uprooting

In about six weeks, we will be moving. There are lot of reasons for the move. Closer to where my husband works (I work at home right now, so I just need an internet connection and my computer for work). The new place is cheaper and has laundry in-suite. And it's time. Counting the years J. and I were university students in this town, we've been here for almost a decade.

We're not moving out-of-province. We're not even moving to a different area of the province. But we are moving across the river, closer to Vancouver, and that's a big leap. The river acts as a barrier--crossing the bridge to go to one side or the other is an effort, especially since the tolls went into effect. A trip to Vancouver is a big, all-day deal right now and will suddenly be less so once we've moved. But a trip to visit J.'s grandmother, on the eastern (well, more southeastern) side of the river, will be more of an effort. We've decided that we can probably do two regular trips across the bridge a week. This will mostly be for church and the gaming group/movie night that we do with friends. I can come to my weekly knitting group once in a while, and my knitters' guild is only once a month, so that's doable. However, spontaneous, last-minute get-togethers with friends on the east side of the river won't be happening like they do now.

The change feels big. We're leaving an apartment that we've been very happy in. The landlord for our new place seems very competent, but we're friends of sorts with the managers of where we live now. They're familiar. Our neighbour down the hall, who has the same name as E., will miss us. We're still going to be close to a library and a grocery store, still close to the downtown core. But it will be a different downtown. Different people, different places.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When we left our last apartment, it wasn't hard to go, even though that was the place we'd spent our first year and a half of marriage. Two freezing winters and one blazing summer there was more than enough. Our current home has been a good fit for a long time, and we are sad to leave,yet ready to go.

I've been examining the new city. We peered into the windows of the library the Sunday we looked at the suite, before we applied. We drove around the neighbourhood. There's a dim sum place, a donair place that J. says is really good, a few sushi places (it's the Lower Mainland, of course there is sushi), and there's a shop that sells Indian sweets (fresh jalebi!). The parks are lovely. The nearest used bookstore that I can find via Google is a drive or bus ride away, rather than a walk, but it's one that I've been wanting to check out. The nearest yarn stores are one that I know is fabulous, and one that I've yet to visit.

We've started packing up non-essentials, since we're moving end of July/beginning of August. I boxed up DVDs and some books today. We have so many books that I can box up quite a few before finding something to read becomes a hassle. E. doesn't really know what to make of the boxes, other than noticing that she has something else she can hold onto while walking. We recently took her on a camping trip that went very well, so I think she'll adjust to our new home fairly well.

And me? I don't love change. Or rather, I dislike the idea of change, but when it happens, I tend to do fine with it. I recently stopped by the linguistics department at my old school, since I was in the area, and said hi. And even though I had been there for a long time as a student, and the place and much of the staff are familiar, it's not the same anymore. I very much had the sense that I no longer belonged there, and that that wasn't a bad thing. That chapter in my life has come to a close. And the one here, in this home, is ending, too. And it's not bad. If nothing ends, then nothing new can start, and that would be a pity, wouldn't it?

money and fear

Recently, I asked myself the question, "Why is it that money can cause me more stress, and more terror, than almost anything else?"

It's a conundrum. We don't have a lot of money, and never have, and our lives are in flux right now, but we'll manage. Because we always do. In the past, when things have been really tight, we've always made it. Personally, I think it's that God always comes through, rather than us doing it on our own. I mean, seriously. I'm not an idiot with money, but I've never been brilliant with it, either. I hate dealing with bills and bank stuff. I really do. It kind of drives me nuts, and my personality type is of the kind that wants to avoid the things that make me nuts. Usually I try to buckle down and deal with it, despite wanting to stick my head in the sand. And yet...at the end of the day, we have a roof over our heads and we have food.

So what does all the stress and fear surrounding money mean for me? Is it a lack of trust? A lack of confidence in my and my husband's abilities to do what we need to do? A matter of wanting the wrong things when it comes to our finances? That is, wanting to be financially stable without doing that much to achieve it, or valuing money more than I value the things I say are more important?

I already know I'm more materialistic than I want to be. Ideally, stuff wouldn't matter all that much to me, and I'd able to be calm about dealing with money, rather than terrified. How much have I really bought into our culture's focus on materialism, despite my desire to be free of it? Why do I have so much stuff, and do I really need most of it?

These are questions I find myself asking a lot lately. I don't have too many solid answers, other than realizing that I need to figure out why I react so strongly when it comes to money problems (e.g., the bank screws something up, and I freak out about it, because it's so frustrating to get it fixed), and why this, of all things, triggers my conflict-avoidance tendencies. Conflicts with other people are so much easier to deal with somehow, and I've never known why. It's easier to deal with my fears about relationships than my fears about money. Why?

J.'s theory is that it's because money's harder to control in some ways. Unexpected things that cost money happen, and you don't have any authority over them. Car breaks down. Someone gets sick. Rent goes up. And that's terrifying. Fears about money add to the stress of something that's already difficult. True enough, but I wish I could control my reactions better. It'd certainly be easier to deal with things calmly (although since that's J.'s typical operating procedure, two of us being calm all the time might get boring).

Well, now I have a whole new list of things to talk to my counselor about. Yay!

Vampires and the Ick Factor

We have Netflix, so I end up watching my way through shows on there. Earlier this year I watched Bones, Lie to Me, and then Numb3rs. Now it's the X-Files. I was too young to handle watching the show when it was on TV; I was one of those kids who was terrified of everything. And no one does creepy quite like the X-Files.

Early in season 2, there's a vampire episode. What with all the novels and television shows about vampirism, it's not exactly an unusual choice. However, the X-Files takes a different stab (pun not intended) at the vampire genre.

From Twilight to True Blood, vampires in popular culture are generally portrayed as erotic. The odd evil one pops up (the one wanting to kill and eat Bella in the first Twilight book, for example), but the hypnotically sexy portrayal is the one that usually dominates. It's intriguing that monsters who steal lives by draining people of blood, monsters who are dead themselves--dead but unable to truly die, stuck in some sort of half-life that compells them to stalk the living--are idolized. Immortal, but undead. Beautiful and unaging, yet condemned to exist without changing in a world where change is a constant factor. And this is what we claim to want.

My favourite works in the vampire genre tend to lean a certain direction. Sunshine, Buffy--they can interpret the vampiric as conflicted, as good mingled with evil--human, in a sense. But being a vampire, the taking of blood, is not sexy. It's not erotic. It's evil, and it's disgusting. Revolting. Vampires are to be destroyed when possible, because otherwise they will continue to kill. With or without remorse, they are still driven to kill, and being sentient, discerning beings, they can admit that murdering humans, the race from which they have sprung, is wrong. Yet they continue to kill, using a hunger for blood as an excuse (there's an argument for vegetarianism in here somewhere, I'm sure, but since I'm mostly definitely an omnivore, I'm not going there tonight).

The X-Files episode on vampires most definitely leans toward the revolting side of things. It captures the grossness of the vampire, the absolute wrongness of it. Personally, I think there's more to be said for that perspective. It's far more realistic. If I'm going to fantasize, I'd rather have a daydream that involved something healthier than a creepy vampire stalker boyfriend.

a single candle

Jar Candle

Tea lights and jar candle, made with soy wax

Candle flames are hypnotic. It's easy to sit and stare at the way the fire flickers, watching the heat and movement, following the colours of pale orange and red down to the tiniest trace of clear pure blue.

On dark afternoons, I sometimes light all the tea-lights in the varied holders I have, and let the flames provide warmth that the wall heater simply can't. 

The lights, the way they move, is peaceful, which has always seemed strange to me, given the damage that fire can cause. But beauty and danger have never been exclusive concepts. Nor has peace in the midst of chaos. My tendency to find some sort of beauty or peace out of something that is potentially harmful is not unique. Danger does not exclude beauty, nor does a sense of danger exclude some sort of peaceful transcendence.

With this in mind, I made candles out of soy wax yesterday evening. I read somewhere that paraffin candles release fumes into the air that we're better off not breathing. Since I breathe enough noxious fumes just walking down the street, I thought I'd minimize the ones in my home. Beeswax costs more, and it seemed better to figure out the technique with the less expensive option.

The pictures above include some of the first batch. I made a total of 25 tea lights and one larger candle. These are all unscented and undyed. The batches tomorrow will have scent and colour, and will be Christmas gifts. The basic process is easy enough. Heat, pour, let cool. The large candle managed to crack a bit in the centre, but it's in a jar, and the cracks will disappear as it burns. I'm not a perfectionist. Beauty that is less than perfect is, often, in my mind, even more beautiful.

musings: music and introspection

I enjoy writing, but I frequently find myself not really knowing what to write here. And here I have this blog as a writing outlet.

There are plenty of strands I could pick up and follow, see where they go. One possibility today is music. I know, everyone writes about music. My musician brother could tell you all sorts of fascinating things about the topic, but I really only know the basics--I can read bass and treble clef, and I can play piano, violin, and mandolin with varying degrees of proficiency, never tipping over into truly good. I can sing, but when I'm out of practice, my alto range isn't exactly pleasant to listen to, and I tend to "sit on the bottom of the note," which is a creative way of saying I'm more likely to sing flat than sharp. In a musical family, I'm one of the dunces.

This used to bother me, but eventually I realized that my drive lies elsewhere. I'd rather spend eight hours a day working on language analysis than practicing the piano. Granted, a bit more practice on my mandolin would be a good idea. We even have a guitar I could try learning. Because really, I do love music. When phrase has just the right resonance (and no, I don't know how to describe it in musical terms), it's amazing. There's nothing like it.

I've been listening to music more frequently than usual (remembering a thought I had last year--music soothes the savage Anna). Sometimes I can't listen to music because it's too much stimulation. Reading and/or writing while I'm listening to music can be too many things at once and I end up switching the music off and the lack of sound results in a visceral sense of relief, the same feeling I have when the dishwasher finishes its cycle.

I grew up in a household of noise: A busy street, a beagle who bayed whenever someone walked by, three younger brothers, a piano and a drum set in the living room. Noise was normal. I got quite good at tuning it out while reading, to the point that if I'm absorbed in something today, it takes a shout or even a touch on the shoulder to bring me out of it.

As an adult, my tendencies towards silence reflect the quiet girl who occasionally holed up in her closet with a lamp and book. I can spend an entire day without really talking to anyone, without listening to music, without making much noise other than the clack of my fingers on the keyboard. Right now, all I can really hear is the traffic outside, the humming of the fridge, and the keyboard. Oh, and my own breath. This I do enjoy, and appreciate.

However, one can spend too much time with one's own thoughts. Introspection, though important, has the potential to be dangerous, especially for someone like me, with depressive tendencies. Some music intensifies the darkness, while other types lift it. Guess which one I prefer?

change in the weather

It's October and the temperature's dropping. That can mean only one thing. We're playing Furnace Wars.

Okay, to be honest, it's actually Baseboard Heater Wars, but "Furnace Wars" sounds more dramatic. It's mostly an effort to drop our heating bill this winter, because baseboard heaters use a lot of energy. We're competing with ourselves, since most of our friends don't appear to be that competitive about it.

I'm layering up, with warm socks and sweaters. J. hasn't noticed the cold much yet, because he radiates heat like a miniature star. It's not that cold at the moment, but we're starting to notice the change in the weather in our apartment because we're on the first floor, above the garage, and at the corner of the building, neither of which are locations conducive to just absorbing heat from the neighbours.

This is actually one of my favourite times of the year, because it's cool, crisp, and yet I don't freeze at the bus stop. Bright sunlight doesn't feel oppressive because it's not accompanied by stifling heat, and my habit of drinking hot tea with everything appears sensible. There's the rest of it, too: the leaves change colour, there's squash at the produce store, and it's foggy in the mornings.

But right now, my toes are cold, in spite of the wool socks, and I'm drinking hot tea because it is cool in here. Admittedly, part of me wants to turn on the heater for a little bit. But I won't. Part of the game is to see how long it takes to cave.