On White Walls and Other Dramas

I've been thinking about everything. Really thinking, even when I'm trying not to. I do not know why I continue to be surprised by things, but I am with alarming consistency. I should take a page from Ez's book; his motto is 'Don't expect too much' - the sad but pale truth of a modern society which claims to be free and colourful but is really most often staid and pallid.

The whole white wall thing has gotten me down. Here we are in this beautiful space, windows open to the constant song of the birds chattering, singing symphonies for any ears willing to listen. The afternoon sun kisses the walls and warms the reddish hues of the floors and a breeze blows in with a hint of forest, a dash of the sea. Why doesn't anyone want it? We did what they asked - we painted it white and took away almost anything that had any personality one way or the other. I have neutralized all sense of everything that was us in this space, traded my golden shower curtain for one of alarming white, traded clay baked terra cotta for gleaming white - hell, I even changed the freakin' candles to white and somehow it's still not enough. And I can't help but think of this as somehow reflecting everything about my life, and now especially, my career.

I thought being an actor was creative, I thought movies and such were acts of creativity, of living and breathing truth into stories, but I was as wrong as blue walls and red candles. It is not creative, it is a business and as with the white walls, I seem to have all the wrong colours anymore. I understood long ago that I didn't quite fit it - I'm not gorgeous enough to be the babe, not strange enough to be the odd girl in (who has that spot? Is there even a spot for her?). I think maybe I'm too much blue and purple and red and even when I try to paint myself white for them, they see through and they see my colours and instead of thinking they are beautiful and creative, they scare the hell out of people.

I don't know how to be want people want - and frankly I haven't really wanted to be. I have always prided myself on being just that -myself- and I have tried to remain true and real and I think it just doesn't work. I think people are not creative enough to see things, they need sterility, neutrality - they need white walls...and I don't want to be white walled - I never have. I have always wanted to scream fuschia and red from the tops of green spiked mountains, to toss orange and amber into the blue true dream of sky. I don't know how to be neutral, how to appease the masses. I have a purple couch and furniture trucked over from India and I don't know why I should be expected to live in some netherworld of beige and ecru to please people I don't even know who don't live here anyways. Perhaps I am being bitter, but really - aren't there enough white f*cking walls??

I look at Nahanni, how she colours wildly outside the lines, how she refused to colour with anything but red crayon for the longest time and I don't want her to only know about white walls. I don't want her to be stifled because people cannot understand hues outside their own. I feel angry that being real and true and colourful is too much for the world in which we live and it simply makes me want to run away to somewhere more colourful, to do something that embraces the entire spectrum. I think of that old woman, in her 90's who when asked what she'd change said 'I wish I'd worn more purple' and I will never have to say that. And I sure as hell won't say that I wish I'd left my walls white (literally and figuratively). I get that everything must be doled out in moderation, I'm not a fool, but really, I thought people had more imagination.

The only thing that really surprises me anymore is the fact that any of this surprises me.

sunlight as panacea

Have I mentioned that before, that my child is a super genius? In case I haven't you should know that she is. For a 14-month old child she has a whopping vocabulary, saying or signing I figure around a hundred words or more. She learns about 2 words a day nowadays and it is a wondrous thing to behold, watching a person come to life. I can tell she loves words and it thrills me, as a lover of the bon mot myself. I sat and watched her for 10 minutes yesterday reading Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar book to herself, it was completely adorable, as is almost everything she (and, ok, most one year olds) does.

I am thankful for these moments of joy and wonder while she is still wholeheartedly mine, while I can still hold all of her in my arms and cuddle her close and smell the sun warm in her hair. I know every day she is slipping a little away from me, making her own way in the world and I cannot keep her small and innocent and protected forever, no matter how hard I might try. I want her to live and discover, but I admit I hate the bruises that come with it all. I know I should be seeing it all as a pithy metaphor for the disaster we're living right now with the whole house thing. Only we could put our house up for sale the minute the Vancouver housing market takes a turn for the worse...it has screwed us to a degree I had thought previously unimaginable and I am trying my level best not to take a powder on my whole life; pack up my child and run away and live somewhere simpler and walk away from the mess. Naturally it is not so simple and I know that, but the universe has not been kind of late - although really, we are all fine and that should be enough...but somehow it isn't.

I know that this is life. We chose a different path and that path is a riot of beauty and pain. We did not choose a life that would guarantee us stability and safety and so we pay for it fairly often. Ah, but when it's good, it's oh so good, but it seems it's been so long since it was good that I am growing tired in the face of it. The only thing that keeps me focused and relatively sane is Nahanni and the quiet joy of being her mother, thick and thin. I love to watch her, I really do. Last night Ez was late on the river and stayed there and I let her stay up late and we danced to wild loud music and we ate with our fingers and I let her make a hilarious mess with corn on the cob and we told stories and looked at pictures and I caught her in the night air, naked skin in the breeze, golden sun in her hair and it was a beautiful thing. For all those hours I simply forgot, and perhaps, for now, that is enough.

Oh dammit - where are those words?

Sometimes I am full of words and sometimes I am not. I guess today is one of the latter days.
I have many good intentions, but I guess I'm out of practice after two months of not writing. I'm feeling in general like things are rusty, creaky. My brain, my body. Not my heart though - it's just tired - it has been overused lately, what with the incredible stress of the last month or so. I'm tired in general - I guess that's the stuff of parenting. I fell asleep last night on top of the covers, book open in my slackened hands - somewhere around 8:30. Wow. I remember when 8:30 was the time to get ready to go out...but that was before Nahanni -- and she is much better than a night out at the bar. I will say this: despite being really tired and sometimes a bit rattled by the boredom that can come with being a hands-on mom, I am finding motherhood to be a supremely enjoyable experience. Watching my child blossom as she does. opening like the most beautiful little flower catching all the rays she can suck up is a truly marvelous thing.
She is doing brilliantly with her sign language and we talk all day long - which can be exciting but exhausting too - especially since I always have to be watching her to see the signs. But she is now putting whole sentences together in sign language (please more out smell flowers!) and seems to learn a new word or sign every day. Her darling little leg pat (the sign for dog) has made way for her even more adorable 'uff uff' and she knows so many animals signs it astounds me. She loves the farm and every time I put her in the car she clucks like a chicken because she thinks that's where we are going. She loves to read books, which is a wonderful thing and I hope that all this time without TV will teach her to really use her imagination first. It is a wonderful world in which I live with her, she is a great joy every day - even through the bleary-eyed state of exhaustion in which her dad and I are both currently stumbling. We look forward to this season, getting her out into the wilderness, maybe even onto a raft. I know I am looking forward to running rivers again - I seem not to be the same person without it. And I look forward to finding the balance between work and baby, life and love, creativity and ambition...and sleep. Precious, precious sleep...

Oh yes, and writing. I hope for a return to some well sorted words.