Bye, bye Beatrice Street

 

 

 

Where I lived for 6...7...8 years??  I don't even remember at this point.  I think I moved here in 2014, shortly after Alex and I started dating.  I have many positive memories from living here.

 

This desk is where I spent many, many days and nights doing creative work, or during the pandemic, spending time with people online.  I got really used to that slanted ceiling!

 

 

 

 

It sounds so silly, but I can't believe how much time I spent in this one little room, especially over the last 2-3 years of the global pandemic! Some highlights from living at Beatrice:

 

• The neighbours next door would have screaming matches at least once a month.  I knew a lot more about them than I thought I would ever know about my neighbours.  When their kid was still a baby, I would get woken up by crying in the middle of the night. 
  
• When anyone used the kitchen, all the heat would go to my room.  The top floor was an extra five degrees hotter than the rest of the house.  Adding evening meal prep to the evening sun in the summer, and it was like living in an oven
• If I turned on the window a/c, the room would vibrate. The landlord upped the cost of the laundry machines to $3 per wash and per dry after I started using an a/c unit.  (Was still worth it!)
• In the summer, I woke up many times with bugs in my bed, from the window in the summer. Usually a beetle or spider.  
• In the winter, the walls were so cold the paint would crack. There was no insulation in the house, and I bought a heated blanket, which was the best purchase I made after the a/c unit.
• I had a total of 12 roommates over this whole time of living here, 3 different ones at a time. There was a golden age of living with Celine, Brad and Nathaniel that made me very happy...I have so much love for them. The next best was living with Julie and Roberto, and for a time, Simon.

 

Us at Igor and Celine's Wedding. Igor in the background, to the right

 

• I had one roommate who said I typed too loudly....and complained that my phone calls bothered them and they couldn't focus on studying.  I got a pad for my chair, and then they complained that my chair still bothered them because it creaked. They also said they wanted to get a cleaner for the house and everyone to pitch in...when they were the messiest person in the house.  I also couldn't use the kitchen...because their meal prep took around 2-3 hours per day, and the fridge was always full of vegetables because they need fresh produce all the time.
  
• I had one roommate who gave everyone the evil eye, and I think was honestly really depressed.  They left their hair everywhere, and I regularly did all their dishes.  They still gave me the evil eye.  When they left, they dumped all their garbage on the lawn, and it got rained upon, leaving a sopping mess. I had to pay for special garbage bags to get rid of the mess they left.
• One roommate had an issue with alcohol, and left in the middle of December for another country. Their car was towed...they just left it on the street when they left Canada.  It sat there for over three months.
• The worst time I had was when I couldn't sleep for about six months last year more than 4 hours. One roommate went to bed at 3am, and one got up at 5am.  In between this, the people in the basement played drumming around 12am-1am.  I invested in very expensive ear plugs, which I learned, were really unpleasant to sleep with.
• I created a really sweet patio set up, and we regularly did really cool Halloween things.  One Halloween, a kid asked to come in the house to see it. He said it used to belong to his grandma, and he just wanted to see what it looked like inside one more time.
• The guys in the basement had cats, and one year they moved their cat litter right next to the air vents in the heat of summer.  I have never pleaded with someone more over text message to move cat litter for the good of my sanity.
• One year, a large animal died in the wall between the two houses in the middle of a very hot summer. Every time you walked into the kitchen, it smelled like rotting fish for two weeks.  The landlord's assistant said just to wait until all the flesh decomposed enough, the smell would go away.  (They apparently didn't care that there were animals in the walls)
• I lived right next to a 24 hour grocery store a five minute walk away. One of my favourite things to do (In my early 30s, I could never now) was to walk the store at 1am, and buy a bag of chips, and watch a show until 3am.
  

Despite all this, this was one of the best places I have ever lived.  I previously had been living alone, in two separate basement apartment, both which flooded.  This place was a chance to live with people, and find good people, and it turned out really well for me...I made lifelong friends.  When I first walked in, I had such a good feeling...and that good feeling turned out to be true.  It had a double sink, a dishwasher, and I could live on the top floor, which I happily did.

It wasn't a castle, but it was the next best thing to me.  And the rent was cheap, too.

 

The time to be the person we are meant to be

 

Time...there is never enough time.

 

I will never be an amazing painter.  In fact, I will never be an even decent painter!  I'm not sad to admit it...painting well requires a patience I don't have. It's fun, but I don't plan to ever be better than what 3 grade finger painting level.

But there are many activities, many version of myself, that I often shy away from, because it would require real effort into the things I really am good at.  The things that I dream about being.  As Alex would say, 'You want to be a writer, a poet, a director, a dancer, a musician....' because sometimes, I have too many projects on the go, and maybe not enough of them get done to completion.

But often I find in doing one creative project, I turn towards another thing, where I'm lacking a skill that would make my current project easier, and so on it goes.  The work of a creative person, or someone who enjoys 'the arts' never ends.  Because to even get to a level of 'good' we have to do millions of practice sessions.  And even with that, hopefully we have talent, connections, luck, etc. to turn it into something as a hobby or even a career.  Because the work I really enjoy isn't always the job that makes the most money.  And that part sucks a bit.

I read a really interesting book a while back....something my mom sent me.  In it, a man left a very good paying job, to be a local town hockey coach.  He earned very little, but he was living his dream.  In the next few years, he became the hockey coach of team Canada...something that wouldn't have been possible without personal sacrifice.  Sometimes dreams with real outcomes require hard, difficult changes to become the very best.

In a word: the time we most spend doing the things that matter, the choices that matter, will move us forward into the person we are meant to be.  We will not be perfect, but it is possible to be a version of ourselves we always imagined....if we make the time.

 

 

Easter 2022

A late posting of my Easter 2022 post.

 

This year's Easter message that stuck with me is 'Look at the day the Lord has made.'  Today we exist, and we exist to make each day a day filled with goodness and happiness.

As I reflect on the war in Ukraine, the worldwide disasters that continue to cause hardships, I think about the fact that I am lucky to be safe, to live somewhere safe from many of the harms that currently exist.

The celebrations throughout the world of traditions of faith during this month, I hope for blessings for all those who see the sun shine today.  Some hopes for the future:

• I hope for a world that can grow and be healthy, that humans might lessen their impact on the world
  
• I hope for world peace, peace amongst people who need it
• I hope for an end to the climate crisis, which will affect all the children growing today, all the young people today.

 

This Easter was special for me, in that it was a year that looked towards the future.  For me personally I hope for new things, better things for 2022-23.

A Lenten reflection on sacrifice

 God, may Your light guide my day, and your spirit bring me peace. Amen.

-Lenten prayer

 

“Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job 42: 1-6

 

In Lent, Catholics make an effort to sacrifice.  When we say sacrifice, I think most people think it means to give up little things (or big things) in an effort to orient ourselves towards God.  This practice is so important as part of yearly Christian formation: because at the root of good spiritual practice is discipline.  And without discipline, there is very little relationship to be found with God.

When I was young, there were many cartoons, media, etc. that talked about the end of the world.  On those signs it always said "REPENT, the end is near!"  (Which is an odd stance in some ways, if everything is ending, it's like trying to do your homework at 12am before it's due the next day)  

Repentance, in the Lenten tradition, is not about asking for forgiveness at the last moment (though that is more than acceptable in the Catholic and Christian tradition, which is good).  Repentance is about right thought, right action, right orientation towards that which is divine.  And in our case, as Christians, orienting ourselves towards the divine course corrects many problems that arise through normal life.

 Ordinary Christians cannot move the waves of the world, nor is a triumphant return by fire desirable.  The way of the common Christian requires dedication and reflection, forgiveness and humility.  There is a reason that the path to heaven is called 'the narrow path.' It is very easy to slide into patterns that are bad for us and those that love us.

 Lent is a time of remembering the importance of taking away, so that what may be filled, is something better, and more appropriate.  

 

Thoughts on 2022

 It's a new year, and it has brought new feelings.  Feelings of hope and excitement for new things, because....it's a new year!  How can you not be excited?

I had some hope that COVID numbers might lower in December, but it's been touch and go for the start of 2022.  Apparently restrictions are supposed to lower in a week.  This seems really premature...I'm hoping that people stay safe.  Denmark's numbers from lowering restrictions aren't great. So we will see.

On the bright side, I have managed to see a lot of friends in the last two weeks (which was an odd coincidence with the news of lowered restrictions).  This had given me reason to smile, amidst some of the terrible world news.

Seeing the trucker convoy in Ottawa (and Toronto), it has disheartening to see Canadians saying things, and acting in a way that is misinformed at best. The beach pool party didn't bother me.  The idea that misinformation had spread so far while people were so isolated was really distressing.

Last week, Russia initiated war with Ukraine.  One of the highlights of this week has been people saying that they stand with the Ukrainians, even in small gestures.  Tiktok, Instagram, etc. are full of pedestrian-side accounts of war, of bombings of civilian districts, and people fleeing for their lives.  This is a very nice prayer that was shared on Facebook, so I'll share it here as well.

 

 

 

 I really do, in spite of the current events of 2022, believe this could be a good year.  Not everything is perfect, but there are great kindnesses happening, even in the face of great injustices and intolerance.

Some simple hopes for 2022:

• That COVID might become less severe
• For making good memories this year, with friends and family
• For finding time for artistic and creative pursuits
• For peace in our time, real peace, where bridges are built, not destroyed

Thoughts from a podcast on how to start new things

I'm listening to a really interesting podcast right now (via an instagram post) about how to start something that matters with Pat Flynn.  While the start is very meandering, the meat of the episode from 15 mins on is quite good.  Some highlights:

Peak Moments

Look into your past and ask yourself

• What moments (both good and bad) have been moments where I have felt really alive?  Really like my ability in that moment mattered?
• What experiences do I remember most that make me think about what I contributed to a situation, and do I want to do more of that?

Crossing the Threshold

• A rule: if you know how to start a project, but you don't know how to finish a project, that's when you know you've started a good thing
• You will be in the wilderness: Willingness to be in ambiguity.  
• Travel with the right people: You need different people to help you get to where you need to go. You can't do it as an individual, you need others
• Stumbling is part of the process: fall forward
• What's the risk if this is a disaster?

Celebrating Your Wins

• Why do I do this? Why will I grind into this?  (Remember your why, even if it is a small why)
• Celebrate your victories
• Have a mastermind for your goal: have a group of people that support your wins
• Does the top of the mountain motivate you?  Gamify how to win.  Does the process motivate you? Ask how you measure success in the journey, because sometimes you get what the 'win (the cookie)' is wrong.

Letting go of risk

• If you fail your ultimate goal, but the process was worth it? Then the risk is worth it (Doesn't mean zero negatives)
• Define success and define failure  
• Define the risk of here's what happens if you don't solve this challenge right now (if you continue to sit all day and not move around, you'll have poor health).  The opportunity cost of not moving forward
• Imagine that you've defined a worthy goal, and you decide not to do it.  What are the prizes/punishments of not doing it.  (There can be benefits!)
• You should triangulate goals all the time.  You can learn from those around you.
• Too often we get off the bus too soon
• Comparing ourselves to others who are already successful ignores the small wins we do on a daily basis as someone starting out

Was overall a very interesting and compelling podcast! 

Course on meditation prematurely cancelled

 The gentleman that uploaded it decided to private all the videos for some reason.  

There goes the meditation schedule!  

But honestly, I think the meditations went off track after a while, even though they started really interesting.

I think I might try redoing this meditation idea, but do it differently.  I don't think that this kind of meditation is for me...it was both quasi-spiritual and quasi-philosophical, and I don't think it's a good idea to mix the two.  Either start with some questions to examine a state of mind, or stat with questions to examine our relationship with God, but they don't really belong together.

Not to say philosophy, religion and spirituality don't belong together, (in truth, they do) but the emphasis should be on how to work through problem statements, and most of the time, basic meditation and philosophy of religion don't work well together.  (Also, this particular set of meditations focused on light metaphors, and I'm anti-light/dark metaphors most of the time for religion)

Anyways!  I need a new meditation practice, I guess?  I have been shafted by the universe apparently.

Sketching Nov 12 / Remembrance Day

 

I had a lot of thoughts about Veterans Day/Remembrance Day, most of them negative.  The latest generation doesn't remember, or doesn't know that there were world war veterans, or that there are even wars going on today.  This isn't a 'kids are bad' post, this is a 'current adults are not doing enough to help us all remember the price of peace.'

There is a lot of talk about representation on Remembrance Day (good) but there is a lot less focus on the act and the work to be done, once a year, to contemplate what it means to live in a time of peace, and that peace does not come without a cost of life (bad).  I wonder if young people today can comprehend, that to have what we have, people have died, and not just a few people, but an amount that can barely be counted.

The idea that your entire city, your entire country, burned to the ground, to start again.  There are places, now, where things like this happen all the time.  We are so lucky to live where we live, to have the freedoms, the privileges, the access to so many positive things, the rights that we have. 

I hope the future generations can find peace in this large, large world we live in.  I hope there are adults that can teach young people today, that the world they live in is ripe for change, but change for the better still has a cost.  It is not free.

Course Corrections 14 and 15: I will let everything go & God is the light of everything I see

 Today was about the Sedona method, which I had never heard of.  It is composed of 3 questions:

• Could I let it go
• Would I let it go
• When

And this to me seems very helpful, when thinking about negative emotions.  I found this to be a good way for me to think about having a quick check in for any emotion that might get my hooked.

The day 15 meditation was ok, but I think in my case it was not super helpful.  I found it a bit disjointed, and also I don't tend to enjoy metaphors of light = God. (I did a whole master thesis on Manicheism in the Catholic Church, which was all about trying to turn Christianity into an extended light/darkness metaphor...)

Overall 14 was a very good meditative exercise. 

Day 12-13: Determining to understand/Learning to accept

Listening is one of the hardest interpersonal skills to learn.  As an adult I would completely agree with this.

Often we are thinking to agree, disagree, to fix, to solve.

But what is more helpful is learning to accept what is, no matter what happens, but we need to learn to accept the moments, feelings and thoughts that show up in your head.

I think this is one I have worked on for a long time, and I feel comfortable with this particular meditation.

Course Corrections: Exercise 11

 Today's exercise is about recognizing that I/you invent the world we live in: shaped by our thoughts, hopes, fears and dreams.

This exercise was about introducing the feeling of being in charge of what we're looking at, how those things make us feel, how we could feel depending on how we direct our thoughts.

As someone who has spent a lot of time alone this pandemic, this one was perhaps easier than some exercises.

Course Corrections 9-10: Your Thinking Impacts Everyone Around You

 The instructor used the analogy of a string of Christmas lights: if one light goes out, all the other lights around you go dark.  How to be a leader in times when your attitude affects others? I'm omitting 9 as this one ended up being about the 2021 political inssurection in the states. 

When doing the general check-in, I thought about the fact that I'm hopeful.  Even when I'm not feeling great, or feeling like I'm making mistakes, I am generally quite happy and hopeful for the future.  I know I'm incredibly lucky, I've been given incredible opportunities to succeed, and to be happy.

I would say this meditation brought me joy today, and a good perspective going into the weekend.

Course Corrections Day 8: Meaningless thoughts show a meaningless world

 Starting with a body scan and mind scan, we start thinking about intentional vs unintentional thoughts.

Think about your room, about world issues, etc. today's mediation is about detaching yourself from the meaning you already attach to things, news, feelings, etc.

Part of today's exercise is about the absurdity of thinking that we can detach our thoughts from the world, our instant reactions to objects in our environment.

A simple example: I have a paper cut on the knuckle of my finger.  Every so often, I am reminded by a dull pain, which reminds me how it happened (small accident) and both the pain, and the thought of a simple mistake that causes me pain, is a source of irritation and 'small misery over small things.'  (Or perhaps a large misery over the trivial...) This sense of dull pain contributes to my life in ways that I don't always recognize. It tells me that the world is dangerous when I am thoughtless, or perhaps when I am thoughtless or uncareful, that is when accidents happened. (Followed by berating myself for such a minor but unpleasant mistake....)  I cannot leave behind the thought that 'I wish I didn't have this paper cut' because the physical world and sensation of pain is part of my day-to-day experience of my body, which shapes my thoughts, which shapes my experience of a day.

This exercise to me seems to be difficult to process simply because it is easy to look at things as 'new with meaning' but it is very unlikely I am able to look at things that are 'meaningless' and think thoughts, and value those thoughts about the world meaningless as well.  

Course Corrections Day 7: Rethinking how to think

 By changing your thoughts, your brain can be rewired, or redirected, but you have to be aware of your thoughts. You apparently have over 6,000 thoughts per day.  Today's exercise is becoming aware of thoughts you have:

• I am tired from staying up a bit later than planned reading
• I am a little bit cold from the change in temperature
• There is some tension in my neck, probably from sleeping a certain way
• I am relatively full; it is shortly after breakfast
• It is morning, my thoughts are turned to small problems and projects at work
• My thoughts this morning have been about some regular topics of the season (Christmas plans, cleaning, organizing my room, thinking about keeping up fitness during the winter, etc)

I found this mediation very helpful and relevant today.

Course Corrections Day 6: My mood

 This one was more about doing a mood audit, as opposed to a body audit.  Today is all about managing mood.  I find that in the morning, my mood is a bit more insular, I need about an hour to wake up in the morning, before I'm fully aware.  

I find my mood is very good in the early evening, after the day is nearly over and I have exercised and had a proper dinner.

I find my mood through the day changes, depending if I have a physical injury, if I'm hungry/thirsty, etc.

I found this meditation to be useful, even though it was a simple one.

Course Corrections Day 5: Observe your body

 Today's mediation was about tuning into your body.  He used the term 'the sensations in my body don't have any meaning', but this doesn't seem accurate.  Instead, I would say this was a mindfulness exercise about paying attention to your body.  

I was a decent exercise, but I would rate this one just ok, as the start of it had me confused.

Course Corrections Day 4: I don't understand what anything is for

 The point of this meditation is too look at everything as if for the first time.

I have taken this meditation in a different direction today, as I try and understand how to piece the world together.  In the world of product development, you look around for what you can use from what already exists.

In my personal life, I'm looking at the combinations of things that make up my life (family, friends, coworkers) and I'm trying to find gratitude in the combination of good things that exist within me.

It's also good to look at things with fresh eyes of what needs, changing, improving, or retiring.  

I would say this meditation today was helpful to me in recognizing the beauty in everyday things, even though I took it in a different direction. 

Course Corrections Day 3: Everything I experience, I give it meaning

 Very philosophical today.

If we accept that we create meaning, intentionally, then there is a way for us to direct our thoughts, and feelings toward both positive and negative experiences.

He used the example of a zoom meeting that is boring you, and how you can change the meaning of your immediate day.

He didn't speak of anything very complicated, which I liked.   

This meditation I would rate as fairly philosophical, and not very difficult.

Course Corrections Day 2: Nothing in this room has meaning

 What stands in my way is the meaning of everything I have made.  This includes:

• Objects
• Feelings/Thoughts
• People (Negative or Positive relationships)

Noticing my body, my feelings, and how I'm doing.  I would say I'm feeling neutral today, which is pretty much tuned towards being happy/positive.  I'm not in any pain and I'm somewhat well rested.

But learning about attachments means letting go of what things 'mean' today.  So today's practice is very hard for me, because being able to say nothing has any meaning to me isn't true.  Lots of things have meaning to me.  I feel deeply connected to this world and attached.

I would rate this meditation as difficult and somewhat unpleasant, since I am in a good mood, and detachment for me means trying to lower it.  

Course Corrections Monthly Meditation: Day 1

 So for fun, I've started doing a 5 minute mediation per day from this Youtube series.

Today's mediation was about noticing things around you. And having awareness of objects.

I would say what happened most to me is I noticed textures.  I noticed the difference between the textures on the floorboards vs the texture of a large towel.  The grain in the wood on the bannister.  The difference of light in the hallway versus the light from the window.

This episode is about practicing resetting our ability to look at things as is for the first time, focusing on surroundings.

I would say this day's meditation was fun for me, as I often spend a lot of time filtering out what I look at on a regular basis.