Morning Pages
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
9:33am Saturday 21Oct06

Still groggily awake and moving slow. Made a big breakfast to rev up my engines for the day ahead.

Dreamed that I was looking for new furniture at an Ikea like store. Couldn't find a bed that suited my needs. I woke up all achy this morning so clearly I wasn't positioned properly. In my dream, three youth came up behind me and tried to push me into oncoming traffic. I sensed what they were up to and grabbed a telephone pole in the nick. They lifted me up to throw me into traffic but someone came and stopped them. They followed me as I walked up the street and I was surrounded by other people who ushered them away.
In my apartment building I walked with two maternal women. They were a representation of my Mother and my Aunt Faith but they weren't them as they were white ladies. They walked with me as I started to feel the emotions of my pending death. They comforted me as I started to cry. Within me I felt the presence (intuition, higher power) that reassured me that I could trust, that I could depend on the presence - I've always been able to.

I know that death is an end of a cycle. I interpret it that way in the Tarot anyway. I'm often emotional when I have to let things go sometimes even when they're bad for me. Health wise, I've had to let go of bad habits. Relationship wise, I've had to let go of ideas/fantasies and justifications. That seems to be a constant. Mind you the space I've made for new people has been filled with people beyond my wildest dreams, people who I like and am already growing to love as kindred spirits. I think the emotions are a culmination of the fear of the unknown and learning to trust and the feeling of time that was wasted stubbornly holding on to tactics that no longer worked for me.

The new moon starts as of 10pm tonight. A new moon is a time to set new goals and start new programs etc. One of these days I will sit down and get out all the info for people who may be interested in following the moons. IFOA isn't the best time to do it.
Mercury goes retrograde Oct 28th to November 17th. And that is a time to keep the status quo. Don't buy any new electronics, cars. Don't sign contracts or start a new job because you will regret it. Communication is mixed up. If you make plans with someone, this is a time to confirm and reconfirm just to make sure you got the info straight.
You'll notice that you will come in contact with people you haven't seen or spoken to in ages. Blasts from the past. Either they will look you up or you will look them up. Mercury retrograde is a time to go back to projects that you may have been having problems with and reworking them. Starting a new romance isn't good but rekindling an old romance is great...

Here is a better description of it from Susan Miller's Astrology Zone
What happens when Mercury retrogrades? You miss appointments, your computer equipment crashes, checks get lost, you find the car you just purchased during Mercury retrograde is a lemon. (Or, you hate your haircut, the lamp you bought shorts out, your sister hates her birthday gift.) There will be countless delays, cancellations and postponements--but know these will benefit you in the long run. Don't fight them, although your frustration level and feeling of restlessness will be hard to cope with at times.

All machinery and things with moving parts--such as computers, VCRs, camera equipment, garbage disposals, and so forth, will reveal any weak links now. It is critical that you back up your data system and be more careful and vigilant than ever. Projects will demand more time and money than anticipated this month.

In matters of the heart, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you or says something hurtful, take a wait-and-see attitude. Since Mercury rules speech, they may not mean what you think they are saying now. Let them have some space, and wait to see if they mean in October what they said in September.

When traveling, leave early and allow for extra travel time. Have all bags double-taped closed, count your belongings, double-check addresses and reconfirm appointments. Things get lost when Mercury messes us up. Take NOTHING for granted. The sector of your chart that Mercury happens to be skating through will be effected most dramatically, so check your forecast!

Why would the Universe give us Mercury retrograde? Because to move forward it is sometimes necessary to backtrack and reconfigure our paths in life. It is important to reconsider, repair, reflect, and reconnect. Mercury forces us to slow down and fix what's broken, and in so doing, rethink things. It also gives us time to get to projects we have put on the back-burner.

Some activities are lucky or actually improve when Mercury retrogrades. You are likely to bump into old friends that you haven't seen in years. Adopted children tend to find their birth parents during Mercury retrograde periods, or people locate their long lost siblings. Prosecutors often find clues to crimes that had previously remained unsolved for years. (Although sometimes the reverse is true--there is a greater danger, or example, that police can bungle evidence during a Mercury retrograde period, for clear thinking doesn't come easy for any of us then.) Mail that went astray weeks or even years ago shows up during Mercury retrograde. Some things that were lost reappear.

Now is also a good time to dress old wounds, clean up relationships or to simply bury the hatchet. Some people have great breakthroughs in psychotherapy during a Mercury retrograde period. For salesman, it is a positive time to backtrack over previous contacts rather than call on new ones. It is a perfect time to schedule work on projects that you haven't had time to do and you've let pile up. Bring your resume or portfolio up to date, and clean out your closets. Take time to paint the house. Clear your decks.

Just try not to start new things. If you have to start a job during a Mercury retrograde period know that the nature of the job is likely to change dramatically over time. Perhaps the person you report to will leave, or your responsibilities will be very different from what you thought they would be. Or your company won't be ready to take you on, and you won't have much to do until things are reorganized. But remember, if this was a position that you tried for in the past, then you've got the vibes working for you rather than against you.

Lucky me the next retrograde period falls in my birthday. So I'd better make my plans before February and getting that tattoo I was thinking about is probably out of the question. ha ha!

EY

I'll go this way
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Friday 1:55pm 20Oct06

I have three main goals for my writing vacation: write, work out, and eat healthy. I decided I should get going on the working out and went for my walk to go weigh myself at the pool. Should bring my bathing suit, might as well swim. Could call The Friend (formerly known as The Guy) to see if he's had coffee yet since he's on my way to the pool. Plus it's an excuse for a Starbucks decaf. Does anybody remember me saying that I don't drink coffee? Maybe I'm going crazy.

Sat outside with The Friend enjoying my decaf, talking trash and cracking each other up and saw Mr. Tall Wine buying contractor. Although his project is done in my building his new project is about three buildings away. "I still get to see you," he said.

After he left I mentioned that he'd bought me a bottle of wine. "Wine? I'm taking you out to dinner," says The Friend. Dinner has graduated from the Keg to Ruth Chris'. Big grin, rubbing my hands together.

On my way to the pool I ran into goldfish, got any two's(?). Made plans for Halloween.

Back in the day, before the babies came, Halloween was going to Bryant's crazy Halloween parties. He lived in a renovated school and everyone on his floor also had parties and you'd go from apartment to apartment. Mostly musicians, there would be microphones and instruments set up for the eventual continual jam sessions. The first year I'd gone was the year my mom passed away. I was numb and quiet. I toked a few joints because it evened out my emotions. I met a couple guys and hung out until 7 or 8am. It was Bryant's Christmas party. The amount of people that showed up was insane. I went to every party afterwards.

Halloween parties were a joke laughing at the costumes. I went as a disco girl one year. I was still had dreads then and I wore an afro wig that was so big that my friend Kevin couldn't stop laughing every time he looked at me. People believed it was my real hair. About a thousand strangers have a picture of me with that wig on. The last Halloween party I attended at Bryant's I wore coveralls borrowed from one of my guys at work. He hooked me up with a tool belt and a hard hat. I had to wear a tank top under neath the coveralls because they were so hot. The outfit did something for men! Too funny.

The last Christmas party we attended was just before Bryant's wife got preggers for the first time. We arrived and the party had been canceled. Bryant invited us in anyway. We sat and chatted and a couple more people came. We had an intimate party and drank their wedding wine and laughed and talked music and what not. I got home at 4am and slept through my alarms. Called work to say, "I'm still drunk but I'm on my way." My boys laughed at me all day. My boss shook his head telling me I was out of control. Of course that was the year that my two bosses and I went to every single contractors Christmas party. We ate for free and drank beer until we got too bloated then drank wine then turned to scotch. That was a crazy year. Of course we're all dealing with health problems now... ha ha!

I don't have that kind of stamina anymore but at least I had it once.

I'm having so much fun with The Friend that I have to ask, can a relationship get better than that? Isn't a relationship really a committed booty call? ha ha! But seriously, I'm 42 years old, not going to have kids, can't imagine getting married, ever. Should I bother worrying about soulmates and the like? Tall wine buying contractor is probably about 33 years old. I'm no Demi Moore, so thinking that I'm going to have a long term committed relationship with anyone ... I just don't believe. Watch me meet some hot God and get married and drop a kid at 44 years old! That'll teach me.

Wow! The day is flying by. Got to do the laundry and make the juice and go back to the writing and get out for another walk to build my steps up to 16,000 and maul Zeldooch and...

EY

Heart Matters
Mood:  happy
Topic: Writing Outings
Thursday 10:32pm 19Oct06

My first Talk/Interview for IFOA was Adrienne Clarkson (the ex Governor General) interviewed by Pamela Wallin.

Adrienne's talk was about her memoir, Heart Matters. She both talked and read from the book. She was excellent. I kept questioning myself whether I really wanted to attend and not go to a reading instead. How interesting is she going to be? Really interesting.

My only disappointment was that Pamela Wallin didn't give the audience a chance to ask any questions which is the norm at interviews. I actually had a question for Adrienne. So I'm going to try and find her email address to ask her the question.

Adrienne discussed coming to Canada from Hong Kong as a refugee and that each family member could only bring one suitcase per person. Imagine looking through all your belongings and only being allowed to fill a suitcase. What would you choose? What could I choose? What would I be able to limit myself to?

She quoted Margaret Laurence - "you must feel in your heart the reality of others."

Her memoir is filled with her memories, stories her mother and father told her and the information that she gleaned from her father's memoir that he'd worked on for years and then left for safe keeping in the Bank of Montreal in 1946. When Adrienne was the Governor General she went to that Bank and asked if they still had stuff left there by her father and they did. And they gave it to her. More than 50 years later. That fascinates me beyond belief especially since Kali gets to read Rachel's memoirs in my novel White Wishes.

Her Talk was mostly inspiring to me for my work on White Wishes.

It made me think about what my mother used to always say, "I could write a book." How we as our parents children take their stuff a step further. She could write a book and I am writing one. In White Wishes both mother and daughter write a book. Adrienne said that she and her brother had to go to University 'for our parents'. It wasn't the opportunity they were given - the father who cried himself to sleep every night because he couldn't attend high school and the mother who'd felt abandoned as a child when her brother shoved her out of the way and no one from the family noticed that she wasn't with them. She sat on the street waiting for them for several hours to come back for her.

She talked about the Chinese being big into photos of which my mother was and the importance for her to look back at those photos when she was working on her memoirs. My mother used to drive me crazy with all the photos she took of us growing up but then those photos were my life line when she died. My fascination with the mother/daughter relationship is because of my relationship with my mother so our stuff is just as important as Rachel and Kali's stuff.

Pamela discussed Adrienne's ability to stand outside of her life story as if she were looking at herself as a stranger. The level of immersion versus detachment.

Adrienne mentioned a girl that interviewed her last week who was Lithuanian or something along those lines and how the young girl compared herself to Adrienne said, "I'm just like you. I have to be more perfect than perfect." Which was how I was raised. In a white man's world a black child should be beyond reproach because we're already seen as savages, criminals, not good enough and the whole nine.

The question posed regarding writing her memoir was, "What am I ready to tell?" That's a great journal question, a great blog question, and a great character question. "Rachel, what are you ready to tell?

And the final thing of note was that Adrienne said that her father gave her the confidence to know that she was competent to be who she wanted to be in a man's world made for men. I wrote it down as, "in a world made by white men for white men."

The interesting thing about memoirs is that there is a universality. We all have a knowledge of our families especially about things we weren't told about. Feelings that couldn't be expressed because we were too young, secrets that are kept that we sense or know on a subconscious level. Families are fascinating. What are all the pieces that you would choose to tell to make people understand you or gain an essence of who you are? What do you stories do you remember that were told about your beginnings?


Heart Matters, another book added to my wish list...

EY

Look at all my books
Mood:  bright
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Thursday 12:48pm 19Oct06

Day one of my writing vacation and I slept in until 8am. I know that's a lot of extra hours. ha ha! Zelda has been running around clapping her paws together screaming, "Mommy's home, Mommy's home!"

I made it out to Fresh Obsessed and picked up a few things like beets to keep on top of having premade juice in the freezer. I'll do the juicing tomorrow since I don't have an interview or anything to attend. Unless they've added to the schedule. I should check that.

While putting my groceries in the fridge Zelda actually jumped in and I had to wrestle her out. Little girl is more than a handful for such a little body. Then she proceeded to attack me while I was trying to eat my breakfast. Training clearly needs to include manners. I'm not used to having a cat like this. All my cats have normally been so well mannered and not interested in human food.

Looks like there will be decent coverage of IFOA in the papers. The Toronto Star has a daily write up so that's an extra bonus.

Last night while looking for a research book in my over run by books apartment I came across some other books that got me excited. I can't totally remember the comment but it's something to the effect that when something excites you it's your intuition (inner guide, higher power) alerting you to your direction. I literally said out loud, "Look at all my books!" So I'm excited again to devour as many books as possible which always means good things to my blogs.

I caught The Writing Life on Bravo this morning. Russell Smith was talking about the boring life of a writer holed up in his apartment writing. It's true. I wonder how to keep up with my daily practice and actually write about something given that I do really live a fairly boring life. I have more people subscribed to my other blog the EY Page, which makes more sense since it's about inspiration.

Anyway I'm still here and crazy and giving away too much information possibly and hopefully one day this will be a fantastic blog or something like that.

EY

Witty?
Mood:  flirty
Topic: WC - Daily Practice
Wednesday 5:42pm 18Oct06

I'm on vacation! I some how managed to get everything taken care of before I left work. Mind you I walked around with fuzzy head all day today listing my to do's over and over and focusing on not much else. Two different people asked me if I wasn't talking to them because I walked past them not even noticing their existence. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night realizing that I'd forgotten to book some important something or other. sigh! It's all taken care of. It better be.

It's funny how you can like someone and for me, if he's just open enough, I can be so witty. Much great laughter was had when I received the phone call just before I left for my vacation. My faculties were back, I was relaxed and I threw some zingers that made my object of desire laugh louder than I've ever heard him laugh. The funny thing is that the more I get to really know him the more I want to be his friend. Yeah romance is great but friendships tend to last a whole lot longer. That's why I'm single, I believe in friendship far more than I do in romance. Interesting. So I'm making the moves to make this person my friend and letting go of the focus on anything else. (It turns out that his project will probably last through November.) Peculiar aren't I?

But not that strange when you think about it. My best friend J in Montreal was originally a big crush on my end. Some where along the lines he said, "You are going to be my little sister." I didn't really want to hear that at 15/16 years old but you know what? We've been best friends for close to 30 years. A romance? That probably wouldn't have lasted more than a year and we wouldn't be in each others lives now. All those decades of laughter lost. All those decades of laughter and being my genuine self. It's so nice to be my real self in front of someone and so few people that I can be that with.

IFOA is here! My first interview doesn't start until 8pm tomorrow night. Yeah I could have gone to work but I want to write and get organized and love my kitten. Mind you there is a reading tonight a 100 year celebration of McClelland & Stewart that I can attend. I still haven't made a decision whether I'll go. I'm not that big on readings as a whole. I just go to them on the weekends to kill time between one interview and the next. I get far more ideas from the interviews and round table discussions than I do from the readings. Plus my feet are exceptionally sore tonight, big toes throbbing like a mo fo and since I'll be walking all week, I've got to pace myself.

Apparently we're not going to get any kind of Indian summer this year which sucks. I could use some crazy warm weather for the next week although it was lovely today. I'll be inside for the bulk of my time off anyway. I'd like to have a competition with myself to see how much writing I can do each day. White Wishes is hanging over my head and nanowrimo is looming.

It's my time! My anniversary is Oct 22nd. I will have lived in Toronto for 24 years. Never thought I'd be here more than ten. Never thought I'd be a lot of things but today I'm happy.

EY