autumn in an acorn shell

A collage of my time in Germany, featuring Steffi (in the grey) Laura, (the blonde), Angela (below) Oktoberfest (blech), and at the end, my dear Ottawa cousins with whom we spent Thanksgiving. Oh, and the mosaic is one that I made, under Steffi's careful direction! Enjoy.

how many banjoes can you fit on a blade of grass?

Every year the Winnipeg Folk Festival feels a little more like home. I think it's safe to say that I look forward to this event more than Christmas, and with so many old friends on the rollicking bandwagon, it feels just as festive. This year I dragged Mark out for his first festival, and was he ever a trooper! We volunteered on the Admin crew,-- a nice change from the sweatin' buckets of La Cuisine. ("Is the granola done yet Jen?" "I don't know, it's +40, do we really need to bake it?") This time around we had fans, and no ovens. Just paperwork.

For some reason I didn't take many pictures. I guess I'm just getting used to the weekend so much that it doesn't seem like a novelty anymore. I think when something becomes so familiar, it acquires that "homey" feeling I opened with.

This year I wasn't running around like a stress case, trying to catch all of the amazing acts I wanted to see. I felt generally more relaxed. And proud--proud that all those people were drowning their city sorrows with the soothing strains of music--right in our own prairie backyard.

I saw a shooting star. I cried tears of bliss at a concert where Ruthie Foster sang a song for her deceased "big momma." I cried tears of laughter at one of T.O.F.U.'s lyrical extravaganzas. I saw old favourites like Hawksley and Greg MacPherson, jumped around to K'Naan (a Somali-born rapper) and Flook (Folk Fest's token Irish party band), and marvelled at Inuit throat singer Tagaq's brave mainstage performance. I settled underneath a tree to hear Crooked Still belt out their revved-up but honey-sweet bluegrass. I talked to James Keelaghan, and he sounds as pretty as he sings. On Sunday night we took in an art-infused performance by Christine Fellows and company, and then retired to the sounds of Bruce Cockburn's twilight kissed finger-picking. I went home with a Neko Case shirt, a $4 piece of art from an art vending-machine, and more Folk Fest memories to last me until next July.

The pictures below are as follows: Mark and I, me harassing my little brother, and a shot of the duct-tape cuffs Mark and I handcrafted while on a slow Admin shift. Think we should go into business anyone?

even while pelted with hailstones. . .

. . . Neko Case kept crooning. This girl is my current favourite vocalist. She has a voice that
barrelled down into the Gorge behind her, and continued to fight the hailstones that had started to pelt her 1 minute into Star Witness. Graciously passing the coat offered her to her backup singer, Neko kept singing, as if conversing with the antagonist sky. She raised a hand to the clouds, as if in a humble offering of mortality. It was only when it was truly impossible and dangerous to continue that Neko surrendered along with her fans--huddled together under tarps and umbrellas on rugged prairie above the Columbia River. Thus, hers was the most memorable performance of the weekend for me, and if she wasn't on the bill for the Winnipeg Folk Festival this July, I would be very sad to have missed her.

Besides contracting some kind of strange stomach plague, my first Sasquatch Music Festival was a success. It was my first outdoor festival of the rock genre, and a few highlights stand out besides Neko's war with the weather gods: 1) I actually enjoyed Nine Inch Nails' performance (it was like full-body massage set to lightning). 2) I realized how much geography can interact with music: there was something about Iron and Wine's feverish back-porch folk that was heightened by the desert stretching out around him. 3) Sufjan Stevens is a really nice guy (yes folks, I talked to him!!!) 4) I'm not sick of seeing the Hip live and they sorta do make me feel proud to be Canadian, even though Gord Downie is an eccentric lad, 5) live music knows no comparison and has not, cannot, will not ever get old for me.

Favourite Musical moments: Mercir's electronic version of Sufjan's Chicago, The Flaming Lips' s sing-a-long rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, Beck's "Puppetron" (marionettes made of his entire band, acting out the entire performance), discovering Laura Veirs and the Headphones, Ben Harper's energetic delivery of With my own two hands, and waking up from a mid-evening doze to Death Cab for Cutie's I will follow you into the dark.

Being surrounded for 12 hours by such great music often has a saturating effect on me. That's why I appreciate the Winnipeg Folk Festival's approach so much more, there's more to do, and you can return to your campsite (yes, Sasquatch has a "no re-entry" policy, which is awful in my books). Despite all of the amazing music, I started to feel numb sometime Sunday afternoon. You almost need a break, in order to let your ears get hungry again.

That said, I wouldn't trade this weekend's experience for the world. But I might for a settled stomach . . . for more pics, click here.

and behind every tree was another goodbye

Malani and I climbed Grouse Mountain this afternoon, affectionately referred to by Vancouverites as "the Grind." I did this not only for some cross-training for next week's "launch of the grand tour," but for some good fun and sense of accomplishment. Our efforts were almost thwarted before even beginning, as the trail is still officially closed to the public. Being the deviant, mischievious lassies that we are, we found our way off the well-trodden path.

As for the hike, it's a gruelling 1 hour natural staircase; a good workout but not a great natural experience. If you like beer, food, tourists and gondolas waiting at the top, this hike is for you. If you like scenery more diverse than treetreetreetreetree (don't get me wrong, I like the trees, but), then you might want to look elsewhere. For some reason today it struck me as ridiculous, this fencing and developing of natural space that belongs to all of us. Being told I couldn't climb a mountain was like being told I couldn't breathe, because someone owned that air. More and more as the day went on, as I rode in seabuses and gondolas, I pined for an unmediated nature. Solitude and silence, not the smell of gasoline and the tinkling of coins in cash registers where only hawks should be.

The rhythm of my step, step, steps lulled me into a calm acceptance that my time here is done. The view from the top brought me a sense of wholeness, as if seeing the city from on high allowed me to move beyond it. I felt like a little girl again, learning perspective and proportion by looking at a large object from a distance and "measuring" it with my fingers: Wow, Vancouver is only 2 inches wide. I could hold it in my hand. I could blow it away like a dandelion seed. I could put it in my shoe and carry it with me.

The day of departure is approaching, and excitement has elbowed nostalgia out of the way. I know she will come though, revealing herself in future whiffs and memories of these past 8 months. "I'm glad you came to Vancouver with me," she said. I'm glad it was here for me to come to.

These last days have held many beautiful moments. The scent of the cherry blossoms is like roasted honey, and I cannot leave my apartment or open the window without wanting to drink the air. Outings with friends. Long, lingering afternoons. Ignoring "what needs to be done."

I just returned from an evening with friends. People I've known for only a short time. They are like frayed ropes I want to singe together with the flame of time. I wish my bike could carry it all. But I know better. Wanderlust travels light.

inscriptions

I read two friends' posts today. One inspired me to think about how we go about this business of understanding ourselves; self-interpretation, as it were. The other got me thinking about the little closed-circuit language systems of specialists in various disciplines. Academic jargon, discourse, elitism, and all that. And then I started thinking about how these two activities are similar. . .

The first friend wrote "I wish I could get to the point of understanding myself without requiring constant interpretation. Then again, sometimes I think we all know ourselves, we just choose to confuse ourselves because we don't like the conclusions we arrive at." How true is this! Is the truth of the self really so dark and unfathomable, as we so often think? And why does this notion seem to correspond more with youth? The second friend wrote about how the language of specialists (ie: philosophy, medicine, music, anything) can exclude people from contributing to and understanding valuable things. He wrote about not wanting to get lost in language so that it would inhibit his ability to create. He wrote about how creating is part of being human, a notion reminiscent of Tolkien and the Inklings' idea of "co-creation," that our human creativity is part of creating alongside God. Maybe his feeling of the way that discourse tends to obscure is the same feeling that we have when we start trying to label ourselves with all kinds of "I am this's and I am that's." It's the fine line between language used for communicating and understanding, and language in the service of silencing and abusing.

So here we are trying to understand ourselves. Trying with . . . language. Maybe the key is in the creating. Maybe we spend our lives learning our own language, hearing ourselves spoken back to us. Maybe the "constant interpretation" is what we need to weed out the lies we've been told or come to believe; maybe the act of interpretation itself IS the ongoing creation of the self. Maybe we like to confuse ourselves because we tend to prefer darkness to light. And I'm not the first to say that.

I am honoured to know such brilliant people. People who make me think about real things. Now everyone should go read some Woolf.

"It was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge . . ." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse.

"It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer." -Virginia Woolf. The Mark on the Wall.

deliver us from bad lighting

The ocean has delivered unto us another winter. A cold snap to accompany Eastertide; winds and rain thwarting the coming of spring, slowing the blood that should rush more quickly in our veins, sun-powered. Here on the coast, we wait in shivering expectation. I am sad this year that I did not usher in the Easter celebration with the preparation of Holy Week. I meant to go to church on Good Friday. I meant to go on Saturday too. I meant to fast from something. I got called in to work.

On Thursday night I got together with friends. We talked about sin. One of the funniest quotes of the night was "if the road to hell is paved with good intentions, what's the road to heaven paved with?" Someone said "beer." It was meant as a joke, but the laughter that followed was of the kind that only familiarity can breed.

Yesterday morning I was able to celebrate Easter at Christ Church Cathedral here in Vancouver, on the corner of Georgia and Burrard. I've never witnessed the ritual of smoking the altar, but it was strange and beautiful. When I finally fell asleep last night, the smell of sandalwood and cedar was still in my hair, and the voices of hundreds pushed wildly against the walls of my heart. The beauty of the higher churches, the ritual gatherings of Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox and some Anglicans, somehow seems more appropriate for the intensity of the Easter celebration. Yesterday I participated in something that liturgy uniquely gives: the sense of glory, carefully prepared for, meticulously ordered and beautifully executed.

I wrote this on Good Friday. I was going to publish it but I didn't have time. So here it is:

What is this day, this week, this Christian life without community? I find myself wanting it, craving the presence of others, craving it bodily and reaching out for it in my soul. Today is a still day, a sombre day, a day where death bleeds into possibility and destruction is overlaid with hope. It is too hard, alone, walking down the streets, drinking coffee even among friends. I come home, and without a Bible (I sent it home as I'm leaving here in 2 weeks) turn to the Internet for the Easter readings. Somehow it just isn't the same. I was going to go to church tonight but got offered an extra shift. Sigh. I start thinking in deal-makings (always the mark of slipping into piety, into thinking we're so Godly, into thinking we've evaded the need for God), "I'll go tomorrow." "I'll go Sunday morning too." The deals aren't really with God, I don't think, but more with myself.

I want to hear a good sermon. I want to hear in a choir the vastness of grace resounding and the relentlessness of life breaking through.

After last night's talk about sin, it is interesting to consider today, this very day, as the day that it was rendered powerless over our spiritual destiny or existence. We concluded that not everyone calls it "sin," and that other faith traditions and religions have their own words for the concept: Immoral, unethical, wrong, bad, tragic, disastrous. "Sin" is loaded with religious connotations, and somehow it's helpful to strip it of that and see it in other lights.

Is sin the possibility for wrongdoing? Is it guilt? Miscommunication, misguided intention, or simply the possibility that exists for us to fail? I heard once that it means "missing the mark." Well, that could be said of a whole lot of things.

How was Jesus "without sin?" Was it that he was born of some other substance, the substance of Divinity. It's not that he did nothing bad, for we know that he "grew in wisdom and stature," and growth is usually messy. He riled up religious leaders. He was a shit-disturber, and an agitator. He said things he shouldn't have, and was looked down on by many. He was sinless, but he wasn't safe. He was sinless, but he did things people called wrong.

Last night someone made a comment that made us all laugh. "I honestly thought I had never sinned until I was 10 or 11. I thought I was somehow different, that I had missed out on something, that I was special and sinless. I was a good kid!" This feeling testifies to the way we are taught about sin. That it is one-dimensional. So purely moral. What about the sin of bad lighting, as someone said jokingly. The sins of ugliness? Sin touches more areas of our existence than simply our behaviour. It is non-response. It is unwittingly participating in unjust economic systems. It is institutional and corporate as much as it is personal.

All I know is that the journey of Easter meant, or begun to mean, a whole lot more to me when sin exploded its tired vestiges. Sin is the possibility to screw up. The possbility to wound and be wounded, to misunderstand where we sought to learn, and to tear down where we sought to build. Christ was infused with holiness and perfection, and all the flickers of things gone right. He was a hybrid of God and (hu)man, and by simply existing, let alone dying, cross-bred our depravity with glory.

We may be tired of the story, or we may not get it at all. We may be confused at what actually took place in his body, emptied of life so many years ago. We may not really understand the hopelessness of the world, being so surrounded by the incessant laughter of a culture hopped up on pop music, fake tans and colgate smiles. But we recognize this weekend, held in Spring's cupped green palm, that everything will be fine.

"The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." - the prophet Isaiah

"Beauty itself is the fruit of the Creator's exuberance that grew such a tangle, and the grotesques and horrors bloom from that same free growth, that intricate scramble and twine up and down the conditions of time. This, then, is the extravagant landscape of the world, given, given with pizzazz, given in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over." - Annie Dillard

Two concerts

Some pictures I took last night at the Blarney Stone pub down on Carrall Street. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Madriatic Woods at their second only show ever. I was honored to witness an up-and-coming Vancouver band show off their stuff. Let me know what y'all think of my photo editing. The red-orange glow of the room just needed to be enhanced.

At the break, a few of us were standing outside the pub, when a street musician decided to grace our presence with his guitar and vocal stylings. He played "Whole Lotta Love" for us, his long black braids swaying around his face, contorted in an expression of pure passion, eyes closed, intent on creating something for us. It was like a downtown Eastside private concert, just him and us, standing there on one of the most long-abondoned corners in North America. His voice echoed longer than than Led Zep's own front man, and his soulful rendition was more moving than an old Negro spritual, sung as the backdrop to an escape from slavery, sung in protest of an alien, white version of Christianity.

Wherever that man ends up, I hope he keeps on singing.


The Madriatic Woods Back-up Divas
















Ben himself

One Uplifts the Other in Learning

Some of my favorite notions of friendship come from C.S. Lewis. Yeah, he's the one that wrote the recently-popularized Narnia books, which, up until Disney got ahold of them, were these secret chests of imagery I felt I was part of an elite few to know. When not writing books about children, Clive had some fascinatingly profound things to say:

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, "What! You too? I thought I was the only one!"

This morning I got up to a rather normal day off in the life of Jen, which usually consists of a numerous amount of "you shoulds..." piling up at my feet. "You should" bike the trails at UBC. "You should" go running. "You should" finish that article for the heritage gardening site. "You should" go grab an americano at your favorite Vancouver coffee shop, and visit your friends there. And so I did.

There seems to be a trend developing. I almost have Fridays off, and I almost always venture down Commercial Drive for a coffee. Last week I started up a conversation about cameras with the man sitting next to me on the Turks patio. Turns out he's a freelance writer in from Japan, and he recommended a great writing website for me to check out. (Thanks, wherever you are!) Today, while waiting in line for Kyle's perfectly pulled espresso shot, I ran into Kat, from my salsa dancing classes back in December. She's a pretty cool cat, pardon the pun, and all you locals should check out her concert review blog. (Guess who just figured out the quick way of doing active links? Oh, me me!) I love days that surprise you. Days that make you say with conviction what I said over the counter moments prior: "Yeah, me and Life are getting along pretty well these days." The hours melted into hours, leaving coffee-stained rims on the metal table; and I was reminded by her of why I write, why I moved here, why I am happily unsettled right now, and of the sweetness of instant connection.

I don't know why I am so surprised when I meet people so much like me. I mean, there's only so many ways a person can be, right? They are infinite, yet limited. By processess of socialization or molding or whatever term you may give it, our "raw matter" is shaped into the creations we become. Meeting someone who is a lot like you--liking the colour green, with similar music tastes, reading the same book(s), a "dabbler" of the many rather than honer-of-the-few. . . can startle you into the notion that somewhere along the chain of each of your development something happened to produce these twin qualities. It's like looking into a semi-fogged mirror; certain things remain clear while others are completely blocked out, unknown, underexposed.

Our little table brought Brandy, Lara, and Jen over, (a girl I had Thanksgiving dinner with in October and haven't seen since!) and I was reminded by Lara how Lent can become just like Valentine's day, Christmas, and New Years. A time where we are sort-of "forced" to love, to give, to resolve. Shouldn't we be striving for these things at all times and in all places? Shouldn't we always be looking to rid ourselves of the trappings that hold us? So, as a result of this conversation, I've decided to do a week-by-week Lenten journey. Each week I'm going to give up something different. This way I will achieve a greater breadth of renunciation, a greater range of asceticism. (Extravagant of me, I know.) Starting today, it's no alcohol. (Strategically placed during the week before Mark comes. I like drinking beer with him. . . ) It won't really be that hard, but I'm sure there will be times I'll just have to be strong. Like this weekend, for example! We'll see what no no's next week brings. I'm open to suggestions, or if you want to live your giving-ups vicariously through me. (This could get dangerous!)

Tonight's Gathering meeting is on Time. I just finished listening to Dee Carstensen's Time in preparation. For those of you not familiar with her angelic harp-laced folk melodies, here's a snippet of the chorus: Time gets me wound up like a clock inside my head/Time gets me spinning my own wheat/and when I think that there ain't one more inch/this worn-out heart can give/Time's gonna teach me how to live/ Time gets you wound up like a clock inside your head/Time gets you spinning your own wheat/and while you're losing what you've found you're finding out that's what you need/Time's gonna teach you how it feels.

So back to the theme of friendship which I somehow lost along the way, I'll finish with an observation I wrote last Friday in my new Moleskin journal (the legendary journal of Hemingway, Chatwin, and Van Gogh . . .good omens, think I):

The concept of friendship is stil unbelievable to me. The miracle of progression from acquaintance to mutual enjoyment to die-hard loyalty leaves me breathless. Looking around at pairs of companions, I wonder about the time those two chattering mothers, pushing their strollers now on a sunny afternoon, had only a cursory knowledge of the other. There is a light that breaks through, exposing our cracks, when friendship is found. We cannot plan for it. We can scarcely name it. We do not know when it will drop down on us. All we can do is raise our hands to the sky--perhaps the most honest gesture towards the Divine we can manage--and say "thank you."

(Yeah, and picture is again taken from Jordan Bent. I just really really like him. Entitled One Uplifts the Other in Learning. Acrylic on canvas. Sweet.)

Getting our bearings

Last night I was reminded of one of the truest reasons for friendship: the importance of staying connected to the people who know us so well that they can spot even the most minute changes in our being. True friends are not merely ours to adore, and to adore us in return; they are those people in our lives who are granted the rare and joyful priviledge of calling us back to ourselves, over and over and over again.

From snow to salty sea

A New Year. It always seems arbitrary to me, that nothing will change from the 31st to the 1st. Numbers on these expanses of time we call "days." Still I can't shake the feeling of promise that hit me as I toasted my glass of champagne.

After work today I biked the seawall, a 2-and-a-half-hour excursion around Vancouver's salt-soaked edges. Everytime I do this, I wonder why I don't do it more than I do. We all have these thoughts: why don't I spend more time alone? why don't I see that friend more often? why don't I read more poetry outloud? why don't I do those things I know bring me life but too often forget? I guess there's only so much time.

Christmas in Winnipeg was a full of friends and family, a smoky little cabin in the woods, late nights on snowy streets, the Nutcracker, and Wolseley watering holes. Perhaps the gem in it all was an unexpected connection with someone from my distant past. It is good to be back here though, surrounded by space and possibility. I forgot how beautiful this city is, and while I am tired of some things about it, I am not yet tired of exploring it.

Tonight as the sun set over English Bay it left a pink wake across the cloudy sky. The water was mercury-coloured, shimmering to sleep. On one of the beaches a man was sitting on a piece of driftwood with his bike next to him. Both were merely black outlines, detail hidden in the fading twilight, leaving only the shape of companionship in solitude; man and machine, wheels and a pulsing heart, a picture of perfect competence and subtle strength.

From Such Great Heights

On August 21st, I had the opportunity to climb one of my favorite mountains in the Lake Louise area, Mt. Temple, at a soaring 11,626 feet. I finally was able to import some pictures from our climb, and here is the bonus commentary. (Offered at no extra charge, to you, my faithful viewers):
1) the group, looking happy and healthy before we set out on our trek (^)



2) the quintessential summit group-shot, 6 hours later and huddled for body heat!



3) yours truly, in one of her upright moments. Having arrived only the day prior from the flatlands, I was struck by a mild case of altitude sickness, resulting in stumbles, light-headedness, and nausea. All this for a mountain. . . it must be love.



4) even amidst freezing temperatures, we still had time for a quick hug!



5) Adam caught me in the last few hundred meters of sheer pain



6) and the best part of scrambing. . . the scree-surfing down! What a day, what a mountain.

title courtesty of the Postal Service