Time and Light Switches

  The last of the month and the 200th blog post for Time and Light Switches land on the same day. I just flew cross country, coast to coast, and am a little emotional for a myriad of reasons. Not the least of which is that this is the 200th post. 200 times I’ve sat down to write and had something to say, whether it was about emotions and life, or the nature of the creative process.   In honour of 200 posts I’ll share some snippets from the writing that came tumbling out while I was flying.  -I cried the two days leading up to this flight. I thought I was in the clear from the tears when saying goodbye to my older brothers felt more like walking into the next room than flying to the opposite coast. But the night before, when I had to hold my inconsolable 10 year old cousin while she sobbed about how FaceTime wasn’t the same, yes that nearly broke me in two. I was about one more sob away from staying and just forcing a way where there wasn’t one. It’s the hardest thing ...

  I’m not spontaneous by nature, and if given little time to think my immediate answer to questions will always be no. However, Sunday night, near midnight, my mom calls my brother and I up to ask if we would like to join them in California for thanksgiving. Mind you I live in Nova Scotia, the exact opposite coast and other side of the continent. In what some would see as a shocking turn of events I got on a plane Tuesday at noon and few across the continent.   What does all this have to do with the creative process you may ask, well not much I must admit. However all of life is relevant to the process.  Half of my family lives out on the west coast and the other half lives on the east coast. We spend a lot of time on FaceTime and a lot of time sending messages in a group chat.  My parents were on an extended trip on the west coast, and my brother and I were at home carrying on with regular life. When my mom called near midnight anything could have come out of her mo...

  Been think about motivation this week, how it can make or break me. How its not something you wait around for to fall into your lap, but something you take with your shaky hands and bruised knees. I’ve spent the last year and a half trying to take back my physical health. No one really prepares you for just how responsible you are for your own health out here in the wild we call adulthood.   I could sit here and list the ailments and discomforts that pushed me into making a change, but the important part is that I’m just trying my best to eat a little better and move around a little more. So I’ve ate more broccoli in the last two years than the whole of my life combined. And I’ve tried every type of physical movement to try and stick with some sort of physical activity. I’m not convinced that I’ve found the exact formula that works for me, because when I get sick, or busy, or just happens to be that time of the month, I tend to fall down on the job.  But this thing ...

  There are days when I sit down to write and I have nothing new to say, nothing new to offer. Beyond one fleeting thought and emotion, I am the same I was yesterday and the same I’ll be tomorrow. And that’s probably part of life, the boring uneventful middle where we all just keep walking, and hoping.   Hoping is the hardest part.  And truly if hopping is the hardest thing I encounter today then maybe I’ll be okay. But maybe I’ll be okay even if I’m not. And that one fleeting thought it goes something like this: I’ve heard it said that the body keeps score, the things the mind and heart can’t bring themselves to remember the body will hold onto. I wish I wasn’t so forgetful.  So today all I have is my bleeding heart and the realization that sometimes this is just how the river flows. Sometimes it is just this hard. There isn’t a reason, or grand purpose to the pain, sometimes it just simply is. And all I can really do on days like this is make myself a cup o...

My heart bleeds for the artists, the makers, and the creatives. I think it alway has, because I am one, but more importantly because I’ve been there and I’ve felt that pain.   I’m one of the lucky ones, I’ve had someone my whole life telling me it would be okay, even when my world was on fire. I lived in the dark, stared into the void, contemplated the end more than I did my homework, I’ve survived. And the how I did it is a story for another time, but let me just be here for you.  Because I know us artist and creators are always trying our best to communicate the incommunicable. Always trying to understand and shout about things that don’t have shape, or colour, or texture.  So let me talk to you, tell you I see you. Tell you I know the pain it takes to continue to pour your heart into your art, and the fear that comes when someone sneaks a glance. There is so much joy and beauty in creating, and one day I’d like to tell you all about it, but here in the place I cu...