theory of raffaella: June 2010

photography

The gentleman and I had been planning for sometime to take a drive to the countryside for the express purpose of taking photographs. Now, while I had a daytime drive in mind, last weekend I was surprised when, nearing midnight, the gentleman asked if I wanted to drive out to Elk Island (a dark sky preserve) to take pictures of the stars.

Although I was already dressed in my pajamas and a little bit sleepy, the prospect of long exposure shots was too tempting. So I packed up all my photo equipment and we headed out of the city. Unfortunately for us, by the time we arrived at the park some clouds had rolled in and masked all signs of the stars and the moon. Still, the drive was a bit of a novelty and while I didn't get any photos of the sky I did shoot some footage of the transition from urban freeway to rural highway.

The next day I had put together a rough cut of the footage and I was asking the gentleman for his opinion on the background music. I had been thinking of using M. Ward's cover of Pete Townshend's Let My Love Open the Door, because I had in my mind that this video was just a document of a romantic little date we had. The gentleman's first suggestion was Tiptoe through the Tulips. How drole, he's clearly not as inclined to romance as I am and likes to make fun of me for it. After watching the footage a few times and trying various songs, I jokingly mentioned how the shadows and darkness made things look much more sinister than they actually were. It was then that the gentleman made a more serious suggestion of Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

Take a look at the sequence of shots, but this time, instead of a sweet little drive out into the country to go star gazing, it looks more like a cold and calculated body dump in the woods. Despite the more sinister feel, I actually prefer it to my original concept.

I was going to add a closing shot of the gentleman smiling through the windshield of the car, his face partly obscured in shadow... but somebody refused to comply. Oh well, I should have thought about it on the night, but that's what I get for making little movies at one o'clock in the morning with no pre-planning.

a painful vacation

16.6.10

Over the past couple months I've had some of the worst migraines I've ever had to deal with. All through my life I've had horrible headaches, but they were infrequent and would usually last a few hours at the most. Recently though, I've had a few bouts that have lasted several days, leaving me feeling dizzy and nauseous whenever I would try to stand.

Although migraines are not very funny at all, when I have them I'm always reminded of this quote from Fletch Lives, where Fletch is on a televangelist program impersonating a spiritual healer.

I was on my gazebo, on the roof, making some repairs, and I was struck by lightning…and I’ve had migraine headaches and blurred vision ever since then but praise the Lord that was my lucky day because ever since then, I’ve had the healing power. Amen, God bless you. Thank you very much. Good night. Yes? What happened? Yes?

I wish that my migraines left me with the healing power. Instead, I find them to be rather debilitating. Last night I went to bed with a dull headache, thinking that I would sleep it off, but I woke up this morning and the pain had worsened. Even feeling the light on my face was terrible. Making matters worse was that I had to make some changes to a site for work, and did so miserably while I waited for the Tylenol (which is effective only about 50% of the time) to kick in.

I'll admit that I'm a bit hypersensitive to changes in my physical well-being. But after dealing with being anemic I really learned to appreciate what it was like to be fully energized versus constantly tired. When a headache disappears, I always find it amazing to no longer feel the pressure in my head, to stand up and not feel woozy, to listen to the ambient noise of the street and not be wishing for silence. I marvel at not having my thoughts interrupted by throbbing pain and to feel warmed by the sun rather than be irritated by it. But before I appreciate any of these things, there is always a period between the worst bout of pain and feeling back to normal when all I can do is be still. It's a really strange sense of calm, different than the calm you might feel being on an empty street first thing in the morning. The best way to describe it is that my limbs feel completely comfortable in whatever position they happen to be in and that my mind is completely free of any words or pictures. Which is a very odd sensation for someone whose head is usually filled with these things.

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.

I've been trying to isolate the root cause of my recent migraines, but it's difficult to pinpoint anything in particular, which means that they're probably a manifestation of stress. Although I hate the way a migraine makes me feel, I am glad that at least they are followed by this period of stillness. For a brief period of time I am removed from my usual worries and concerns. This seems a bit like a painful vacation, but sometimes our bodies force us to do things that we wouldn't otherwise take the time to do.

Apologies if this post sounds too self-pitying. It's just that I've been dealing with this last set since Friday night and it's put a hold on so many things I've wanted to get done this week. I have discovered though that my mom shares many of the same headache symptoms that I do, so at least I know I haven't been over-dramatizing. Here's to hoping that this will be the last migraine for a little while. After all, it's getting to be sunstroke season for me. It would be cruel to have to endure both.

a dangerous age

16.6.10

The much anticipated documentary Babies is finally showing in Edmonton. Unfortunately it was only showing in South Edmonton Common, the massive big box store complex. But I really wanted to see it, so Alessandra and I took the train to meet Sarah after work and then all three of us drove south for dinner and a movie. I usually don't get excited to see documentaries, but this one looked particularly good mostly because it didn't seem to be pushing any particular agenda (and it featured cute babies). Fimed without narration, the film was a fascinating look of the first year of life across many different cultures.

Anyhow, now that I've put babies on your mind, amuse me while I meander towards the real (and related) point of this post... However, be prepared for a very tangential lead up.

I used to work with this Bulgarian bridge engineer (to be referred to as the Bulgarian henceforth) who smelled strongly of cigarettes and somewhat reminiscent of vodka and who told the most amazing stories of his life. The details of his stories were always hilariously unexpected and although I don't doubt they were true, they always seem sort of unbelievable. My friend and I would be sitting eating our lunch in the lobby when the gentleman in question would chance upon us and sit down for five minutes that would turn into an hour. I would go back to my desk afterwards and relay his tales to my co-workers and we would all sit stunned by how completely ordinary our lives were in comparison.

The Bulgarian had a particular way of telling stories, full of aphorisms and amusing asides. He did not reveal his full narrative chronologically. I would always have to piece together the greater narrative over the course of many lunch hour sessions, sorting through the tangential storylines to discover how everything fit together. However, it was always very clear that he had lived a very epic life. As a young boy he was a bit of a violin prodigy, achieving a modicum of fame playing with the national orchestra. As a teen he rebelled against the wishes of his family that he continue with the violin when he realized he was talented but not truly gifted. Having always concentrated on his music and not academics, he was faced with the daunting challenge of improving his marks in order to qualify for a national scholarship so that he could attend university. And that he did, winning the top scholarship that gave him access to his choice of university in any Communist country. He chose to study engineering in Russia, later returning to Bulgaria becoming one of the country's top bridge engineers, then emigrating to the UK and United States before once-again returning to the country to become unwittingly involved in a political scandal with the Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation (a former student of his). Then he made a quiet exit and ended up in Canada. Seriously epic stuff.

When the Bulgarian returned to his native country after completing his degree in Russia he started work in the Ministry of Transportation. His colleagues/comrades were always highly skeptical of him, because they feared he had been brainwashed with Soviet doctrine and could not be trusted. In very communist fashion the work environment within the Ministry of Transportation was very collaborative and engineers were divided into teams to work on projects. However, because not much was known about the Bulgarian, his team members did not trust him and refused to cooperate with him. So he was given design projects that were far beyond the capabilities of a new engineer. However, while the Bulgarian had only been a talented violinist, he was a gifted engineer. When faced with a nearly impossible design challenge he went down to the archives, flirted with the clerks and gained access to all of the blueprints and design schematics of successful bridge projects. From those designs he was able to solve the problem and he created a design for a new bridge that received accolades from the Minister of Transportation and won a national award. Rather than this winning him favour from his team members, instead they only grew more resentful of him. His supervisor especially hated him but could not outright banish him from working for the Ministry. So instead he had him transferred to another unit. The Bulgarian fared a little better there, expect now he faced a new problem. His supervisor was a very attractive woman, and as he described she was of a 'dangerous age' alluding to the fact that she strongly desired having a baby. Nearing 30, she was married but she and her husband were having difficulties. She found the Bulgarian charming and wished to initiate an affair, the product of which, the Bulgarian surmised, would be a child. However, the Bulgarian was also married (to a woman he met during his final year at university in Russia) and he was devoted to his wife. And so he was faced with a conundrum. How could he defend himself from the advances of this seemingly baby-hungry woman who was also his boss? In the end he did his best to explain that he loved his wife and could not engage in an affair.

While it's been a few years since I've even seen the Bulgarian, every now and then I'm reminded of something he has said. Earlier last week, while I was going through some photos that I took while babysitting my surrogate nephew, I recalled what he said about his supervisor being of 'a dangerous age', certainly a more poetic way of calling someone baby-crazy. I never really thought too much about the Bulgarian's supervisor, having no way to hear her side of the story. But it would be interesting to hear her perspective. Maybe she was sort of crazy, but maybe the Bulgarian had exaggerate her side, and whatever sort of flirtation between the two combined with her honesty about wanting a child had been misconstrued over the years to provide a more interesting tale (the Bulgarian did have a flair for theatricality).

I've had the first part of this blog post written for a while now. And I've been thinking about how to conclude it because it is difficult to think of how to succinctly express where my thoughts have wandered on the subject. Essentially what I want to say is this. I think it's sort of ridiculous that talking about having kids still garners stereotypical responses. Often the response is one of judgment (why would you want to give up on your career?) or it's explained away by your hormones (you must be baby-crazy). Why do people react this way? It's just as bad as people thinking that having children is an inevitability for all women. And then there is also this idea that because more women are having children later in life, that expressing interest in having kids before 30 is somehow premature. (and then there is the opposite situation where women are judged for waiting too long, or the others who are judged for not wanting kids at all.) I really don't get it.

I've been waffling over whether or not I will publish this post, but I think I'm going to even though there is a chance that strangers who read this might make assumptions about me after reading it. I just wonder why we can't talk more openly about the type of things that women have to take into consideration when thinking about their future whether it's planning their career or keeping in mind any physical realities that come with age like decreasing fertility or menopause. Sure there is legislation in place that says things like you can't be discriminated because of your gender, parental leave is no longer a novelty, but still, when you have conversations about work you don't often hear your female colleagues discussing whether or not they want to have children and how that might work with their jobs, although those plans are no less speculative than some career or other life aspirations that people have no problem expressing.

I guess all I'm saying is that I find it offensive to call someone as baby-crazy, career-obsessed or any other sort of label when all they are trying to do is take a realistic look at the things they may want out of life.

bicycle

on how to ride a bike

14.6.10

pedestrian

the power walk

8.6.10

Although I've always considered myself a pedestrian, it took the sour situation of the end of my last relationship to really propel me to explore the streets of Edmonton on foot. Although the majority of my transportation in the city had been on foot, rarely did I set out on walks just for the sake of walking. At least not by myself. I had always found walking to be a calming experience, and so in the thick of what was probably one of the more stressful periods of my life, I would escape from my apartment and just walk. At the risk of sounding too overly dramatic, I can honestly say that walking was probably the one activity that helped me the most at that time.

Perhaps it was the endorphins that were released during exercise (I would walk fast enough for it to be considered exercise)... maybe it was the vitamin D. Whatever the combination of elements, walking became more than just a form of every day transportation for me. My daily constitutional became the one part of my day that I was loathe to miss.

Of course winter arrived, and with winter came snow and ice... and although I pledged to continue, the frequency and length of my daily constitutional dwindled. I ventured out a few times now and again, but I fell trap to working longer and ending my day too tired to even think about walking. Which of course was ridiculous, since walking is one of those things that tends to perk me up. But after a winter of breaking my daily habit - working late into the evening and pausing briefly for supper and other life activities, my mood was getting progressively worse and worse. The last two weeks in particular... I found that I was becoming rather negative when I had no cause to be. The gentleman had commented on my general unpleasantness, which gave me pause... if he felt it necessary to comment on my attitude, how might I be coming across to others? I sought to remedy this immediately.

My plan... resume the daily constitutional.

On Sunday I was up early, so before breakfast I left the apartment and headed towards one of my preferred routes. I brought the beast along in case I felt like documenting things photographically (or cinematically as the case would be). As I wandered across the river and round about through Whyte Ave, I encountered a friend on her way to her community garden plot, a colleague out for coffee, and many random strangers who had left their homes on this beautiful Sunday, meeting friends for breakfast or stopping in at one of the many shops along the avenue.

(And now, the video of my stroll, accompanied by the sorrowful crooning of Frank Sinatra in the hilariously fitting tune entitled Walk Away. Sometimes I can't resist these music choices, no matter how cheeseballish they seem)

When you walk along the same route frequently, you start to take note of certain things. I walk on the multi-use trails a lot and I can't help but notice the variety of people using them, whether they be traveling on foot or rolling by on their bicycles or skateboards. While I'm sure many were just between point a and point b, I'm sure there were several who, like me, were out exploring the city just because.