What-ifs, Wherefores, Why those

Returning from abroad is exhilirating. It is energizing. It is exhausting. It is like a beginning to the shining middle and an end to that rotten beginning. It is also rather dangerous because this very illusion of new found hope starts to get you dreaming - dreaming like you might have scarcely dared to before.

It fills you with a vigour upon whose pace you travel with such speed and motivation that it scares even you. That feeling of expanse and a deep connection with the earth, real, hard, terra firma can do that to you. It is rather dangerous, really, all the things you see yourself accomplishing and daring to hope as you might have never hoped before.

Change is a very organic substance and is, I believe, the base of every single thought, phenomenon and action in this world. The difference brought about by change; Derrida, he was on the right track. That idea of difference is the power that change grants and there is no power so heady nor so combustible or useful as change. It fuels originality in thought, in design, in life, really; our need for change makes us think, wonder...so I quirk one eyebrow up and ask the most quitely dangerous question: what if?

What if, indeed. What if - so many things! Where to begin, and where to go once the beginning has been determined? And it has...my beginning has been 20 years in the making...but whence to proceed from here? There are about a million and one possibilities and iterations and I almost wish I could send out a dozen copies of myself to take different tracks and report back to me upon merger 40 years later.

I promised myself that I wouldn't be overwhelmed and inundated; that I would relax and take it as it comes. So far, that is proving to be the right thing to do, even if it is rather (read horriblee) hard for me to do. I keep having to shift my mind away from the niggling thoughts but I think eventually that will become second nature. There is really just so much to tackle: pick your cause. I'm having a hard time (or was) picking mine. Which is funny because no one really asked me to pick in the first place; everyone assumes students will eventually leave their shelter of hallowed halls and change the world in new and wonderous ways. The problem is that I love it all too much. I love it all, I'm passionate about most things and am far too interested and curious for my own good. Also, I don't trust our generation to be the same way; very few of them are and of those few, you must weed through the self-proclaimed, arrogant and pseudo-intellectuals to reach the actual stars. So I feel it is encumbent upon me to pick all causes and save the world - oh, I almost long for the days to come when I'm 28 and disillusioned and bitter like Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.

I find myself lingering on every sight and sound that passes my way with a new energy that has been missing for almost four years now. It is surprising what a new wardrobe can also do. Filling one's life with only the pieces that make you happy and energized and...important. There is nothing like it. And if I sound unbearingly optimistic, I don't apologize but only hope to re-iterate that I am a realist - who is currently on a high.

It seems strange to say it as a marker of what seems so right these days but my skin seems softer, my sleep feels deeper and hair looks nicer, even if I've tumbled down from bed. Maybe this feeling will fade and maybe it won't but, as of now, I'm not too worried either way. Yes, I am sunk in debt; yes, I am not nearly as mobile as I would like. But...its not like those things seem any smaller; only more doable- more changeable, more manageable. More likely. This life seems more likely, no matter what track.

As a sign, when my mind starts to wander and ponder on the various alternations of futures that could be and makes mini, start-plans as to how to get there, I instantly feel nauseous. But now I am really enjoying going through all the what ifs and thinking further, without the strain of actually trying to make it happen. I guess I am saying - I'm happy to be in the moment, allowing myself that luxury (for once). The what-ifs don't come accompanied by can-dos. They just stay their lovely old states of what-ifs.

What are the what-ifs? Good gosh, too many.

What-ifs to scripts and novel ideas. What-ifs to getting published. What-ifs to volunteering and teaching in Macchu Picchu and exploring the Himalayas. What-ifs to leaving civilization for a few years and changing the face of education and misguided mindsets. What-ifs to writing for Conde-Nast and National Geographic (*faint*). What-ifs to Brown and Rhodes, browsing beaches in Maine, to Carnegie Mellon. What-ifs to street theatre, kathak dancing, scholarships to Delhi. What-ifs to curating or publishing or designing or working at the MMoA/Bartle-Bogle-Hegarty. What-ifs to dual citizenship and splurging rent money on Jimmy Choos. What-ifs to working for idols and invitations to premiers at Leicester Square. What-ifs to changing the face of inspiration. What-ifs to meeting and falling in love to changing lives and healing them. What-ifs coming to terms with all the past and forgiving and moving the fuck on.

So here's to all that was- that can be, that will be and, mostly, that is.

Rampant thoughts on a mock European bus

Thankfully, I caught the ghost bus this morning. The Viva, which is Toronto/GTA's pseudo-european answer to express bus service in an area only recently cultivated for the housing boom but was previously acres of desolate farmland, is usually jam packed in the morning, especially by the time it gets to Woodbine & Hwy 7.

The ghost bus was characteristically quiet this morning. Not too many occupants, and empty seats. I stretched my legs at leisure and piled the adjacent seats with my so-heavy-could-be-carrying-a-corpse backpack. So there I sat, with bright, sharp morning sunlight streaming in and hiding the fugitive wind of a cold March morning, blaring my John Mayer.

Whether or not you mean to, it's always fun to listen to people's conversations, and hard to miss if they're talking particularly loud. There were two guys talking about...anything and everything. Aah, just my type of conversation (no sarcasm intended). I paid no attention - they were talking about the Bible & hypocrisy (man, is that a tired topic) - but then the words "Loan payback" drifted to my seat and tapped me persuasively on my shoulder. And so the volum on my ipod dropped to a hum.

I didn't care much for the particulars: the amount of his loan or anything like that. These guys were talking about being students and their plans for LIFE. It's been plaguing my own mind for a long while now so I decided to learn what I could.

They were just as green as me, of course, not really veterans in being homeless/penniless students but...their approach was different. Their outlook was what I like to adopt and stick to on good days and that I hopelessly drop and succumb to fear on bad days. Naturally, for me, there are more bad days than good; funny how that works. They figured, whatever happens, happens.

So this was the gist of the conversation:

Boy 1: ....and I've got my OSAP loan and line of credit. I figure I can at least pay off my line of credit

Boy 2: How much is your line of credit?

Boy 1: Oh...like 18, 20K? Yeah, it's not too bad...it's a mountain but it's a doable mountain, you know? Like I could work for a year straight and just pay that shit off so it's not too bad. Like, right now I make all the minimum payments...and there was a point in time where I'd make like a full payment....yeah, me and my parents were really good at that time. We'd talk and all, our relationship got better and I kept paying the full amount for like six, seven months straight. But then...man, I don't even know what happened but I stopped paying full...and I even missed a payment. So my dad got really pissed. Whatever man.

Boy 2: Hah. Shit. So what do you think?

Boy 1: Seriously, man, I don't care. My parents are all like, what the hell are you going to do with your life, you're not getting an actual degree of use, you're going to be homeless and live in a hole. And I'm like, what the hell? How do other people live? Like, there are so many kdis with Arts degrees and they're actually doing stuff with their lives, you know? They figure things out, I will too.

Boy 2: Mhmm...

Boy 1: Like, they work, pay, go to school. They travel. Okay, there's this guy I know. He's in university and this summer he's going to BC 'cuz he's writing this book. Artists and Life Art or something like that. And he's doing this project, you know? And he's like, if I'd come out and help him with research and editing, he'd pay for my flight ticket. Crazy, right? But here he is, doing something with his life. Stuff like that.

Boy 2: For sure man. Like people just get caught up in work and jobs and whatever.

Boy 1: Exactly. There's this girl I know. All she does is work for a year, saves up as much as can. Puts half toward her tuition and then save the rest for traveling. That's all she does: works and travels. And then the next year she goes to school. Like that's amazing you know? She fucking knows how to live her life.

Boy 2: Are you serious? She just...travels?

Boy 1: Yeah man, she takes like 3 or 4 jobs through the year and earns all she can. It's crazy. And so awesome. But you know what, that's the way to be! Like, I'm not worried about stuff. There's no rush for me, and people figure things out, you know? Just because you're an Arts grad, doesn't mean you're going to be broke. It annoys me when people think that way or say that to you.


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I found this to be...not quite an eye-opener, because I've met and talked to people like this before. But to have this to consider in the morning, when I've been thinking about this all along...to have it come from strangers was...thought-inducing.

Because it's something that is hard for me to grasp or fully apply to my own life. I'm torn between being an idealist and just being...practical. And the biggest struggle for me right now is, yes, the money, yes what the hell am I going to do in the future, but also, when the hell is it going to finally happen. There's honour...doing the right thing at the right time, finishing a degree in four years getting a job, making some money to pay back those loans. And then there's freedom where someone like the aforementioned girl works and lives her gawdamn life!

I don't know the answers to anything yet, and my head was swimming, hearing this. It wasn't a new sentiment. It's been expressed before. But in trying to apply it to my own life, I'm held back by fear. Great and immense, bottomless fear that doesn't usually tinge my behaviour or my thoughts.

A very big part of me is still stuck in that room in Waterloo, worrying about honour and freedom and the cost of pursuing your dreams and the tradeoffs, the sacrifices, the depression, the idealism, the follow-through and the potential for failure. A big part of me is still that timid girl crying over the phone, is still battling with my father, is still lacking coherency and stability. Is still missing in action in a very big way.

And as though my ipod could read my mind (and I swear it does this often), their conversation prophetically ended to the beginning of Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Life is so uncannily stylish, sometimes, it's scary. Take Five indeed.