Solitaire

Love is absent
Mere glimmers of a fool's gold
Dreams rail, chained and pent
And my arms have nothing to hold

Flint

The spark waits to be struck
Of inspiration and blind luck
The mind calls to be lit
By the gift of Perseus, illicit
This hearth is damp, spoiled and spare
And chilled by a lonely wintry air
Throw open the shutters and let in the light!
Too often closed by some imagined night
Stoke the dimly glowing coal
Think phœnix, mind! Soar like a kite

An Insomniac's Second Note

The Muse is strong upon me tonight, so: I've got a bunch of poetry to inflict upon you all.

An Insomniac's Note

After rereading my last post, I have decided we should all move to Norway. It's better there. They have all the things I want already changed, so I'm guessing all the complaining has already been done.

The Soapbox: Today I Vote

Today is a day that I get to exercise my right as a citizen and vote. It’s something that I take for granted, but a right that I honor. Here in Alberta, it is important to note that I have grown up in a era where there has only been one governing party. There has only been one status quo, there has only been one political perspective that has shaped this province.

I have only a few years behind my belt as a voter, but there are a few things that I know. I know that I need to express an opinion, and that I get my chance today. I have taken my Ralph bucks and laughed, I have seen the howling byways of my city get worse, I have seen a province and a city expand without thought of the consequences of that growth.

Earlier this week, I experienced those consequences. Our household experienced an emergency of a medical nature, and as I result, I rushed to the hospital with my roommate in my car, and worry in my heart. We checked him in, and waited. And waited.

And waited.

We left without seeing a doctor. We arrived at the stroke of 10 at night, we left at 4:33am in the morning. The next day, my roommate was able to go to a clinic, and his troubles taken care of. But, for me it was an object lesson in some of the gaping holes in our province.

There are other ways I have experienced them. As a student, my university increases tuition every year, simply to keep up with their expenses. This is the result of the load shifting onto the back of the student, and a lack of support and direction from a government that has been in power for over 35 years. A few years ago, the university cut faculty funding by 15% in order to meet the black. My classes are bursting at the seams, there hasn’t been a class this year that I’ve taken under 200 people, and I’m in senior level courses. There haven’t been substantive improvements in the lot of my university or government support in my lot as a student.

As a youth worker, it was only in the last year that there was a wage increase, after a long period, years of drought. As it is, I make less on an overnight shift than a janitor does doing overnights at a nearby grocery store chain. As a part time worker, my company is unable to pay me overtime, even when I work 16 hour shifts. This is due to the contractual nature of the private not-for-profit business model that the government uses to take care of its most vulnerable: the children of the state. Social funding has seen the scalpel knife many times, and the only people that get hurt, truly hurt, in the end are the unfortunates who are in the system in the first place. I can always find another job than youth work if I chose to.

There is a philosophy of the status quo at work in the province, and I wonder if we will ever see political change that instead of fulfilling cliché phrases like “forward looking,” and “value added,” and “sustainability,” actually looks at the problems of the province and substantively moves on them. A change that sees public transit as a real and valid option to the long commute in the car. A change that sees the sick at the very first opportunity, their cares looked after immediately. A change that supports the next generation of workers, the students, the shapers of our society. A change that protects and ensures the future of our most vulnerable. A change that supports the people that protect and care for them. A change that doesn’t serve the interest of the few that have shares in oil and gas, but the people that own that oil and gas. We, the people of Alberta. A change that protects people from the vultures of landlords eager to make a profit. A change that sees that no person should be homeless. A change that sees an environment as worthy of protection in its own right. A change that looks less to the padding of the coffers, and more to the blood and sweat of the people that generated that money.

We have wealth. We have a hard working ethic. We have bright minded people in our province that struggle to get by. We deserve better, we deserve more than a government that is the mouthpiece of corporate interests. We are more than the oil and gas beneath the ground we live on. And it’s time we see that.

The Pipe: Dream Space

Dreams take up space. They make a home in your heart, and reside there for a time. Sometimes they pass away, like friends you know you'll never see. And sometimes other dreams, like new friends, come by and make life exciting again. And sometimes, like old friends, they come back after a while, and you strike up a conversation you never thought you would have again.

Let me tell a story about myself. I was in high school, in a place that was so terribly out of touch with my inner landscape. I read books like an addict, devouring imagery and story and character like a starving child. I particularly liked books about fantasy and science fiction, because it was about things that never happened in Vulcan, Alberta, Canada. The middle of nowhere. I like books about fantasy, because they always had some farmboy character that started out where I was at, young and naive (and from the middle of nowhere), and through his adventures became strong and powerful and honorable.

I also was a cabin leader during the summers at a camp I had gone to in my childhood. I had begun the painful journey about understanding the evils of the world, the real life evils, through camp. I had campers that were difficult to deal with, kids that wouldn't listen and would commit bizarre acts, like trying to spray one's self with the fire extinguisher (no flames were present), randomly hitting people, and kids that would run away. I seemed to attract them, and through the many camp experiences I began to see that I could not ignore the pain that was present in their lives, and their inability to articulate it, or do anything about it. I knew then, in a way that I couldn't myself express at the time, that I wanted to be their witness. A witness to the stories you will not necessarily hear on the news, a witness to stories that usually don't have happy endings, a witness to things that would make your ears bleed.

And I also began to write, while in high school. I wrote fan fiction. Which, over time, became better fan fiction. I wrote essays that pushed the boundaries of my vocabulary, essays that would provoke my teachers to discussion about something other than the bland political facts that were being shoveled into my brain. I learned that I love Shakespeare, especially speaking it aloud, and especially Hamlet.

Finally I began to love coffee, an attraction that began in away only it could, in Germany, in Europe. My first drink, alcoholic, was a Cafe Amaretto. It was also the first experience I had with espresso. Luckily, my attraction was to the latter, not the former. I had many coffee shop discussions with passionate German youth, my own age, about politics, religion, and everything in between. We stayed past closing in coffee shops, the owner watching with a merry gleam in his eye. I wanted to be that owner. I wanted to provide that place where words could be bantered, and the lattes free flowing, and closing was when I decided to.

I took part of a writing program offered to high school students through the University of Calgary. It was called (W)rites of Passage. Clever, no? We were encouraged to write fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction. I immediately chose fiction, and pondered over the subject. My first inkling came from a discussion at camp. If I had a superpower, what would it be. Being the bleeding heart that I was at the time, I wanted (among other superpowers), the ability to be an empath, to feel other's emotions, and somehow transmute them (for good or ill). So, I began to write a short story. I wrote. Then I wrote some more. Then I realized it was close to the deadline, and I had written no short story, but a novella. Some 22 pages of times new roman 12pt font. Completely original.

There was a crowd of people, mostly family of the students that came to hear, that listened to an excerpt of that short story. It was official, we were told. This was an academic conference, and having present papers at it, we were officially published authors. Oh man, I felt it. It was a glow that I could have all my own. It was one of the best moments, day, of my life. Apparently, people even liked it.

So. I entered into university, on a degree that combined Business and English. Business for that coffee shop I would someday own, and English, so I could develop my writing. It was a beautiful dream, and my first year of university was bliss. It was a dream that I had.

Can you hear the "but"? But, life happened. I had a series of bad experiences once I began living on my own. I had some really good ones too, but they were intermixed with a story of addiction and broken hearts, and a search for a purpose. I became convinced that I should become a doctor. I thought that it would be the best thing that could do with this mythical "potential" I was told that I had. I appropriated the dream for myself with others. And for a time it flourished. I struggled though. I struggled with school, I found science hard. I found it harder than anything else that I had put my mind to up to that point. It didn't come naturally to me, like the way that words sometimes can. I had to force myself to learn things that I couldn't see a reasonable end to learning them. I failed a math course, when I never failed a course in my life. And I was too stubborn to see that this dream took up too much space.

I gave up the life, with its unpredictability, of becoming a writer. I traded in one dream, set it aside for later, promising that I would come back to it after I was done being a doctor. And for a dream, being a doctor is a good one. It's intoxicating, I love House and Grey's Anatomy. I love hearing the expert words they speak, their quick judgments saving lives. I love the idea of being a doctor. But I hate having to learn to get there.

Intuition is often how I approach things, not concretely, not sequentially. I come upon things by the sides, around corners. I struggle with pushing details through my cranium. I can't encapsulate them and cage them, and set them in a row. So learning math is as hard as learning another language for me. Learning biochemistry is like living in another country. I can do it, but at the cost of an effort that takes a lot out of me. And it would herculean for me to do with an A grade.

So I'm realizing that as noble a dream being a doctor is, the rest of my life suffers. My art, as poor and scarce as it is, would wither while I pursue that dream. My relationships with people would be sacrificed. Time would (and has) become a thing I could never have. Sanity would probably be left behind.

And realizing that, saying it verbally, has lifted an immense weight off my shoulders. I've been thinking about letting this thing go for over a year. I've been wondering if I could do it and still be the person I want to be, and now I know.

And now I can have a conversation with an old friend.

I Can Believe in This Kind of Dream

One of the reasons I link to RLP is that he says things that make me light up inside. In a world of darkness, depression and cynicism, sometimes a dream is all you can have:

I’ve had a vision, you see. I’m a little embarrassed to say so because I’m not really a vision sort of guy, but I keep having this crazy idea that maybe the age of exclusivity is passing away. It’s passing away slowly, like racism and nationalism and indifference to the health of our environment, but it IS passing away. Religious exclusivism had its day, but the sun it setting and a new dawn awaits. There are now people in every spiritual tradition who are willing to admit that theirs is not the only way. These people will admit that the intelligence behind creation seems to work with different people in different ways and with a cultural language that fits them.

Imagine if the spiritual people, the dream keepers of the sacred, archetypal stories that arise from our collective unconscious, were to embrace one another and celebrate the ancient beauty of our various traditions. Imagine if we spiritual people held hands across the world and called for peace instead of causing religious wars, which is what we are doing right now.

If that were to happen, the people of our world might see us differently. They might see the beauty and necessity of caring for our myths and traditions. Even brother and sister scientist would celebrate our ancient stories which are, after all, our earliest attempts to understand the world around us.

Peace would be our hallmark, and we would preach that it is the birthright of everyone born on this planet. And we would be set free to pursue truth in all of its wondrous forms.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

This man deserves props. Props to you RLP!