Whether the Weather

How Canadian to launch into only the second post of this blog by talking about the weather.

But, boy-howdy, it's been a stinker this past month.

October 31, it was cold, but clear and seasonable. December 1 dawned with over 10 cm of wet snow and freezing rain, and the fun just kept on coming. Since then, we've had at least two spells of bitterly cold weather (here, the overnight temperatures dropped below -20 several nights) immediately followed by a thaw. Needless to say, all the snow that had fallen first melted, then froze solid, transforming every object outdoors into the proverbial frictionless surface. Physicists rejoiced. The rest of us were less than impressed.

In between, we've had at least a couple stretches of freezing rain and ice pellets. What are ice pellets, you ask? Well, imagine walking down a street, being pelted by wind-driven bee-bees, fired from an air rifle. Now imagine being pelted by millions of the little buggers, while the sidewalk beneath your feet becomes increasingly slick. Welcome to winter in Canada.

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions, though. Firstly, I've resolved to once and for all, get myself back to a healthy weight. This has been something I've wrestled with for years. I've gained, lost, gained back, lost more .. were my weight a stock price, I'd recommend selling due to excessive volatility, not to mention a seemingly incompetent management team.

But .. This Year Will Be Different. Really. No kidding. Well, hopefully. I'm rather tired of being heavy, lighter, heavier, lighter, and never knowing from one month to the next just how I'll be feeling, physically. To be fair, I'm off to a positive start. I braved the elements to head to the local Y, and spent nearly an hour puffing away .. er, on an elliptical trainer. That didn't exactly come across as I'd hoped. Nope. Not at all.

And so it goes.


All for now.

Happy New Year

Greetings everyone. Welcome to 2005.

I closed the previous year with a mixture of sadness and optimism. For me, 2004 was a difficult year, a year of loss, a year of transition. I had lost a career that I valued a great deal, had lost touch with a number of people I had considered friends, had lost touch with much of the world.

I had lost energy, focus, optimism, humour, and quite frankly, come Christmas I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

The holiday season was a melancholy time, shaded by a year of lonliness and uncertainty, of financial difficulty and isolation. Seldom had the Christmas season so grated on my senses. The fake-happy commercialism as well as the shallowness and impatience of the frenzied masses of shoppers I seemed to be unable to escape. Overall, I was not a happy camper.

However, in the midst of the melancholy, there were wonderful things. I was involved in a number of community theatre productions, honing my abilities as a credible actor, and even attempting to carry a tune onstage. No vegetables were thrown, and I took this as a good review. As well, my sister became engaged, a homeowner, married, and a mother-to-be, all within the past 16 months,. Though my life was quite stagnant, it was wonderful to see her wishes and dreams finally becoming reality.


The upcoming year promises to be one of change, and uncertainty. I have been offered an opportunity to move to Japan and teach English for a year (more, if an extension is agreeable to both myself and my potential future employer), and hopefully experience a renewal and rebirth unlike any I've ever experienced before.

I've always been somewhat of a spiritual person, though this year has sorely tested my faith and my beliefs. Is it fair that someone, such as myself, whom I believe to be a decent, if flawed person be marginalized, and isolated? Is it fair that someone like myself who's devoted as much of myself to whatever job I've held, and whatever relationship I've been involved in, finish the year scratching for my financial survivial, and practically alone?

Of course it's not fair. Neither is it pleasant. It is, however, life as it currently exists and it's up to me how I wish to live within this space.

I've found an excellent book, which I'd recommend to anyone facing a great transition or turmoil in their life .. it's titled 'The Dark Night of the Soul', by Thomas Moore. The author was a Catholic monk for nearly 15 years, and is well versed in Christianity, Buddhism and even a bith of Taoist philosophy, and writes as a philosophical, compassionate and thoughtful person.

PERSPECTIVES

This has been a tumultuous year around the world, and I'll confess that at times, I was somewhat numb to the suffering and turmoil in other parts of the globe. I can look at pictures from Iraq, now, and feel sorrow, but not the outrage I once experienced. I can listen to the patent untruths being told by members of various national governments, and no longer feel the incredulity I once experienced. Instead, I feel more of a sad resignation that, contrary to what I've long wished, there are some truly misguided and hard-hearted people at the controls of a number of the leading nations on the planet today.

However, on Dec 26, much of this changed. When the reports of the Tsunami which struck parts of Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka began to emerge, the toll very quickly was horriffic. At present, over 110,000 people have been reported either dead or missing. Some villages have literally been wiped out, with not one building left standing. Some villages, CNN was reporting, have lost an entire generation of children. To me, such an event is incomprehensible, especially given that so many of the areas hardest hit were popular tourist destinations. Words seem so insigificant when so many years of effort and so many peoples' livelihoods, and vacations vanished in an instant.

I look forward to 2005, and to sharing my reflections and experiences with whomever wishes to read this blog, and come along for the ride.