Eramosa River Journal

Update on the creative spark

vaneramos — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:56:40 GMT

I've started writing fiction again. It feels exciting, hopeful, and powerful. I guess there's nothing else I want to do more in this life than write stories. Elsewhere previously, I've described the change in conditions that seem to have made this possible, so I won't go into them here.

It has occurred to me that fibre craft has provided an essential outlet for me during the past 10-12 years when I found creative writing difficult. Handcrafting was less cognitive and allowed me to play in real life with colour and texture. I'm a very visual person, and that has always been a vital part of how and what I write. This year I haven't done any spinning, knitting or weaving. I guess it's because I can write again, the way I like to. I'm making up for a lost decade of creative writing. For now I feel that if it would take up most of my spare time for the rest of my life, I would let it. I'm grateful for what fibre crafting has given me. Playing with fibre is meditative, relaxing, and (in a good way) meaningless. Writing isn't relaxing for me, and when it's meaningless it isn't even fun. I'm sure wool and alpaca will start calling me sooner or later.

For several months I've been happy to simply stretch the writing muscle. I've written snippets, ideas, journal entries. I've given myself time to think about what I plan to do without starting any big projects. Because life has changed, I've changed, my ideas have changed. I also find that a series on creativity on the mindfulness meditation app Headspace has helped. It's developing a new cognitive tool. That's still in process.

Recently I've written several short stories. I wrote each of them in one sitting. I could not compose anything this smoothly and quickly when I was younger. When I wrote short stories for performance on 1001 Nights Cast ca. 2005, they were necessarily completed in one day, but I lacked the confidence to keep my hands moving without revision. I would struggle over details. I would give myself a big glass of red wine and some good cheese to get through it. I enjoyed the process and would be happy with the result, but those stories would take me 5, 6 hours or even more.

One evening last week at the cottage, with Danny knitting nearby then working on a jigsaw puzzle, I wrote a 1,500-word short story in about 90 minutes. I only stopped to change a word 4 or 5 times. The result was so complete, consistent in tone, and satisfying to me that I asked Danny to let me read it to him the following evening. I've never done that before. It needs revision, of course. Everything does. But mostly I would only subtract and clarify. There's not much call for further development.

In my journal I have a record of the day when I realized this quality of creativity was coming back. It was April 10. For several days I was afraid to say anything to anyone. The following Saturday when I started to tell Danny, I began weeping. Noticing it didn't jinx me. Neither did welcoming it, speaking about it, or accepting what has passed. I experienced this difference practically every time I wrote during the past 19 weeks.

Earlier this month I realized it can also benefit my professional writing, if I'm open and allow it to do so. Noticing that took a while because I've been regularly freelance writing for five years despite an absence of this mental facility, so I have a different process. Change requires a degree of letting go that's harder to do when I handle facts and write for pay.

So what next? Depression forced me to focus on self-care. Without it, I actually need more self-discipline. So I've started revising some old time management skills to accomplish things I want to do. Time management tools irritate me and make me vaguely resentful. Sometimes I have to give up doing things I feel like doing, in favour of tasks that serve my goals or simply need to be done. In the past I took this tension to mean I was doing something wrong. Practicing mindfulness, I've learned that this quality of impatience--the resistance that occurs when I choose against self-indulgence or laziness--is part of being me. There's nothing wrong with anything I think or feel, with wanting to do something or choosing to do something else, no implication that I'm sick or lazy or stupid or misguided or repressing some part of myself, no call for self-judgment, no call even to judge the self-judgment when it happens. Every day is a panoply of choices.

The only thing worth judging is the outcome--the actions. We better take responsibility for them, find satisfaction in the good things, and then move on.

So that's what I'm working on nowadays. Along with getting other things done I've also written some things that give me excitement.

Past and present collide

vaneramos — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:40:05 GMT

On Sunday while driving I glimpsed a church sign for some evangelical congregation and it caused a discombobulating moment. My emotions sighed happily, like, "Oh, isn't that nice?" like I would have done as an evangelical Christian. This despite the fact that I've rejected all religion for about 20 years, particularly the kinds that proselytize. This fleeting experience gave me to wonder whether growing old and senile will make me forget I'm an atheist. It's maybe not an irrational fear, considering that my grandmother in the nursing home mistook me for my grandfather and flirted. But still not worth worrying about.

So this morning I dreamt I was in university during exams. I was in a home room class like we had in high school, waiting there until it was time to go write one exam or another. Rob, one of my closest friends from the church and university days, was also there, along with one of his disciples, an international student. We were hanging out, comparing exam schedules and figuring out where to go next. I still had classes to attend, too.

I had a semi-lucid moment when I realized I was an evangelical Christian again. It reminded me of the real life incident with the church sign.

I thought, "Oh no, it's happening, this is bad."

Then I forgot about it and went on being evangelical.

In real life, since Rob's family lived in Connecticutt, one time I invited him home over the Christmas holidays. I did the same with a couple other students who lived in Hong Kong. So in my dream, when I realized Rob and his friend didn't have anything to do for the holidays, I invited them to spend the holidays with me at home, and they agreed.

Then I remembered Marian and Brenna would be coming home with me, too, and Marian would be bringing his in-the-dream boyfriend, Daniel. They were all the age they really are now. In the dream I substituted my friend Dave's son Daniel for Marian's real partner, Robynn (kind of makes sense dream-wise, because Dave is also a gay dad, Daniel is Marian's age, and they rented our cottage earlier this month). But in the dream Marian was his normal transgender self. I visualized him wearing the handsome black and yellow checked shirt that he wored to Joyce's funeral. So at least my psyche wasn't confused about Marian's gender.

Then I started worrying about how everybody would get down to my parents' place because there were too many people to fit in my car. But I guessed Marian and Brenna could travel down on the train.

Then I wondered what Rob would think of my children. So I told him they were coming, too. He gave me a blank look of disbelief, as if he knew all about them, disapproved, and didn't know how to handle being with them. But I didn't give a shit what he thought, and it was time to end this dream.

Seductress of infamous Canadians

vaneramos — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 13:28:57 GMT

I dreamt about a woman who carried on affairs with various men. She used elaborate illusions to keep these affairs secret. It seems like a further development on Sandy, the serial killer and also had similar elements with Darwin and the ill-fated dissidents in that it was a period drama with older male characters and a younger woman who defied traditional roles and standards of sanity.

The main character looked like a Shakespearean actress I remember from the Stratford Festival in Ontario many years ago. She resembled Elizabeth I, with red hair pulled tightly back and intricately curled. She was about 40. Like the women in the Darwin dream, she wore a black gown with a white lace collar. It was also one of my problem-solving dreams, in which I replay aspects of the narrative to try to improve on them. Unlike Sandy and Darwin, this dream was a slapstick comedy in the style of Shakespeare or a Rossini opera. It was so consistent and elaborate in detail that after I woke up, I thought I was remembering a movie we had seen recently. I couldn't believe I had dreamt it, and it took me a few minutes to understand that I had. Unfortunately, by then I had forgotten many details.

The woman had previously carried on sexual affairs with numerous men. However, the dream focused on four relationships she carried on concurrently with older men. They were all supposed to be historical characters, great Canadian leaders from the 19th Century. One of them seems to have been John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister. Last night on CBC I heard that First Nations activists are lobbying to have a statue of Sir John in Victoria pulled down because of his horrible treatment of indigenous people. Another one of the men might have been Isaac Brock, a hero of the War of 1812, whose family I'm descended from. This dream seems to have been making fun of long-dead white Canadian men. In the dream, the four men were acquaintances or friends of one another.

It took place on an elaborate dark stage similar to the Festival Theatre in Stratford. The central part of the stage resembled a house with a large room upstairs and windows overlooking the street below. Sometimes the stage reversed to show what was going on inside. The dream contained no explicit sex scenes, only elaborate, humorous romps with characters trying to escape detection.

The woman's first target was an older, white-haired man who was neat and elegant but an invalid. She began as a companion but soon became his mistress. She started with the best intentions. I'm not sure what my consciousness meant by "best intentions," but apparently after starting with him, she discovered it was fun and couldn't resist the thrill of elaborate deception. The first man was close friends with the third and fourth, so she decided to penetrate their old-boys' club after starting with him.

Next she became the lover of an eccentric recluse. He was one of my shadow figures, secondary dream characters who lack corporeal form. He wore a blob-like robe, which was red but also colourless. He was some kind of spiritualist and magician, but only used his powers to inform or entertain himself, because he never left his mansion. The rooms were dark and bare, like those of Ebenezer Scrooge. The woman began seeing him for practice because it was easy to conceal. Unlike the other relationships, this one lacked elaborateness. She carried out her liaisons in quick succession within a few hours every day.

Her third lover was a dark-haired dandy who was maybe Isaac Brock but looked like Francis Drake. He had a pretty blonde wife who was much younger. The main character befriended them as a couple at a picnic with lots of cheese and fruit. The husband was a notorious womanizer, so she took advantage of this and allowed him to seduce her. Once their affair began, he fell in love and wanted no woman but her.

The dream began using a device where things would be carrying on with everyone behaving normally, then the device would signal that the deception must begin. It involved a wooden red baton, but I don't remember who held it or gave the signal. Then things became frantic and hilarious.

Part of the affair with the dandy involved hiding in a hay wain to escape from the picnic. Then the lovers scrambled into an upper room of his house in the central part of the stage.

Though he was inherently ridiculous, she enjoyed his company. She began living with him while still maintaining the previous affairs. She acted as his talent manager. His wife was living in another house. She suspected the affair but whenever she tried to catch the lovers together, they eluded her. The dream focused heavily on this episode, replaying it several times to perfect the comic details. The scene in the hay wain sometimes ran together with her escape from the house through an upper window. She always managed to disappear at the right moment and move on to the next item on her agenda.

Which became the final liaison with her fourth lover. Though he was supposed to be John A. Macdonald, he looked more like Stephen Harper, neatly groomed with short silver hair. He was a bank executive: confident, dignified and diplomatic. She apparently seduced him for the private pleasure of making him ridiculous, like Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He became her partner in deception to protect his reputation. He always managed it with aplomb, but she saw the fear behind his facade. It became emotional blackmail. She even revealed her other affairs to him to increase his discomfort about the situation, because two of the men were his friends.

The dream played through the sequence of lovers several times, with the predicaments and deceptions becoming more complicated as a humorous plot device. There was finally a crisis where the cheated wife managed to expose the plot. The seductress escaped with the husband to travel the world, leaving the fourth in shame, his career a shambles.

Crush on a Muslim student

vaneramos — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:24:21 GMT

I dreamt I had a crush on a Muslim student. I was a bit older than him. It felt like when I first came out and got involved in the queer student association at University of Guelph. We were participating in a march to support Muslim students. He was my roommate but we didn’t know one another very well yet. He wasn’t bearish but he had a solid build and a beautiful face, and he wore glasses. He reminds me a little of Raymond, a Chinese student I had a crush on when we were in University Bible Studies together.
He was marching with his friends. The march went all over campus and went through various buildings on a kind of highway system with ramps. We marched for hours. At first he was far ahead of me in the march, and it seemed like he was trying to establish his autonomy from me. But I started catching up and it felt like he was letting me catch up. Then at one point I lost him completely for a while. There was a rest stop in a food court where someone was giving a lecture about student rights. I was looking forward to trying some ethnic food. I saw something sweet that had been made with rose water, and I wanted to try it. I looked all over the place for him and finally found him. He had saved a seat for me right beside him. I sat down and our arms rubbed together.

Darwin and the ill-fated dissidents

vaneramos — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:23:09 GMT

I dreamt about Darwin and a group of his friends who were political dissidents. This was a long, complicated dream including numerous characters, many of whom were young female students of Darwin. He had been a teacher at a university. Many of the student characters wore fanciful masks that resembled comedie de l’arte costumery, but they all depicted mice or other small animals. Darwin and his friends did not wear masks. Only young women wore masks, but not all. Otherwise the women usually wore dark, 19th Century gowns with white lace collars, while the men wore suits. The dream presented a history of these various dissidents. I remember various episodes but not the sequence.

Scene A. Darwin and about seven of his friends met at a theatre to attend a lecture or play. The group consisted of three or four couples and two or three single women. All had been politically active. Darwin himself had been imprisoned for political reasons for more than two decades immediately after his voyage on The Beagle. It wasn’t until after he was released that he married and began developing his theory of evolution. His wife (Emma?) was also known as a political activist. This scene occurred later in Darwin’s life when his work was becoming famous. They all seemed happy and were telling funny stories about their experiences, though in this public meeting they remained on guard. The scene was given in its historical context with some narrative voice-over, though the narration was indistinct, occurring more as flashbacks or flash-forwards than as actual narration. It revealed that Emma would be assassinated because of her activities. I briefly saw her being stabbed in the back. Darwin himself would outlive her and get into more trouble later on, perhaps being imprisoned again.

Scene B. This scene occurred toward the end of the dream. A young woman spent years writing her thesis about the lives of political activists in the 19th Century. She had bobbed blonde hair. In an alternative version of this scene, I was the young woman who wrote the history in a single manic episode as a letter to another character who had been imprisoned. Or was I in prison writing to someone else? Having finished the letter I realized it was hundreds of pages long, too long to expect a mere acquaintance to read, so I decided not to send it. This scene contextualized the rest of the dream as a series of remembered or recorded entries.

Scene C. Three young women were confined to an asylum for the insane. They marched around in a line, two wearing animal masks and one not. It was unclear whether they were required to march around as part of their prison routine, or whether they were causing a disturbance. They were all more or less sane and had been confined purely for political reasons. The woman without a mask resembled Kathy (?) from Waterloo-Wellington Rainbow Chorus: dark hair, taller than the other women, lean, vivacious, with black-rimmed glasses, a cancer survivor.

Scene D. A large group of dissidents, mostly men, were on trial for treason. Several of them were Darwin’s friends from affluent families, but most of the men were working class and wore working class clothing. Some were condemned to death and were promptly hanged. I saw a blue rope tied to a man’s feet. The hangman pulled it to pull him through the trapdoor.

Scene E. Several students met around a table drinking coffee. The blonde writer from Scene B was there with five or six others. They were in a 20th Century greasy diner with a neon sign outside. This scene occurred before the blonde woman wrote her thesis and before anyone got into trouble. However, Darwin was present and he had previously been imprisoned but was free at this time. One of the characters was a middle-aged man, a eunuch who was developmentally delayed. He had a round, pale face and was pudgy and looked like Matt Lucas. He would be imprisoned later, and may have been the one to whom I wrote the manic letter/thesis. The group would all split up and go their separate ways after finishing school, but all would end up in political trouble.

Scene F. A fragment. One of the women wearing a mouse mask also wore a silver-embroidered 17th-Century court costume. She had just killed someone with a rapier. It felt like a Shakespeare tragedy. Matt Lucas was also wearing a costume like this in the previous scene. He was a wise clown like Feste (though simple and sad). The woman in this scene was one of the characters in the asylum later, still wearing a mouse mask.

Sandy, the serial killer

vaneramos — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 11:21:22 GMT

I dreamt about a woman whose employer had been murdered. Her name was Sandy and she was a graphic artist. In the beginning of the dream she had just got her first job. At first she was working for a different man. He had his own business and worked long hours doing difficult work. Sandy appeared to enjoy working with him. He clearly had a crush on Sandy but she kept him at a distance.

At first, Sandy’s mother was a character. Sandy was still living with her. The mother was an invalid and needed Sandy to look after her. The mother was suspicious of Sandy’s relationship with her boss, and kept telling Sandy not to work too hard.

Then Sandy got another job working for the CEO of a corporation. He was shorter and stockier than her previous boss, but he was also the same man. It was as if he had received a promotion into a better job at a big company, but they had also turned him into someone else. He was much more confident, narcissistic in fact. Rather than working really hard like the previous boss had done, he managed to get other people to do his work for him. Sandy began having an affair with him. Then the man was murdered. I never saw how he had been killed, but the dream became involved in figuring out how it had happened and who had killed him. Until now I had seen the dream from Sandy’s perspective. When she was implicated in the murder and the police began investigating her, I was devastated because I believed she was incident.

Then the dream began replaying previous incidents but I saw how things had really happened a little differently. Sandy was in fact a narcissistic person who manipulated people. She had carried on a sexual relationship with her boss for a lot longer than I realized, starting with his first incarnation. There had been a scene at a theatre where Sandy used to walk up some stairs to get from one room where she worked -- designing costumes perhaps -- to another where she would meet her boss for trysts. The replay route revealed a much more convoluted path along which she would create alibis for herself and even murder other people to conceal her actions.

Then there was a sadomasochistic scene in which Sandy had hogtied her boss and decorated his body with stitch work that resembled tattoos. He was in a drugged and ecstatic state, and this was how she had tricked him into letting her bind him. His skin was shining with sweat. It was after this scene that Sandy apparently tortured and stabbed him to death. Again I didn’t witness this.

A narrator began describing various ways Sandy had killed other people along the way. In the last scene, she was caring for an elderly woman who was an archetypical crone with wispy white hair, a large hooked nose, and a dark, hooded garment. The crone figured out what Sandy was doing to people, so Sandy wrapped her legs around the old woman’s neck and strangled her. It wasn’t clear to me whether this old woman was her mother or someone else.

Altered state

vaneramos — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 20:35:52 GMT

While meditating today, I experienced what seemed like an altered state of consciousness. It wasn't the first time. I've experienced different kinds of sensations and perceptions since I started meditating regularly last fall. However, I don't recall it starting until I began using meditation guides incorporating periods of silence.

Back in the winter, the first thing I noticed was paresthesia, a tingling in parts or most of my body, especially the extremities but also my chest and face. I've seen it described as a sensation of insects crawling on the skin, however for me it's a pleasant and relaxing sensation. It puzzled me. In some of the information I looked up, I found religious writers suggesting it was a positive sign of spiritual purification. I don't relate to that. I began practicing meditation not for religious reasons but to develop mindfulness as an approach to mental health. Other writers (both religious and non-religious) suggested some people experience paresthesia while meditating, that it's neither good nor bad, but not to let it become a distraction. That's how I've treated it. It's kind of pleasant, but I try not to look for it to happen, which is even a step down from expecting it to happen! It still happens frequently, but it has become less intense than the first two or three occasions. It's a purely physical sensation, but clearly it has something to do with whatever is going on neurologically when I meditate -- or else it has to do with how I perceive sensations differently during meditation.

What began happening a few weeks ago was more clearly a change in consciousness. From time to time, I began experiencing what are best described as daydreams. They are comparable to dreaming, especially the lucid dreams I've sometimes experienced during hypnagogia, the transition from being awake to being asleep. However, I would sometimes get wrapped up in these images to the extent that I lost lucidity (the awareness that I was dreaming). They wouldn't last long. Then I would snap back to the present. For a moment I would be discombobulated, aware that I was meditating but having forgotten what my focus was supposed to be. Never did I feel sleepy, although these daydreams usually occurred on days after I had a suboptimal sleep.

From the beginning of my training in mindfulness practice, I was taught to handle distractions deftly. It's not a matter of trying to eliminate thoughts and feelings during meditation, but learning how to let them go, and return to focusing on the breath -- or, after some experience in mindfulness practice, if the purpose of meditation is to deal with difficulty, to allow unpleasant thoughts or feelings to remain in consciousness, "on the workbench of the mind." Not to change them or make them go away, but to accept them. I've practiced all of this and found it very useful.

From the beginning, the instructors spoke of daydreams as another category of distraction. I didn't experience them at first, during the steadily guided meditations of the course. My distractions included feelings, physical sensations (including paresthesia), sometimes verbal thoughts, and especially abstract thoughts about the circumstances of my life. It wasn't until after I began using guided meditations with longer periods of silence that I began experiencing these vivid, disconcerting daydreams. In the context of the meditation practice, I treated them as distractions, always bringing myself back (sometimes despite momentary confusion) to the point of focus. However, I also felt it would be interesting and probably useful to explore this phenomenon at an appropriate time.

The past few days I've been working through a series of meditations (on Headspace.com) intended to promote creativity. It's probably my favourite series so far. It involves switching back and forth from periods of gentle focus on the breath (the default state for mindfulness meditation) and periods of letting the mind go free, thinking whatever it wants. The speaker previously compared it to flying a kite: sometimes you pull the string to keep control, and sometimes you let it go. It's very good. In fact, I'm finding it to be an awesome practice. I've had some wonderful ideas and phrases, and fascinating images have come to mind in the usual way.

Until today. I was imagining a scene, and then I could "almost hear" some music accompanying it. I haven't imagined any sounds yet, and as I was in the free-thinking phase of the exercise, I allowed my mind to follow that melody and listen to it. It was sweet and lovely.

Suddenly, a daydream hit me violently. It was the closest to a lucid dream I've experienced, but all the lucid dreams I've ever recalled have been pleasant or neutral. This one was frightening. There were no concrete shapes. I felt like I was a rocket barreling through space, with light and darkness streaming past me. It was accompanied by body tremors.

I chose not to resist the sensation. I had come here to access my creativity, hadn't I? My inner thought was, "Put on your speed goggles! Fasten your seatbelt!" I plummeted into a sensation of intense fear, knowing I had allowed it and that it would pass, as all feelings do.

It didn't last for long. The session proceeded. The recording continued its instructions to focus on the breath for a few moments.....then let the mind go free. I hadn't forgotten where I was or what I was doing, but I lost track of when I was supposed to focus, when to unfocus. I returned to the default: focusing on the breath. Two or three more daydreams flashed over me, but they were nowhere near as intense. I could hardly hear the instructions.

I don't know what to make of it. It wasn't relaxing! I have no particular desire to look for this kind of experience, but neither do I feel inclined to avoid it. One theory I have is that it's associated with buried unpleasant memories, because I've recently become open to the possibility (likelihood?) that I have some. Another theory is that this has to do with fears around creativity and the content of what I might create. Either way, I'm prepared to face that fear rather than push it away. But there may be another explanation. Probably.

Bridging employment supports

vaneramos — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 16:56:53 GMT

Another good thing that has happened over the past few months was that I got into a program of Canadian Mental Health Association called Bridging Employment Supports. It is designed for people with disabilities, including mental health concerns. I registered not long after going into the day hospital program last February, but sat on a waiting list for several months. It involves one-on-one counseling sessions for 8 weeks or so. Apparently I accessed the same program in Guelph in the late 90s (my new counselor has a record of it), but I hardly remember it. I do remember having a counselor in some program who I met for several weeks, who I really liked, and who was ready to go to bat and make connections for me before her program got cut. Thank you very much, Mike Harris (Ontario premier at the time who cut funding for mental health programs). I didn't find a steady job until 2006.

This time around the program seems much different. The counselor is another great fit for me. The first few weeks we focused on identifying my aptitudes, interests, skills, experiences -- a lot of the usual exercises you might associate with a job finding program -- but also a few that surprised me.

One of the most interesting was a questionnaire about , "What motivates you?" Some people want to get ahead in their careers, some seek personal development, some want stability, for some it meets social needs, and so on. Sometimes our motivations collide. What I learned is that I am primarily an authenticity seeker: my work and the people I work with must mesh with my personal values, and I must feel free to express myself honestly and creatively. This motivation pretty much trumps anything else I might want. Freelance careers are ideal for authenticity seekers because they can choose what to do and who to work for. I love the freelance work I do. It has been a light through the tunnel of the past two years.

But the absence of job stability they can be terrible for people who want financial stability. Financial stability has never been an obvious motivator for me. If anyone asked, I would usually say I don't care about much about money, but I expect to be compensated fairly for the work I do.

Some motivation types (authenticity seekers and socializers, for example) are unlikely to change in the course of their lives -- those things are part of a person's termperament. Others (career climbing, stability seeking) can be more age-dependent or situational. I grew up with financial stability, so it turns out money is a significant, unconscious motivator for me. In fact, when I have financial problems, I crash and burn. This exercise provided crystal clear insight not only to the depressive episode of the past two years, but to ongoing difficulties of the past 22. In particular, now I understand why I've always experienced emotional barriers to pursuing the work I feel passionate about as an authenticity seeker. It never offered a quick fix to financial problems that overshadowed me. Without Danny's support, I doubt I would ever have taken the leap of faith to start getting my work published (and getting paid for it), as I did in 2012.

Additionally this insight also clarifies something I was aware of about my community involvements but had trouble pinning down: I don't do well when financial uncertainties are involved. This is why I felt so drained in organizing the men's knitting retreat (an event in 2016 that meant a lot to me), and taking on board responsibilities for our spinners' and weavers' guild. It was even a challenge the year I organized the annual reunion for a few high school friends (which happened concurrently with the knitting retreat, and that was far more difficult). In contrast, I loved volunteering as a librarian at Out On The Shelf -- until I got involved in fundraising programs! So it isn't going to hurt me to get involved in the community organizations that mean so much to me (as an authenticity seeker). But in future I'll avoid taking on any financial responsibilities. Sure, all of these things need money, but I need my own affairs in order before I can be much use to anyone else.

This clarifies the importance of having more financial stability of my own, independent of anyone else. In practical terms, a part-time job will help me contribute more to the household income and save towards retirement. As an authenticity seeker I might not need that job to make use of my best skills as a writer, but it must support things I value, like the environment, community, or the arts. If I try to do business writing (which most freelancers do for their bread and butter work), it should be for non-profits. It will not replace my work as a journalist, but hopefully support and augment it. This is profoundly useful to understand. It helps me appreciate why I'd consider starting to work at minimum wage for a library, conservation program, or community organization, but would hate a better-paying job for a corporation.

It also helps me understand other people, and why they hold jobs that don't necessarily reflect their values. In fact, the work sheet revealed that as an authenticity seeker, "you are part of a small percentage of the workforce." It didn't say any of the other motivation types were uncommon. I've often heard an inner voice telling myself, "Sure you love doing these things, sure they're worthwhile, don't underestimate the importance of them, but your interests and skills just don't fit in anywhere. Consumer society doesn't value them. Consumer society is stupid. It's not your fault, but it sucks." I'd like to stop bashing myself over the head with that particular shape of despair. The motivational test says I'm a rare breed, but that means I'm not alone. Undoubtedly there are people who want to employ people like me.

In case you're interested, here's the whole list of motivations from What Next? by Barbara Moses:

sociability seekers

career builders

authenticity seekers

personal developers

autonomy seekers

novelty seekers

stability seekers

lifestylers

Anything sound familiar? Most freelancers are probably authenticity seekers, autonomy seekers (i.e. rebels without a cause), novelty seekers (boredom is death!), or lifestylers (people who want to control work/life balance, either because liesure activities are essential to who they are, or because of temporary concerns, like having children).

From Bridging Employment Supports, I'm preparing to switch gears into a Links to Work program. This helps with:

the job search itself.

developing an employment wellness plan, including a self-care plan, and determining what supports are needed from CMHA and potential employers.

developing job search and interview skills.

once I secure a job, 12 weeks of job maintenance coaching.

This all seems immensely helpful, as I haven't actually gone through a successful job interview in 26 years. And in most of the steady employment I've had, I've floundered. Now I understand some of the reasons why.

Things are much different now in the world. And I am different, too. So I hope this program is as helpful as it looks, and has been so far.

A loyal servant and a game involving vampires

vaneramos — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 13:22:03 GMT

I dreamt about a Persian prince who had a family of servants who served him faithfully: a man, a woman, and their daughter.

One day the man went to the prince and said, "Our daughter has betrayed you." And he told the prince what she had done.

"Thank you for telling me," the Prince said. "it must have been difficult, but you did the right thing."

Then the prince commanded that the man, the woman, and their daughter should all have their eyes gouged out. And it was done.

At first the man was devastated at losing his eyesight, and that his loyalty had been rewarded in this way. But he soon discovered that unusual insight had been given to him in place of what was lost.

(The dream had a narrative voiceover similar to what I've recorded here, but that's as much as I remember.)

Afterward I had a separate dream about playing a game involving monsters such as vampires and their minions. They were arranged around a rectangular board, which had three-dimensional features: dark plastic mountains around the edge, with a smooth surface between them made of translucent green glass. I seemed to be playing with one or two other people, but I couldn't see them. We had pewter figurines of the monsters, two or three of each type. We would choose which monsters to use in a scenario and set up the game. Each side of the board represented the different alignments: good and evil, lawful and unlawful. We would pick groups of monsters to fight with or against. These involved alien invasion type encounters more than dungeon adventures. Once we started playing, the figures would come to life and my point of view would descend into an imaginary world. When the scenario finished, we picked a different set of figurines.

Before waking up, I began remembering the previous dream about the loyal servant and it became mixed up with the game dream. The man and his wife had to contend with some vampires we had set to appear. Somehow his blindness was an asset.

I began wondering what things would look like if your eyes were gouged out. Would you see blackness, like when your eyes are closed? I was still thinking about this when I woke up.

I keep noticing an aquamarine colour in my dreams. Otherwise a lot of the elements seem to be grey scale. In this dream the figures were made of pewter, but the vampires had aquamarine ribbons painted on them. My racist dream was vividly colourful but many of the doll people had aquamarine as a prominent colour in their ethnic costumes. I've noticed this previously, but have neglected to note it, so I can't remember any other specifics. I should start recording this and figure out whether it represents anything.

In the past I've had dreams with specific red elements in an otherwise black-and-white environment. For example, in one of my favourite long-ago dreams, I was a mysterious woman in a red dress who arrived at the office of a loser detective asking for help, with echoes of Maltese Falcon and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The red colour served to draw attention to something, like in Schindler's List. Aquamarine seems to represent a subtler significance.

Racist dream

vaneramos — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 04:19:41 GMT

A few nights ago I dreamt about a series of gruesome murders at a resort frequented by Chinese people. There were many people arranged in rows and columns as if they were toys hanging on racks, and they were all dressed in vividly coloured ethnic costumes. Several assassination scenes seemed inspired by the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and/or Inception. Then some of the doll-like figures hanging on racks spread their legs, lifted their skirts or robes, and revealed their naked sex organs underneath. Their bodies were plastic and the sex organs were round holes with bright rings around them. Out of their sex organs they shot poison darts.

Landscape of a writer's mind

vaneramos — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 19:43:21 GMT

While doing my "daily writing" action (15 minutes, stream of consciousness) I reflected on how intense daydreams have begun invading my mindfulness meditations (another daily action). In mindfulness training, daydreams are treated as a distractions, so I must repeatedly return to the clear and simple focus of meditation. Ironically, I'm currently working through a series of meditations to promote creativity. So while I'm aware that these daydreams are themselves a kind of creative impulse, I am practicing letting them go. In other words, in order to really learn how to listen to what's going on inside, I have to keep turning off the radio that magically keeps turning itself on again.

But it's fascinating how much the landscape of my mind has changed from six months ago when I was in crisis. At that time, meditation brought relief. Daydreams seldom appeared, and I had an easier time staying focused. Distractions usually arose as abstract thoughts about things going on in my life at the time. They were softer (though sometimes unpleasant), and easier to recognize as thoughts or feelings. However, the meditations I used at that time were closely guided, with plenty of instructions from a recorded speaker to help keep me focused. I still use recordings, but they increasingly consist of silence in which I'm left to my own discipline (or lack of it) to stay the course.

It would be interesting to explore these daydreams further in the right time. The images are a lot like dreams in that they often sweep my consciousness away completely. I soon come back to the meditation, but I'm discombobulated -- can't remember for a moment what I'm doing or what my focus is supposed to be. In a sense some of the daydreams are lucid and many are not, because I forget where I am or that I am in charge of the situation. There's no sensation that I've been about to fall asleep, just that my mind has become relaxed to an extent that still unfamiliar to me. In fact it's pretty bizarre to find there's such a thin veil between reality and fantasy in waking life.

Writing about this also led me to contemplate the weirdness of writing itself: that some high function in my brain was playing with abstract ideas, and passing them down the hierarchy to the wordsmiths to translate them into interesting English, who then passed them to other parts of my body and ultimately my fingers to type on the keyboard. My fingers themselves each know a small pool of keys, but know nothing of words or letters. In fact no part of my body is conscious of the letters they're tapping.

What this has to do with daydreams, I'm uncertain. But all these thoughts come from a new awareness (thanks to a lifelong fascination with psychology, fueled by the fresh new tool of mindfulness exercise) of what the hell is going on in my body. One of the speakers in one of the meditations from the cognitive therapy course I took refers to the "workbench of the mind," an image I love. It's the space in which mindfulness as therapy allows problems to remain in focus ("How does this affect your body?"), while conventional mindfulness treats all such thoughts as distractions. From that I have developed a metaphor of my own: the landscape of the mind. As an inhabitant of that landscape I am guided by choice (rather than rules or impulses) over where to turn my attention.

It occurs to me I should write more about this philosophy of creativity. I expect many people of artistic persuasion are conscious of their creative processes, as I have been, but recently I've become far more sensitive to actual mental events. It's partly because anti-depressant medication had largely turned off part of my creative impulse. I had drug-induced writer's block for 12 years. But now that quality (which I can describe succinctly as whimsy) is back. So I can perceive what's happening that wasn't happening before. It's entertaining and informative. At times I'm ecstatic about it.

Hogwartz parade

vaneramos — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 14:57:02 GMT

In a dream about Hogwartz, I was Harry Potter, but I was also omniscient and knew things my character didn't know.

In one early episode I saw what was supposed to be a primitive electrical plug. It had one prong shaped like the tip of a soldering iron, but was much larger, and we stuck it into an even larger metal crevice to make contact. I don't remember what it's function was, or how it related to the rest of the dream.

We had already fended off on earlier attack against Hogwartz, in which bad things had happened to good people. Somebody ended up covered with rose petals, but this represented something much more serious. I don't remember much else about the first attack. I knew a second attack was coming, but Harry and the other characters didn't realize this.

We were getting ready for a Hallowe'en parade. In the middle of the parade, I was supposed to pull some kind of surprise stunt. This was a ceremonial role. Everyone knew something was going to happen, but only Harry and a few friends knew what and when it would happen. Harry had performed this role for the past several years (I guess this was my preferable, more cerebral alternative to being the seeker in Quidditch). I seemed to be ill-prepared, uncertain what the stunt was going to be. However, I was also omnisciently aware that another malicious attack was coming and would be coordinated to exploit Harry's show.

I was in a dressing room with Hermione, who was "played by" Mary Jean (a lifelong friend whose family owns a cottage near ours, and who does look a bit like Emma Watson). There was someone else there helping us get ready. They had a wispy, incorporeal quality I've recently noticed about secondary characters in my dreams. I couldn't really see this character except that he or she seemed to be wearing a white shirt. Mostly they were helping Hermione get dressed. I was just hanging out and talking to somebody like Professor McGonagall (who was also invisible), who was checking up to make sure our stunt plans were in place.

I left the dressing room. Our school resembled the early 20th Century building where I went to school as a small child. So it had wide, straight staircases and lots of big windows. I went upstairs and down a long, dimly lit corridor to a boys' change room. A friend of mine (Ron?) and two wispy, incorporeal boys were in there having showers. I talked to them, but I don't remember what about.

The next thing I remember I was in a different waiting room with Hermione again. We were sitting and talking on a couch and there was a coffee table in front of us. Something ominous started happening: an invisible presence came into the room. This was the begining of the attack I was anticipating (but Harry and Hermione didn't know about).

Harry and Hermione invoked some magical helpers: a man and woman and one or two children who were members of a family. They were supposed to interview us, and by asking us questions they would help us solve the problem. We communicated with Professor McGonagall and some others by intercom, updating them with this development and letting them know we had it under control. But I would have to leave, because the parade was about to begin. Hermione was supposed to be part of the parade, too, but she would have to stay behind and fend off whatever attack was coming.

As I prepared to leave, the helpers began tying Hermione into a chair. They were tying her arms to the arms of the chair with bands of white cloth. This was a necessary part of the spell, as it allowed them to interrogate her properly while also giving them control of the situation. But omnisciently I knew that this was also part of the attack. The enemy had anticipated how we would respond to the situation and had intervened by sending helpers who were part of their plan. As I left the room and the dream ended, Hermione was in deep trouble.

(It seems important to reveal here that rope bondage is one of my kinks: I enjoy being restrained. During the depressive episode of the past two years I lost much of my interest in sex, particularly in any sexual play that required extra effort. However, since my mood began improving several months ago, my libido has been edging back. So has my interest in sexual toys. Only yesterday, I was playing around with my favourite rope harness and my desk chair. So this dream made an unusually and surprisingly literal reference to waking life. I guess it was referencing whatever psychological implications bondage has for me. However, Hermione's predicament was completely non-sexual and more dangerous than playful. In the way of Hogwartz stories, I was 95% certain that she would escape or be rescued in the end.)

Looking ahead

vaneramos — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 19:42:03 GMT

It's time I gave some thought to how I'll shape 2016 for myself.

An intense wave of boredom washed over me today. Maybe it's a good sign of waking up. 2015 hasn't been a good year; at least not the second half. Nothing bad happened except a tough bout of depression, and that's bad enough for everything. My mood usually starts to pick up by the end of December, but this time I feel the toughness holding onto me.

I need to operate "as if" things were going to get better. That requires a call to action for the year ahead.

Several projects have suggested themselves:

Start a new food blog based on the cookbook and meal plan I created this year.

Keep a nature journal every day for a year.

Continue work on my novel.

Plan to devote more energy to fibre craft during the second and third quarters, when I'm less verbal and more visual.

Get published in new magazine markets, of course.

Those are as many "big picture" goals as I an wrap my head around, and as many words as I can assemble, for today.

The Truth

vaneramos — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 15:09:21 GMT

Today's prompt from NaPoWriMo was to write a poem in the form of a review. I was so pleased with what I wrote, I decided not to publish it on social media. It's time I started submitting to poetry journals again.

New Beginning

vaneramos — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 15:12:20 GMT

Today's prompt from NaPoWriMo was to write a poem about a bridge. This simple stanza is completely true.

New Beginning

Two middle-aged gay men
move into a townhouse,
working-class neighbourhood.
Sow spinach and snap peas
outside the front door in April.
A cute guy two doors down
always stops to say hello,
his daughter visits on weekends.
Beyond the kitchen window
a bridge dappled with graffiti
leads across a ditch into the woods,
chartreuse buds spreading.

Life is short

vaneramos — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:41:39 GMT

Today
for NaPoWriMo
this double hay(na)ku.

~~~

Life
is short.
Must stay awake.

Thinking
brings misery.
Read a book.

Clara at Point Reyes, 1895

vaneramos — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 23:49:34 GMT

Today's challenge for NaPoWriMo was to write a persona poem, one written in the voice of someone else. I decided to use the fictional voice of my great great grandmother, Clara (Armstrong) Ford (1862-1944). This photograph shows her posing in front of a painting she painted, and which I have in my possession. In the 1890s her husband, a plumber, traveled with Clara and their son to California to install plumbing in a large new hotel being built in San Francisco. I've never visited California myself, but based on photos it's plausible that she painted this at Point Reyes. I also have an abalone shell her son, my great grandfather, collected.

My mother remembered Clara (her great grandmother) as being stern. Perhaps it's easier for me, who never knew her, to fantasize. I guess it wasn't unusual for ladies in the Victorian era to paint, and yet I perceive something enigmatic behind her dour, folded-hand exterior, and I wonder what she was thinking about when she painted this ethereal but somewhat dull painting.

Clara was a grand niece (though I'm uncertain about the number of generations) of Isaac Brock, a British commander who died defending Upper Canada against the U.S. during the War of 1812.

~~~~

Clara at Point Reyes, 1895

The arch in the rock looked too easy
an invitation to swimmers and scavengers.
So I’m repainting, heavy brushstrokes
of raw umber drawing the cliff face down,
the way of tears, a field of shadow
closing the gap to make three small piercings
through the massive headland.

They look like choices, a trinity
of paths to the other side: whether to
remain on this California shoreline
letting my son play on the beach every day,
comb the sand, collect abalones,
or when Bill finishes plumbing the hotel
return with him to Ontario.
There’s a third journey I’ve considered
each day surveying the high rock
while I paint.

Now it seems too dark, offends the eyes.
I’ll add a flock of casual white ems.
Limpid gulls, escaping the shadow,
rise with the djinn of mist
so powerful, released from stone,
where wind and water peel away
every soft fallen thing.

All our acquaintances here
know the truth of the arch.
I’m afraid to show my fabrication.
But back in Ontario the family
won’t realize there’s just one portal.

Ken would never tell
won’t remember when he is old
the way I must have seen it
where part of his mother fell
while he played in the sea.

Conservation Land

vaneramos — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 00:48:39 GMT

The daily challenge from NaPoWriMo didn't interest me, but I found another poetry prompt: to form kennings (compound words or compact phrases) for commonplace things and write a poem about them. I tried turning a simple afternoon excursion into something more remarkable.

Conservation land

We leave our steel chariots
asleep by the post
headwater of all journeys
solitary or in pairs
hairy grin-rollick beasts at heal
we cross the boundary
to a land set aside.

No one may dwell
till or spoil
all souls are travelers
in faint procession
sun customers
image slavers
disciples of health
pass in succinct greeting
carrying neither pot
scythe sword nor pillow.

Only signal carriers to transform
each inching saga
footfall discovery
to tale-breeding annals.

Tall-grown ancient sentinels
watch our progress
the plain of abundance
spreads beneath our feet
kingdom of stillness
separates our troubled wisdom
from the regimen of days.

Blueberry Jam

vaneramos — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 22:29:02 GMT

Today's challenge from NaPoWriMo was to write a parody or satire based on a famous poem. I chose the only Canadian poem I could immediately recall, Apple Jelly by Margaret Atwood. I had no desire to poke fun at this lovely poem. Instead I turned to bitter satire. Economics is draining from our food system the good things Atwood's poem evokes.

Blueberry Jam

No sense in all this picking,
mashing & simmering
if sheer food is all
you want; you can buy it cheaper
from California or Chile.

Why then do we burn
half a week’s grocery money
for a basket of wild Muskoka blueberries
cut vacation pay to get these tiny
glass pots of purple jam?

Hoarded for a year or two,
too precious to eat:
that August afternoon, your awkward brake
by the highway fruit stand,
skidding on gravel,
what we keep
the taste of local,
cost of dependency.

Herbal Tarot: VI The Lovers

vaneramos — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:37:08 GMT

Today's challenge from NaNoWriMo was to take a card from a deck, free write for five minutes, then turn it into a poem.

Herbal Tarot: VI The Lovers

New lovers point and gesture free
no stress just Adam and Eve
the first to walk with brains
their mountains bright
breath of God
blue pansies in her hair
husband by the hand
but she reaches for truth
well-defined muscles
and he is looking into her
paying attention.

When words falter it isn’t new
we don’t feel the rush on our skin
if only we could speak as kindly
as the way we touch one another
love is in the clouds sometimes
a kind of god
takes over our whole bodies
orders us around.

~

Voices of praise

vaneramos — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:43:01 GMT

Today's poem is for Earth Day.

~~~~

Voices of praise

Arugula seedlings spun to the god of light.
Ants scampered for their god of fertility.
Clouds ran and a maple tree
boughed to the god of breath.
A cardinal sang to the god of dominion.
Late snow squalled for the god of downward.

A window stood before the god of vision.
The desk lay prostrate before the god of service.
The journalist placed a call to the god of truth.

The mobile phone pulsed with the heart
the one true god of necessity
and all believed.

The clouds voided their bowels.
Growing fierce for the god of downward
the snow launched a holy war
the weather closed
the puddle froze
and the light failed.

The journalist groaned
gave up on truth
and let the vibrant god of urgency die.

The window sighed.
The maple disappeared.
The cardinal fled.
Purity obscured everything.

Mystic

vaneramos — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 03:19:07 GMT

Mystic

The ideas

 ineffable
   tap into

 lives
  moments
  sometimes cherry pie

    remember  detailed
     the grand façade
  is ephemeral


 One moment




   one manifestation

    direct

   the most ethereal
      moves

     I dream things

~

Today's prompt from NaPoWriMo was to write an erasure poem, created by blocking out words from a pre-existing text. My source text was part of a chapter from a book that has significantly influenced me, Carol Lloyd's Creating a Life Worth Living. Specifically, this comes from the chapter about artistic profiles, and the section on mystics.

Belief

vaneramos — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 22:11:49 GMT

Belief

Deneb blue-white supergiant
most luminous of stars
two hundred thousand bright
attenuated twenty-six thousand years
to glimpse a retina
time is distance

Niagara’s sheer dolostone
blasted by wind and ice
shelters diminutive cedars
from grazing deer raging fires careless boots
survive fourteen hundred winters
living isn’t safe

Your letter ended us
that’s what I remember
until rereading twelve months later
it demanded me to come
all up to me you said
the misinterpretation
was easier to accept

Eramosa river
half thawed between shores
running scale-like over shallow stones
reared suddenly a serpent
water god showing itself
easy as Jesus by my pillow
seeing is unbelieving

Landay

vaneramos — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 18:07:38 GMT

Today's prompt from NaPoWriMo was to write a landay, an traditional form of oral poetry spoken by women in Afghanistan.

Enclose me in the heat of your embrace
and I will start a furnace like the sun's corona.

dirty chervil's return

vaneramos — Sat, 18 Apr 2015 23:09:48 GMT

I didn't follow today's challenge from NaPoWriMo because I became absorbed in reading about Flarf, a spin-off from yesterday's challenge. Flarf is essentially poetry composed of phrases turning up in Google searches. Technically this poem isn't Flarf; I didn't really follow any rules, but used Google to help excavate some phrases that intrigued me. Warning: contains offensive language.

dirty chervil’s return

i had fall sown arugula and chervil
that stuff still exists
most diluted and dirtiest of stars
too dirty to show lol
fuck chat pussy sex love yeast
this spell is not ready to meet these gorgeous munchkins

i guess i’m back kind of sort of
munchkins they travel to save the emerald city
for all we know we might not come back
from applying to colleges and the like

chervil’s diabolical plan
give me everything tonight
i’ll work with you no matter how deep
back into the swing of all things warrior
protosaurus gun-room repaying treason on a killing spree
creepy diabolical munchkin rippin' out your hair follicles
I love how you gave no fuck

finallyyy my life is complete
now that I’m pseudo-back again
the next day I could run and play like before
a cornish crab and chervil risotto
with sweet beetroot