The New Normal

I was going to write a piece after the Orlando shooting, but Brexit happened before I could corral my thoughts. Then I was going to write about Brexit, but Istanbul happened before I could corral my thoughts, so it seems pointless to bother given whatever comes next. I have no idea what the next thing may be, but that it will come is inevitable.

Closer to home, Ter and I have spent the last year—maybe two … or three—surfing the wave of change both in the house and at the office. New neighbours, new colleagues, new babies, new technology, new projects … and more change on the horizon. No wonder we’re fried. I stubbornly believed that things will settle down, but lately I’ve come to the dreadful conclusion that they won’t. Worse, not all change is an improvement, so not only must I roll with it, I must shut up and play my guitar. Resistance may be futile, but I prefer change to make sense.

However, I was pretty proud of myself for maintaining both my cool and encouraging others to relax while we rode a rough patch at the office last week. I was regaling Ter with tales of our acceptance and flexibility when I received written notice that the local branch of my bank is closing in the fall—and I lost my mind. Freaked out. Rose up on my hocks and waved my forefeet in defiance of yet another frustrating and unexpected unravelling of my reality. I was so pissed that it’s as hilarious in retrospect as it is proof that the little things will break you.

It doesn’t help that everyone from Gregg Braden to David Usher is citing change as the new normal. Stability is on the way out and the future is too volatile to predict. Old standards no longer apply and new ones haven’t been developed yet. They’re in process, but everything and everyone is moving so fast that they can’t keep up with themselves. I can’t keep up.

I realized this during my week off. A disheartening discovery at first, until I realized I don’t want to keep up; I have to keep up in some ways, especially at work, but in my real life, the heck with it. I’m all for packing up and moving to the country, where I can live in solitude from the frenetic energy of a 21^st century urban existence.

I’ll take Ter with me, of course. Even an introvert requires some social interaction and F***book doesn’t cut it. Imagine the pace of everyday life dialled back a few degrees. Walks in the woods and reading by a lake. Occasional forays to the farmer’s market and stopping for tea at a local café. Afternoon naps. Staying up late to see the stars. Seeing the stars! Bubble baths in a clawfoot tub. Live theatre. Nature’s music.

Now, there’s a change worth pursuing.

The Space Between the Notes

You wait for a day off (aside from a regular weekend) and when it arrives, you’re immobilized. The plan you had in mind suddenly appears less appealing than catching up on F***book or baking cookies or reruns of Big Bang Theory on the comedy network.

Help is on the way.

A year after buying it, I finally started reading David Usher’s Let the Elephants Run. It’s an easy read: concepts are presented as sound bites and anecdotes from his own life—I love hearing how my idols’ process works—and, yes, there are exercises (none of which I’ve done … yet) but the primary takeaway so far has been the paradoxical pairing required for successful creativity:

Freedom and Structure.

Freedom to imagine and structure in which to develop what you’ve imagined.

It’s not news that my problem, er, challenge, is always structure. More often than not, my imagination runs me, a state in which I am blissfully content to remain, often to the detriment of any ideas that may arise from my imaginings. Follow through is the perennial bugaboo for writer Ru.

But this isn’t a post about self-recrimination. It’s about reaffirming my commitment to creativity, to my characters and ideas and wordsmithing skills. It’s about my commitment to me.

I love to write, so I am taking the next few days to reconnect with the written word. Remarkably, this involves actions other than writing itself. I’m also eager to take care of myself, my environment and my former house elf, but performing these small tasks outside the writing room will benefit my creative self by providing space in which to mull over and resolve plot issues.

“Music is made in the space between the notes.”

I’ve forgotten who said this, but it rings true for me and therefore must be true for any artistic endeavour, no matter what the medium. So off I go to make music. I can already hear the chorus …

As the Crow Sings

My music collection has been pared back a few times over the years, but staples remain firmly in place. Duran and Def Leppard, Alan Parsons and David Usher, Sarah McLachlan and Sting figure prominently in that I’ll buy anything and everything they put on the market—sometimes more than once. While de-cluttering for our first residential move in seventeen years, Ter and I discovered no fewer than four cassette tapes of Seven and the Ragged Tiger; a true puzzlement considering that we owned no more than two cassette players in 1987. I’ve grown up a little since then. When the re-mastered special edition was released a few years ago, I sent my original CD of the same album to the used disc shop because, pfft, who needs two?

I recall an interview wherein the father of my unborn children discussed his album collection. Of course he doesn’t listen to everything every day; with any extensive collection, who has the time? But once in a while, he pulls out vintage Bowie or Roxy, gives the LP a spin, then puts it back in the cellar to be enjoyed, like a fine wine, a few more years down the road.

I went on an Alan Parsons bender last year. I just lay on the couch and remembered why I love the Project’s work so much. More recently, the Leppards were trotted out to prep for their tour and, boy, was it fun rocking out to X and Yeah! With Paper Gods due for release in September, Duran is resurfacing on my playlist to reacquaint me with their more recent work (Astronaut is truly brilliant, and not just because it features the Original Five). And, for some reason, last week I began looping my favourite track of Sheryl Crow’s extensive catalogue, so I pulled her CDs on Sunday to remind myself why I liked her so much back in the day.

Actually, it’s a bit of a mystery because she borders on country with her syrupy drawl and penchant for steel guitar, but I bought her first album in 1993 and didn’t stop until Detours in 2008. She played Victoria on that tour; by then she had enough ammo to play a greatest hits set, so of course I went to see her. Great show, lame crowd. I couldn’t tell if I was in an audience or an oil painting. Oddly, I can’t remember if she played The Difficult Kind; I think she did, but nothing beats the album version off The Globe Sessions … currently in heavy rotation on my turntable. This live version got good reviews, though, so please ...

Enjoy.

Entitled

Which comes first? The story or the title?

Usually, it’s the story. Occasionally, it’s the title. When I wrote “Black and Blonde” in 2001, the characters came first, the story came from them, and the title came last. I liked it, though. And I liked the character of Ariel Black so much that I wanted to write with him again. Regrettably, he didn’t have the staying power to warrant a full length novel and I’ve never been hip on writing short stories.

In 2005, I decided to write an urban fantasy piece for a short fiction contest and lit up the Bat Signal in hope that a hero would show up to help. Black answered the call. The story came next, then the title: “Basic Black”. It won fifth place in the contest—woo hoo—and solidified my affection for a character who doesn’t win people easily to his side. Not that he cares. In fact, I highly doubt that he gives a rat’s rear end. I was self-publishing the first two volumes of “Fixed Fire” anyway, so I bid Black a second farewell.

Playing with words has been a hobby for my whole life. I like to mess with phrases and double entendres and all that jazz, so one day I was rolling some stuff around in my mind and snagged a beauty of a title: “Black in Back”.

This time, I called on him specifically. And he said, “Forget it.”

See what I mean about him not giving a $***?

Crap, I thought. Now what do I do?

Well, let it go, of course. Only I couldn’t. It dogged me for days, a clear indication that a story needed to be told, but if it wasn’t Black doing the telling, then who the heck was it? Whose voice could shoulder a title bearing his name? I pondered it for-what-seemed-like-ever. The sequence ran something like this:

Black in Back … Black in Back … Black—in—Back! Eureka! That’s it! He’s in it, but he’s not telling it, hence his status as “in back”! Augh! I’m a genius!

After that discovery, I got traction. It stalled a bunch of times because I got in the way, but over the long weekend, I stepped aside, threw Moist’s greatest hits onto the stereo, and let Tess do the talking. It’s her story; I just didn’t know it when the title first arrived. It’s not done yet, but when it is, I’ll probably post it here. Black was designed for the 21^st Century Poets’ forum anyway, so cyberspace, much as he dislikes it, is as much his turf as the seedy waterfront he calls home.

No, he’s not happy about it, but that’s the chance you take when you consort with mortals …

Jocund Day

No misty mountaintops, though – I was lucky to get sun shining on the clouds obscuring them this morning. All week, sunlight on the snowy Olympics has been stunning at 7:30 a.m., but wouldn’t you know, the one morning when I’m not leaving for work … However, sun on cloud can be as stunning, and my day is still a jocund one.

Mostly because it’s a day off (woo hoo) and while sipping my morning tea, I was slam-dunked by a story idea so exciting that I forgot to brew Ter’s second cup. The original plan to contemplate my novel while reverently dusting the furniture morphed into a crazed dust-bunny-bashing session punctuated by blazing bits of witty dialogue, vivid imagery and general creative mayhem. It’s a perfect storm: a good title, a familiar character who fits my new peaches-and-cream tea, David Usher providing musical motivation, and a full day in which to unleash the first draft. Naturally, there are lurking pitfalls but I am determined to make the absolute most of my time today.

On the heels of a crazy-busy fortnight at work, this weekend is merely busy so not much time for writing: three hours in the chair with my hairdresser tomorrow, plus shopping with Ter and afternoon wet-sock-sorting;  a coffee date with friends on Sunday morning; an open house both days for the downstairs condo (Ter cheekily suggested that she wear one of her Def Leppard t-shirts and I wear my Flyers jersey to impress potential buyers); and perhaps the most thrilling of all … Game of Thrones season 4 starts on Sunday night!!!

Life is good.

My Eddie

Gee - can you tell I'm a fan?

He sang with a band called Moist in the 1990s. I saw their video for “Silver” on Muchmusic and immediately thought, Who is that? He stood out – his voice, his presence, his black hair and exotic eyes. He lived and breathed the awful torment of that fabulous lyric and I was absolutely enthralled.

His name is David Usher.

Moist didn’t survive, though they put out enough hits to make a compilation titled “Machine Punch Through” which showcases his voice. I almost regret buying none of their albums, except that David went solo and continues recording to this day. His eighth album came out last October. I didn’t bother to wait for amazon to ship it. I bought it cold from HMV.

You’d think from his lyrics that he’s the gloomiest, angriest, most messed-up man on the planet, but I believe he’s actually a pretty happy guy. Though his songs may be rife with rage and corruption, the music is hardly discordant. Much of it is quite beautiful, unplugged and featuring the occasional cello riff (?!) I hardly ever hear him on the radio out here; he gets more air time in Montreal, where he’s based, and he does show up in entertainment news around an album’s release. Last winter, when “Songs From the Last Day on Earth” came out, I caught a clip of him talking a) about the album’s cheerful title, and b) about his other life as a techno-geek developing social media software currently in use by two western Canadian NHL teams and his work with Amnesty International and McGill University. Make no mistake. This guy is the son of an Oxford economics professor and an artist, and has a degree in political science. He’s a smart man.

His voice soars from breathy lullaby to impassioned howl in one long note. He can pour so much feeling into a single word that my skin responds with goosebumps. He’s one of the rare few whose work I will buy unheard. The joy for me is in discovering new gems in the jewel box.

I wonder sometimes why his music calls to me so strongly. I used to razz Laura about playing Pearl Jam during my massage appointments, but I learned to appreciate Eddie Vedder’s gift for making art of apocalyptic emotion. One song (I never knew the title) was a cheery toe-tapper that turned out to be a condemned man’s countdown to the noose, and danged if that didn’t beat all. “Good old Ed,” I remarked dryly, “always the happy-go-lucky optimist.” And Laura loosed her throaty smoke-and-whiskey laugh. The day I learned she was ill, the first song on David’s new album flared to mind and looped me into scattering stars for her across my office bulletin board.

Here at the end of the world, I can still see the stars.

Then it hit me. David Usher is my Eddie Vedder.

(Ru note - This post was scheduled last weekend for uploading today. It turns out to be an strange coincidence. Pearl Jam is playing Vancouver on December 4. I got the pre-sale notification yesterday and my first thought was: Laura would love to be there! Silly me. She now has an all access pass. Yes, I miss her, but after the initial reminder of loss, the smiles returned with the memories. As Theodore Geisel once said, "Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.")

Pour No Sugar on Me

I wrote not a word on the weekend. I slept a lot, though. Sugar fuzz. I indulged in such dietary naughtiness the day before my writing day that the best I could do on Sunday morning was lie on the sofa and listen to David Usher. I fell asleep to Bryan Ferry in the afternoon.

The day wasn’t a total waste, however. I learned something that I’ve always known but consistently deny in the face of immediate gratification: sugar is bad for creativity. I proved it to myself yet again because I started to pull out of the fog at lunchtime, then I downed a whole can of San Pellegrino grapefruit soda and promptly had to take a long nap. The pop wasn’t even that good – it tasted like I was drinking marmalade. Worse, it started me second-guessing about my writing. Stuck in a chemical funk, my will to create actually dissolved, so I let it go for the day in hope of a sunnier outlook when I finally emerged from the mire.

It took a full 24 hours. The socked-in sense lingered well into my Monday; it began to lift yesterday evening and this morning I woke up clear-headed and hopeful again. Feeling more like writer than a fraud and thank the gods for that turn of mind. I brought the Gatsby soundtrack to work, which is proving to be a horrible distraction but I will persist because I need the infusion to get me through the worst day of my week. I’m off on Friday, with no commitments beyond cramming three episodes of The Newsroom before season 2 premieres on Sunday, so I’ll be brewing more Gold Rush and seeing if I can make something of a story that, on the weekend, I feared was beyond my capability to write.

My mission until then is to steer clear of the white stuff.