Honey, the road'll even end in Kathmandu

Janis Joplin, this song, this lyric will forever be entrenched in my mind as my teenage obsession moving from Aerosmith, Guns N' Roses and Ugly Kid Joe (*cough) to something more permanent, more fearless.

When I was 16, I obsessed over Janis Joplin. I didn't know anything about her--her habits, her career, her influences--but I knew she had a staggering voice, ripped to shreds by late nights, cigarettes and substance abuse. In her music, she made it out to be hard love and feelings of insignificance that had done her in. It worked.

This song of hers, Cry, Cry Baby, has always stuck with me. Her delivery of the chorus is always consistent, but she falls off the train during the final verse. Mostly though, it's the Kathmandu reference that gets me. It's always been a mystical, is-it-really-there kind of city for me. For an unhealthy amount of my childhood, I actually believed the road (the road being all of the roads on the continent, converging into one) ended at the loop turnaround at the end of the family cabin's dirt road. It took me awhile to figure out roads.

My air-tight theory begged the question, if the road ends at Floating Stone, Alberta, where does it begin? With a lack of real world experience, but an ever-sprouting imagination, I imagined a big, blurry city like Kathmandu. Far, far away, check. Forgotten by the rest of the world at large, check. Dirty, ancient, BUSY! Check.

Figuratively, you could say that Kathmandu feels like the beginning of the road. One discovers this city in a permanent state of weariness and awe. Flowers and holy men and tuk tuks and oranges and pashminas and incense and chanting and let's stop for milk tea, repeat. This is the old world with enough forethought to know the value of their ancient palaces and temples.

Humans are adaptable, more so than we give ourselves credit. At first, this is painstakingly apparent in Kathmandu. The people have evolved around the city. The narrow allies, mostly mud-packed, are so obviously meant for getting around by foot or horse. I can easily imagine this city hundreds of years ago, before the imposing buzz of mopeds and the eternal honk of taxis.

My first few days with Kathmandu are littered with near hits and misses. I don't step out an inch without turning to secure my life, and when I do, I'm surpassed by aloof Kathmandians. I'm a large, awkward caterpillar to their industrious, no-nonsense ants. I'm impeding the flow with my western awareness of space. Carrying on conversation while walking requires too much concentration and feels dangerously awkward. My many references to the city map necessitate a stop -- a get-off-the-road-and-into-a-cafe stop.

On our return to the city one month later, my backpack and I are one solid force. There are just as many hits and misses, but I stop noticing them, intent on going about my business despite the once-noise, now-charm around me. I'm an ant now. Out of necessity, we adapt.

Prepare for an exciting trip soon to come your way.

It's beside the point that I received this fitting fortune cookie message in a Vietnamese restaurant. This unexpectedly spot-on message startled me into a brief silence. The truth is I was excited about my upcoming trip to Nepal, but it posed a different sort of challenge than previous travels had, particularly that it was more physical and cerebral in nature.

Travel is cerebral. Whether you're surfing, trekking, yoga-retreating or relaxing. Where you go, what you do with your limited time and the attitude you take drive the intensity of this factor. Some people set out specifically, excuse the cliche, to find themselves and discover that they were already found. Others set out to relax and are hit with an unexpected evaluation of one's own life in the process of seeking ignorant bliss.

As my fortune teller (cookie) had warned, "prepare". My impending vacation would be a test of my physical endurance, my ability to simplify -- a mental shifting of priorities. I went through the plethora of emotions from the idea to flight booking to planning to packing to destination. In a vain attempt to prepare for the Himalayas, I tried to maintain a regular running routine that incorporated hills and/or stairs. Each time I barely made it to the top of a staircase, out of breath and discouraged, I wondered how I'd fare. Or rather, I came to the realization that there was a wall, a breakdown of sorts, and it was only so far away, waiting for my surrender.

I was almost embarrassed to even admit to friends that I was trying to train (even now I still hold on to "trying to train") because I could almost always hear myself speaking in echoes, like in a bad telephone connection. Halfway through your sentence, you hear yourself saying the first bit and realize how ridiculous you sound. It's startling to hear your own voice and even more so when it sounds something like "Well, I walk to work everyday, so I should be good to climb Everest." Okay, so maybe I exaggerated for effect.

I kept my fortune cookie message in a pocket of a dress that I wear often. It was washed repeatedly and I left it there, as some sort of test, I suppose. Sure enough, each time I put the dress back on and reached into the pocket--which is why I love this dress--there it was, folded neatly, no visibly fading. I began to dislike the choice of words in the message.

Not an "important" or "life-altering" trip. And not a "journey", just a trip. I tried to glean more specificity out of this generic, any-man message and only then did I realize how fully I'd convinced myself that this trip was for me without thinking too much about it.

Then I realized that "exciting", as much as I dislike that word, was precisely the right word in this case. "Exciting" is a descriptor that lacks confidence. If it were a colour, it would be gray or brown--shades produced from combining various primary, more specific, colours. That was how I felt about this quickly approaching trip.

I resolved to let the various emotions combine into what could only be described as daunting excitement.

Why I write

On a typical day, I spend at least an hour walking. It's how I prefer to get around if at all possible. When I wander, my mind follows suit.

Today I wondered the most fundamental question: why do I write?

The act of writing for me is not a necessary thing. As is evident from the gaps in time between posts, I've gone many moons and fortnights without putting pen to paper, fingers to keys, that is outside of my workplace. It's always after these long periods that I start to doubt my pursuit of a career so entrenched in writing. "Do I really need  it?" I ask myself. It's a love-hate relationship, but the honest truth is no, I don't need it, but it makes me a much more observant and enjoyable human being. Or at least I presume so because I like life much better when I write about it. 

When you write about something, someone, somewhere, it becomes more important, funny, valuable. The annoying coworker who insists on smoking a pack of cigarettes and then leaning over your shoulder to engage in Seinfeld-calibre close-talking is immediately irritating, but in retrospect, the act seems trivial, perhaps even funny. What a fantastic character that person would make in a novel, screenplay or whatever the case. 

And what's the story with the man parked at MacDonald's eating his take-out alone in his car, as if eating it inside the restaurant or at home alone is somehow a more embarrassing option? And I shouldn't say "man"; I should say "men and women", because there are usually both in plural. Sometimes I count them to satisfy my obsessive compulsion, but I never really thought about them much until I wrote them down. Out of sad-funny actions comes inspiration. They have no idea.

My days are full of speed bumps like this. By writing about them, I've just telephoned my brain as opposed to sending it an email. Nourished with words, the lazy speed bumps, uniform in size and distance between, become more like mental potholes. And the thing about potholes, despite the havoc they wreak on automobiles, is that they are unpredictable and come in all sizes and shapes, like great thoughts and the pieces of writing that sometimes accompany them. 

And you always remember when you hit a big pothole. 

Resolutions (2010 playlist)

Dictionary.com shows 12 different definition for 'resolution', including 'reduction to a simpler form', 'the resulting state' and 'the progression of a voice part or of the harmony as a whole from a dissonance to a consonance', but I think the most relevant one for our purposes is ' a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.' To do something. [insert Nike swoosh here.]


Presumably, the idea of yearly resolutions came about as a way to encourage people to reflect on the last year and move forward, set goals for the coming year. It's like an annual personal performance review. I've never been a fan of setting yearly resolutions, but I can appreciate the idea of a yearly ritual that forces people to reflect and reflection leads to contemplation, brain usage, focus and isn't there an app for that? You get the idea.


So, I resolve not to resolve. I'm having fun and I'll continue to do so. (That is not a resolution.)
As a 2010 send-off (and proof of just how much fun I had this year), I've done what I have the most fun doing... compiling a playlist, a yearly one, in this case:

1. Laundry Room - The Avett Brothers
2. Walk Alone (Feat. Truck North, P.O.R.N., Dice Raw) - The Roots
3. Hellhole Retrace - Girls
4. Stylo (feat. Mos Def & Bobby Womack) - Gorillaz
5. How Good You Are - Joe Pug
6. I Love You, But Goodbye - Langhorne Slim
7. Sleepyhead - Passion Pit
8. Drifters - Patrick Watson  
9. Tightrope (Feat. Big Boi) - Janelle Monáe
10. Surely - Black Dub
11. Mr. Pitiful - Otis Redding*
12. Horchata - Vampire Weekend
13. Tangle in This Trampled Wheat - The Tallest Man On Earth
14. Ghost Pressure  - Wolf Parade
15. Vaporize - Broken Bells
16. Meet Me In The Basement - Broken Social Scene
17. Swim Until You Can't See Land - Frightened Rabbit
18. Singing Softly To Me - Kings Of Convenience
19. World News - Local Natives
20. L.S.F. - Mark Ronson Feat. Kasabian
21. Congratulations - MGMT
22. Runaway - The National
23. Mama Don't Like My Man - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
24. The Funeral - Band of Horses
25. Join The Dots - The Nextmen

*Not all of these songs were released in 2010, if it's not obvious by now. 

Advice for the newly minted (Brooke)

I wish that I remembered being in my mother's womb, or even better, exactly how it felt to be in the world  for the first minute or five or ten. I bet there are people who remember or have even a semblance of memory from those moments. Or at least those who claim to remember and mistakenly associate some other first-ever with the experience of being born (first bath?). The first in the next generation of my family was recently born--on my birthday, no less--and so I started thinking in this vein again. Childbirth, childhood, memories, advice, and most importantly, what it's like to be born in 2010.

This child has no idea what she's in for. I can barely guess, given how rapidly our culture has changed in the last ten, twenty years. Proud parents used to rent phones at the hospital and call relatives one-by-one in due time, and eventually they might circulate or mail a picture to those concerned. Lately, most babies have made an ultrasound debut on Facebook or Flickr before they come close to making an entrance to the world. Within minutes of birth, friends and family were already demanding my exhausted sister and her husband to post pictures, name, weight, likes, dislikes, hobbies, religious views, etc. Okay, I exaggerated those last few. Having said this, the younger you are, the quicker you adapt. Perhaps I feel, at times, burdened by technology because I was born in 1980. I didn't own a cell phone until the age of 23 and I have yet to fold to the smart phone phenomenon because you can't convince me that I need to be connected at all times. Oh yes, and I still listen to records.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine gave me a birthday card/1980 yearbook. It was about 10 pages filled with old references from the eighties. Most of us had a good laugh (anyone over 26) and mused about how things have changes, like a bunch of accomplished old people *satisfied sigh, far-off gaze*. We know we're not old, and we're not nearly satisfied enough to feign it, but honestly, a world without cell phones and everywhere internet seems a trillion light years ago, doesn't it?

With all of this in my head, I put my name on a list for an iPhone and bought an old, ratty version of a book written in 1915 (Of Human Bondage). And I devised a list of advice that I hope will transcend time (or at least provide time-machine-like laughter, as did my 80s card) and help ground my little niece when she needs it.

• Never forget the importance of reading a good book, in any medium. You will feel richer for it.
• Don't wait for occasions to buy gifts for people you love.
• Ensure you play outside of your comfort zone enough. Join a club. Travel alone. Write if you hate writing. Sing if you hate singing. You don't have to tell anyone.
• Learn how to cook for yourself.
• Make time for breakfast and staring out the window in the morning.
• Bundle up and enjoy winter. Make snowballs and forts, no matter your age.
• Find humour in something every day. Even if it's at your expense.
• Decide on an instrument and learn to play it. You don't have to master it to understand the importance of music in life and how it feels to make it.
• Stand back once a year and evaluate your life. What are you proud/not proud of?
• Don't be afraid to say you're happy or not happy.
• Determine how a genuine gut instinct feels and follow it. Accept that you are an ever-changing being and what you liked last year you may not like this year, or vice versa.
• (Relates to above) Don't be flaky. Nobody likes flaky.
• Quality, not quantity.

Easy, right? Good luck in life, baby Brooke.

Auntie Erin