Artificial Happiness and the Ancient Art of Fleeing

Absolutely emotionally exhausted. Knitting socks, trying new recipes, and hoping other people will give you what you need is no way to figure out what the hell you're going to do with your life. Or maybe it is; I don't know. At any rate, I was listening to Dr. Dan Gilbert talk about happiness in an old TED post and I got to thinking that I should make a major decision, since it won't really impact my happiness all that much in the long run.

So I booked a one way ticket back home. I don't know what running away solves, but sometimes it's nice to be back where you originated, even if your lovin' family drives you a bit batty sometimes.

Without Passion?

I was watching a dvd tonight that a friend mailed me; last summer, he and his brother cycled across Canada, from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador. The shots were beautiful, and it was as interesting to watch the metamorphosis of the two young men's bodies as it was to observe the changing landscape. They got leaner, got tan lines in strange places, got bug bitten and sore, got tight-limbed and tough.

And in the midst of all their revelations, I suddenly felt small, and almost swallowed. I have lived a busy life, an often hectic or emotionally fraught life, but I don't know that I have done anything with as much passion as my friend and his brother. And that makes me feel horrible.

I mean, I've travelled a little (stints in the UK, Turkey, Greece, and Australia). But I don't know that I did so with the kind of freedom and sense of wonder I saw in the film.

I am beginning to wonder, albeit melodramatically, if I have lived a life wholly without passion for the country I live in or the world outside of it.

This is me:

Do I really look so passionless? Can I "all alone beweep my outcast state," or blame it on the fact that I have a boyfriend as interested in travel as I am in the finer points of March Madness stats?

Maybe it's time to reassess.

Post-Blizzard Blues

We've heard the warnings a lot this week. Bolt your doors. Hammer large pieces of wood crookedly over the windows. Blizzard's a-comin'.

And then it did. Sort of. We got a little over a foot, but today was so bright and sunny it was hard to believe that anything at all happened last night after I was safely tucked away in my bed. The only thing that has altered dramatically is the fact that I feel a cold coming on. Other than that, all I'm getting is early-spring sunshine late into the day and a slight depression over studying for my MCAT.

This whole study thing was kind of a strange idea. I chose to stay here, wanted to stay with my spouse, and I work in the hospital sometimes. Both grandparents were doctors. My brother is a second year in another province. But sometimes, man...the studying is painful. I'm prepping my organic chem stuff right now, sitting in on a class two days a week and studying independently when I'm not in the gym or at work in the hospital. So I have a plan, but why does it feel so hard lately?

My theory is that things fluctuate; they get better, they get worse. And all said and done, you make do with what you've got, even if that's a slight case of the blues as spring approaches in Newfoundland.

Sea-Glass Picker

Picking sea glass has become one of my favourite hobbies since moving to the edge of the Atlantic. There's a quiet beach I like to go to and dig through the stones, stooping occasionally to pick up a slick-bright piece of glass revealed by my feet. Or at least that's how it starts.

As I get older, I keep thinking that I ought to approach things with a little more maturity and dignity. When it comes to digging around for junk at the beach, there simply isn't room for such development. I start out each trip to the beach by modelling my picking technique after my boyfriend's: I sweep with my boots, carefully observe the lay of the stones, and either pick up glass or move on to a new spot. Halfway through, though, I succumb to childlike reverie and appreciation of the natural world and I wind up on my hands and knees with wet jacket sleeves and mittens, picking through the cold, slippery stones and digging glass fragments out of gravel piles as though they're rubies.

And for me, they may as well be.

Lately, though, my appreciation has deepened for the detritus of the ocean treasure-picking world: old half-broken bricks, stamped with their maker's imprint; bright plastic worn down like a kind of kitsch faux sea-glass; twisted pieces of copper wiring and old machinery; and fragments of pottery with barely-visible designs or glazes still clinging to their faces. I love these things. I love climbing down the now-eroding embankment to get to "our" beach only to haul myself up it after an hour with my fingers numb and my pockets heavy.

It's a kind of strange reversion to childhood--a kind of adult means of seeking treasure in the floorboards of an old house. And I'm so grateful I started collecting again.

Pineapple People

This is not my photo. But it is a photo of a place I have been and a thing I have seen: 'The Big Pineapple' at Woombye, Queensland, Australia.


While working on my undergraduate degree, a friend once presented me with his personality classification system. "People," he explained, "are like fruit. Some are exotic, some are pretty standard. Some bruise easily, some are only appreciated by certain palates."

I, for one, cannot stand guava fruit. I think it tastes like musty basement smell; kind of an old-person, mothball-y taste. But apparently some people like that.

He then classified me as a pineapple.

"Spiky and nasty on the outside," he said, pleased, "and mushy on the inside."

At that point, I was probably insecure enough about my body image to think it was a direct comment about my midsection, soggy as it may have been. But now, re-examining Charlie's comment, I've come to understand and better appreciate my status as a pineapple person:

Spiky outside. Enough said. I'm opinionated and more than a little tempted to make a snarky comment to get a laugh out of a group and then feel guilty about it later.

Mushy innards. Although this whole pineapple analogy makes me sound like something with a hard shell and an open circulatory system, admittedly I'm awfully soft about things. My family, for example. My dogs. I'm also horrifically sentimental--to the point that it makes me a little uncomfortable upon reflection. (Like now. I'm reading this now and thinking, "Pineapple people? Wtf? Mushy? Delete.")

The 'burnt lip' phenomenon. Ever eaten the better part of a pineapple by yourself? Well...I have. And the acid made my mouth and lips look like I had necrotizing fasciitis. Okay, maybe not that bad. But ugly. And I swore I'd never do it again, but have since. Several times, actually. The point is, it's all fine and good to enjoy things, but not to the lengths that I do. I'm not a drug addict or a pill popper or anything like that, but I suspect that I like to gorge myself on certain emotional situations. The dramatic is melodramatic with me. The pain is oh-so-painful. A full-pineapple-to-oneself kind of painful.

And let's not forget the waste. D'you ever look at how much of a pineapple you chuck out when you've gouged out the delicious, fleshy innards? There's a whole lot of waste there. You've got to cut almost to the quick to get all the spiky bits out, and then you flip a segment over and there's all that woody core to dispose of. All in all, not much of a pineapple that one really consumes and enjoys.

But it takes skill to cut a pineapple without wasting parts of it. And I like to think that that's how I am--I like to learn how to appreciate things so that I'm not wasting the experiences I'm lucky enough to have.

So I'm a pineapple. I'm cool with that.

Chapter One: In Which the Heroine Attempts to Let Go

So. Lately I've been pretty stressed out thinking about heading to another province to go to school this fall, and at some point after a long, rather weepy conversation with my mother, I thought, "Hey. You don't have to do all this."

And so I'm not going to. Today, I officially asked for a deferral from my PhD, which means I have a year in which to figure out what/how I'm going to do this, or, better still, do something else. My plan is to enjoy myself, enjoy time with my fellow, and just generally enjoy my life. What is it that makes me feel like I've got to get it all done this instant?

Thus, I'm trying to let it go. And I'm not a soothing image, low pitched noise kind of a girl. Such things don't really do it for me. But I'm going to start doing. Making. And leave this intellectual bulltweedy behind for a bit.

What do you mean, four seasons?

Following a period of prolonged sunshine and little wind, I actually thought there was going to be a spring in Newfoundland this month.

Then we had a blizzard for two days. Nice to know that you can count on certain things, isn't it?

I mean, this past month, things have looked like this a lot of the time:

Which I accept--one can't really do anything else with 25 cm of snowfall in less than 24 hours. I've learned a lot of tactics to cope, such as learning how to knit (yet again), reading novels at an almost unhealthy rate of speed, and making elaborate meals. A lot of laundry and cleaning get done in this house lately, in part because of the weather, and also because of the lull between thesis-writing and examination. It occurred to me the other day that I've never had this much luxury time in my entire school career. Or maybe I have, but I just had a more active social life to fill in the gaps.

In nine days, I will be heading back to B.C. for a two-week trip to see my parents and to attend the wedding of my eldest brother. I'm pretty excited about that, but I'm also anxious about being away from my person and my favourite city for two weeks. It's foolish, I know, and I should welcome the opportunity to go back to where I'm from and see my family. I'll also be visiting Victoria to see where I'm going to school come fall, and with such excursions planned, I'm sure the weeks will fly.

Plus, on the way home, I have to sit in Toronto for seven hours.

I love living on an island.