Sunday, October 16, 2005

Glory.

There are very few things in life that truly force me to consider the possibility that our existence is slightly more than some sort of random cosmic accident. One of those things is a long walk either on the beach or around the forest near my parents' house when the leaves are changing. Fall is fast becoming my favorite season. But before I get into how great fall is, perhaps a little context:

During my formative years at home winter was by far my favorite season. I suspect this had (at the time) a lot to do with the now lengendary frigidness of my parents basement where I spent much of my home time growing up. While my friends would sit and enjoy the first stages of hypothermia huddling under whatever blankets they could find, I would proudly recline in my lazy-boy (wearing a t-shirt and jeans typically) and joke about needing to turn on the A/C. The architect of this polar environment was my mother, who, like me evidently, likes *cold* much more than *hot*.

So between the genetics and environmental conditioning, I had a high tolerance for the cold and took to winter sports furiously. x-country skiing being an early favorite that was replaced with snowmobiling once I was a bit older. My favorite time to be out was at night when it as about
-20'C. At that temperature the moisture in the air freezes and you can see things more intensely than at other times. During full moons on nights like that you almost don't need headlights. Anyway, snowmobiles also work much better when it is colder so ridding them was more fun also. I remember busting through huge snowdrifts, speeding down a snow covered road, that feeling of lift-off when you come up off of a jump...all priceless.

But as global warming became more and more of a reality in the area where I grew up, those awesome winter nights became fewer and far between. The winter before I went to University I blew up the motor in my sled and that pretty much put and end to my obsessive lust for the sport. So with spotty winters, a changing lifestyle, and a growing appreciation of the innate beauties of life, I began to see the wonders of fall.

But just like my love of winter, my love of fall started in a basement. I've endured a number of summers in Toronto (and most recently in Hamilton). What I learned there is that I am adapted for cold, not hot--and that summer heat in particular, sucks ass. I begin sweating sometime near the end of May, and (God willing) I stop somewhere around mid-October. But aside from the relief I find in the cooler temperatures, the turning leaves have taken on a special significance for me. At home leaves are at the center of many fall activities: raking leaves, burning the leaves you've just raked, taking pictures of the leaves, and talking about the leaves ad nauseum to the people who travel there from the city to rake, burn, and take pictures of the leaves. But aside from all of that hallmark stuff about walking around in the fall there is something deeper there that gets me whenever I am out and about.

Fall to me is about change. The inevitability and beauty of change. But even more importantly fall is about the simultaneous acting out of those forces that bring about change. Beyond the myriad of colous we get in this part of Ontario, we also can get intense sun, intense cloud, intense rain, intense wind and intense calm all in the space of one day. We have this habit of personifying seasons and attaching some sort of metaphorical significance to them. Fall, then, for me is a good metaphor for any given moment in life. To walk around and gaze at your surroundings is to see a landscape of interrelated forces that while volatile and unpredictable, produce something beautiful, be it in the form of a sunny afternoon tromping through an colourful bed of fallen leaves, or holding fast your jacket while you walk through a mist of drizzle and see the world contrasted against the grey sky. Either way the sheer vastness and complexity of the natural world exposes itself in a way that just doesn't happen any other time. You may say that spring is just as wondrous and revealing...but you'd be wrong. The gradations of change in the spring happen much more slowly and less dramatically. Also, much of the resonant power of spring gets wrapped up in this whole 'new life' business and carries with it too much hope and comfort to be interesting. Fall is about the unknown. Its much more real and much more exciting.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

"I'm a writer...shhh...don't tell anyone."

I am always surprised when a person who identifies themself as a creator of some kind has actually created something that is floating around in the world somewhere. For every self-styled artist actually living on the merits of their craft, there are at least a hundred more who are actually waiters or clerks or whathaveyou. Many of the latter (I have always suspected) like to identify themselves in this way so as to cash in on some cultural capital in certain social situations. Like this one for example:

EXT: Street

PRETTY GIRL MEETS TOTAL DUMBASS

Pretty Girl: "So... what do you do?"

Dumb Ass: "Uh, well actually I'm a writer"

Pretty Girl: [unleashing a smile that could melt the ice caps] "Ooo, that's so interesting. Anything I would know?"

Dumb Ass [visibly shaken] proceeds to deliver some line suggestive of how he is too 'real' for the publishing scene so (really) publishing something would be sort of like selling out, and he's too legit to sell out.

...I'll let you figure out the rest from there...

To this I would also add a third category, in which I number myself. This is the category of people who genuinely think of themselves as capable, but day-in, day-out, do nothing about it. If anyone ever asks me if I am either a filmmaker or a writer (because in conversation I tend to go overboard when talking about either) I get a sort of sheepish look on my face and tell them that I am an enthusiast...not the real deal. This isn't a total lie, but it does leave out part of the truth. Sometimes I think I chose academics because it legitimated my not producing any fiction (on screen or in print) of my own while I was there. Yet, when I think back, I can't think of anything that was more fulfilling than creating something. One or two of the things I've written have also 'gotten out' (if only in small town papers ect...). I can't really describe what its like to see yourself in print...its a strange sort of mix that is at once intensely narcissistic and also desperately embarrassing. But, as I have studied what: 'word', 'image', and 'sound' can all do, I've come to believe that putting art out there in the world is the best thing for (really) any creation. There is a lot of inconsequential art out there; but dammit, its out there...and until I get off my ass and get something out there I bow to those more courageous, or hard-working than I.