space and time

It's 8.30 p.m. and there are not enough words to describe the blues of the sky right now - indigo, pale grey, French blue, Dutch blue, powder blue, a touch of pink, dark glowering clouds, all reflected in the sea. 

Earlier, I went for a walk.

Click to enlarge

Woman sketching, paddle boarders - and you can't see the herons, stalking from the rocks, waiting.

The usual pile-up of B.C. cedar on the beaches

Sigh. Could I please bring a bit of this back home, please?

Just want to clarify something - we did nearly an hour of the 3 hour meditation today as a walking meditation, back and forth silently and slowly. And for the sitting part, I and one other person sat in chairs while the others sat on the floor. But I did not feel uncomfortable - just relished that space deep inside. And this evening, the space outside. Lots of space here in Vancouver.

But I got 5 hours sleep last night and will soon topple over.

sky

What I miss in Toronto - sky. Yes of course, I miss the ocean, but you can't have that when you live in the centre of the country. But sky - the big wide open blue grey white cloudy sunny vast take a deep breath sky that I'm looking at right now - that we don't get, and we should. I will try to seek out some approximation when I get home.

As I've written, in 1980 I was one of the founders, with among others Suzie Payne, Nettie Wild and David Diamond, of Headlines Theatre, which is still going strong. Last night, David invited me, Suzie, Nettie and Colin Thomas, who came on board slightly later, to dinner. A more interesting and lively group you could not summon anywhere - Nettie a documentary filmmaker who has shot in some of the world's danger zones and has just finished her latest, KONELINE, about Canada's north, to be aired at Hot Docs in Toronto in a few weeks; David, who has gone on running the company and working all over the country and the world since 1980; Colin, once an actor, now a writer and editor and for many years the theatre critic of the Georgia Straight; and Suzie, for decades one of Vancouver's most popular actresses, in semi-retirement with her husband Steve Miller, also an actor and now a successful novelist. Wow!

We started talking at 6.30, ordered take out Thai at 8, and at 1.15 a.m. had to pry ourselves out the door. Suzie drove me home and at 1.30 a.m. we were sitting in her Prius, still talking outside my door. That's my idea of a successful dinner party! Ideally I'd like to check in with each of those people monthly, at least. A salon. Meaning I'd have to fly back to Vancouver twelve times a year. Perhaps we'll have to figure out some other way. But it was a huge pleasure, such a far-ranging convo.

Today I went to a THREE HOUR guided meditation with Jane Ellison at the Western Front. I've never done something like that for so long and was expecting to bail early - and instead, loved every minute. Breathe in, breathe out, be here now. Loved it.

I forgot to mention a few other cultural experiences: Chris and I a few days ago went to see Francofonia, by the Russian director Sokurov, an eccentric documentary about the Louvre during the war and what museums mean to us all. And last week I saw the first performance of Joan McLeod's The Valley, about mental illness and the stressed-out police, among many other things. I've enjoyed everything.

Only four more days in Vancouver. Breathe in, breathe out. I'm right here, right now, looking at that sky.

A tree around the corner, with a filled in space near the roots where a gnome lives.

After getting off the little ferry last night on the way to David's, looking back at the West End.

Today I walked by the old house where I lived in an attic apartment from 1978 to 1981 and peered in the front door window - the linoleum is THE SAME.

 And across the street, posters welcoming Paul McCartney to Vancouver next week. Be still my beating heart. My bus driver today was singing along to Help on his sound system, and when I started to sing too, he told me he had a ticket for Macca's show. A great discussion with another huge fan, born a few decades after the Sixties. I gave him a flyer for my book, so he'll know what it was like back then, in olden times.

Vancouver - a homeless person, not shown, who camps on the ground in front of a boarded-up storefront - but with a high quality MEC sleeping bag and a nice overnight bag. Surreal.

For your listening pleasure, a knock out performance by Canada's K. D. Lang with some guy:

KD Lang & Roy Orbison - Crying

YOUTUBE.COM

azalea heaven

Grocery shopping in Vancouver: I walk along the seawall, listening to the slapping of waves and joggers' feet, take the adorable $2 ferry over to Granville Island, have lunch - stirfried veggies with noodles, tofu and egg while sitting outside by the boats with the seagulls, and then an espresso doppio (NOT Starbucks) with an apricot-ginger scone; buy some postcards and sit writing them in the sun, chatting to a man who trains guide dogs and has a beautiful Lab pup with him; buy bags of fresh soup for suppers at home and some multigrain sourdough, take the ferry back, back along the seawall, the ocean and rocks and waves, the sand, the wind.

I don't understand why people walk or run by the water wearing headphones. How can they not want to listen to the waves? The sound of life, to me. 

It's been a hard few days, watching one of my dearest friends go through a major crisis, cataclysmic revelations, after years of denial, about the effect on his health of his childhood family. Tough stuff. Now he has decided he needs to be alone for some time, so our dinner is off and perhaps I will not see him for days. Ah well. Yesterday I spent completely silent and alone, except for texts from my kids (Ben, eating scrambled eggs with leeks and peppers!), a call from Chris and many emails. I edited memoir excerpts for a client and then the rest of the day, except for my jogette, sat in Brucie's chair by the balcony and worked. I deleted scores of old bits from my Documents file, renamed things to make them easier to find, added and subtracted from the ms. Sat looking out the window. Definitely felt like a writer yesterday. 

As I wrote to Chris, I am here to be with him, sorry we won't be together. But I'm also here to be alone. So I'll just get on with work. And soon - a drink at the Sylvia Hotel with old friend Cathy. 

 Last night, walking by the water at dusk.

 Today, one of the trees nearly bent over with the weight of blossoms.

And speaking of blossoms - this is just outside the door of Brucie's house, a big azalea bush.

I am sad today for us all, for the weight of being alive on the earth - it hurts sometimes, as I think a song or two might have mentioned. But the ocean doesn't care.

Was going to post a fabulous video here I saw on FB - it starts with a woman lying on the grass, pulls back, back, back, to the city, the planet, the solar system, the universe, then goes back down down down, back to her and in through her eyeball to her DNA strands, molecules, atoms. Really gives a sense of perspective. See if you can find it, because I can't go on FB any more, my cursor keeps freezing. Now THAT'S scary.

whale outside my window

I'm already turning into a Vancouver cliché - today, I actually put on my sneakers and went for a jogette along the seawall. Just ten minutes or so, a lot for me, but there I was with all the others, breathing in that wonderful fresh air, the sea, the beach, the vast sky.

And then I headed straight for Starbucks, for a grande flat white. It doesn't get more Vancouver than that. I'm ashamed of my current addiction to Starbucks, which are on every street corner here, and hate their stupid terminology - grande, for God's sake. I asked for 'medium' and they don't know what that means. But the coffee is good.

The best news: my friend Chris, who has been suffering tortures from his lack of speech, saw a psychiatrist who specializes in speech disorders today, and it sounds like the process of understanding and healing has begun. It has been a huge crisis, very worrying; now great relief that a medical professional has taken the matter in hand. Tomorrow we are going to Hawksworth, one of Vancouver's best restaurants for dinner, to celebrate.

In the meantime, a whale has been playing in the inlet just outside, though I haven't seen it yet. But this guy sure did, only a few days ago!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BECzW4Th5tF/

Mashup at the VAG

Cool, possibility of rain for the next few days. No complaints - when it's nice out, impossible to stay inside, so weather like this is helpful. I worked till nearly 1 a.m. last night, got through the manuscript, will fiddle some more before sending it to readers.

In the afternoon, a treat - the Vancouver Art Gallery's massive show, which takes up the whole building, called "Mashup - the birth of modern culture." As the ad says, "371 artworks, 156 artists, 30 curators, 3 years in the making." Of course, some of those artworks are very small, like a tiny book of poetry called "Cunt Norton," somehow taking the Norton Anthology of Poetry and linking it with erotica. And some are huge, taking up an entire room. It starts with Picasso - what doesn't? - and Braque incorporating bits of newspaper and wallpaper into their work, and proceeds to show that melange and collage - mashup - changed the face of art through all genres: film (Jean-Luc Godard, Quentin Tarantino); music - rap, hip hop, John Cage and others; dance (Merce Cunningham and others); literature - including "The Wasteland," T.S. bringing in all sorts of bits from elsewhere. And of course the visual arts, Warhol, Keith Haring, endless others.

Notable: many, perhaps as many as half, of the artists represented are women. It felt as if a concerted effort had been made to make sure this was the case. Because it's 2016.

To me, the exhibition showed artists saying, This is great - how can we break it? How can we smash it up and stomp on it and put it back together? There was tons of humour; it's not often I laugh out loud at an art gallery, but I did in this one, including this:

By John Baldessari, entitled "Pelicans staring at human with nose bleeding." Deep. There were lots of teens there with their schools (including a class where one young girl was there with her baby in a stroller.) I bet this is the most fun they've had at the art gallery. Hope it gave them some ideas.

This is the huge entrance hall, by Barbara Kruger:

Photos can't do this stuff justice. It was not soul-stirring the way classical works of genius are to me, but it was greatly entertaining and even inspiring, to see the way artists reassemble what's there, transform mundane objects, use their febrile imaginations to create something completely new. It made me feel conventional - my memoir: and then this happened and then this. Next one, I'll toss the stories up into the air and see how they land.

Afterward, headed to Chris's for our usual champagne aperitif. On the way, everything looked like it belonged in the exhibition, including this:

It made me smile yesterday. Perhaps not so much today.
A few more random shots:

Taken from the bus as it sped along East Broadway near Main. That little brown house is where I lived, on the top floor - at the top centre was my window - from 1978 till I moved in with Edgar in 1980, in a tiny attic apartment I called Cosyland. And it was, too. Amazing it's still there, has survived the relentless, ruthless developer onslaught that is Vancouver real estate.

 Rhodos, a bush around the corner. Enuf said.

English Bay beach at sunset. I live a block from here. Have I said that before? How will I go back to no view, no ocean, no sea breezes, no tankers waiting in the bay?

The answer in a few words: Eli and Ben, Anna and Sam, my house, neighbours, Toronto friends. Two more weeks. Very happy here. Can't wait to go home.