  It's a strange genre of music, one people often know little or everything about. But I am. It came to be when pop or punk did not suite and Classical just didn't have the thunder I needed when I was younger to hammer the angst out of me.

                For me, I speak of it in the same way someone would a fine whiskey. Most people guzzle it, smashing it back because they know nothing of the burn when they were fifteen and two young to pay money for the good stuff. What starts as a roar of noise to most, can be dissected by an avid lover, to something more. A rich under belly. The notes come apart, creating fine layers, detailed. Often the musicians are as adventurous with their words as they are with instruments. It's not only drums, guitar and base.

                It doesn't work the same way it used, or perhaps I've been so immersed in other genres that different portions of my musical pallet now have fulfillment. Yet I know it like an old friend. When it roars out to you, lifting you above the day, the jabbering and uselessness. Makes you strong, makes you the warrior of their tales. You can be the hero! Don't be afraid, it says, you are strong! You are strong!

                It sits in the base of me, as I listen, the weight of the guitar, chugging. The fine tones of the lyrics, calling to some lost sea god. The much needed middle tones that only come with the balance of both ends. It makes for a audible painting, a rush of emotions, a feeling of somewhere in time and space.

I'm sad about Lemmy's passing. I'm surrounded by this adventurous, historical music, with its classical and blues roots fused together, creating this monolithic structure, often intimidating, but never boring, never empty of things to listen to, for those who dare. And it was because of guys like him. Those who wished for something dark, something sinister, to wash over you and then lift you from its depths to be King of the darkness, listen to some metal.

Keeping Busy

My husband is back in Scotland and I'm finishing up paperwork here. It's a hard thing to be so far from the person you love. So I need to keep busy. I have larger events, just because it's Christmas time and my birthday is on the 22. New year's is coming next and I have my brother and Oma moving places. I need to go to Toronto to renew my passport and there is always my favourite, packing, which I will post on later.

Things to keep myself busy in the mean time make a neat and tidy list.

1.) Exercise. A classic. It's good to feel good about ones body in a time when I'm feeling anxious and lonely.

2.) Read books. Indulging in a good book is a good thing. I have a long list and pile growing daily as my interest have grown and changed over the years. Dragons and wild wilderness and all great tomes of history that wet the eyes for more knowledge.

3.) Less YouTube. My weakest point. I love watching a lets plays or listen to partially offensive podcast, but the numbing effect of the voices, to beat back the longing can often make me unproductive at the same time which leaves me feeling hollow in my time. I read, read as often as I like and feel no shame in words.

http://thelongdark.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_Long_Dark_-_screenshot_05.jpg

4.) Visiting beyond the required days. Hang out with friends out side of places obligation. Dinner? Lunch or a nice day together doing something more than watching the flickering 

5.) Writing. Duh!

A Good Week Away

Dragons, Water and Beetlejuice!

The Witnesses! And my best friend since we were wee blond things at the front!

Surprise!

Writing Contest Result

I didn't win a prize in the final round of that writing contest. I won a hug instead and a pat on the back saying keep going from the man who loves me. Next time.

Disappointed I am, I was striving to make something go that extra mile. An hour a night.

But I'll keep writing instead and leave a few precious quotes bellow that have all ways stirred my fingers.

"You do not get something, simply because you want it." 

"My heart has joined the thousand for my friend stopped running today." -- Watership Down 

"Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything"

Even the Fierce Die --- Bunny

"I'm here to save the world.... Are you ready?"

Death, what do you all know about Death? --- Children of Bodom

Shifting Branches

I had to move some branches. Ye old swing tree at the bottom of my mother and father's garden had given two of it's branches packed lunches before saying good bye and hurling them to the ground.

My brother, lovely and strong as he is, tried to shift them but with out chopping them up. I had to say when I heard it, he mustn't have tried very hard but the next day when I gave it a go, I say shit son, this needs some chopping. So chop I did, or rather saw. With all the muscular strength of a Jane Austen Heroin I spent the majority of the morning cursing foliage before hauling it up the yard. At the same time, praising the genius of the humans who though, "Why don't I make something large and four legged like a horse, cow, caribou, or elephant pull it instead of me. And then after give the helpful friend lots of yummy sandwiches?"

Thus is the tale of me moving branches about fifty feet.

I'm writing again. YAY.

Why Doesn't it fit the way You Do

Why doesn't this fit like you do? I ask Will about my ring. The ring. Well the second. I've been pondering over my ring. Its the thing your "supposed" to get when you get married. How will people know other wise? How will they understand?

I keep running into trouble though.

I got one and it was too loose, too modern and was  a purchase under pressure.

I've just got a new one, ordered online. Its loose, and just feels so big on my finger. Overstated?

Here I am fretting over the most first of first world problems. I'm frustrated by unhappiness over something so stupid. Its then I remember a sad, sorry little ring given to me among a box of junk by a mad old alcoholic, who, perhaps was just looking for a friend. The wee little ring was once white gold, tarnished with age, and at least one of its stones, whether real or fake, was missing from the side. Yet the moment I put it on my finger, I felt it fit like a glove and it didn't matter where the heck it came from. It would have a new start with me.

I carried it across Germany, and into the wilds of Scotland, where the course of my life would change for ever. It saved my bacon once when a polite man asked if I was engaged. I said know and remembered for the first time, in a long time, that men could like me and there was no reason for me to feel ashamed, and no one else to hold me back.

I thought I lost it after that trip. But when I returned a second time, I pulled a box of my things out of the attic, left behind so I could move over a little easier. The jeans needed a awash and when I flung open the warm drier drawers, there was it, gleaming at the bottom of the drum.

I wore it there after, as I always did, on my left hand, until the day I couldn't find it anymore.

Now as I am faced with real wedding issues, I think back on that little ring that gave me such faith and comfort as before and wish these ones fit so well as it.

But its not important. Its only a ring and even if I have to search for the right ring for the rest of my life, a hobby I will most defiantly stick on the very back burner, I don't really care if a rings never found, because its not the ring that's most important in all this. Its the man.

I Still Have Imaginary Friends.

Words from a raving lunatic.

Its a thing, I suppose, that at a young age we're supposed to drop imaginary friends. We're supposed to grow up and get on with life by ourselves.

I didn't. But I passed it off as writing, it is writing, light hearted writing. Hobby writing. I made myself four characters and took them from my early teens, all the way to adult hood.

This doesn't mean I sat in corners as an adult, colouring the black vortex of hell, and whispering haunting quotes to passers by who bravely ventured a look over my shoulder.

It means that in the silent moments on the bus, when I've only got my music, I imagined I had a friend next to me. Not a pink elephant, though there is nothing wrong with that. Just a person. They weren't someone I knew in real life. That would have meant bending to the rules of said real person's personality.

Mind you I did add some supernatural elements, but why not? If my mind is a canvas, why would I limit my imagination to reality?

I've carried these four characters through nearly every event since early high school. On a lonely bus ride to university. On a first day in class when every face was a stranger. Or when life wasn't going right. I pretended to have someone by my side, someone to bounce ideas, or emotions off of. Someone stronger, or even weaker, but someone. They've grown with me too. The stories or scenarios I put them through represent the growing person and the growing woman. They reflected the changing personal landscape of my life and bore many of its worst scars for me, making it easier for me to face the next day.

I think Imaginary friends helped children cope with tough things in life and there's nothing wrong with an adult using the same thing, but in a more adult like context. I don't mean openly asking for advice to an empty (or not empty chair), I mean creating an internal dialogue, and thinking of various scenarios.

Perhaps its the writer in me, but when I get a silent moment, when I'm scared, its nice, as an adult to not feel alone,  to feel for a second like there is someone out there. Its a story, and they are characters, and there is no harm in making me one of those characters.

I'm sure other people deal with things differently.

Perhaps that's what people who have a firm grasp on a religion do.

I'm Dying to Write

I'm dying to write.

It feels like a kettle in my belly. I feel it boiling away, thrashing inside of me. Out it wants out.

But my time has not been my own.

All the echoing voices require my attention and the kettle keeps boiling. I must write. I must point pen to paper. I must lay ink down, press finger tips to keys and make more then the rumblings of my mind. I need to make a story, pressed the walls of my imagination and see what takes form.

If I don't I can become stony with emotional weight, or lash out and burn someone who gets too close. I become uncomfortable and even work can trip and fall over a distracted mind. I can feel it. Its been boiling faster now.

The changes coming, the changes left behind because there was no second to look at them. I feel it boiling inside me.

And the kettle will no longer boil if I can pour it into a cup. It becomes settled, natural, tea.

I need to write. I need to make the words and pages in my mind come alive.

My friends

Sometimes you just miss your friends. I'm back on the same continent as them and I don't feel like I am. I was so rushed around at first and then there were announcements and then there was work. 

Already a month on and I feel l dreamed them.

It been so long since I've been around my is friends. I miss it, or I feel as though I missing out on something.

I would like to slow down. Squeeze me out some time and be among my friends again.

Note to self: Make more time in life.

Got Books?

Pssst! Lady, I got books. Want to see?

Stacks!

We get a day together! Its raining so no books and no wood!

Polish that Pen and Shine them Bells!

I'm cooking Spanish Lentils and with the wood stove on listening to long dark commentary. The morning has a chill on me and I'm not running about the book store like a nutter.

I booked my Ceremony in Toronto City Hall.

I've booked a bank appointment and I've looked into renewing my passport. I might have to apply for a new one, it seems. A name change means I need to apply for a new one. What fun!

In retrospect I should have waited until after I'd renewed my passport to book my flight to Scotland. It might mean I have to cancel. Then rebook of course. I want to spend as much time with Will as I can. It might also mean I have to spend a night in Toronto when I do my passport so it goes through quickly. I understand that the Post/mail is good, but I have some urgency to my plans if my return date is the 20th of January.

Paper work is my favourite! :D

Unrelated. I'm still collecting books to bring back with me. I had a wild list from before. Its very long and I don't think my bag can hold so much. Not unless I want to return naked.

Fun fact! I am less tired, at long last. I realized how emotionally draining my summer has been. The energy I put in this summer compared to the one before was a lot more. There were more emotional problems it seemed, and no reprieve from it. No matter the sleep, I could not recover.

I figured out now that reading is helping me recover in ways that the Long Dark wasn't. Forced upon  a narrative and making an easy emotional investment along with it being one of my favourite pass times seems to be lifting the evening exhaust. I'm becoming me again by doing old habits I'd given up or stopped because the outside influences were taking so much from me. Next time I'll know how to shut off better!,

Also I am looking forwards to winter!

Books and Polishing

Spent a portion of my evening polishing the halter. Encrusted in shit, I spent two to three hours rubbing and scrubbing with leather cleaner until it shone new. Only things left were a few scratches from being on my horse's face.

Also, and un related to horse tack polishing... I'm getting married.

Other than that I've been working at the book store and pondering. I've started reading again and starting to build the momentum towards two books at once. One book will be fiction and the other not. I've finished one whole book, which was something I never seemed to be able to do at the hostel. I was interrupted so much that it felt as though there was no point, so I would just go wolf hunting instead in the Long Dark. Yellow eyed bastards.

Please, let us have your moldy, smoke riddled books. That is the thing we want with our reading, tar smoke. 

Anyway the book was Scarlett Thomas's Our Tragic Universe, It was dense, let me tell you. Not for the light reader. It almost came of pretentious, and yet I enjoyed tthe author bouncing writing ideas off me. I recommend her End of Mr. Y for a Neil Gaimen esque fantasy, or the Tragic Universe for something more philosophical.

Books have weighed on me. There's something different about being surrounded by books. For someone like me who can hoard and collect, a book store is a good place to practice abstinence? I suppose that's the right word. I want to fill my shelves and get that beautiful pagey smell wafting under my noses when I least suspect it. They sooth me.

There is no book store in Fort William. There is. Its a new one. Blech. I like verity. Not a amazonian suggestion. I like looking at a hundred thousand spines and trying to decide which one will hold the pages that spark fresh ideas. The adventure. The various styles and qualities. I have a small history book collection in Canada, but its a good one, built by being meticulous about my history books (and literature for that mater).

I'm going to build a collection over yoder so I'll post the list of what I'm after bellow.
As a note, some of these are not always going to be achievable

- Peter the Great, by Robert Massier
- King Death (nf)
- Salem Possessed
- Guns, Germs and Steel
- Collapse
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holms.
- Horse in the City
- Wolf Moon, Charles De Lint
- The Hobbit
- Dragonbane + Dragonshadow
- Black Beauty
- The Kalevala
- Basket Case
- What is History?
- Call of the Wild/White Fang
- Wolf country (?)
- How the West was Won, Lou Cameron
- A History of Scotland

Post Cards from Europe

I've found some postcards I received a few years ago from a school friend travelling in Europe. During a bleak year in a mindbogglingly boring line of work, letters and postcards were an enormous source of fresh air for me. I wanted to share some of them with you and thank Matt for his cards!

I'd Love an Old Camera

Back on the Farm! And the Coos are oot!

Bye Bye Feet! Hello Books!

There is a joy of being buried in books. All kinds of books. Not just my fancy shmancy liturature. All kinds. One for everyone.

If you've not guessed, I'm back at the book store. I'm immersed in pages.

There are dreary passages of samey romance (Debbie and Fern, I am looking at you) and overwhelming amount of mystery. More than those, there are the collected memories of humanity, honed and sharpened until the produce something magical, something breath catching, something clever, or something for us to learn.

There is always space to learn. There is time to step away from the bite sized portions of information and remember a meal of words. A buffet of story which, when you fially fold your napikin, you feel a sense of achievement in yourself.

Mmmm. Books. No matter where you are in the world, I've never had an angry person come of the book store.

Yes I am back at the book store. I've started a stack too, so next week you'll see what I've got on my radar, what I'll be bringing back with me and what I will want to bring but can't because of foolish weight restrictions.

Ps. If anyone mentions a light weight kindle or anything related to it, I will start punching wildlife.

Week 1 In Canada: Animal Luck

We've been so busy since we landed that I've not had a chance to think of anything to write. There have been so many fresh tomato sandwiches, meeting people, working (farm life of course), and spotting wildlife.


Will and I nearly melted with the heat. The weather has been so dreich that 22 degrees Celsius was roasting. Got a bit of colour when we went canoeing the on Wednesday, which was staggering. No longer are we see through but rather off white. Shar cam with us, resulting in a hilarious exit from the boat. Coupled with her fear of a monstrous snake, which could be excused for being a worm, she kinda started slipping down into the water.

I've got me some photos, of her and das nature.

exit from the boat. Coupled with her fear of a monstrous snake, which could be excused for being a worm, she kinda started slipping down into the water.

I've got me some photos, of her and das nature.

2 Years Bonnie Scotland

After two years of living in Scotland I'm heading back home to Canada. 

Its been an overwhelming experience. Two years can be a long time, though it feels now as though its flown past me. 

When I purchased my ticket in February, 2013 for the  from underneath covers of my bed, with Star Wars VI playing in the background in attempt to lure myself out of a depression, I had little idea where it would led me. 

I knew I was on the right track when I got my visa in the post. That grim photo looking back at me was my lucky ticket to something fresh, invigorating and eye opening in ways I'm still understanding. Its not one of those trips to East Asia or a commune in a remote mountain top. I didn't take part in any meditation, fasts, or par take in an extreme alteration in lifestyle. I ate chips, haggis, climbed a mountain or two and drank more than a toddlers size in cider, perhaps the same in double whiskeys and coke (my drink of choice).

I grew internally, learning to deal with problems on my own, understand when I was being taken advantage of and loving my friends, near and far who were always good to me (and there are too many to name here). 

Moving to another country is something a landmark in my life, as much as University or paying off the debt that went with it, but I did this one with my gut. I've known for a long time the Uk was on my map of places that would change me, and I was not wrong. I'm so glad of my time in Scotland, nestled in the Highlands. Among mountains, my favorite heart stoppers/knee breakers, I felt freedom, and the need to be a stronger,better person, to learn more about others and be less afraid in the face of adversity. 

I recommend a visa to my other Canadian people. 

The nice people who came to din dins with me :)

The nice couple behind Kyle and John who made sloppy kiss noises and looked like this all night.

All this while watching my favourite brothers, Hank and John Green, who maybe one of the most inspiring persons I've ever seen on youtube. I must be a nerd fighter.

Special thanks to the following people for you're friendship: Will, Lisa, Madeleine, Marie, Derek, John, Guillermo, Diana, Javi, Pitu, and Rob. 

Easterly Photos

I'm out east right now. Got a chance to take some pictures!

Fields in the East

Yellow Gold 

Hey there!

Leith Hall

You have Secrets? 

Little Surprise!

Time - Last two are my favourites

Wool