the road to success is paved with... angst?

I know even the word itself sounds dramatic and kind of old-fashioned, but there's something to be said for brooding. Sometimes you just have to take a few hours, a weekend, or a week, to mull over something, and to let all the stormiest of emotions flood your senses. Feeling bad, and allowing yourself to do so, to feel the worst of it, can feel so good. I was so into brooding this past weekend that I spent 3 hours wandering alone in the Botanical Gardens with my camera. With my iPod blasting and hoodie pulled up, I was the picture of teen angst.

There have been a lot of changes going on in my city, in my life, and in the lives of the people I love. Some heart-wrenching, and some wonderful. Life is growing more complex and the right answers are eluding me, both at steadily increasing rates.

I try to write about these things, but I also try not to write about them, here. I try to write, but the moment I hold back or try to transform my posts into something more simple and digestible, I succeed - my words turns to mush. No one wants to read mush.

I'm going to be honest with you and tell you that as my life is changing, so is this blog. As my parallel careers start to bloom and my audience grows, I kind of feel like the world is getting uncomfortably small, and that I should be somehow shaping what I write to meet my changing audience. I'm succumbing to the pressure to act like a grown-ass woman with a burgeoning career, basically.

But, I always swore that I would never affect my writing to earn a job, that if someone wouldn't hire me because of my blog, that company wouldn't be somewhere I'd enjoy working. I still believe this.

I'm thinking about my personal brand a lot, but not just for the sake of self-indulgence. I'm thinking about what my dream career and the company I plan to build with my own hands will look like when it is at its peak. I'm thinking about what I want to build the foundation of so that it can grow strong and successful. I'm thinking about what kind of people and businesses I would kill to work with.

I want my brand - the way I present myself here and everywhere - to be consistent with what I want to become. In doing this, I want it to be consistent with myself and what I love most. I'm hoping that if I do and say what I really feel, I will find opportunities that are what I really want to do, and what I'm honestly good at. I want people to want to hire me or work with me for what I'm really like.

I've been laying low and hiding beside my photos, using my lens to show what I've been seeing. Photography is something I'm comfortable with, and something that I work hard every single day on getting better at. I'm ready to work at my writing, at and getting better at being honest and expressive. This may mean my late-twenties angst (yes, I'm 27 now, so y'all know what that means) may surface from time to time!

A photographer who I greatly admire, Jasmine Star, talks a lot about how building a brand as a photographer is all about putting your real self out there, for better or for worse. Jasmine truly leads by example, and her work — and the way she presents it as something intimately tied to herself — is inspiring.

After a lot of thinking, brooding, feeling sorry for myself for not being where I dream of being yet, and then finally listening to Jasmine and other successful business people I admire, I've come to realize this: the best way to get where I want to go is to earnestly pursue what I love, and to be honest with myself and the whole world (critics included) about what my biggest dreams are, and about the process of achieving them.

So here is me being honest:

- I try to learn something new about photography or business every day because I feel like I know SO little

- I think I suck at Photoshop, so I signed up for a night class

- It's hard working full-time, teaching, planning a wedding, trying to become a photographer, and having long-distance relationships with my family and most of my close friends, but I always feel guilty when I say this because I feel so lucky, too

- I feel like I should be stronger, smarter, better, thinner, and more assertive than I am

- I'm so nervous about shooting my first FULL wedding next weekend. Help!

Here's to honesty, to my next post being more coherent, to being there for everyone I love in the best way I can, and to being okay with making huge mistakes and not knowing what the hell I'm doing!

wedding planning: part 1

So, back in April, my sweetheart and I got engaged. I guess I've been kind of quiet on the subject since then. That's not to say I haven't been busy. On the contrary, I've been deep into the plans.

Our date is set, our venue is booked. We've found a very talented and super sweet photographer, Lisa Mark. Our catering will be done by the venue, so that's another big thing off the list.

I have my dress. Actually, um... I have two dresses. Don't hate me. I'm not a Bridezilla in the making, I swear. My first dress was 70% off, and the second was bought for an extremely low price at Ragtime, a fantastic vintage store in Ottawa. My mom and I found the first one and knew it was the one. One of my co-maids of honour, Jennie, and I found the second one and she said I just had to get it too. Both dresses are exquisite, and each is very different from the other. I wish I could show you photos now, but I'm trying to keep at least a few things a surprise.

My bridesmaids have also started to find their dresses. Each of them is choosing her own. I've only given them loose guidelines (colour, length), and I can't wait to see what they all choose.

We've even chosen our theme (yes, we're doing a theme) and colour palette. We're starting to work with our awesome friend Farah of House9 Design to do the invitations. It's all coming together pretty well. The project manager in me is gleefully ticking off items on a long list, and the artist in me is constantly dreaming up different aspects of the day's aesthetic.

Luckily, our next task is engagement photos. Brian and I have compromised, since he loathes the idea of doing these photos. He chose the setting: a vintage car show on the beach. Since I went through a 2-year phase I was really into car shows (and terrible car movies like The Fast and the Furious and Gone in 60 seconds... and once aspired to be a custom paint job airbrush artist... and used to drive to vintage car shows held in the mall parking lot in my parents' car blasting Ludacris' Southern Hospitality and thinking I was the coolest), I happily agreed that this would be a perfect location. My mom's doing the photos!

And now it's time to get down to the less glamourous aspects, like budgeting.

elke & mason

How cute is this guy?


His mom is one of my favourite people. She and I met in high school on the swim team after she'd moved to my school from Cape Town (via Wisconsin). Elke and I used to float on the mats in my family's backyard pool and talk about which European countries we dreamed of visiting first.  Elke, a year older than me, went backpacking the summer after she graduated high school. All summer I waited impatiently for her to return so I could ask her about every city she'd been to.


She returned at the end of that summer, bronzed, and carrying a bag full of rolls of film to be developed. Remember how exciting that used to be, dropping off film after a vacation or big event? The moment you'd first peel open the envelopes and relive all those moments again. That was the best!


So, as I sat on her bedroom floor as she packed her final boxes for first year university,  I got to flip through all her photos and ask a million questions about what she'd seen. I always looked up to her for her sense of adventure, her totally zen attitude, and her tireless energy. Over the last few years, I've seen her find a great job, buy a first home, get married, and now, have a baby. Girlfriend's got her stuff together!

I am so happy for Elke and her husband, Matt for the birth of their first child,  Mason.  Elke's positive energy is infectious, and I'm sure her son's will be, too. I predict great things for their whole family.


 

obsessions/distractions

For the past 2 weeks, I've been obsessed with checking things off to-do lists. I've got a few more big tasks to tackle before I let myself get back to the fun stuff (including blogging).

I'll be back soon with:

- photos
- new beauty product reviews
- before and after photos chronicling my decorating and organizing efforts

comfort zone

Leaving one's cushy old comfort zone is, frankly, very uncomfortable. You never feel like you know what you're doing, if you're saying the right thing, or heading in the right direction. Sure, it's mildly thrilling, but it's mostly just terrifying.

My way of dealing with the resulting uneasiness and self-doubt is simple: suck it up and make a comfort zone kit.

Right now, my anxiety-fighting arsenal consists of

- Kusmi Tea in Violet
- apple crisp
- bookstore wandering
- fleece sheets on my bed
- a couple of well-chosen curse words*

What's in yours?

*especially when I've forgotten my wallet or lost the keys to my bike lock or printed 200 copies of my band's cd cover with a typo

fiona

Named by her super cool big sister after Fiona Apple, his amazing 11-year-old is one of my favourite people. While kid-sitting her last week, I had such a great time. I taught her how to use conditioner and she caught me up with what "the kids" are into these days. Let's just say I was well-versed in Taylor Swift's prowess, and, unlike that idiot Kanye, knew her win was justified.

Fiona is a super smart girl who speaks 3 languages, rocks out on guitar better than most twenty-somethings I know, and talks to kids, adults, and animals with the same self-assured tone. I find her really inspiring!

bachelorettes and brides-to-be

So the moment has arrived. My first friend to get married is taking the plunge in 9 days. And so it begins. It makes sense that Kaitlin breaks the marital ice, I suppose. She's traditional, dreamy, and she just looks like a bride... if that makes sense(?)







Rings are popping up on other fingers, dates are being set, and the rest of us enjoy the oh-so-necessary bubbly, over-the-top girliness, and the emotional ride with our friends. Any excuse to eat pastel-coloured cookies and I'm there!



I was so touched when Kait asked me to be her wedding photographer, so I used last weekend's bachelorette party as an excuse to get warmed up.



But seriously, how gorgeous is she?

new york, at a glance

Just as I knew I would one day live in Montreal, I know now that I will eventually be moving to New York. I'm not sure how it's going to happen, or when, or why, but I am certain (or at least really hopeful) that it will.

I got addicted to walking, and couldn't stop. With each step, I felt like I was one bit closer to being a teensy part of the city, and that I was some how absorbing a little bit more of it. I breathed deeply, and that smoggy, smelly, hot dog smoky, city air gave me the special kind buzz derived from equal parts pollution and city energy. We walked so much that I wore out the soles of my shoes, and could barely drag myself out of bed today. It was awesome.

We took in the Manhattan skyline over beers and wraps from a Brooklyn rooftop, got our fortunes told (and waited half an hour for hot dogs) at Coney Island, ate pierogies at a Ukrainian festival, danced at what we dubbed a "hipster grinding bar," rode the carousel in Central Park, salivated over cupcakes at Magnolia, swayed to calypso music at a block party, drank a good amount of wine, and bought the world's tackiest dress.

My 26th birthday was exceptional, marked by a fabulous excursion, true friends, and an elderly gentleman with gold teeth saying "mama don't look it!" when he saw my age after I handed him my ID at the wine store.

a fantastic combination

It's a long weekend, it's my birthday, and I'm in New York for the first time in my life with some of my favourite people in the world. I feel very lucky at this moment.

the trunk

I've been thinking a lot about consumption for several reasons.

First of all, my finance savvy friend just gave me a budget makeover, so I have become very conscious of my spending and consumption habits (my Cadbury mini egg addiction, for example, is now on hiatus). Secondly, spring cleaning has forced me to air out my unused clothing, tchotchkes, and junk. What was I planning to do with all those hideous wooden beads, anyway?

Living in Montreal is a big part of my lifestyle shift as well. I've noticed that there is definitely an ethos of sustainability (lots of restaurants ask you to bring your own takeout dishes; the proliferation of biodegradable water bottles), recycling (clothing swaps), and reinvention (many artists who use pre-used, found or eco-friendly materials) here.

Not to go all hippie on you or anything, but being eco chic comes surprisingly naturally for me. Plus, I'm a lot more inclined to recycle and reinvent given my strict budget of the moment.

Now more than ever, furniture shopping on Craigslist makes sense. In an effort not to waste resources or money, Brian and I have agreed not to buy crap furniture just for the sake of filling our apartment. Sure, we haven't had a coffee table since we moved in, but at least we haven't had a terrible coffee table (that we would inevitably toss out or donate) either! We had an idea in mind and decided to wait until we found exactly what we were looking for.

And found it we did, this Saturday. During a random scan of the furniture section on Craigslist, I spotted the antique, flat-top trunk we've been imagining for 6 months. It was affordable, and the seller only lived a 1o minute walk from us. So we picked it up, carried it home in the rain, and after a healthy spritz of vinegar and lavender extract (to banish the smoke smell), it's perfect!

Now only one question remains: does being excited about this make me as nerdy and boring as I suspect it does?

bake and ache

Lately I've been craving two things or, rather, I've been pulled in two directions: domesticity and adventure. I want to pull up my roots and tumble just as much as I would love to fluff up my nest.

Have you ever felt so full of ideas and inclinations that it borders on being painful? That is the best way to describe what I'm feeling now. Nothing—not my journal, my apartment, the hours of the day, my heart—can contain all the crazy energy I am buzzing with.

I read somewhere that people in their twenties suffer through a "greying of emotions." I wish I knew to whom I should attribute that quote, but I don't. Whoever it is, I think they've got it wrong. This is yet another moment of stepping out on one's own. It's rich black and feathery white, and every other lovely and gross colour you could imagine. I'm working on painting a crazy composition with what's on my palette.

divide and multiply

This holiday season, I have been slicing up my time into neat little packages: a lunch here, a sleepover there, and some furious holiday baking and last-minute gift shopping in between.

Shuffling back and forth via go train and street car, I managed to fit in a few visits (though not nearly as many as I should) during several consecutive snow storms. Nature and circumstance conspired against me in several ways. At one point, Amy and I were stranded for 3 hours after she drove over a recycling bin, jamming it into the wheel well of her mom's truck and rendering the vehicle immobile. Only hours later, I was trapped in between the track and a building, when a go train blasted me into the wall with a powerful assault of snow, ice, and rocks. I was the only one who had walked out onto the platform, so about 50-100 people watched from the comfort of the glass shelters as my suitcases and I were absolutely covered in snow.

Cabs were hard to come by, and the walking was tough with my heavy bags, but each time I reached a destination or saw the familiar face of a friend or family member greeting me, suddenly, all the wintery strife was forgotten.

Let's face it, some times it really sucks to divide up my time and my visits into short intervals in different cities and towns. It's a logistical nightmare and it involves a lot of me lugging bags in snowstorms. It also sometimes makes me sad that people I love are so spread out, that they don't know or necessarily get along with each other, and that I am never able to see everyone I want to.

I take the train from Montreal to Toronto. I am picturing, in the moving blackness out the window, all the things I will do and all the questions I will ask and all the faces I will finally see again in person over the holidays. In my pocket agenda, I know who I get to see, and what we will do. A lot of this is determined by the schedules of not only my friends, but by their families, boyfriends, children, fiancés. My extended world is growing at an alarming rate.

Initially, I was thrown off as I planned this trip. Organizing visits is becoming a lot more complicated with so many more people thrown in the mix. My life is fragmented enough without taking into account the increasingly carved up and weighed- out time slots of my friends. We used to have each other and holidays with immediate families. Now we have lunches with mothers-in-law, office christmas parties, baby showers of co-worker's fianceés...and so it goes.

Clearly, this is how it goes. How, you know, life goes. As the fingers of my childhood friends are steadily being colonized by diamonds, and our conversations shift to matters of 5-year plans and mortgages, I feel a knot forming in my stomach.

But something changes in me once I actually arrive and start spending time with my friends and family and the new people in their lives. I see changes in them that make me so proud and reassured. I take an immediate liking to the people who have stolen my time with my friends, and quickly understand why they have captured their hearts. I don't feel usurped. Instead, I feel a space open up in my heart and in between our lives that can only be filled by what is new.

Even though, over many drinks, my friends and I laughed at Kait when she said, "your heart just swells," at this time of life, I think she was brave to own up to this uncomfortably strong, sweeping feeling.

When I met Rozzie's 3-month-old nephew, Mason (feet pictured above), I recognized what I'm sure is clear to others but hasn't been to me: that as things grow and change, I don't have to divide myself into pieces and become less than whole. I'm not losing anything. Rather, I make room for new people, traditions, and feelings as I grow up.

The multiple lives I live now, filled with those I love (and those they love) in countless cities, are richer than any simple, streamlined life I could ever struggle to create.

Merry Christmas.

two days 'til my train leaves

Is the idea of a Christmas wish too trite? Is it too naive to hope that one (or several) would come true? Do I need to feel guilty for wishing when I have so much already? Most of my wishes (and yes, I do have several) relate to things I want to become, to work towards in the year ahead. I also demand a lot of the holiday season—that it be cozy and slow and full of sugar and fireside chats, but also jet-set and fantastic and notable.

In my mind I sift through my increasingly french thoughts to make sense of why I want the things I do, and how I can reach them most directly, but also most beautifully. The life inside my head is so much more vibrant than the one through which I tread, but I'm working on flattening the two into one, seamless layer.

under my neutral beige duvet

In bed now at 11:30 pm, and I am finally resigning to the fact that I can't do weeks full of 7 am mornings with a nightly bed time of 1 am.

This is the earliest I have gone to bed since high school.

That is all.

a new home

Moved in, and no internet on my own computer, so therefore no pictures to show for it, though I have taken too many. The first thing I did was carefully put together my 3-tiered dessert tower, and then artfully arranged my cookbook collection on the shelves of my butcher's block. Priorities!

This place is really fantastic, and there's an air about it that hints it will play host to many a wonderful day and night. I have never been so excited about a place before. There are even other musicians in the building from what I can hear, which makes me less self-conscious about my constant singing and likelihood of band practices.

Tonight, I am curled up in the study (!) with a half of a Crunchie bar, while reading the age-inappropriate Breaking Dawn. Yesterday I raced a thunderstorm to get my copy. I then had a perfectly legitimate excuse to start chapter one over an iced coffee while I waited out the rain.

Looking around me, wondering about everything that will come of the decision to stay here in Montreal for at least a while longer, and to move here specifically, I feel calm, and very content.

So often I am waiting for something, anything, to happen. There are always lulls, and then everything happens at once. My mixed emotions are like opposing weather systems, warm and balmy confronted by cold and dark. When the storm hits the calm, I feel like this.

On Tuesday, most of the news arrived by phone. I woke up to hear my oldest friend (the one who recently got engaged) tell me that her father had suddenly passed away. Just like that, while taking a nap at their cottage.

After hanging up the phone, it rang again, this time with a job interview for me.

It rang again shortly thereafter, when the head of Brian's Ph.D program called to tell him the department has a substantial amount of additional funding to offer him.

The phone rang once more, when the people buying some of my furniture called to tell me when they were coming to pick it up.

This same day, Brian, Peter and I met up at the printing shop and—almost $40 in photocopying later—all handed in our completed theses to the graduate studies office, and to our supervisors and readers.

And now, with half our furniture gone and an apartment half full of boxes, I am heading home for a funeral, only to return just in time for an inevitably hectic moving day. I will be back once the storm of everything passes.

la vie en rose et bleu

It is so incredibly heartening to know that, even in the low times, one of the people I respect most in the world (and who also seems to be one of the most infallible people I know), could be feeling the exact same way that I do. He has the courage to explain it far better than I could.

this city and me

My anonymity in this city is starting to slip away. I've gotten to used to feeling invisible in the streets, too comfortable. Today I was out for a walk, shaking my arms and hands to loosen up the typing-induced tension, singing quietly under my breath while I walked. Trust me, shaking my limbs and muttering a melody does not make me stand out in this neighbourhood.

Anyways, so here I was enjoying myself, when who should spot me but my ballroom dance teacher, Laurent. He greets me in French (either humouring me, or forgetting how limited my vocabulary is) and starts asking me when I will be continuing my lessons. Before I finished my last session, I told the dance school I would be very interested in continuing lessons. Then I saw the price tag for a full session. Sure I'm interested, but I'm not insane. I can't afford to spend over a grand, gallivanting with the geriatric crowd at that studio. Sorry Laurent, I won't be seeing you any time soon. Despite your heavy accent and heavy lisp, you were a fantastic teacher, and I still understood you well enough to learn the Viennese waltz pretty well. If only I could dance my way through my thesis.

But back to the anonymity thing. As I meet more people and my chances of running into people I know during the day increase, I guess I should start leaving the house in something besides the same stained ,white hoodie I love so much. My daytime outfits are so bad that, the other day, a pigeon hovered above me and then pooped on me. If he was going to poo on anyone, he might as well do it on someone who is already covered in stains. I can't really argue with that logic.

I may only be running errands, but if too many people see me like this, I am certain I will end up on What not to Wear. And to think I was voted "Most Likely to be a Fashion Designer" in high school. This is what grad school does to ya, folks.

I suppose it's a good thing I'm getting so comfortable here because, big news, I am going to stay in Montreal. I may not have a job lined up, a new place to live, or a mastery of the French language, but I'm staying anyways. Brian will be entering into Concordia's Ph.D in Communication Studies program this September (a mere 2 weeks after he defends his MA thesis, boyfriend is crazy) so he's staying. I made my decision to stay before he found out if he got in, mostly because I didn't want my decision to be entirely influenced by his.

I thought about all sorts of other options: moving to Toronto (could work, but would be expensive), going back to Tanzania (still plan to, but have to make some $ first), moving out to Eastern or Western Canada (no major job offers pulling me to either coast), and many more, crazier ideas. All in all, staying here feels right. I haven't lived in any one house for longer than 2 years in the last 7 years, so it feels right to sink some roots in here.

Plus, why would I rush to leave when I LOVE this city?

We've already started looking for new apartments. The first one we looked at was love at first sight. It was HUGE, affordable, in an up-and-coming neighbourhood, close to a market, charming, and it had an extra room that I could use as a photography studio. We have to wait until May freaking 15th to hear if we got the place, but I have my fingers tightly crossed. After all, now that I'm staying, I need a place to call home.

a pinch of risk, a smidgen of faith

We didn't meet to commiserate, to wallow in the sting of both being rejected on reality tv. Rather, we met today to talk about where that rejection had led us.

Over iced black tea lemonades, she noted that it had led her to take stock of her life. Until recently, she was a Concordia master's student like me. However, she has since left her program, after reluctantly admitting that it's just not making her happy.

"I realized that it would do me more harm than good to finish the program," she explained.

So, in what I think is a pretty courageous move, she dropped out and is moving back to her home city to try something completely new. Going through the audition process helped her recognize that her passion is music. While preparing for the audition, she felt more exhilirated and energetic than she felt in a long time. She liked that feeling, and didn't want to trade it in for the hum of boredom and obligation that her current life had been producing. So now she is going to look for a day job and pursue music.

I like that she knows the two seem to go hand in hand: day jobs and moonlighting. I like that she accepts that and is willing to take the risk. Music is almost always risky, which is what makes it so sexy.

For me, the rejection led me back to Montreal, to finish what I started. And now, it seems, I will be staying after all. Maybe.

Last night, at another coffee shop, I sat across the table from another person. We had one of those "big" talks — the kind that have a lot of bearing on the future. We also talked about risks, and how we might go about handling them. He pretty much knows what he's doing next, and I am ... getting closer to knowing. But I know where we stand, and that's gotta count for something.

the path of happy

Recent events, such as exciting news for my domestic partner, have accelerated the speed at which my anxiety has been rising. Any news, no matter how exciting, that forces me closer to making BIG choices, is scary news. The voice in my head that has previously been whispering "you might have to make some choices soon," has raised to a shout: "decision time is imminent, biatch!"

In response to my doubts, my friend Karen says, "try to follow the path of happy."

As in, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, following things you love, and see where you end up.

Duly noted.