"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"

"You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free"

If Paul Simon is the authority on how to leave your lover, (though he makes it sound far to easy in my opinion) I surely am becoming the authority in how to get over your lover.

My usual routine mimics everyone else's - skip work, loads of Hagen Das, bad chic-flicks and plenty of wallowing. But in the absence of a TV(since my roommate moved her stuff out), having already done months of wallowing at the bottom of ice-cream pails on account of my inter-continental move, I was forced to find a new strategy.

Suprisingly, this one works way better. Featuring many of the usual ingredients like plenty of writing, distressed phone calls to close friends, and coffee, this get-on-and-get-with-it strategy is actually one that I have deployed many times before. Essentially it waters down to this : MOVE.

Literally.

When my stunning fire-fighter lover couldn't commit to the lable of boyfriend or move forward in our relationship, I picked myself up and marched over to the home of my family firends and moved their entire apartment to North Vancouver.

When my tall, dark and handsome artist boyfriend cheated on me, I packed my bags and moved across the country (not because of him, but the timing just worked).

And now, when my heart again lies in splinters after yet another (green-eyed artistic cafe-fashion loving) partner, again I am moving.

There is something very metaphorical about packing boxes, purging and letting go and building hopes for a new home in a time when your heart is desperately trying to mend.

I pack a box, expecting my books all to fit and then find that there are awkward spaces I cannot fill, that somethings do not stack or fit together in a way that allows me to just package up my belongings in a way that make sense. I am left with a miscellaneous box filled of random odds and ends. As my frustration wanes, I smirk at the thought of how my belongings mimic my logic, how my questions and conclusions cannot encompass my experiences and leave them neatly packed away. How I am still after all these years left with one space in my heart full of miscellaneous memories, unanswered questions, unfounded conclusions, preposterous hope, stagnant resentment and lingering, unwanted pain.

I pick up a project, in need of bookshelves I decide to salvage furniture left for dead in my backyard. As I stalk my apartment in frustration after discovering that my friends, indeed, are taking sides, I grab the sanding block and purge. My frustrations fly like the dust from beneath the block remaining on the floor in a pile at my feet until my muscles are sore and the burn of my anger has subsided to mere ash, mere wood-dust. Picking up a paintbrush, I soothe the wood back to life with layers of stain and varnish and realize something in me too has been peeled, exfoliated away, soothed and re-furbished.

And then there is the hope, the dream. A new place, a new neighborhood, a new life. Its as if a pristine blank canvas of opportunity suddenly presents itself. In recognition of the opportunity come strokes of inspiration, not only to rescue discarded furniture, re-organize, finish old projects and start new ones but inspiration to make the right decisions. Its a fresh start, like fresh sheets, the first sunny days of spring, a vacation or the smell of lilacs. And somehow, allowing the hurt and injury of the past to infiltrate all that is about to arrive seems terribly wasteful and disrespectful. Moving always pushes me to make clean breaks, to push myself to seeking new opportunities and finding new ways to embrace all the positive things that come with change.

So here I go, packing, re-finishing and goal setting away. My move is on Saturday, expect some great photos to come!!

<3

B

To the new...(an update)

They say that the darkest hour is right before dawn, never till now did I believe them.

I came home today to an empty apartment. Void of my roommates belongings, the clicking of my heels bounced off the walls, ceiling, cupboards, into my chest, bouncing from my heart, to spine, to lungs until - short of breath- I took a seat.

I would have predicted that the feeling that took me from feet to seat would have been anxiety, but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered -after a quick check-list- that it was just a mix of nostalgia and excitement.

There was something about that moment that pulled me back...

My plane landed at 5:54am, and I waited for my over-sized luggage to arrive at the carousel. In my weariness, I misplaced my camera and lost my mind. It took a year to re-gain it.

The cab took me straight to an apartment that I had arranged through a friend, who by conventional definitions was an acquaintance. I didn't know the city, I didn't know the girl who I was about to spend a year with, and I had no idea what the future would hold, only that this was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Lugging all my possessions in a large suitcase and an assortment of bags, I settled down on to a futon my new roommate had spread for me in lieu of a bed. I fell into a nervous sleep.

Moving is hard to do. Some say that it is right up there with death and divorce. I have not experienced either of the later, but I must say that this move has been the most challenging thing I have ever done. But, I have written about that before.

It has taken me a full year to feel like I belong here, to have 'Toronto' leave my lips and feel that somehow we are linked. Maybe this new found connection is because I have endured my first TO heartbreak, perhaps it is something about the cycle of 365 days, 52 weeks,that innately makes us feel like we have come full circle. Or maybe I have endured enough changes, enough cycles, enough highs and lows (and oh boy were they low) to connect to the stability of concrete beneath my feet.

I went through phases: I baked 2 peach cobblers a week, then came the chocolate chip cookies, there was the lamb sausage pasta, the bags of Sour Cream and Onion Ruffles, the coconut sorbet, the Lindt milk chocolate with hazlenuts and finally the lattes and croissants. I watched more TV and was less active in the last year than I have been in my life cumulatively. It was good, but it was a little much (an extra 15 pounds on the scale little much).

I can say that I gained friends and lost them, gained love and then lost it, though they say that true friends or love cannot be lost, so either time will show differently or they weren't real to begin with.

So here I sit, my belongings scattered - piece-meal identity- across the apartment. And I am ready for the new.

I am moving from the dark, affectionatly named 'bunker', that has been my hideout (literaly) to a new place, across the street and next door to a park and right on the border of Toronto's Little Italy, where the Italian men walk around saying, "Bonjourno," as if it were the streets of Florence.

My year here has been one of hibernation, adjustment, where finding comfort was paramount. I was blessed, by the resources, the people (God...please bless my roommate), the coffee shops, strangers who became friends, teachers (in all shapes and forms) who made finding comfort possible. But I am now ready for inspiration...

I don't have much,

a bed
dresser (full of fabulous acquisitions)
a desk
6 great hats
3 pots1
1 pan
1 kitchen table
1 love seat
3 pieces of luggage
7 types of tea
1 bag of coffee from Portland
a grater
6 glasses
4 cups
1 nutmeg grater (that I thought was a lemon zester)
1 teapot
1 mug
lucky bamboo
a gargoyle to ward off bad spirits
a 10lb rock I've carried since I was 10

and an assortment of other fabulous, sparkly, feathered things.

With this I intend to build a home. Full of inspiration and DIY ideas, I intend to keep you all posted on my process and finally make good on all the promises I whispered to myself during the cold and sleepless nights I have finally made it through.

The darkest has passed, the dawn is just beginning....

join me on the journey.




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Discovery's Blunder?

In 2008, biologist and filmmaker Rob Stewart released the movie Sharkwater, an in-depth look at the worlds top predator. His documentary sought to dispel many of the myths that have been perpetuated by our society and media about the dangers of sharks and expose the Shark-finning industry that is endangering sharks world wide. 

Upon release I remember all my friends and colleagues a-buzz with their new found compassion for these giants of the ocean. "My fiance and I are going to go diving with the sharks," proclaimed one colleague. As  more and more people began to talk about the movie I finally saw it for myself, and was astounded by how wrong we have been about sharks all along. It turns out sharks are not the scary, aggressive man eaters as we've seen in Jaws but rather are an intelligent predator that is essential to our ecosystem. In an interview with the Hour's George Stroumboulopoulos Rob Stewart made an astute point, "Elephants kill 200 people a year, sharks kill 5 people a year, we kill 100 million of them and no body notices."

So it struck me as a surprise when I heard about Discovery Channel's new campaign to promote Shark Week 2009. The campaign's creators sent packages to members of the press to promote the event. One editor described his package on his blog:

"An unmarked box arrived containing a frosted, seemingly rusted jar. Inside was a pair of swim trunks, "chewed" up and bloody-looking; a key attached to a flotation disk, as if for a boat, and a few other weathered, nautical items. But the centerpiece was the crumpled newspaper clipping of my own obituary. "James Hibberd, Senior TV Reporter and Senior Online Editor of the Hollywood Reporter died Monday, July 6, of a grisly shark attack..."There's nothing like reading a pronouncement of your own death to give you pause."

In addition to the 'press packages', Discovery launched the website frenziedwaters.com, a page that depicts four different shark attacks and subsequent deaths from a victim's perspective. 

While this promotion has bloggers and media talking, I can't help but feel that a nature channel should be more responsible with their advertising. For a channel that seeks to provide e

ducational programing, one would think that they would seek to promote Shark week in a way that reflects their values rather than perpetuating false perceptions. Even though Discovery's Shark Week site provides plenty of information about shark conservation and even articles dispelling the greatest shark myths, it is laced with phrases like "fearsome predator" and features plenty of material about shark attacks. 

The question now becomes, have we gotten to a point in advertising where truth is no longer expected? As consumers are we so desperate to be entertained that we no longer care if the advertising reflects the product?  

What is more disturbing to me is that plenty of the bloggers who have discussed the promo talk about the quality of the marketing, yet not one has mentioned the ethics of perpetuating myths that continue to harm our ecosystems. In an era where "green is the new black" and everyone is desperate to become more ecologically aware and friendly it baffles me that no one is discussing the prudence of this blatant marketing ploy that has little if nothing to do with the content of Shark week or educating the public about the realities of sharks and how our lack of knowledge may spell the extinction of a predator vital to the ocean's ecosystem.