White Fresh Snow

Tuesday 5pm 27Feb07

I love fresh white snow. The sticky fluffy stuff. I love to wear my geeky winter boots, the same kind you wore when you were a kid, the ones that you can step into deep slush with confidence, and kick the snow in my path. I love the sight of marshmallow white trees with their spongy snowy branches like three dimensional paintings. My heart giggles. I am a child again. I am the little sister following my big brother doing whatever he does.

My brother was an adventurer to me, when I was little. If he found me remotely interesting it was a good day in my books.

I excelled physically because I wanted to impress my brother. I wanted him to notice me as an equal. I wanted him to recognize my value. When I was ten, I could out run any of his friends. I impressed him once, when one of the neighbourhood boys called me a nigger and I chased him. He was on his bike and I ran him down, pulled him off the back of his bike by his hair and kicked the shit out of him.
” I guess you won’t call her that again,” my brother said smugly.

At ten, I wanted to keep up with my brother. I climbed moving trains with him and went everywhere he did. At ten, I discovered my limitations in comparison to my brother and made decisions/choices about who I wanted to be if I couldn’t be as good as him.

I wish we remained close. But he decided on distance and I obediently listened to his request.

But when it’s snowy outside. When it’s white and fresh and spongy. When I wear my geeky winter boots that women look at with that judgemental fashion faux pas air. When it’s that certain kind of mild winter air. I forget about everyone around me as if my eyes are closed and I walk and kick that white time machine and I remember those moments of my innocence when the biggest person in my world was my big brother. And I giggle.

SW

Earth, Wind & Fire

Sunday 2:58pm 11Feb07

I’ve been goofing off and procrastinating then remembered that they played Fantasy by Earth, Wind and Fire on the radio Friday morning. I thought how nice that they are playing something different when the old stand by is to play September.
I can’t pass an Earth, Wind and Fire song without singing it. Their music was my saviour in my childhood. It’s funny now as I look back at some of the titles of their albums that it makes sense that in my depressions I turn back to their music to make me feel better. Their albums were titled: Head to the Sky, Open our eyes, That’s the way of the world, gratitude, Spirit, Raise! How could I not help but find something positive from those titles.
I remember the first song I loved from E,W and F was “Where have all the flowers gone.”
I was in grade three in British Columbia and we used to have to sing that song in music class but boy the way Earth, Wind and Fire sang it. Oh and Philip Bailey’s voice. Who couldn’t love that falsetto? With each new album everything got better and truly it’s only now that I’m recalling the impact.
They made me want to sing and I spent some part of my day every single day of my teenage years singing at least one of their songs, learning the words, absorbing the meaning , developing some of the things that I would ultimately grow up and believe in.
With I’ll Write a Song for you… it was writing, my writing and what impact it could ultimately have. I wanted to write to inspire, because of that song. My brother used to make me sing that song in front of all of his friends.
“We have a magic box, in which is never locked and I’ll write a song for you, you’ll write a song for me, we’ll write a song of love…”

In Fantasy and Imagination, they reassured my troubled mind that it was okay to live part of my life as fantasy, to use my imagination to see what I could have before I had it. All victories begin in our fantasies. We fantasize about loving someone before it happens, we imagine our self in our chosen career before we do it. Deliberate creating, meditating so many things have to start first in your imagination.
” Every thought is a dream, rushing by in a stream, bringing life to the kingdom of doing… All your dreams will come true, right away … Come to see, victory, in a land called fantasy, loving light of new degree, bring your mind to everlasting liberty.”

Getaway told me that I could disappear in to my head when things got tough. Turn it into Something Good (my ultimate get me out of depression song) told me to take all the pain and sadness and turn it into something good, transform it. That’s energy work.
“You can’t hide forever, just decide to make it better, turn it into something good, remember you can choose, not to lose, find your groove and be a winner… Turn it into something good, remember you can hide or just decide to make it better.”

And Reasons just makes you wish you could sing.

And what they did with music that could make me listen for hours just trying to follow one instrument and listen again following another one. They are to music what Picasso was to art, for me anyway. That horn section alone was slamming!

Almost everything that I am interested in or passionate about can be traced back to their music. They were named after the elements used in Astrology but since air didn’t sound right they went with wind instead.
In the accompanying booklet for their The Eternal Dance box set here are some quotes:
By Alan Light written about Maurice White
“… the lyrics infectiously captured White’s buoyant positiveness.”
“Maurice White acknowledges that the musical evolution of Earth, Wind & Fire follows a logical, linear path — Jazz to r&b to funk to the technogrooves of Raise! and Powerlight — held together by African and Latin rhythms; ‘it all comes back to Africa, man. That’s where it all starts.’ Characteristically, though, he credits a higher power with the group’s progression and lengthy popularity. ‘None of this was planned,’ he says. ‘The universe played a part in the whole thing, obviously. We just took our cues from the universe and kept moving on.’”

and quotes written by David Nathan:
“The message in the music was clearly a reflection of White’s vision for the group” ‘From the very start, I had a commitment to be different in terms of music and what was projected on stage. Coming out of a period of social confusion in the seventies, I wanted EW&F to reflect the growing search for greater self-understanding , greater freedom from the restrictions we placed on ourselves in terms of our individual potential.’”
“EW&F’s mission (is) to communicate a philosophy of harmony and unity…”
“There were people who relied on us for the message: we had a responsibility to our community.”

That’s it, I relied on their positivity to get me through my days and nights and years. I’m still grateful.

SW

Creating Money

Sunday 7Jan07 7:23pm

I pulled out the book Creating Money (by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer) to read after I gave it to a friend for Christmas. I’ve never worked through the whole book. Every time I’ve used it has been when I was looking for a job and some how would get a job before I’d make it through to chapter 5.

This time around I’d like to work through it to see what surprises come out of it. I’m reading about a chapter a week, writing up notes and ideas and stuff.

“Your intent to have something directs your energy and focuses it on your goals. You create what you are picturing by concentrating on it with attention and awareness, and keeping it in the back of your mind even when you are involved in other activities. When you hold a steady focus on having something, your intent to have it is clear and strong, and you create what you seek more rapidly. You are alert and able to take advantage of opportunities when they come. You draw things to you with ease and joy. Think of something you want right now. Do you inted to have it? Do you think about it even when you are doing other activities?”

That quote brought me back to my good writing days when I had that single minded focus before I started worrying about paying the rent and the bills and such. In those days I would literally do my work at my job and focus on a character thinking about her qualities and the situation she was in. I used to write a short story a week. I’d spend the first day or so thinking about what I wanted to write about. Decide on the character that would most fit the situation. I’d think about it all and then when I felt a click like everything had fallen in to place I’d sit down and write the short story from beginning to end.

I’d forgotten about that. I forgot that I had more of an organized way to write. Of course I can’t totally do that with a novel and sit down and write it in one sitting but i could write a chapter in one to two sittings.
I’ve been doing an hour long freeflow each night and through it I’ve had more ideas for the mother’s point of view in the novel I’m working on. Rachel’s first chapter will start off with her losing the money. She’s been plopped into the fire and that’s an impossible situation. So this week I’ll think about Rachel in the fire and then when I click, I’ll write her through it.

SW

Memorial – My Mother

7Dec06 Thursday 6:07am

Well it’s today. My mother passed away 10 years ago today. I’ve lit some candles in her honour.

My mother would be 64 years old. Still very young. Still younger than most of my friends parents. My mother would love the Internet and digital cameras and itunes.

My mother had a grade 6 education having been kicked out of school for hitting a kid in the head with an ink bottle after he’d called her a nigger. When she got home and told her father he’d beat her for being a trouble maker and only after he’d beat her got the whole story and went back to the school to tell off the teacher who’d sided with the boy. My mother who won all the singing contests and wanted to be a Country singer. Her first contest , she’d lost, because she was too shy and kept looking down at the stage. Her father beat that shyness out of her. His answer to everything was a beating. My mother who didn’t have a belly button because she was born sickly and all the operations she’d had as a baby left without one. She was a sickly baby and cried a lot and her mother couldn’t take it so she gave my mother to her father who was married to someone else. Yeah my mother had stories for sure. It’s any wonder that I like to write.

My mother was a charismatic person and made friends with every one including my step father’s ex wife. She could go to a store twice and end up having the salespeople loving her so much that they’d give her merchandise for free. I don’t have those qualities or patience. She honestly believed that there was good in every one and if you gave someone enough chances he’d become that good person that she could picture in her mind’s eye. She would let anyone in her house, people that weren’t particularly nice to her, women that were after her man. I had no patience for it. “It’s your house mom, you don’t have to be nice to people like that in your own house,” I’d say.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” she’d tell me. That has yet to happen.

My mother was a runner, living most of her adult life incognito, after we ran from my father who was a violent alcoholic. She endured violence and pain and humiliation and she still managed to wake up each morning with a smile on her face. Some of our best laughs were the first thing in the morning. She was superstitious, believing such things like, “If you laugh all day, you’ll cry all night” and “everything comes in threes.”

She was zany and would change the words to sweet songs into sex songs. One of my favorite past times. Our big thing was to come up with a song that matched the words that one of us just spoke and if we couldn’t we’d make up a song.

With my mother, I went to night clubs at 13 years old. I hung out with adults. We smoked joints and played frisbee on the Mountain.
We had drink nights at home, just the two of us, where we listened to music and tried all kinds of wines and even did tequila shots. We were the envy of all mothers. She was the first person that knew when I was ready to have my first sexual experience with my boyfriend of 4 years. She was the first person that I told what I was thinking.

My mother made so many mistakes in life and endured so many failures and believed and loved and loved some more. She picked the runt of the litter every single time. She rescued strays (animals and humans). She was allergic to everything in her house (cats, dogs, birds, carpeting) and refused to give them up or get the shots. She survived with bottles of Otrivin strategically placed around the house. She was a music lover and we always had the latest music and a state of the art music system despite my step father’s complaints that spending money on music was frivolous. She’d sneak the new records in the house when he wasn’t looking. She was a plant fanatic and had exotic plants from all over the world. Plants that she’d have to soak in water for 24 hours and all sorts of craziness. She couldn’t walk past a plant store without staying in there for at least an hour. That’s me with book stores.

She had a grade 6 education and was the smartest person I knew. My step father mocked her for her lack of University degree and she had self esteem issues and yet when ever he needed to understand something, it was my mother he asked for the explanation. I knew because of my mother that you can educate yourself without school. She absorbed everything and when she decided she wanted to know how to do something she’d immerse herself in the books and she’d learn how to do it. a Grade 6 education! I have yet to meet anyone that I feel was as smart as my mother.

She knew people from all walks of life, from drug dealers, pimps, bank robbers, doctors, club owners and right on up and she never judged anyone for who they decided to be and what they decided to do.

Yeah she was my mommy, my sister, my best friend. She was the person I fought with the most and the person I turned to to cry and the person I told everything and the person I’d give my youth to if it were possible. She was the person that I’d kill for and the person I protected, much to my Step dad’s fear. There will never be another person whose death will be harder on me than losing my mother.

Ten years is a long time for so many things like being at a job or studying and yet such a short time for mourning the death of my mother. Alice Patricia Norville… Pisces Horse.

EY

First Writing Class

A warm up mentioned in The Weekend Novelist by Robert J Ray is to write for ten minutes using the start line, “I remember…”

I remember when I took my first writing class in the 1980’s that Michael Zizis wrote on the board, Write to Disturb.
I remember that I found a good rhythm and was able to write a short story a week. I’d come up with the story idea that I wanted to write about. Name a character and think about her as much as possible. I’d think about what she wanted, the predicament she was in, how she could possibly get out of it. I’d think about it until I’d feel almost a silent click in my head that told me, that’s it! Then I’d sit down and write it from beginning to end. No stopping until the story was complete. Once the story was complete, I’d go back and revise it.
It’s so much easier to revise something after it’s been written rather than revising as it’s written, for me anyway.

SW

Rushing Home to Write

A warm up mentioned in The Weekend Novelist by Robert J Ray is to write for ten minutes using the start line, “I remember…”

I remember when I used to rush home from work to write. I’d eat something quick, crank up my tunes and sit down at my desk to write. I lived in High Park then on Parkside Drive. I had three other room mates. A guy that grew his own marijuana in his bedroom. His girlfriend who was from Estonia. And another guy who turned me on to the Eurythmics. I can’t for the life of me remember any of their names except the girl Epp. She was the one that mentioned that I might try keeping a daily notebook instead of waiting for inspiration.

In those days, I’d read a writing handbook and do all the writing exercises in it. I didn’t want to take a writing class until I felt I had the skills to write something. I believed that people who took writing classes already knew how to write.
In those days, I’d get ready for bed and keep sitting up to write down the conversations running around in my mind, the poem fragments, the comments. Sometimes I went to work with blood shot eyes because I’d been up so late transcribing the voices in my head.

I remember a long period where I didn’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t associate with the people I worked with at the Bay. I liked to keep my work life separate from my personal life. The bulk of my friends were the Montrealers that came to town for a visit. All my vacation time was spent in Montreal, I wouldn’t dream of staying in Toronto. I didn’t plan on staying here for too long anyway.

Now I’ve been here for 24 years, resigned to the fact that I’ve built a life and finding it hard to see ever leaving. Now I mix my work life with my personal life but not too much to have no escape. Now I see very few Montrealers having lost contact with most of them years ago. Now I rarely hear voices in my head that keep me up late to transcribe but I can often just sit down and write and highlight any gems in that freeflow. Now I rarely wait for inspiration. I have found the techniques that work for me to find it.

I often wonder about my old room mates. Epp who was a talented artist. Her boyfriend, did he ever start a full fledged grow op and ultimately get arrested. And the other guy.

SW