Here's to You, Eva.

Today was Eva Markvoort's Celebration of Life, at the Phoenix Theatre. It was a beautiful event. It featured the screening of her documentary 65_RedRoses; various people speaking, including Jan, Linda, Eva's fellow classmate, and her parents; and even a recording of her vocal masque. For non-Victoria readers, she was a former student at the Phoenix Theatre who was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a baby and lived with it throughout her all too short life. The doc was about her harrowing journey waiting for an organ donor, a few years ago. She died on March 27, this year. I came to the Phoenix the year after she graduated, and I know a lot of people who knew her personally. It's a strange position to be in. Stranger still is that today was the closest thing to a funeral I've ever been to, and I didn't even know her. But that doesn't mean that her life and her message haven't touched me. The things she has accomplished in her all too short life is staggering and humbling. The amount of love that that event generated--because from what I've been told of Eva, she was full of love--has already inspired me to share my life with others as much as possible, and to work passionately on what I am passionate about in life. During the documentary, as I watched Eva struggle simply to breathe, I became so aware of the healthiness of my own lungs, my own ability to breathe deeply, my own capacity to live deeply. Who am I to take that for granted?

I should also confess that I haven't been a faithful follower of her blog. In fact, the first time I ever went on it was tonight. I expect that I'll be on there more, now. On top of everything else, she's inspired me to keep blogging, and to remember that I do have something to say, even if it's not as big of a something as her journey.

Thank you, Eva.

As I had suspected, school has already started to take over life. No more leisurely reading--nope! I have to read Oscar Wilde, and various acting theores--and no more leisurely writing--it's VOCAL MASQUE TIME!--but I will certainly try to keep up on here. With any luck I can get a book in if I read slowly and patiently on bus rides. Also, Christine has approached me about a very interesting and exciting newspaper project, and I await with puppy-dog eagerness to hear more about it from her.

That's all for now! I hope to blog again next Sunday. Have a beautiful week, everybody!

By the Way...

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Sweet Jesus!

When I was on campus today, there was a free ice cream booth by the bookstore. You heard me. FREE. ICE CREAM. What a brilliant idea. Anyway, one of the people giving out the ice cream was a Catholic priest, Father Dean Henderson, whom I recognised from Holy Cross Church where I went for Lent. After I left the booth, I got this picture in my head of a Catholic mass where the priest dishes out a decadent maple walnut flavoured ice cream cone to each devotee for the Eucharist. I guarantee the Church would be way more popular if the Body of Christ was ice cream, and not some silly wafer. God Inlactate, if you will.

I at least think it's a good idea.

Now that the summer has drawn to a close, my year so far has been radically different from what I planned it to be. While the idea behind my Year of Extraordinary Thinking remains true and admirable, my own plans have had to change. I ended up not doing tree planting, I didn't enter the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest, I didn't finish writing my submission for SATCo, and I didn't ever get an artist's retreat. The reasons I didn't do these things were partially out of my control, but to the degree that it was in my own hands I chose not to do these things. There were a lot of personal demons that reared their ugly heads this summer and I wasn't brave enough to face them and soldier on. Because of that, I simply didn't have the energy to work on these things. I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed.

What this summer did bring with it was worthwhile in its own way, however. In producing and creating a puppet show for kids, I had a renaissance of sorts for children's literature. The fact that my mom is studying it right now only further whetted my appetite. Being around little kids (3-10) for the first time in a bajillion years was great. The immediacy of their imagination and life was invigorating. My mom made a remark a week or so ago about her granddaughter Lucy's visit to Calgary; she said that it's good to always have a young child in the house. I think she's absolutely right; she speaks as a grandmother, and I speak from a different place of course-- only as an actor, a person who depends on remembering how to reach the world of play. But I can see why that is true. Children were a good thing for me, during a very hard summer when I sometimes verged on taking myself way too seriously.

But: I'm biking more, I observed Lent and went through a lot of spiritual inquiry, I've learned a few new recipes from my cookbook (although I've fallen embarrassingly behind on that resolution), I've already hosted two storytelling parties, and despite the drawbacks, I did devote more time and energy to writing. These are not to be written off. It is progress. Yet the real measure of this Year of Extraordinary Thinking is whether or not I've been living truly and honestly. Have I been honouring my values? Have I been true to my self? That is perhaps the hardest thing anyone can do, but it is also the most important. It's important to check in with that question as often as possible. More often than I have been. So to start my fourth year on the right foot, now is a good time to ask it. In the short term, I can't say I am living as honestly as I know I can be, as I was meant to be. Two days from school starting and excited though I am, I don't feel ready. There is not enough time and my life is kind of crazy, what with moving in to a new place. Things haven't settled yet, and it's frustrating because I can't think straight right now. My desire to create is greater than my time or energy for it. Thankfully this can all be mended. Once school starts things will be settled, I'll be in a rhythm, and it'll be okay. But it's important to have the right start. Every little step counts.