Going home: part 2

Travelling back home, I realize the ride into a place gives you a sense of its character, its growth and its change. Even after being deemed a City in Bloom and advertising it, it seems that the garden centre that sat just off the highway has disappeared. Even thirty years of regular customers can’t stop progress when the city council decides a ring road is more important than a plant store. For me, it was a marker for a turn off down to Ellerslie Road that housed a school and rows of baseball diamonds. That is where I spent my teenage summers 2 times in the week and once on Sundays with families who treated beer and baseball as a religion.

The truck stop we used to go to for twenty four hour breakfasts is now gone and bulldozed flat and instead of space flanking our highways, the wide tracks of land just outside the city have been cemented over. Slowly our many malls are being replaced by consumer office parks that are filled with warehouse sized outlet stores you have to drive between. It’s actually parking lots as far as the eye can see.

After getting my fill of the new Starbucks and Kenny Rodgers Chicken chains, its home. My parent’s house. For the first day or so, it’s overwhelming. We plan BBQs and coffees and members of my family come over in flocks. They pick me apart for clues of my new existence – what’s England like, why do you talk funny, do you like it there. The most dreaded question I continually deflect is – when are you coming home? It’s the hardest one to find an answer to.

Coming home becomes a time only found in the small moments I can find between deadlines and logged in work hours and projects. I feel selfish when I think the money it would cost me to go home would be better spent on a trip to Egypt or Australia. Somewhere foreign and new for the same ticket price. But really, my family never wants to know when the next trip home is, they mean when am I coming back permanently. By saying never, how can I not offend someone when they ask why I wouldn’t want to be in the city or province or country they know and love.

It’s hard to admit that being away for seven years means my home town isn’t one that seems familiar to me. As it’s landscape changes, it becomes more and more foreign while England becomes the place I know best. I have a hairdresser and a waxer, a place to do my nails and a favourite coffee shop. I know the best place for a fry up and the one late night shop that has diet cherry coke and the Doritos that I love. Maybe I used to complain about the lack of 24 hour coffee shops and the lack of customer service but the longer I’m away, the less these stay in my mind.

My friend recently moved here from Canada and every place we go to is like somewhere in Vancouver or somewhere in Calgary or somewhere else from back home. Somehow I’ve lost those comparisons. Now when I’m back in my home town I think about what I’m missing from England. I’m originally from Canada but not from there anymore. I’m left thinking now as I say this, where am I from then? Where do I belong now? I’m the foreign sounding woman everyone thinks just got off the boat but who knows London feels more like home than anywhere else in the world. I may be somewhere in-between who I was then and who I am now but I’m content in knowing that for this moment, I can’t ask for anywhere better. In another ten years, we’ll see but for now I think this is where I need to stay.

Going home: part 1

One spring, in between one job ending and the other beginning, there’s a chance to go home. My sister’s up for an award and my brother has a birthday planned. I have no excuses not to go so before I know it, the travel agency is giving me a printed itinerary and they wish me a happy trip. As the plane leaves the terminal at Heathrow, I almost cry, my head leaning on the window to watch the gentle roll of green, the thatched cottages and the tiny estates surrounding each house as the world fades into clouds. England is where my life is and though my return ticket is nestled in my bag, it feels like I’m never coming back. As if by going home, I’m regressing and will somehow lose the worldliness I’ve gained.

It’s not until 8 hours later when the clouds part again and I can see patchwork fields that spread to the horizon, that I realize I’ve missed the place I never thought I would. It’s Alberta. It’s home. I feel like I’ve been eating sugar for the entire trip, I’m so excited. I float through customs with a smile on my face passed squalling babies, a Japanese couple with cowboy hats and matching cameras and the British family who looks a little bit lost – like the English they’re hearing here is foreign to them. At the gate, my family stands with flowers and a pair of friends who tagged along. It was a group of faces that have been photographs in my drawer for the past 4 years. It’s like they all see me at once and start to run – my brother throws himself at me as the others crowd around. The smell of my mom’s shampoo embraces me, the kind I get for myself when I’m homesick.

In the car, the radio blasts familiar sounds but it feels like I’m hearing them for the first time. The DJ’s accent is a thick Canadian sort, far removed from the BBC ones I’ve grown used to. The roads are straight and wide, and I’m transported back to being a kid. It’s all I can do to stop myself from jumping in my seat, my stomach gurgling to my throat in anticipation. I point out the window. There’s the car lot my friend’s dad owns. It’s where we borrowed a Lincoln from to go to grad in style in, a luxury of all leather interior with seats that warmed themselves. We had ummed and ahhed over that self-heating function but were ecstatic with our choice when it snowed that May, the day before the big celebrations. Our grad dresses were merely flimsy, frilly glamour, sleeveless, cleavage revealers that we would never had dreamed of wearing before that day.

Over the next hill, and it’s the same. More flat, the fences spreading across the landscape like transparent Berlin walls. The trapped cows stare at us wide-eyed as they chew and the smell of manure begins to permeate the car. We beg our dad to roll up the windows. Who cares about the warm breeze of prairie spring flooding the car when it comes with an odd spot of cow.

Amongst the familiar fields, the face of the highway is different. As we approach Edmonton, I notice the sign welcoming us to this great city has been modified. For the whole of my existence, we have been known as the City of Champions. This was the city Wayne Gretzky became great in as he led the Oilers to win multiple Stanley Cup Hockey championships in the eighties. But. As we haven’t won anything in a long time, I understand why we had to add a little something else to the signage. But winner of the Cities in Bloom competition? I didn’t understand how we could have won such a prestigious award until my mom pointed out the big blue tubs half filled with marigolds and weedy flowers that littered the sides of the road. The moral must be: if you can’t get a name based on the talent of the city, then find a title you could have and stick some money towards it. Works every time.

Stuck in the middle of news: part 2

It wasn’t until the bombings on the 7th of July, 2005 in London that being in a different country and being so far away from home became a bigger issue to me and my loved ones.

I realized that with the events that occurred within those 36 hours in July that I didn’t mail home enough. Who will think something happened to me? Will someone tell them? Would anyone think to ask? But this type of tragedy sparks contact and suddenly you’re hearing from people you haven’t spoken to in years - you’re in Rehab? I’m sure I’d love to wave at seagulls in the Pacific. Wow-3 kids in 3 years? All by surrogate mums? And you haven’t bathed in all that time? Crazy…

But seriously, it was surreal here. We were all meant to keep working, to keep our heads up and I just couldn’t concentrate. Just couldn’t get my head around it all. Couldn’t think. Or I’d just keep thinking - God. I’m lucky. I’m so lucky. They were still pulling bodies out from under the ground and I’m sitting at my computer at home having a decaf coffee and Chinese take-away. It could be any other day. If only I could get the image of the blown apart bus out of my head. The red blood on the walls. The news saying they couldn’t confirm the number of dead. Without telling us, we all know it’s because there aren’t enough parts to identify.

36 hours after the bombs hit, 6 lines were closed on the tube: Bakerloo, Piccadilly, Victoria, Northern, Waterloo and City and Hammersmith and City. Also all of the Kings Cross Thames Link was down…which explained to me why the overground line at Upper Holloway had police tape up and policemen stationed there. They’ve even evacuated the entirety of Sheppard’s Bush.

It was all confusion here. No one knew what was happening. London had been put on alert beyond a red alert.

It’s scary. I always pride myself that I am a strong and capable person. But when things like this happen…its terror attacks. If it goes on it’ll make us no longer want to leave our flats. And as it became an everyday thing, I thought…do I keep writing my family and letting them know I’m OK or just let them assume that I am? Post 7/7 there were rumors flying around everywhere. There was supposedly a website saying that these strikes on the ‘infidel Britain’ will continue until all offending European parties are out of Iraq. That as the ‘heart of Europe,’ we are where they need to strike.

I think - what am I doing here. I work on a fitness website. I write poems and plays. I perform. Surely there is something I should do to make being somewhere where safety is becoming more fragile, more worthwhile.

Stuck in the middle of news: part 1

I like to imagine that I’m quite political – can’t abide social wrongs, want politicians in power that can make a difference. If I was a posh Englishman from decades passed, I’d spend nights in my gentlemen’s club with a fine glass of port and discuss the finer points of political systems and how we must strive to improve them. But alas I’m not, and though I get into debates, I find myself stuck between parties and countries. These past few months marked another Canadian election. I’m sorry to say, I don’t remember when the last one was, but according to Google it was 2006. But this year marked a very different feel amongst the voters I know and that was the disdain for the current Prime Minister, Steve Harper.

A conservative through and through, Harper, from what I understand, pushed to keep his slash the GST promises that were a pittance compared to the fear the arts community have of proposed cuts. But being in the UK for 7 years, I haven’t let the thoughts of what the Canadian government did touch my mind. My political world revolves around the Blair – Brown era and the spiral into recession that we are currently in. I didn’t even remember I could vote back home until it was too late and Harper, the man my friends hated, was re-elected in an election with one of the lowest voter turnouts ever.

Since I’ve been in London I’ve seen the world change and my headline news is a small world bulletin back home and vice versa. The first world event I was swept up in was the Queen Mum’s funeral…Standing crowded at the end of Whitehall, I try to see—stand tiptoe till my arches hurt. There’s always someone taller in my view. The crowd jostles—not with any animosity mind you but gentle, playful bobbing.

There are Lorries in plain view. People climb up the back and front trying to get the same sight as the people climbed and perched on buildings. Men scream for them to get off. Others chuckle. Giggling children are held up, put on parent’s shoulders. One wiggles to get down—if only they could hold up the Grandparents, the people who knew who she was.

I can feel the intake of breath, the push to see as the coffin pulls around the corner. “I see William, I see William,” a pre-teen voice cries out. The older man with the binoculars, who let me stand in front even though I was still too short to see, murmurs over me to his wife “There it is…the coffin is rolling into view. Can you see it?” His wife stands in front of me—us pressed into each other. She speaks past my ear. “You can see for the both of us, dear.”

As the coffin fades from view, the crowd against the makeshift concert gates tries to push out as the rest surge forward, trying to catch a glimpse of anything. An uplifted hand of a royal perhaps? But mostly we see the plumed hats of soldiers, the back of the procession, the ones no one really has any interest in. One woman grumbles, “All I can see is a police hat—I could see those any day.”

Though the Queen mum’s funeral was reported world-wide, it wasn’t something that concerned my family. It was another event that passed by in the papers. But by being there, I felt part of something bigger. I was in the middle of the news now.

A sporting life: part 3

Amongst the credit crunch and job worries, came the American election. I knew it was coming but didn’t bother to think what I’d be doing when it actually happened. The day before the election, a friend of mine asks if I want to pull an all-nighter to witness the historic event. I realized no matter which way the polls would go, it will be a momentous occasion – either America’s first black president will be in the white House or America’s first woman VP. I think the first would be a far better choice but whatever the results, it was a moment in history that I wanted to be a part of.

11 pm. November 4th. Election night. I’m in a warehouse in Stoke Newington in North London watching multi-screen projections of the election coverage. My friend’s boyfriend announces the invention of a game that involves drinking champagne for every swing state Obama claims and a shot of Whiskey for McCain, as if whiskey is the only thing Republicans drink. Having no whiskey we decide champagne would be enough, and settle in.

The atmosphere is electric. I make a “CANUCKS FOR OBAMA” T-shirt with a black Sharpie and a white shirt and wear it with pride as we count down the closing of polls across the states. Sometime after 4 we know he’s won. Obama has won. The room explodes as people jump up and down. We’re hugging and kissing and I’m so overcome that I cry in this room full of strangers. History was made in that moment and by just watching it, halfway across the world, we were part of it. For once our headlines matched those back home . For once it wasn’t tragedy that filled the front pages but stories of joy. Maybe it won’t last but at least, for one day, the world had hope.

A sporting life: part 2

Back to the game at hand. Valentine’s. Arsenal Stadium. We’re sat behind the goal, deep amongst the Arsenal supporters, and there is buzz, a hum of voices. The pitch is so green it looks like Astroturf but I’m assured by my mate that it’s real. Very real. Real specialist football grass. One person not far from me begins to chant and then the rest follow. I try to follow the words and soon I’m joining in:

Arsenal till I die,
I’m Arsenal till I die
I know I am,
I’m sure I am,
I’m Arsenal till I die…

The air is heavy with anticipation. It’s like the day we ran to the pub to watch England in one of the World Cup matches. I was new to the Country and was caught up in ‘World Cup Fever’ for the first time. I worked in a tiny office of four and two of us were glued to the radio. Every time there was a yell, a shout, an ooo or aahh, we twitched, leaned closer and ignored our computer screens. There was 15 minutes left till the end of the match. The game was tied or at least felt like it. From across the room our Kiwi boss gave out a huge sigh and said – go to the pub. Grins plastering our faces, we ran down the street at full tilt and crammed our bodies into the overflowing pub on the corner. All eyes were on the match, our bodies moved as one as we jumped up and down, chanting our boys to victory. The floor vibrated so hard that it felt like we’d all go through the floor but we kept jumping anyway. And then it happened. We win. We’re on to the next round and in that moment, we’re all sure this is our year for the cup.

But this game at Arsenal stadium is just another day. Just another match. The team hits the pitch running and the stands explode with horns and chants and songs. Thierry Henry leads the pack. And even as they pull ahead 2, then 3, then 4 goals, we’re at the edge of our seats. ‘Com’on lad. Com’on’ the man shouts out beside me. Behind me a father points out the players on the field, glowing with pride as his eight year old can call them by name and follow the game without whinging for more coke or overpriced chips. And as the game ends 5 to 1, we’re all on our feet, chanting, singing, screaming. We’re all in love with those men in red, our boys, they’ve done it. My face hurts from smiling. I could hug everyone. I’m on the top of the world.

This football drug was astounding. It made sense then why losing could be so hard, why the day I stood outside Chelsea stadium handing out fliers for ringtones, the day they lost the championship finals, why there were those tears in men’s eyes. Why they told me to sod off and I knew I didn’t belong there. The mix of sadness and anger bubbling under the surface made the air heavy. Made me want to join them, down drink after drink until I couldn’t feel anymore or crawl under duvets and wish for sleep to take me over until the next season started and we could begin again.

Maybe people feel the same in Canada about their hockey, the CFL, but I’ve never seen it. Perhaps it’s because you don’t get the hordes of spectators filling the street, transferring their feelings from the pitch into the mob gathering outside. Maybe, as everyone leaves the stadium, if you could look into those Canadian cars going home, you too could find the joy or devastation of the game nestled in the front seat behind the wheel. Radios turned to post game talks and dreams of the next match, the next win.

A sporting life: part 1

It wasn’t until I lived in England that I saw my first professional football game. It was Arsenal verses Crystal Palace in the old Arsenal Stadium. Valentine’s Day. I’m with two of my mates and a client of mine who got us the tickets. The air is electric. We are deep in Arsenal territory, surrounded by red. Quite fitting for a 14th of February game.

On the opposite side of the pitch is a small strip of blue bodies separated from the rest of the fans – the Crystal Palace supporters. I’m baffled by this. In Canada, I’ve never remembered fans segregated from each other. But this is England and this is football. A new world of sport – team spirit surpasses playground banter of ‘my team is better than your team – na na na na na na,’ and spills into immense pride. A slight to your team is like a slight to your family, your worth and your place on the earth.

Too often with football, banter becomes violence, rival fans your enemy. Now the pride thing I understand. But this segregation of fans, the fear of hooligans, I’ve never experienced nor even heard of before England became home. But why this Phenomenon? Why here? I think it all boils down to the game and what happens on the pitch.

American and Canadian Football, Hockey, Rugby, they all have lots of violence. Lots and lots. There’s tackles and punches, bashes into boards – those players don’t end up being great lookers by the end of their careers unless they’re very very lucky or like Gretzky, have a bruiser like Messier look after them. But in football here, the violence is subtle. If you know one of the forwards has had a knee injury, a well-placed ‘accidental’ kick wouldn’t go amiss. The fans cry foul but of course the referee didn’t see and the cameras were elsewhere. A game full of small wrong doings and with no final catharsis on the pitch, no clash of fists or faces smashed into the pitch, resentment grows in the guts of the fans. Without the release, they’re left to carry it out into the night to take it out on the opponents they think wronged their team. As the players aren’t usually readily available, the other fans will have to do.

If football had more contact and could give the spectators more of a release like Aristotle says all good shows must, perhaps there would be less violence amongst the fans. Of course this is only a theory. I don’t expect anyone to change a major world-wide sport just to test my idea but it’s worth thinking about.

Why I'm here instead of there: part 2

April I had the call. She was doing poorly and as I tried to figure out how to get home to see her, she was taken to the hospital and in less than a day, she was gone. So here I am half a world away and there was nothing I could do but listen to my family’s recollections of standing around her bed saying goodbye. I wish I had my own memories of it but that is part of the price of choosing to emigrate to a country five time zones away. Though I have great friends who are there in a crisis or when I want a little birthday boogie but it’s not the same as the easy rapport of family who carry with them the same history as you. I know everyone doesn’t have a great relationship with their family and I definitely have lengthy stories of the ups and downs of our complicated one but they are the first people you look to when you’re missing home. For me, it’s not the place I miss but the people. If I could just transport them over here, it would be much easier. It’s a bit selfish of me as they all have lives over there, just as I have one here but it would suit me better if they could be installed down the road and on the days I didn’t want to see them, I could whisk them back. If only they’d hurry up and invent teleporting. It would make visiting much quicker, save on our carbon footprint, and relieve our worries of buying tickets off charter companies in case they go bust like my favourite airline provider ZOOM just did.

Going home for the holidays is so expensive that I rarely go. So last year (as one of my sisters, Becky, was living here) we planned to have Christmas together and our other sister, Sarah, decided to join us from Canada. A Taylor sister Christmas. Cameras at the ready, Becky and I descended on Heathrow the 24th of December to pick up our Christmas guest. As she met us in arrivals, Sarah informed us that she bumped into someone on the plane who knew me and wanted to say hi. I thought a few minutes more wouldn’t hurt so we waited.

Suddenly Sarah pointed and shouted “there they are.” I turned, curious to see if I’d recognize any faces in the crowd and instead of a random friend, I was looking at my mum, step dad and brother who flew to england as a surprise. I was in shock as I cried and clung to my family. I couldn’t believe – my mum – here. But it wasn’t just another plane ride for another person in this case – my mom hadn’t flown in almost 25 years. But she was here. For us. Its things like that that make you appreciate and truly understand how much you love them.

Why I'm here instead of there: part 1

Often when I meet people, I get mistaken for an American. I don’t mind so much but the person who made the error gets extremely apologetic about the mistaken nationality. As I’m from the prairies, I think I sound like those in the American Mid-West – how would they know the difference if I can’t always?

Other than this first question – “ Where in America are you from?” , the second most asked question is “why would you move here and when are you going home?” I don’t think they are trying to get rid of me but can’t seem to imagine why anyone would give up the pristine streets and wildlife of Canada. Now this is not meant as a slam on my own country but I live in LONDON. There is a lot that goes on here. More than a lot. Granted, I don’t think London is the 24 hour culture it makes itself out to be. Tubes shut by midnight, most pubs still stop serving at 11 despite the new 24 hour drinking bill put into effect and there are no 24 hour gyms, diners, coffee shops, and restaurants that North America has. The upside of living in a place like Alberta with its regular influx of truckers through your town means you can get breakfast whenever your heart desires. 3 am after dancing used to be a popular time for me and my friends.

But other than the 4 am fry-ups I seem to be missing, London is chock full of stuff to do. There are 43 theatres in central London alone and then there are the cinemas and galleries, concerts and sporting events. – it’s a long list I can barely keep track of. Then there’s the architecture. There are buildings here older than my own country. I crane my neck on a regular occasion and I still get that cheesy warm fuzzy feeling every time I cross the Thames as I make my way to the modernized Southbank, St. Paul’s nestled amongst the classical architecture to the North, a long row of patchwork concrete buildings to the south.

Most of all I love the people. Sitting in a coffee shop in the centre of town and it’s a virtual UN in relaxed coffee mode. The accents and foreign phrases hang thick in the air – Italian, French, German, Mandarin, Bengali. In my time here, I’ve met so many people from around the world that I never expected to meet when I lived in Alberta.

The only problem with living so far from home is that you don’t get the family time you crave (and are sometimes annoyed with) that you can get when you live nearby. I’d like to think if I was at home, I’d be over on Sunday afternoons having food Grandma used to be good at cooking but has lost the touch of now that her sense of timing has decreased and her forgetfulness has increased. I’d be the one holding the camera for my brother’s stage debut as the dog in Peter Pan as I try not to laugh too much and shake the camera. And I’d be there when my sister’s new crush ends in a break-up and she needs hugs, tea and a shot or two of Jack Daniels.

Instead, we communicate in zeros and ones in the world of MSN messenger, phone calls left for the announcement of bad news or birthday greetings. I think this is why I look to my friends and my relationships for some local sense of family. My good friend Lindsay allowed me two Christmases with her in Leicester, in the middle of England. Her mum learned what I could and couldn’t eat concocting vegan sausage rolls from scratch. I made them home-made perogies like we had every holiday and made friends with their cats after a healthy double dose of allergy meds. We played Trivial Pursuit, watched the standard Television Christmas specials that are on here every year and they didn’t say anything when I disappeared upstairs to wish my family a Merry Christmas as I had a little cry because I missed them so much.

Missing this element of family hit me the most in the last year or so as my aunt was diagnosed with cancer. I had already planned to be home to visit for Christmas for the first time in five years so when we found out she was terminal in November, it was also a chance to see her for what may have been the last time. I can still remember our last night together…

The couch is crowded with cousins so I lie on the floor by her feet. The oxygen pump works double time as she gasps each breath, no one asking if everything is alright anymore as we know the answer will always be no. Dinner eaten, we put on Labyrinth, her favourite film. She loves David Bowie even in tights and I laugh enough for the both of us as heads bob off Henson Creations and worms talk in funny British accents.

The film seems too short just like the days and the moments she’s not sleeping become our living room features. My time at home is purgatory as I use those moments there as a waiting game for when I can return as if being here will change something, holding her hand a lifeline.

The strange and wonderful world of food: part 2

Fast forward to Vancouver, I’m going to school seven days a week and being a student, meat’s a luxury I can rarely afford. Instead I live off brussel sprouts and perogies – a Ukrainian dumpling Canadian students everywhere have a love affair with. I probably had more variety to my diet than that but I can’t remember what it could be. That is until I moved in with a vegan chef.

She opened my eyes to a new, animal-free way of eating and I felt amazing. Meat always left me feeling a bit dirty but not anymore, not with this veggie-tastic way of eating. It’s easier to be a hard core vegan in Vancouver as it’s an expected way of being. So there I was, on the Vegan path and then I found myself in England.

Now I don’t use the title of Vegan as it carries with it connotations and choices I’ve not made and I don’t want to seem hypocritical. I wear leather. I wear wool. I use honey on occasion. I like animals but don’t LOVE them. The list is long of all the food and product rules I’m breaking if called vegan so I say strict vegetarian. What makes this choice even harder is that I have a few unusual allergies. Lettuce, spinach and celery. It’s a source of amusement for many. “A vegetarian allergic to salad? You don’t know what you’re missing.” In fact I do! I dream of salad – on more than one occasion I’ve woken up after spending my REM sleep time tucking into a large green salad with all the fixings. I want to cry when I realize it’s not real…

So with these restrictions installed, I embarked upon the restaurants of London. There is a lot said about the bland and boring British diet. In London and the rest of the large cities in the UK (and some of the small ones too), I am thrilled to say there is a huge range of restaurants serving food from around the world. Even tiny shops will have a range of hummuses so I’ll never be left completely hungry. I do have to say when travelling, this option can wear thin as three days of hummus on the trot is not something I’d normally choose to do. But overall, it’s not too bad Being that I’m not a real vegan, there is always something I can eat.

Unfortunately though, it is rare that I have a choice in what it is I can eat when out especially a healthy one as I can’t have salad. British pubs on a whole are usually the worst for me. And French food? I don’t even bother. I will have to make an exception to the pub comment with an odd admission – Lloyd’s and Wetherspoons – though not known for their gastronomical delights – give me at least 3 or 4 choices. Hallelujah for them…and for me! But the number of times I’ve been out and had to have a selection of bland side dishes as a main, would surpass all the fingers on my hand.

The first time I had to do this, I was with my friend’s parents who were over from Canada. They wanted to go to Argus Steak House so go there we did. I shouldn’t have been surprised that there would be nothing for me but there really was nothing. This experience happened once in Calgary when I was left eating a cold Chinese Takeaway in the car before joining the rest of my friends in a house of meat, meat and more meat. But that was Calgary and this was the metropolises of London. And in the restaurant with my friend’s parents, I scanned the menu and the only option was side dishes of boiled potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli at almost £4 each,

I didn’t want to offend my friend’s dad by ordering nothing so I went for it. Our dishes appeared and three small bowls were sat in front of me. A tomato cut in half, three boiled new potatoes and a few broccoli florets. All for the low price of £12. Amongst the medium rare steaks gracing the table, my mini meal was by far the most expensive. Her Dad paid saying he should take me out more often as veggies ate cheap. I didn’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.

The strange and wonderful world of food: part 1

Living in a new country, you are granted a new pass for foods unexplored and names you’ve never heard creep into your vocabulary. When I first moved here, my boyfriend at the time wondered aloud what to have for tea. I glibly responded “Tea” not realizing until he laughed at my naivety that tea was another name for dinner. He also gave me a taste for a chip butty – chips in a roll with ketchup. Seven years ago I would have grimaced at the thought of eating that but since then have converted many a Canadian to the joys of fried carbs with more carbs. With a kebab shop on every corner, it’s an easy thing to find and something you’d never get at home.

I’m most fascinated though with all the names for bread – we call bread rolls buns in Canada whereas buns here are sweet things. Then there’s cob, bap, butty, barm – all names for the same thing whose use can betray where you come from. Suddenly there’s a new vocabulary of foods known by one name here and another at home. Ask for zucchini or eggplant and shop assistant’s eyes look at you blankly. But say courgette or aubergine and everything becomes magically clear.

Now I must confess, I love food. Love, love, love it and being in England, I’ve got a whole new range of food I eat…kinda. Some people who know me may be surprised to hear this as I’m a strict vegetarian – kinda like a vegan but not too overzealous. To those in question, a vegetarian, especially one who doesn’t do dairy and cheese and cream and eggs, etc., can’t love food let alone a range of it only because I don’t eat most of what THEY love. “Live without bacon sarnies and full fat fry-ups? Sunday roast or proper Christmas dinner? Gasp, shock and horror! It’s if the world will end without those food groups – or at least mine will.

I didn’t start out this way. I was born to omnivore parents in the heart of Alberta, a place known as much for its beef as its oil. There are more bumper stickers than I can count that say “I LOVE Alberta Beef” and how could you not? We didn’t grow up with a lot of money so other than Christmas, when we got all the food we couldn’t afford to eat the rest of the year, we had cheaper meat choices and mechanically prepared frozen vegetables gracing our table. As a side note, I blame my mom’s overzealous use of these veggies in all our meals for my current aversion to square shaped carrots and sweet corn.

Anyway, it wasn’t until I was twenty and living with a boyfriend that my true experience with meat began. He had an unfortunate (and deadly) allergy to chicken, fish and turkey so ours became a red meat house. Over the next year I ate more red meat then I’d ever had in my entire life – I gained a good stone and a half and didn’t feel my best by any means. One break up later and meat once again became a casual thing but now my taste for it was gone.

Learning After Effects at Barcamp London 8

Though I’ve been editing film on Premiere Pro for the past 2 years, I’ve never used After effects before. So when I saw an After Effects for beginners session on at Barcamp London 8, I jumped at the chance to find out more.

Emma ran the session. She explained that animation, graphics, and rich media is handled better in after effects. Excitedly, you can bring in video to colour correct. I wish I looked into this earlier.

It is great if you are using other adobe software as it’s compatable. You can bring in drawings from illustrator, and cut video from premier. When you look at the set up of After effects, it’s also similar visually. To me this would make it even easy to use.

Here are a few tips/ functionalities that Emma went through:

• When importing, footage flattens whole document, composition brings in layers.


• Placed higher up in the order, the file becomes the top layer


• Every layer has a transform layer underneath: anchor point, positions, scale, rotation and opacity.


• Pan behind tool allows you to move anchor point.


• All compostitions can have different settings within the project.


• Effects panel: Alot of effects are generative and you will lose what you had on that layer if you add it directly to the layer. You need to create a new blank layer as a place holder. - effects control panel opens


• When in the effects panel, the conductivity state moves the animation using keyframes.


• You can also use Moca to select an area and it will tell how selection is moving throughout the clip.

I’m definitely going to try to use this for my next project. Thanks Emma for getting me thinking about this and thanks Barcamp London 8!

Glengarry Glen Ross and the American Dream

First world nations operate in a realm where capitalism is the main building block on which the society functions, no country more so than America. In constant pursuit of the American Dream, the ultimate capitalist ideal where money equates success and happiness, most of the nation lives in perpetual poverty. David Mamet easily constructs a microcosm of America and the idea of the American dream in Glengarry Glen Ross. Set in the cutthroat world of real estate, Glengarry Glen Ross shows four salesmen struggling to make it to the top of the board during the ultimate sales competition. The winner takes home a Cadillac, the automotive representation of success; second place gets a set of steak knives while the other two are fired. , In this pressure cooker environment, David Mamet shows that the American system of capitalism is innately divisive, dishonest and destructive.

To show the divisive nature of capitalism, Mamet builds it into the setting itself. He blurs the lines between the world of business and pleasure by setting the first half of the play in a restaurant and the other half within the office itself. The character’s use of language remains unchanged between the settings and within the context of their conversations. By doing this, the reader can see that there is no boundary between the work environment and what could be deemed as down-time. In Act I, scene iii, we see Roma find a customer (or mark as they call them) in the restaurant itself. This shows that even when trying to maintain a sanctuary from the daily grind, i.e. having a private meal, a person can be touched by business/ capitalism. In this world created by Mamet, business is life and the characters are defined by their jobs. This is further compounded by the use of the sales pitch within their dialogue. Whether it be to gain leads (Act I, Scene i), to commit a crime (Act I, scene ii) or to actually make the sale (Act I, scene iii), the characters are using sales techniques to try to get what they want. This shows the disruptive nature their jobs have within the rest of their lives and in fact, within themselves.

The story of this play revolves around a company which sells non-existent land. This lays the groundwork for the dishonest nature of the characters within it. These men will do anything they can in order to make the sale. In Act II, Roma’s big sale to Linck begins to unravel when Linck comes to the office demanding his money back. To keep the sale, Levene fictionally becomes a very important client and role plays to help Roma keep the deal. This tag team effect has the flavour of being well practised, as they quickly take visual cues off each other and without much prelude, Lavene was able to play his role effectively. This shows that this dishonest behaviour is often employed by these characters in order to convince suspecting clients to stay in the game. This is an extension of the sales pitch where they will say or do anything to make the sale, even if it is impossible. For instance, in Act I, Scene I, Lavene and Williamson agree on a price of $50 per lead, but when asked for the money, Lavene doesn’t actually have it. With the loss of honesty, you have the loss or destruction of the moral code that is meant to dictate our actions.

Ultimately, Glengarry Glen Ross revolves around destruction. David Mamet winds this concept throughout the dialogue and the setting itself. In Act I, scene i, Lavene shows the lack of teamwork and the disregard of friendship evident when pressured to sell his way into getting premium leads from Williamson. Though he talks of needing to build the organisation, Lavene says “It’s me. It isn’t fucking Moss. Due respect, he’s an order taker, John. He talks, he talks a good game, look at the board and it’s me John. It’s me.” The ultimate destruction comes at the end of the play between these two same characters, when Levene reveals that he stole the leads from the office the night before with Moss as the accomplice. Ironically this confession comes from Levene’s own slip up when spieling to Williamson about knowing your place within the company. “Don’t/….” Therefore his own sales pitch resulted in his downfall. As a reader, we are aware that he went for Moss’s own sales pitch to commit the crime which we are to assume was the same as was used on Aaronow. This is one further illustration that the pitch is geared toward the mark and that there is no certainty in anything that is said. Even though Lavene goes off on Moss on the top of the play, we find out by the end that they are partners. It is only at this moment that we see that the sales pitch will no longer work as Williamson reports Lavene to the police. Mamet further shows the destructive nature of capitalism in Act II when we are faced with an office that has been ramshackled during the theft of the leads. To Williamson, who maintains the office, this destruction is felt more than the actual loss of leads and represents the level of viciousness the characters have come to. In the world that Mamet has created, when even the office no longer maintains sanctity from the downward spiral of destruction it shows the characters will do whatever it takes to make it, even if it means destroying itself.

On the face of Glengarry Glen Ross, one could easily take it to be a story of greed and the struggle for power amongst a group of success hungry men. But in even saying that, one can see the correlation between that and the struggle that is on-going in America. In its capitalist environment, the people have to do whatever they can to survive, just as the characters in this play do. Mamet has shown that ultimately all of this search for the efferial American Dream will lead to destruction just as Levene faces when he confesses to committing the ultimate crime of not only stealing from his provider but by messing up the office which in effect is the thing that defines his existence. In a world where business is everything, this means a lot. It would mean the destruction of its very existence.

How I ended up on a small island: part 2

When I moved to England, I realized I didn’t want to be another one of the horde of ex-pats who gravitate towards each other to reminisce about how much better their home country is. In the UK, no one knows the difference between Alberta and Ontario so you can sink into the description of being a Canadian, a name that spreads across a vastness of diversity that no one could understand unless they’ve been there.

I’d never wanted to go to England. I saw the occasional 10 year old episode of Coronation Street, met stuffy British ex-pats that collected spoons and Royal Family china so I let that colour my idea of England. If that’s what it was like, I didn’t want to go there. It was a small island that hung on the edge of Europe. A place not included in any of my travel itineraries. So how did I end up here?

About 6 and a half years ago I was checking on cheap flights to go back home to Edmonton from Vancouver. Skimming through a student travel centre site, I noticed a little trivia contest. Enter and win it said. You could be on your way to an adventure of a lifetime it screamed. Win this and you get a Student Work Abroad Programme registration to the UK for absolutely free! This means I could get a two year working holiday visa (only available to us in the commonwealth) alongside a few other helpful bits like a few nights in a youth hostel and advice from the British Universities North America Club during my stay.

Well…that sounded pretty good to me so I entered the thing. It consisted of finding the answer to some pretty obscure questions about the Royal Family – nothing dirty mind you – needless to say it took hours to find them. I did my little bit of Internet searching, answered the question and let the whole experience leave my brain.

Flash forward to April, three months later. I am sitting in a coffee shop with a couple of friends. A trendy little place called Starry Dynamo on Main Street in Vancouver which gave a little bit of free Internet to those who buy coffee. Sipping on my cuppa Jo, I plug myself in to the web to check my mail. SWAP? Who? Why are they writing me? And that’s when I discovered it folks. Discovered a chance of a lifetime whilst with my coffee shop friends. The opportunity to take a plunge and see the world. This of course was my lucky day as only three people in the country won this fabulous prize and I had won second place.

So I went. My plan was a year and then I’d teach English as a second language around the world or go back to Canada and back to the real world. My cousin said I’d never come back but I protested it until the day I arrived and something stuck. Within a few months, London felt more like home then where I was from. I had friends who longed to return back to prairie winters and childhood friends. They said they barely saw the beauty of the city anymore, were tired of the drive of the city, the dirt of the underground turning their nose black.

But I was determined to stay.

How I ended up on a small island: part 1

I never called myself a Canadian until I moved away from there. In England, where I settled, you’re surrounded by a sea of faces from around the globe and you become classified by where you came from – even if it’s a few generations back. You may be born in Tottenham but could get away with saying you’re Jamaican even if you’ve never been there. So in the middle of London, I am always classified first as Canadian – that Canadian salesgirl, a Canadian friend of mine, my Canadian girlfriend – I don’t mind that as long as they didn’t mistake me for an American.

When I was growing up, I never thought about where I was from or any stigmas that sat around it. Being in Edmonton, Alberta as part of a family that never travelled, there didn’t seem to be the opportunity to meet anyone apart from the people who were also born and raised there. This could be due to the distances between cities as everything is so far away. The nearest big city to Edmonton was Calgary, a 3 hour drive if you stuck to the limit but could be done in two if you had a fast car and a keen eye for speed traps. We were lucky to have a place that close as most cities were at least 5 hours away.

In my early twenties, I headed to Vancouver to go to school and for the first time saw the ocean and found that people judged me on where I was from. Vancouver is one of those places that everyone ends up moving to and those who move mainly move from east to west. Though it’s probably an urban myth, some people say Vancouver has the highest suicide rates. The Americanized Torontonians, the poor sons of Maritime fishermen, all make their pilgrimage west for a better life, an easier time, easier weather. As Vancouver is as far west as you can go without living with Wolves and grizzlies before you hit Japan, if life isn’t great then there’s nowhere else to go. Hence the high suicide rates. Vancouver, the final resting place, the horde of huddled masses, the destination on one-way tickets handed out to the homeless of Toronto and Edmonton in the winter.

What shocked me the most when I moved there was not the change of environment or the snowless winters, but that people could tell I was from Alberta straight away. I, of course, thought I was more sophisticated than that. Alberta is the home of rednecks and mullets, oil men, farmers and cowboys. We’re the Texas of Canada. Even our premier, with his grade eight education, embodies the stereotypes I thought I could escape. With a midnight drunken visit to a homeless shelter to rant at the jobless to get a job doesn’t really help our cause. So it’s easy to see why I wouldn’t want the association.

It took me some time to understand, it wasn’t the stereotypes that I was bound to but something greater. Albertans talked slower and took up more space – like we embodied the whole of the prairies as we walked through life. We all carry a piece of our home in the way we deal with the world and I understood why some people gravitate towards others from their hometown. In Vancouver, I found myself relating to the pockets of prairie kids banding together cause no one really understands wrangling cattle in an old, red pick-up truck unless you’ve been there. But Canadian?? I never referred to myself as one.

Reading: Up the Line Event – November 11

I’ll be reading Canadian war poetry at this event on Thursday. It was a magical and moving experience to be a part of last year and I think it will be even better this year. Hope to see you there.
________________________________

The FOBLC is delighted to have received confirmation from the organisers that following on from the hugely successful 2009 event there will be a bigger and more beautiful evening performance of ‘Up The Line’ in Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, two weeks tonight, 11.11.10 from 7pm

Poets, musicians, dancers, soundscape and film will begin their performance at the sound of a single Scottish piper along a one and half kilometre path running through the cemetery with the children’s lantern procession beginning at 7.30pm.

Monuments to those who were injured during the conflict and subsequently passed away in Lewisham Hospital and those killed in Deptford by the Zeppelin attacks will be lit by light artist Tom White using hydrogen fuel cells, dispensing with the need for diesel generators and reducing our CO2 emissions by 70% on 2009.

We do hope you can make it along to this free unique event with entry anytime from 7pm until 8.20pm. The wheelchair and pram accessible path will take between 55-70 minutes to walk so please dress appropriately, wear sturdy shoes and bring a torch.

Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery
Enter from junction of Brockley Road and Ivy Road, SE4 2QY
Ivy Road will be CLOSED to traffic from 4pm
Exit Ladywell Gate SE13 7HY
Thursday 11th November 2010
Arrive anytime between 7.00pm – 8.20pm (last entry)
Lantern Procession by children 7.30pm
Post Event Reflection from 7.30pm
Admission Free


Transport:
Trains/Overground Stations: Brockley 6min // Crofton Park 4min // Ladywell 15min
Buses: P4, 122, 171, 172
Parking limited


The FOBLC is delighted to have received confirmation from the organisers that following on from the hugely successful 2009 event there will be a bigger and more beautiful evening performance of ‘Up The Line’ in Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, two weeks tonight, 11.11.10 from 7pm

Poets, musicians, dancers, soundscape and film will begin their performance at the sound of a single Scottish piper along a one and half kilometre path running through the cemetery with the children’s lantern procession beginning at 7.30pm.

Monuments to those who were injured during the conflict and subsequently passed away in Lewisham Hospital and those killed in Deptford by the Zeppelin attacks will be lit by light artist Tom White using hydrogen fuel cells, dispensing with the need for diesel generators and reducing our CO2 emissions by 70% on 2009.

We do hope you can make it along to this free unique event with entry anytime from 7pm until 8.20pm. The wheelchair and pram accessible path will take between 55-70 minutes to walk so please dress appropriately, wear sturdy shoes and bring a torch.

Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery
Enter from junction of Brockley Road and Ivy Road, SE4 2QY
Ivy Road will be CLOSED to traffic from 4pm
Exit Ladywell Gate SE13 7HY
Thursday 11th November 2010
Arrive anytime between 7.00pm – 8.20pm (last entry)
Lantern Procession by children 7.30pm
Post Event Reflection from 7.30pm
Admission Free


Transport:
Trains/Overground Stations: Brockley 6min // Crofton Park 4min // Ladywell 15min
Buses: P4, 122, 171, 172
Parking limited

For the days I'm not here

For the days I’m not here
For those days away
You can have a piece of me on your shelf
For a little piece of me on your shelf

Here’s to happy times.

Think of this as a little piece of me on your shelf.
And remember any time to cheer yourself,
make sure you read something else.
But if you want a piece of me,
here is something for you.

Hotels: the undiscovered country

I love hotels. I’ve been in a few. Quite a few. For me, it’s like Naria. At the door, with the key in my hand, I’m standing at the door of the warbrobe, feel the brush of the coats on my face as I open.

Every room is a surprise. High ceilings, a hidden TV, chocolates on the table, a bed that comes out of a wall. I love rooms in Europe with coffee machines, kettles and sachets of fancy tea. As I open every door, drawer and curtain, I have my camera in hand. What’s the view? What are the treats left behind in the bathroom - shampoos, cremes, a shower cap. Once there was a fluffy robe and slippers. Once I had a door that opened onto a pool I never used.

I’ve had the opposite - dorm rooms where only a towel seperated me and a couple having sex. Beds that sag and graffettied walls. But I still search each space, see what’s left behind, see what’s left for me.

I think this is why I used to like to move so much. New homes have that same magic. What will I paint the walls, where will I put my jackets and shoes and my couch. My mom says I’m her gypsy daughter. It’s in my blood, the love of something new.