i have a really bad habit of mulling over things that are bothering me constantly - it's like i can't leave a problem alone because i KNOW there's a solution, i just can't seem to bloody find it right away. and i'm convinced if i keep thinking about the problem from different angles that i will eventually figure it out.

but my current problem is one that can't really be fixed until i am able to get out of the place i'm working in (ah ha, some of you are thinking; you know what i'm talking about because you've been there before) so i've made a new rule: when i'm not at work, i'm not allowed to think about work. or rather the problem at work. it's a lot harder to do than i originally thought, but i'm happy to practise A LOT about not thinking about the problem at work when i'm not at work.

so the things i am allowed to think about when i'm not at work are:
dance.
books.
films.
The World.
friends.
family.
painting.
the Dance Coalition. (sigh).

and that's it folks. NO WORK THOUGHTS ALLOWED. i think i need to get that phrase tattooed to my forehead though. cuz it's going to take a LOT of practise.

Labels: challenges, transitions

sometimes, i wish i could go somewhere far away, just for a while. i really over-committed myself this year, by accident really - when i accepted the president position for the dance coalition i wasn't in the full-time work program i'm in now, and i didn't have such crappy pay that i had to supplement my living expenses with a part-time job. i've been through a bit of a rough time in my personal life over the last little while, although it definitely hasn't been as rough as it could have been (or has been for others that i know and love well) - but i am scared, a little bit, that i am slowly breaking down. i know i'll be fine. i'm just scared of the toll this is taking on my relationships, familial in particular. but i'll work through that, i guess. you always do. survive.

i want to thank all of my dear, dear friends who are so forgiving, and welcoming, to me, when i haven't been a very good friend over the past two years. i regret not keeping in touch as much as i should have, and i regret what i have missed in your lives as a result. but thank you for always being there for me, even when it seems like i've been a stranger.

~ sappho

Labels: tired, transitions, winding paths unseen

ahhh!! in 28 minutes it's going to be february!! and then in 22 days i'm going to be 23, yippee!
i am in hamilton for classes, things are going ok...i'm haven't really slept much yet because this place is so old. it's a huge house that a senator used to own, and then he sold it to the sisters of the precious blood (they're a sisterhood from quebec). the SPB sold it to unity church, so now it is a non-denominational retreat centre. anyway the building has radiators that heat it and the steam is so noisy i swear it sounds like there are ghosts trapped in the pipes and they are trying to get out. and there's a huge tarp outside my window that flaps in really windy weather so no sleep for me!! hence i am blogging with 28 minutes until february. there have been more exciting moments in my life.

what are all of you guys up to in the big t-dot?! molly i got your email, you sweetheart. i miss you too!! come back to toronto faster!! ok well as fast as you can. life just isn't the same without you darlin'. i am sitting beside mona (one of my classmates) she can't sleep either and we are typing on the only two computers in the building that have internet access.

you know this place is quite interesting in terms of its history. it is on a mountain in hamilton (ok it's a really big hill) and the view is fantastic. can you imagine what a huge impressive and spooky place this must have been when the senator built it? kind of like the neighborhood ghost house...

well i'm learning about how to get a good board of directors and effectively structure an arts organization to make a lot of money. i don't know if i'll end up in the arts, but here's something i can definitely tell you, i will apply my skills in learning how to make a lot of money. JUST KIDDING! i am a pisces after all. non-materialistic, that's me.

{choke}

write me!!

love
sappho

Labels: transitions

You know, I haven't been *thinking* much lately. I wake up, race to get to work, work, get home, make dinner (or go to a meeting, or work on the dance coalition) and then collapse in bed. repeat. repeat. repeat.

i kind of feel like my brain is porridge. it's porridge that hurts, though - i feel like it's aching to be actually used, not just carried around all day until dream-time (and as an aside, i haven't been dreaming much lately, which is a first for me EVER). ?????? what's going on?

i miss reading. i miss that compulsion i used to have to write (although that feeling was pretty dead by my third year of university). i miss that liveliness i used to have in the act of creating something, whether that be a dance, a poem, a story, or just plain setting my thoughts down in well-chosen words.

i guess this is just a huge transition period. i hope i get back to a place where creation exists within me and is expressed outside myself; because that act of creation feeds my soul and makes my brain alive.

Labels: transitions

the air is clear and crisp - and the sun is cutting through the sky to blaze across hundreds of trees outside my window. there is so much space here, to think and breathe. what is the magic of being able to exist alone and at your own tempo, in these slumbery cities? it is so different from toronto, where everyone dashes. here, people wander.

the light is breathtaking. i wish i could fly out my window and land on the tree tops, one by one, and dance and play with the light.

change is refreshing. it restructures your mind, your perspective, your being. it makes you realize the depth of cherishing the beauty you have in the ones you love every day.

Labels: transitions

it's black out. there are squares of light popping up randomly across the row of windows in our living room. pip is hunched on the couch, staring at me type. he has been meowing all night - tony has been at a work party, so i came home alone and pip knows something is wrong. he misses tony.

it's been a busy week. i'm trying to get as much done as possible over the next few days because i am going away for three weeks, to waterloo, to do a course. the course is actually a year long, and i will be leaving sporadically here and there over the next few months. when i come back i will have only a few days left with the pipmonster, which will be sad. hopefully he and tony will be ok while i'm gone.

i am going to miss them a lot. these past few weeks i've just been concentrating on spending as much time - absorbing as much of the people i love and live with - as i can before the craziness starts again. i hope things go well. for everyone as well as myself.

Labels: transitions

It's 4 in the afternoon, the sun is shining, and the music in the air is a lazy blues tune. at least that is the odd feeling permeating today - and it's a monday! how peculiar. pip is washing his paw, in between meowing bouts. the city is foggy and clear, and blue and grey. when i look outside there is a white building with terraces and gardens on the terraces, that looks like it plopped itself down from greece. if i stare at the building and block everything else out except for the water and the sky, i can pretend i'm in greece. the music would be sharper and clearer then, and the air would be clean.

what is this city? why would you try to give it a referent, a name, a cohesive character? somehow i believe these things grow into themselves. but this city has decided to kick-start itself, and create an identity for itself to grow into. somehow it's an odd way of doing things, but i guess new york did it, so perhaps it will work for toronto too. but when i think of london, and of paris - they are older, more sustained, and their character is defined by their people and - somehow most importantly - their language - the way they use their language. french is romantic, british english is proper. both can be vulgar. both can be beatific. but they are strong characters, these two languages. canadian english is bland. how can you build a city's image, character, essence, on a bland language?

i wonder why we characterize things. and is it right, or reasonable, to characterize things in order to sell them? that is what we do in this marketplace. that is how we sell things - through emotional and personal connections that really don't exist. we can make them exist, but they aren't deep - they aren't real connections; real connections exist between humans, who know each other well, who love and hate each other, full to overflowing with knowledge of that other, the other, human, who is being with you.

Labels: transitions

ahhh talibah. you are so right. i am WAY to close to the monster at the moment to see anything properly...i can only react to my body's responses, and my body is saying, "GAHHHHHH!!!" i wish i could find that time to breathe, to rest, to relax, to gather my inner resources and feel whole again. life seems to be whisking me along at a breathtaking pace these days though, so i think i am going to have to wait for my respite even longer than i anticipated. i got a job at the hummingbird in the marketing department, which is great, but it starts tomorrow. these past few days i have simply run errands, tried to unpack, and today i am stuck at home waiting for a couch to arrive before 2 PM. hopefully. things are slowly trickling to an end, though, and new things are beginning to sprout up. it's odd existing in 'in-between spaces' in life. disorienting and necessary...

it's grey outside - i wish the weather would bite the bullet and just decide to STORM. we've already been waiting a day and a half. my apartment walls are sweating.

i'll post again soon - after the couch arrives. i have no idea what it looks like...tony chose it with his dad. all i know is that it's big and it's grey. (i hope they don't deliver the wrong couch, cuz how would i know if it was wrong or right? unless it was bright pink or something. that would be difficult to ignore.)

~ sappho, sweltering in pink

Labels: transitions

wow. these past two days have been very hellish. my cold decided to rampage my body with chills and fevers, while my left upper wisdom tooth decided to bulldoze into the three molars next to it. i never knew how excruciating having a new tooth come in could be. the wisdom tooth hasn't fully broken through yet, and i can still feel it (and feel shadows of its other effects - mainly pain in the jaw, along my cheekbone, and killer headaches) but it's much better today - partly because i got tylenol 3 to sleep last night, so i finally got one night's decent rest (kind of). my sister and my boyfriend have been absolute angels - my sister packed a lot of my stuff for me, and tony moved a lot of stuff last night; and while doing all of that they both took wonderful care of me.

anyhow i've promised both of them that i won't pack today (i can't anyway, i'm still getting painful head throbs when i get up/sit down etc. so i can't move very much). but what i definitely have to do is study for my exam on tuesday. so here goes - crossing my fingers and hoping for the best!

Labels: transitions

i just sent off the last essay i will [probably - i always have to cover my ass. disclaimers abound in my life. this is JUST IN CASE i lose my mind and go into graduate school. or something.] ever write in my life. it was a terrible one, which makes me sad. i think i will always wish that i was one of those people who possesses a tenacious brain, and the kind of energy that allows them to excel academically. i don't have the patience for it anymore, though; and i have ended my schooling so far with a peculiar feeling of intense boredom. i really did feel like an essay machine, as if producing endless pages of writing really was simply rote work, and nothing dynamic, fierce, or imaginative. all of which is, of course, my own fault. through laziness (pure and simple).

it's been an odd weekend. we really did nothing, to be honest - i had to work on my essay, and the weather made us fidgety (because tony couldn't go out for walks, and enjoy the sun. there wasn't a sun. in fact, there was snow.) in late april, no less. what peculiar weather patterns we are having.

the spadina girls (carolyn, kailey, and talibah, among others) have broken up house, which is a sad state of affairs - but change is inevitable, and while i loved going to one place and seeing all my beautiful friends at once, i can still see them all since they won't be far away. they will all just be in different places, building different lives.

i think i will take a break before re-grouping and getting ready to tackle the next stage of work i have to do. now that the essays are finished, i need to study for my final exam in film theory, and pack. which will be a nightmare as it always is, but it will happen nonetheless. i need to mock up a detailed moving schedule so we don't get confused as to what stuff is going where. i realized that last night in a half-comatose state...i'm amazed and grateful i remembered that idea, because it will certainly make the move easier.

it's such a rainy cold day. i can't wait til may 6th, after which i can curl up with tea and a good book, one of my very own choosing!

~ sappho

Labels: transitions

long week. longer week next week, since it's tacked on to the week i just managed to get through. luckily the kids are being sweet-natured (touch wood and hope to god the good-naturedness lasts until this coming friday). i am exhausted though - and i realized that i have to work tomorrow night after i finish a full day (so i'll be working from 8 AM until 11 PM tomorrow, straight - i finish one job at 5:45 and start my other job at 6 PM). bad planning on my part? guess so. don't have anything else to blame.

wow. it's almost 7 PM and it's a bit overcast today, but the setting sun just appeared outside the windows and its glow is amazing.

i have to figure out the moving schedule for the weekend after the one coming up (i feel like a space cadet. for some reason i haven't wrapped my head around the fact that not only am i moving apartments yet again (will this ever stop?) i am also moving in less than two weeks now, and i am moving in with my boyfriend. although this is going to be wonderful, it is going to be odd not to live alone. i've done it for four years pretty much, and it's a bit of a habit i think. change is good though. forces one to expand (or grow beyond) unconscious boundaries.

i have discovered that having an injured spine while enduring having your period is excruciating. i usually suffer from back-ache at these times anyway, but it never occurred to me that the usual back-ache would exacerbate the bruised spine injury that i've managed to re-trigger. it's driving me nuts. and making me really cranky (a state of moodiness that is certainly not helped by the period-ness my body is experiencing right now).

only one more week and i will never have to write another paper again. i can do this, i can do this.

here's to getting through things, and getting stronger.

with love

~ sappho

Labels: challenges, transitions

i've been really angry the past few days. i knew there was something wrong with my anger and that i needed to 'get beyond it' somehow.

in any case i am sitting down to write 15 pages in the next ten hours, and i started to review some interviews with niki caro (who did whale rider, the film i am analyzing in the paper i am about to write.) the first thing i read about was this:

"Although Pai is just a child, her instinct is to empower those around her. And although harshly treated, she responds with love and compassion. So in a way the film is about the compassion of children but it is also about compassionate leadership.
"That's because for me, leadership is about service--it's not about being the guy up front shouting and getting all the glory.
"My understanding [of the servant-leader concept] is that leadership involves acknowledging that the work you are doing is a lot bigger than yourself and your own ego."

the rest of the interview is worth reading. here is the link:

http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc1.asp?DOCID=1G1:98754371&num=4&ctrlInfo=Round9c%3A%3ASR%3AResult&ao=

i think you may have to pay to access it; i caught the article on one of the promotional weeks when you could access parts of the database for free. (it seems like a wonderful resource for research by the way).

in any case i feel humbled and ashamed for my emotions earlier this week. i have always known the craziness with the groups i lead is part and parcel of the leadership burden; but sometimes it gets too hard to handle, and that's when your real strength as a leader pulls through. no one except for my closest friends know how much anger i have harbored this year, because as a leader i felt a responsibility to represent the group and lead the group well, and happily. i know i did my best. and that knowledge, finally, has dissipated my angry emotions, and allowed me to be who i really am. (and niki caro helped too).

georges has given me a wonderful idea for a quartet of paintings. i can't wait to get started! it's about the sun, moon, and stars, and a party.... :)

Labels: challenges, transitions

i just realized that at times like this, when life is really busy and very stressful, i take out the stress on myself. i hate myself deeply, because I COULD BE A BETTER PERSON, and still do all the things i need to do and be happy and capable and MANAGING. but no - i don't think of certain things, and it's my fault, and things change, and they get forgotten or mislaid or rearranged and that creates more problems, and it's MY FAULT. because you know what, I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF IT.

so somehow i'm supposed to write a 12 page essay today, clean the floors and sort out everything so that the apartment isn't a huge pigsty for the open house this weekend, and THIS WEEKEND i have to produce a 20 page paper, because i was a total ass and said i would work for the next two weeks from 8:15 AM until 5:45 PM, because i need the money for the move. and you know what, when i get home at 6:30 PM during the week for the next two weeks like a lot of normal people on this planet, i am going to have to buckle down and WRITE (unlike a lot of normal people on this planet) because i need to have the 20 pager done by thursday or so god help me, because after that i have ANOTHER 20 page essay to produce for the following monday. ya, you know, the monday that is a week from this coming monday, also known as april 18th. and i have to work on friday and saturday night next week as well, at my other job, so that kind of cuts into time for essay producing, you know? and then the friday after that i have another essay due, that's friday the 22nd folks, three days in between the second 20 pager and the final essay, after which i have to [censored] pack and move my [censored] into a new apartment on may 1st. and during that week of packing and possibly working during the day and definitely working evenings at my other job i have to study for my exam on may 3rd.

and of course none of this matters whatsoever, i can totally do it, it's no big deal right, i'll be fine. except for the fact that i could always be better, and i should be saving the world while i'm at it. BECAUSE I CAN. so i should be.

i'm doing what i promised myself i would never do. i am using my blog to rant.

i wish i could crawl into a hole. i hate it when i wish that. cuz i'm not dealing with anything remotely close to shit, people, i'm just having to struggle through a "crunch" time that will soon be over. but there are some things that we always have by our sides that are never over. so i should just shut up already.

Labels: challenges, transitions

i am listening to ella fitzgerald and charlie parker play (and sing) "under the moon". sigh. heaven.

tonight is the show for synergy. eeek. i hope it goes well. i realized i am going to be very sad when this is over - i love performing so much. i am determined to perform 150% and to stretch my capabilities as far as they will go...at this point, i can only lead the girls when they are backstage; once we hit the stage if they decide to not give their fullest, or try their hardest, i can't do anything about it. i can only ensure that i perform to my own fullest (which i hope is ever growing!)

i am so happy dancing! this is something completely unexpected. somehow i always thought i would continue academically, and push myself to do a phd and teach...but i can't, now, i realize that, and i have to dance as much as i can while i can, as well as figure out how to pay the grocery bills. (and rent). we will see how it goes. i have lost a lot, by doing university these four years instead of honing my dance skills and increasing my training and dance experience.

everything outside is caught between cold and warm - you can feel warmth in the air, but it is chilly, and it is wet and rainy and grey. it is a good thinking day. a good peace day. the kind of day where as night ventures forth, ghosts walk.

this place is starting (just now) to feel like a home. the walls are familiar; the feel of the place is beginning to settle in. it is odd, how it has taken longer for this apartment to feel as if it's my own - and now, it is starting to, only four weeks before i move again. perhaps subconsciously it is because of the upcoming move that this place is becoming more and more like a certain home. imminent change throws things into interesting perspectives.

~ sappho dancing and skipping to a tune only she can hear

Labels: transitions