MONDAY…
--- Bike day. I pick up my bike that I bought yesterday. My first bike in 18 years… should be fun.
--- Work is fine with walks at each break and lunch outside with Laura, Louis and Sandra.
--- Hour walk at home after work.
TUESDAY…
--- Walks at breaks… a sandwich for supper… not a real heavy workload tonight.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Not a real good day. Lots of serious or conflict talk both at work and away. It was generally handled well all around but I’m not sure if it will be something that everyone will be satisfied with in the end… at least the work stuff. The out of work stuff doesn’t involve me. BLAH to all of it… today’s a day I should have stayed in bed and not answered the phone.
THURSDAY…
--- Work is normal. I head to Wendy’s with Mike and meet Bill and his son there for supper. After work, I do an hour long walk of the neighbourhood.
FRIDAY…
--- Nick, Louis and I on evening shift… busy evening but not too bad. Chip Wagon for supper… the driving range before work with Atlas and Laura… a few drinks after work with Nick, Louis, Sheila and Isaac.
SATURDAY…
--- Have my first game of catch in two years. I go to Shannon’s and we grab the baseball… it feels good and, even though I don’t try much that’s very strenuous or tricky, my shoulder feels great doing it.
--- Dick’s Diner is followed by picking up Shannon’s friend, Ian, and going to the Lynx baseball game. Good game that they win, 9-0. In the game, I see my first ever live Grand Slam home run.
Popping an Eye
There’s nothing more relaxing than a late summer evening at a minor league baseball stadium.
After a meal of burgers and onion rings, Shannon and I pick up his friend, Ian, and head out to see a Lynx game. Tonight, they’re playing Toronto’s AAA team (Syracuse). We park at my office. It beats the $3 fee of the lot and is much less hectic trying to get out of once the game is done.
So we do the five minute walk from my office to the stadium and come upon a horde of people trying to get baseball tickets at the last minute. The game has already started and we’re not in the mood for the back of this line… so we wander over to the sidewalk outside of left field, and we watch an inning and a half through the chain link fence. The grass of the outfield shines green with the low sun. The sound of pitched balls hitting the catcher’s glove echoes to us an instant after the strike. Pulses drop with the ease of summer.
After that inning and a half, we head back to the ticket booth and get our tickets without any line. We grab three beers and head to our section, ready to grab whatever seats are most deserted of surrounding fans. After all, in a stadium that’s one third full on the best of nights, why would you restrict yourself to the seats you purchased only to be crammed in next to some family of four throwing popcorn at each other.
So we walk through the tunnel from the concourse to the openness of the field. I always like going from inside a baseball stadium to the outside of the field and seats. It’s like opening a door to activity and it takes the senses a few moments to take it all in.
We pick our seats and I put my beer down to get my glasses case and exchange my sunglasses for the regular ones. However, upon opening, I see that a lens has popped out… a screw is missing.
I am not shocked by this, it has happened before, so I poke through the case to get the screw out and twist it back in place. It isn’t there. I stand up again and search my pockets… perhaps the screw got out of the case. Not there either. A search about the ground proves fruitless as well.
Not to panic, with Shannon’s longer fingernails (there’s an advantage to not picking your nails) he’s able to remove one of the screws from my sunglasses. We’ll just transplant the screw to my regular specs and it’s ball watching time… a small ‘tink’ of metal on concrete followed by a searching lean forward of Shannon tells me plan “B” is hitting a snag. Another screw is gone.
The woman in front of us hears our commotion and searches the dusty concrete at her feet… but the screw is gone. Another half inning goes by with me only glancing at blurry ball players on the field as I see a fuzzy white ball getting tossed around by faceless fielders.
It’s off to the emergency response people I go. They calmly treat my injured glasses with some medical tape… I can watch the game now in geeky serenity. I’m a pocket protector away from a high school beating.
Through the rest of the game, I sit as still as possible… not wanting to risk the tape job and have my lens drop to it’s concrete demise next to the two screws from two pairs of glasses.
But the tape holds… a grand slam is witnessed and the pulse rate finally does drop back to baseball viewing levels as I slump into my seat.
An eighth inning trip to the washrooms isn’t worth mention… but the return through the tunnel to the field is noteworthy. Where walking through the door to activity takes the senses a few moments during the daylight hours, it can take your breath away completely during the darkness of night.
It truly is the light at the end of the tunnel. You walk out of the darkness and into the light. People mill about the walkways… they’re chatting in seats on a calm summer night... and the field glows. Infield dirt is dark and rich and the grass looks like a field of ivy. Players are performers under spotlights. With two good lenses, I can see them playing with relaxed concentration on their faces. The crack of the bat shoots the ball towards the shortstop… a crisp two hopper that’s transferred from glove to hand in a flash and thrown to first for the out.
I return to my seat for one last inning of summer tranquillity.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Making It Up As I Go Along #232
MONDAY…
--- I hurt my knee while sleeping. I’m hobbling around all day today but it’s pretty good by the time I leave at 3:00. But the question remains… how do you hurt your knee as you sleep?
--- A nap and evening ironing are just really not very exciting.
TUESDAY…
--- Not a bad day at work. Afterwards, I get Karl and we got to Gatineau Park for a hike. Get a good view of much of Gatineau… and also a distant view of Ottawa.
--- A fall asleep on the sofa for almost an hour before heading to bed… hope it doesn’t fool up my sleep.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Not a bad day at work. Golf afterwards. Atlas, Trevor, Phil Charron-Fortin and myself. Pretty good round for the second time out this year.
THURSDAY…
--- Busy day of work… a nap and spaghetti for supper in the evening.
--- I was awake around 3:30 this morning and never got back to sleep… so the nap in the early evening is no surprise.
FRIDAY…
--- Work is even paced… good for a Friday. An after work nap is followed by a baseball game with Nick, Sheila, Casey and Isaac from the office… plus a bunch of Nick’s friends. They lose the game and Isaac disappears by about the 7th inning… but it’s a pretty good night out.
SATURDAY…
--- Quiet day with some laundry. Join Linda Jackson in the evening and drive with her to the office pig roast. We stop along the way to where our new office will be… it’s a forty-five minute drive to get to the new office from my place… enough to make me say I will move before our office does… two years and counting.
--- Pig roast is good. Lots of time spent with Linda, her daughter, her daughter’s friend, Derek, Kiyomi, and Louis.
After the Show
After a night at the movies, Karl and I begin walking back to his apartment. He lives some ten minutes away from the Mayfair (an old style, one screen cinema) and whenever we agree to see a movie there, I park at his apartment. From there we walk along Bank Street, cross the bridge over the Rideau River, take the path under the bridge and walk through the side streets of the surrounding neighbourhood. It makes the ten minute walk fifteen minutes instead… but it’s better.
After our movie, we head back to his apartment. Escaping the bustle of Bank Street, we chat through the still night with our footsteps as the main source of noise. When footsteps dominate the noise of a city, you know it’s a quiet night.
Most of my night time walks have been alone. Here in Ottawa I walk alone after evening shift. And back home, in St. John’s, if I was walking at night it would be by myself as well. Most of my friends in St. John’s are with families now and they live in the suburbs. Walking city streets doesn’t rank very high on their list of daily priorities.
I love walking at night alone but it is a nice change to occasionally do such a walk with a friend. Karl and I chat during our amble home. We talk of the movie we just watched. We talk of the creative process of writing. And we talk about drawing and painting as well (Karl’s main creative hobby).
As we walk, another noise disturbs our footfalls. We stop talking and look across the street to see a woman, standing in her doorway and sweeping her front walk.
It’s 11:30 at night and she’s hunched over her broom with a pink hooded sweatshirt on and the hood up, hiding her face. Behind her, the all glass storm door allows the light of her lower unit apartment to silhouette her. The kitchen cupboards, table and chairs are clear in the light space of indoors. The old style, two story house surrounds and rises up from this beacon of homeliness. And she stoops out front… sweeping.
As we pass, Karl and I look at each other and smile. Such scenes as these are just pushed into the background of a busy, metropolitan day. You walk by and pay them no heed. But at night, in the stillness, it’s a conceptual painting brought to life.
We walk on, returning to the sound of our steps, and turn our discussion to the scene we just saw. We speak of the pink hood over the woman’s face. We speak of possible reasons why a person would take it upon themselves to go sweeping outside, late on a Saturday night. And we speak of the glow of the home within and how inviting it looked.
As we keep going, Karl asks me about how I write. He asks if I could describe our current scene and make a story of it. I think about it and feel a little pressure to try to describe our walk as a story teller this very second. But I tell him that such things usually happen hours or days after the fact, when my imagination plays with it and my memory becomes a picture.
As I’m telling him this, trying to describe the process I use, a black and white cat darts across the street and crosses the sidewalk in front of us. Again, we both pause and chuckle. I gesture towards the driveway the cat jutted up and say “that could be a part of such a story.” I look up the driveway as we walk past and see the dim whiteness of that black and white cat as it pauses at a gate, staring at us cautiously, waiting to see if it needs to scurry under the gate to safety or if it is fine where it stands.
We continue on. Returning under the bridge and coming up around on the other side. But instead of continuing on to the apartment, Karl suggests a drink at the local pub, and we backtrack along Bank Street for a block or two. We sit and continue our chatting over a couple of pints.
By the time we reach Karl’s apartment, it’s just past 1:00. Karl suggests a pizza before I head home and I’m intrigued to try out the local pizza place. We place our order and stand in the porch like customer area as we wait. A twenty-five year old TV is in the corner playing an old black and white Elvis Presley movie. The occasional distortion and lines on the screen tell us there’s no cable hook up. Only an antenna gives us the picture and I’m mesmerized by the memories as we await the pizza.
A city is at it’s best late at night.
--- I hurt my knee while sleeping. I’m hobbling around all day today but it’s pretty good by the time I leave at 3:00. But the question remains… how do you hurt your knee as you sleep?
--- A nap and evening ironing are just really not very exciting.
TUESDAY…
--- Not a bad day at work. Afterwards, I get Karl and we got to Gatineau Park for a hike. Get a good view of much of Gatineau… and also a distant view of Ottawa.
--- A fall asleep on the sofa for almost an hour before heading to bed… hope it doesn’t fool up my sleep.
WEDNESDAY…
--- Not a bad day at work. Golf afterwards. Atlas, Trevor, Phil Charron-Fortin and myself. Pretty good round for the second time out this year.
THURSDAY…
--- Busy day of work… a nap and spaghetti for supper in the evening.
--- I was awake around 3:30 this morning and never got back to sleep… so the nap in the early evening is no surprise.
FRIDAY…
--- Work is even paced… good for a Friday. An after work nap is followed by a baseball game with Nick, Sheila, Casey and Isaac from the office… plus a bunch of Nick’s friends. They lose the game and Isaac disappears by about the 7th inning… but it’s a pretty good night out.
SATURDAY…
--- Quiet day with some laundry. Join Linda Jackson in the evening and drive with her to the office pig roast. We stop along the way to where our new office will be… it’s a forty-five minute drive to get to the new office from my place… enough to make me say I will move before our office does… two years and counting.
--- Pig roast is good. Lots of time spent with Linda, her daughter, her daughter’s friend, Derek, Kiyomi, and Louis.
After the Show
After a night at the movies, Karl and I begin walking back to his apartment. He lives some ten minutes away from the Mayfair (an old style, one screen cinema) and whenever we agree to see a movie there, I park at his apartment. From there we walk along Bank Street, cross the bridge over the Rideau River, take the path under the bridge and walk through the side streets of the surrounding neighbourhood. It makes the ten minute walk fifteen minutes instead… but it’s better.
After our movie, we head back to his apartment. Escaping the bustle of Bank Street, we chat through the still night with our footsteps as the main source of noise. When footsteps dominate the noise of a city, you know it’s a quiet night.
Most of my night time walks have been alone. Here in Ottawa I walk alone after evening shift. And back home, in St. John’s, if I was walking at night it would be by myself as well. Most of my friends in St. John’s are with families now and they live in the suburbs. Walking city streets doesn’t rank very high on their list of daily priorities.
I love walking at night alone but it is a nice change to occasionally do such a walk with a friend. Karl and I chat during our amble home. We talk of the movie we just watched. We talk of the creative process of writing. And we talk about drawing and painting as well (Karl’s main creative hobby).
As we walk, another noise disturbs our footfalls. We stop talking and look across the street to see a woman, standing in her doorway and sweeping her front walk.
It’s 11:30 at night and she’s hunched over her broom with a pink hooded sweatshirt on and the hood up, hiding her face. Behind her, the all glass storm door allows the light of her lower unit apartment to silhouette her. The kitchen cupboards, table and chairs are clear in the light space of indoors. The old style, two story house surrounds and rises up from this beacon of homeliness. And she stoops out front… sweeping.
As we pass, Karl and I look at each other and smile. Such scenes as these are just pushed into the background of a busy, metropolitan day. You walk by and pay them no heed. But at night, in the stillness, it’s a conceptual painting brought to life.
We walk on, returning to the sound of our steps, and turn our discussion to the scene we just saw. We speak of the pink hood over the woman’s face. We speak of possible reasons why a person would take it upon themselves to go sweeping outside, late on a Saturday night. And we speak of the glow of the home within and how inviting it looked.
As we keep going, Karl asks me about how I write. He asks if I could describe our current scene and make a story of it. I think about it and feel a little pressure to try to describe our walk as a story teller this very second. But I tell him that such things usually happen hours or days after the fact, when my imagination plays with it and my memory becomes a picture.
As I’m telling him this, trying to describe the process I use, a black and white cat darts across the street and crosses the sidewalk in front of us. Again, we both pause and chuckle. I gesture towards the driveway the cat jutted up and say “that could be a part of such a story.” I look up the driveway as we walk past and see the dim whiteness of that black and white cat as it pauses at a gate, staring at us cautiously, waiting to see if it needs to scurry under the gate to safety or if it is fine where it stands.
We continue on. Returning under the bridge and coming up around on the other side. But instead of continuing on to the apartment, Karl suggests a drink at the local pub, and we backtrack along Bank Street for a block or two. We sit and continue our chatting over a couple of pints.
By the time we reach Karl’s apartment, it’s just past 1:00. Karl suggests a pizza before I head home and I’m intrigued to try out the local pizza place. We place our order and stand in the porch like customer area as we wait. A twenty-five year old TV is in the corner playing an old black and white Elvis Presley movie. The occasional distortion and lines on the screen tell us there’s no cable hook up. Only an antenna gives us the picture and I’m mesmerized by the memories as we await the pizza.
A city is at it’s best late at night.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Making It Up As I Go Along #231
Pictures...
Top: Coast Guard Vessel, Sir Wilfred Grenfell, exiting The Narrows with Fort Amherst in the background.
Bottom: Looking into downtown St. John's. Along the skyline is the Basilica on the right and The Rooms on the left.
MONDAY…
--- Downtown with Christine for some shopping. Lunch there and a little walk at Mer Bleue. Ice cream to cool off and some TV time before supper. We eat on a patio of a new place near my house. The Barley Mow is pretty good and it was a nice night to eat outside.
TUESDAY…
--- Busy day with Christine. Dick’s Diner, Mountain Equipment Co-Op, the Museum of Civilization (with the I-Max on the Nile included) and supper in the market.
--- Monty Python’s Search of the Holy Grail on DVD to end the night… Christine may not be much of a Python fan… silly cousin.
WEDNESDAY…
--- See Leslie and Kiyomi for the first time in weeks. Good for a smile or two.
--- Work is somewhat busy. Two walks with Linda (another one I haven’t seen in a month) is good.
--- Come home to my smoke detector telling me it has a low battery. This means having to go straight out again to get a new battery. The detector is electrical with only a battery backup… so there’s no unplugging it for the night (it’s hard wired in). Bit of a pain but oh well.
THURSDAY…
--- Work is pretty normal for the summer vacation time (meaning a third of the people aren’t in the place). Lots of walks today. One at each break and an hour long one when I go home.
FRIDAY…
--- Computer issues at work annoy somewhat. Not a bad evening though. Just Dave, Louis, Casey and me in CNI.
SATURDAY…
--- Quiet day for most of the day. I do a movie with Karl in the evening. I like “Click”... funny with some meaning.
--- A beer and a good stroll back to Karl’s place after that and some pizza to end the night in front of his TV with an old Japanese movie on TV. “The War of the Gargantuans” is a classic cheesy dubbed monster movie complete with rubber suit guy wondering around a model city as the feared monster.
The Narrows
Two rocky hills and an inlet. An inlet that’s so narrow they named this place just that… The Narrows.
St. John’s harbour has more history than any other city harbour in North America. The Roman Catholic Basilica, with it’s two towers jutting up into the downtown sky has even been used by sailors to gain access to this harbour. For you see, with rocky crags ready to punch holes in those ships searching for a place to tie up, captains were trained to aim their ship right between the Basilica’s towers. Go towards the towers and you’ll avoid the rocks. This history is my main objection to the monstrosity that is The Rooms (a building that stands next to, and dwarfs, the Basilica).
But it’s the history of The Narrows that captured me a few weeks ago. Jim, Sam and I joined Christina (Jim’s sister) at her new downtown home. A three story house I’d take for my own in a second. For the third floor loft/bedroom has a balcony located just off of it. And from this balcony there is a perfect view of The Narrows.
The moment we stepped out onto her balcony was perfectly timed. A coast guard ship was entering the harbour. And even though I couldn’t see the Basilica at that moment, I knew where that ship was pointing.
I saw a modern day coast guard ship but my imagination took over and suddenly I saw ships of all sorts making this same run through this same passage. I saw fishing dories. I saw schooners with great masts and sails. I saw modern day cruise ships, taller than any local building, edge between the rocks.
I saw the Mathew drifting in from the night time fog as a vessel from a dream. I actually witnessed that one. Even though John Cabot’s “Mathew” sailed the seas some five hundred years ago, I was there when the replica entered St. John’s harbour on the five hundredth anniversary.
From Christina’s balcony I saw sealing ships returning from the stormy winter hunts with hundreds of family and friends waiting onshore to welcome their safe return. I also saw ships of all sizes and type… some with sails and others with the hum of a motor… taking a crew out to sea… never to be seen again.
War ships have patrolled the waters just outside The Narrows. There to protect North America from invasion. Remnants of a great chain can still be seen at the base of Signal Hill on the left and Fort Amherst on the right. This chain once held a metal net in the hopes of keeping the German U-Boats out of the harbour.
At Signal Hill, Marconi sent the first Trans Atlantic wireless message. Generations of children have run along these rocks, lofting kites into the wind. And criminals have been left here, tarred and hung… a warning to those within the city below.
The Narrows have stood for five hundred years as a welcome to those who have travelled long from the old world. Once a ship enters The Narrows, it is home… the stormy seas are left outside, only peace remains within the safety of the hills.
And the Narrows are there to say farewell. When sailors venture out to return to the lands where their ancestors have come from. Most make it but, for some, The Narrows mark the last time they would be within a stone’s throw of land.
Many a kook have left The Narrows trying to row from Canada to Ireland alone and in everything from a ten foot dory to what looks like little more than a giant beef bucket. Sometimes people stand onshore to see them off but it’s more with a feeling of “what an idiot” than “bless that man”. Most times the locals know better, don’t pay any attention to the rower, and chuckle at the paper two days later when they read of how the coast guard had to pick him up fifty kilometres off the coast.
But it’s all there. The good and the bad. The glorious and the tragic. The historical and the ordinary. Those two hills of rock and that narrow channel of ocean have been home to so much history… and my friend can walk through a doorway and peer out on it anytime she wants.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Middle Cove 2006
More vacation pictures. Today... Middle Cove. The waves were good that day. And Claire was quite excited watching them roll in. (click to enlarge).
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Making It Up As I Go Along #230
THURSDAY…
--- Busy day at work and writing in the evening. Not much else going on today really.
FRIDAY…
--- Long day. We were supposed to work until 11:30 and then go to a CNI luncheon… that was it for the day. Ten minutes before the luncheon, a work issue keeps me behind. I don’t end my work day until around 3:30… skipping lunch and a break entirely. On the bright side, it’ll mean I’ll work less time tomorrow… a half day will make up for my extra work today.
--- Some laundry, a post work nap, and getting my pictures uploaded to the computer end my day.
SATURDAY…
--- Thanks to extended working yesterday, my full day Saturday in the office is reduced to pretty much a half day. Still lots of catching up left to get done but I put a dent in it.
--- Baseball and Dick’s Diner with Shannon. Good game too with a no-hitter for 5 1/3 innings by the visiting pitcher and the winning run scored in the bottom of the 9th inning for a 3-2 Ottawa victory.
Why Write
Why write? Mom suggested writing about writing while I was on my vacation. I don’t know if that’s where this is going… I’m just winging it on a Saturday night because, with my cousin coming to visit tomorrow, I won’t have any other time to do this until the middle of next week.
I grew up around literature. Mom and dad have always read and dad tells a story like few others. But I was never as big a reader as my parents. Dad had to make a point of stopping me from always wanting to buy comic books. He felt they did no good for me although I could never understand how it would be a problem. There were words on the page. I was reading. But the illustrations negated the words and, by my mid teens, comic books were basically band.
So writing never played a very big role in my life early on. My creative side was nurtured with music and art lessons. But music never really held my attention. I practiced as little as possible and, by high school, decided to get out of the music business altogether. I’m just too private a person to want to perform for people and ten minutes of practice every night wasn’t making me a pro by any means.
Art worked with my private side. But still, after a while, it seems the well ran dry. I rarely got inspired to paint anything and, after a while, the paint set just never came out.
There was enough other stuff going on during my university days, so my creative side took a hiatus. An English minor developed some extra reading and writing for me, but I never really got in to it with any real passion. Too often I felt like I had to write a certain way for an assignment. I didn’t feel free to do what I wanted.
Out of university and into the work force and my creative writing remained dormant. I did have to write. I wrote historical documents for parks and parcels of land around St. John’s. It all played in to my background with cultural and historical geography. But even then, when the work day was done I had no desire to write anything.
No, it was a mindless job and an adventurous cousin that brought out my writing desire. I was working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And although it was a fine paying job, my mind was quite capable of wandering away from the task at hand. Separating and counting fish eggs or removing fish ear drums from fifteen year old, brittle putty was hardly fascinating for me. So I’d think about things while I worked. I’d daydream about the odd characters of my neighbourhood… making up stories for the parts of their lives I never saw. And I’d think about things I’d hear on the news or talked with other people about earlier. So much thinking would allow ideas to grow… a few notes would make their way into my pocket and I’d work with them later on when I went home.
What got me to decide to write on a weekly basis was an around the world trip by my cousin Kerri. Her e-mails back to family would make you laugh out loud and, somewhere between the fish’s ears and eggs, I came to think that I could write a personal tale similar to what Kerri had done. I decided I should make this a weekly practice largely because I figured anything less would have me get out of the habit. I figured writing could very easily go the way of music… so once a week it would be.
But for me to really become interested in writing I had to become a bum. That is to say, I became unemployed. I went one full year without work and this gave me the flexibility to write whenever I wanted. And with a downtown house equipped with a magnificent loft, I soon developed the habit of late night writing. I’d often start in at 2:00 AM either with music in the background or a distant foghorn on those misty nights. Often, a trip hiking around Cape Spear or a late night downtown walk would send me home with a mind buzzing… barely able to wait to make it to my loft.
Today I’m back to work and out of my loft. I’m also about four years in to my weekly ritual. It’s harder to get inspired to write now. Ottawa doesn’t grip me the way St. John’s does and work has left me unable to write all hours of the night. And, over the last six or seven months, extra responsibilities at work has hampered the developing of writing ideas throughout the day (although I still do make my way home with a little note in my pocket… there to remind me of a topic to work on).
And now it’s in me I guess. For me, writing is all about interpreting and remembering moments. To take an image in my mind and describe it so others can see it.
Funny thing, after writing that last sentence, I was reminded of some moments of imagery from my trip home. Notes were made and next week’s story is already taking form.
That’s why I write.
--- Busy day at work and writing in the evening. Not much else going on today really.
FRIDAY…
--- Long day. We were supposed to work until 11:30 and then go to a CNI luncheon… that was it for the day. Ten minutes before the luncheon, a work issue keeps me behind. I don’t end my work day until around 3:30… skipping lunch and a break entirely. On the bright side, it’ll mean I’ll work less time tomorrow… a half day will make up for my extra work today.
--- Some laundry, a post work nap, and getting my pictures uploaded to the computer end my day.
SATURDAY…
--- Thanks to extended working yesterday, my full day Saturday in the office is reduced to pretty much a half day. Still lots of catching up left to get done but I put a dent in it.
--- Baseball and Dick’s Diner with Shannon. Good game too with a no-hitter for 5 1/3 innings by the visiting pitcher and the winning run scored in the bottom of the 9th inning for a 3-2 Ottawa victory.
Why Write
Why write? Mom suggested writing about writing while I was on my vacation. I don’t know if that’s where this is going… I’m just winging it on a Saturday night because, with my cousin coming to visit tomorrow, I won’t have any other time to do this until the middle of next week.
I grew up around literature. Mom and dad have always read and dad tells a story like few others. But I was never as big a reader as my parents. Dad had to make a point of stopping me from always wanting to buy comic books. He felt they did no good for me although I could never understand how it would be a problem. There were words on the page. I was reading. But the illustrations negated the words and, by my mid teens, comic books were basically band.
So writing never played a very big role in my life early on. My creative side was nurtured with music and art lessons. But music never really held my attention. I practiced as little as possible and, by high school, decided to get out of the music business altogether. I’m just too private a person to want to perform for people and ten minutes of practice every night wasn’t making me a pro by any means.
Art worked with my private side. But still, after a while, it seems the well ran dry. I rarely got inspired to paint anything and, after a while, the paint set just never came out.
There was enough other stuff going on during my university days, so my creative side took a hiatus. An English minor developed some extra reading and writing for me, but I never really got in to it with any real passion. Too often I felt like I had to write a certain way for an assignment. I didn’t feel free to do what I wanted.
Out of university and into the work force and my creative writing remained dormant. I did have to write. I wrote historical documents for parks and parcels of land around St. John’s. It all played in to my background with cultural and historical geography. But even then, when the work day was done I had no desire to write anything.
No, it was a mindless job and an adventurous cousin that brought out my writing desire. I was working with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. And although it was a fine paying job, my mind was quite capable of wandering away from the task at hand. Separating and counting fish eggs or removing fish ear drums from fifteen year old, brittle putty was hardly fascinating for me. So I’d think about things while I worked. I’d daydream about the odd characters of my neighbourhood… making up stories for the parts of their lives I never saw. And I’d think about things I’d hear on the news or talked with other people about earlier. So much thinking would allow ideas to grow… a few notes would make their way into my pocket and I’d work with them later on when I went home.
What got me to decide to write on a weekly basis was an around the world trip by my cousin Kerri. Her e-mails back to family would make you laugh out loud and, somewhere between the fish’s ears and eggs, I came to think that I could write a personal tale similar to what Kerri had done. I decided I should make this a weekly practice largely because I figured anything less would have me get out of the habit. I figured writing could very easily go the way of music… so once a week it would be.
But for me to really become interested in writing I had to become a bum. That is to say, I became unemployed. I went one full year without work and this gave me the flexibility to write whenever I wanted. And with a downtown house equipped with a magnificent loft, I soon developed the habit of late night writing. I’d often start in at 2:00 AM either with music in the background or a distant foghorn on those misty nights. Often, a trip hiking around Cape Spear or a late night downtown walk would send me home with a mind buzzing… barely able to wait to make it to my loft.
Today I’m back to work and out of my loft. I’m also about four years in to my weekly ritual. It’s harder to get inspired to write now. Ottawa doesn’t grip me the way St. John’s does and work has left me unable to write all hours of the night. And, over the last six or seven months, extra responsibilities at work has hampered the developing of writing ideas throughout the day (although I still do make my way home with a little note in my pocket… there to remind me of a topic to work on).
And now it’s in me I guess. For me, writing is all about interpreting and remembering moments. To take an image in my mind and describe it so others can see it.
Funny thing, after writing that last sentence, I was reminded of some moments of imagery from my trip home. Notes were made and next week’s story is already taking form.
That’s why I write.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Cape St. Mary's
Here are the first pictures from my vacation. Cape St. Mary's Bird Sanctuary. In one picture, we look across at the cliffs and you can see the white of birds on the distant rock face on the right side of the cliff. The close up picture shows the "white" rock face... thousands of Gannets. Some of these birds would have a wing span of six feet. (click on each picture for a larger image)
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Making It Up As I Go Along #229
Well it’s a day late but a little write up is here anyway. Back from Newfoundland and the vacation I am. Back away from the sea and to the stickiness of Ottawa summer. I like the heat but the time away was nice. Plus it was fun wearing a fleece while hiking in 25 degree weather. My parents seemed amazed by it… it was like performing tricks at a birthday party.
Anyway, I was thinking of doing a basic daily rundown since my last update with no story until the weekend. And there won’t be a story until the weekend still… but I also don’t think I should just write what happened each day. That kind of thing is best for my parents and, I would assume, pretty boring for most other people. And since my parents saw what I was up to, why subject everyone to it.
So I’ll do a bit of a rundown of the things that stood out and let the minor things go.
Vacation 2006
JULY 21…
--- Leave Ottawa. Arrive in St. John’s and immediately say bye bye to good eating habits by partaking in a meal of Ches’s Fish and Chips.
--- Claire (the niece) begins beating me… it won’t stop until she leaves.
JULY 22…
--- I am snotty to my mother. Watching Apollo 13 on TV late at night, she wakes… sees the light still on downstairs… and comes to investigate. Her “You’re still up?” is followed by my “Obviously”. I’m just not that pleasant at 3:00AM am I?
JULY 24…
--- Out for supper and some hanging with some of the softball boys. Del, Steve Frew and Morrissey all gather with me and Frew’s house. First time I see Steve in about two years and it’s good. Walking in to his place reminds me of days of the old ball team where we may get together after a game until the wee hours of the morning.
JULY 25…
--- Family day (Edena and her family go back to BC the next day). We hit Middle Cove Beach and that place is magical today with good waves and sun.
--- The Keg steakhouse is the supper place with my uncle Wayne and his wife, Sylvia joining us. We walk along the harbour front after that and the light hits Signal Hill perfectly.
--- Claire is still willing to beat me.
JULY 26…
--- Jim and his family dominate the day. Watching his son, Will, play soccer and going to their house for a BBQ. Kids under the age of ten enjoy beating me… like Claire, Will and Sam wail away. The most notable moment being a dodged punch to a delicate area after Will proclaims that “I’m going to punch you in the wee wee”.
JULY 27…
--- On a busy day around the bay with the parents and eating supper downtown with friends, the most notable event is the fact that drinks at the Duke of Duckworth bar are in a smoke free facility. I’m not used to being in the Duke without a highly tobacco laden atmosphere.
JULY 28…
--- Fog in town drives us out to Cape St. Mary’s. It’s bizarre to go to such a place and actually get away from the fog. St. Mary’s is one of the foggiest places on earth. But the bird sanctuary there is amazing. Probably a million birds hanging along the cliffs and the sheep! My God the sheep!!! By the way, for those reading this via e-mail rather than blog, there will be pictures of my vacation to be seen there by the end of the weekend. www.chrislbrown.blogspot.com if you want to go see.
JULY 30…
--- Spend an hour hiking Pippy Park in the morning. The only downside with my trip home is that the weekend out of town (this weekend) got fooled up by bad weather forecasts. I mean Fogo Island in the rain is not a nice place to spend a day. But Pippy Park is great. The highest point in the city gives you some great views and I see six people and one wet dog while there. What strikes me most is looking out at the harbour “narrows” (where the sea enters between Signal Hill and the South Side Hills). I look and say to myself “there’s Signal Hill… and there’s the South Side…” and then I look in between, where the ocean extends out to the horizon, and I think “and there’s Ireland.” That’s the thing with St. John’s. You can look out at nothing towards the east and you know that the next bit of land you would come across is an entirely different continent. That horizon is where dreams come from.
--- And I’m corny.
JULY 31…
--- Lunch at the Ship (Used to be called the Ship Inn). This is the kind of bar that puts me back into a time warp on another continent. It’s the kind of place I think of where businessmen of 19th century England would go eat broth before going home. And it’s the kind of place that came to mind when I was reading the beginning part of Moby Dick. Where sailors ate while waiting for their ship to go to sea. With that, I had a Thai wrap and ruin the imagery.
--- Patio time with Jim and Sam is good time.
AUGUST 1…
--- Dad’s macaroni and cheese deserves mention.
--- Hike Signal Hill with mom and dad (again the pictures will be on the blog).
--- Montreal Airport for three or four hours tonight. Not well thought out considering it takes less than two hours to drive to Ottawa from Montreal… but here I stay. And a major lightning storm keeps me there longer than originally planned. In a memorable point in time, I’m at one end of the terminal all alone. I’m just sitting in the lounge chairs looking out the wall of windows and watching the show outside. But once the lights in the airport start to dim, I decide to go find other people to sit with. I don’t want to be alone in an empty part of an airport without a light to see how to get out of it.
AUGUST 2…
--- Back to work at 11:00. I work half a day. And we get a Tornado warning tonight… but no tornados in my neck of the woods. Still, if there was ever any doubt that I was no longer in Newfoundland, a tornado warning put an end to it.
Anyway, I was thinking of doing a basic daily rundown since my last update with no story until the weekend. And there won’t be a story until the weekend still… but I also don’t think I should just write what happened each day. That kind of thing is best for my parents and, I would assume, pretty boring for most other people. And since my parents saw what I was up to, why subject everyone to it.
So I’ll do a bit of a rundown of the things that stood out and let the minor things go.
Vacation 2006
JULY 21…
--- Leave Ottawa. Arrive in St. John’s and immediately say bye bye to good eating habits by partaking in a meal of Ches’s Fish and Chips.
--- Claire (the niece) begins beating me… it won’t stop until she leaves.
JULY 22…
--- I am snotty to my mother. Watching Apollo 13 on TV late at night, she wakes… sees the light still on downstairs… and comes to investigate. Her “You’re still up?” is followed by my “Obviously”. I’m just not that pleasant at 3:00AM am I?
JULY 24…
--- Out for supper and some hanging with some of the softball boys. Del, Steve Frew and Morrissey all gather with me and Frew’s house. First time I see Steve in about two years and it’s good. Walking in to his place reminds me of days of the old ball team where we may get together after a game until the wee hours of the morning.
JULY 25…
--- Family day (Edena and her family go back to BC the next day). We hit Middle Cove Beach and that place is magical today with good waves and sun.
--- The Keg steakhouse is the supper place with my uncle Wayne and his wife, Sylvia joining us. We walk along the harbour front after that and the light hits Signal Hill perfectly.
--- Claire is still willing to beat me.
JULY 26…
--- Jim and his family dominate the day. Watching his son, Will, play soccer and going to their house for a BBQ. Kids under the age of ten enjoy beating me… like Claire, Will and Sam wail away. The most notable moment being a dodged punch to a delicate area after Will proclaims that “I’m going to punch you in the wee wee”.
JULY 27…
--- On a busy day around the bay with the parents and eating supper downtown with friends, the most notable event is the fact that drinks at the Duke of Duckworth bar are in a smoke free facility. I’m not used to being in the Duke without a highly tobacco laden atmosphere.
JULY 28…
--- Fog in town drives us out to Cape St. Mary’s. It’s bizarre to go to such a place and actually get away from the fog. St. Mary’s is one of the foggiest places on earth. But the bird sanctuary there is amazing. Probably a million birds hanging along the cliffs and the sheep! My God the sheep!!! By the way, for those reading this via e-mail rather than blog, there will be pictures of my vacation to be seen there by the end of the weekend. www.chrislbrown.blogspot.com if you want to go see.
JULY 30…
--- Spend an hour hiking Pippy Park in the morning. The only downside with my trip home is that the weekend out of town (this weekend) got fooled up by bad weather forecasts. I mean Fogo Island in the rain is not a nice place to spend a day. But Pippy Park is great. The highest point in the city gives you some great views and I see six people and one wet dog while there. What strikes me most is looking out at the harbour “narrows” (where the sea enters between Signal Hill and the South Side Hills). I look and say to myself “there’s Signal Hill… and there’s the South Side…” and then I look in between, where the ocean extends out to the horizon, and I think “and there’s Ireland.” That’s the thing with St. John’s. You can look out at nothing towards the east and you know that the next bit of land you would come across is an entirely different continent. That horizon is where dreams come from.
--- And I’m corny.
JULY 31…
--- Lunch at the Ship (Used to be called the Ship Inn). This is the kind of bar that puts me back into a time warp on another continent. It’s the kind of place I think of where businessmen of 19th century England would go eat broth before going home. And it’s the kind of place that came to mind when I was reading the beginning part of Moby Dick. Where sailors ate while waiting for their ship to go to sea. With that, I had a Thai wrap and ruin the imagery.
--- Patio time with Jim and Sam is good time.
AUGUST 1…
--- Dad’s macaroni and cheese deserves mention.
--- Hike Signal Hill with mom and dad (again the pictures will be on the blog).
--- Montreal Airport for three or four hours tonight. Not well thought out considering it takes less than two hours to drive to Ottawa from Montreal… but here I stay. And a major lightning storm keeps me there longer than originally planned. In a memorable point in time, I’m at one end of the terminal all alone. I’m just sitting in the lounge chairs looking out the wall of windows and watching the show outside. But once the lights in the airport start to dim, I decide to go find other people to sit with. I don’t want to be alone in an empty part of an airport without a light to see how to get out of it.
AUGUST 2…
--- Back to work at 11:00. I work half a day. And we get a Tornado warning tonight… but no tornados in my neck of the woods. Still, if there was ever any doubt that I was no longer in Newfoundland, a tornado warning put an end to it.
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