Maureen Bush's Blog, page 14

Finding Solitude

I try to have a routine, to be quiet, deeply quiet, to work in solitude and somehow my life resists. And it’s resisting in larger and larger ways, like the city being in a state of emergency for two weeks.

I finally figured out what this is doing to me – it’s forcing me to go inward for quiet -–to go deeper and deeper inside, to be quiet in spite of the chaos all around me.

Does that, then, show up in my writing? I couldn’t imagine how it could not, but I don’t really see it, myself. Perhaps some day someone else will be able to show it to me.

Maureen

And now for something completely different:

They’re taking our sidewalk away! Just in case the construction next door wasn’t enough for us, we get more.

I’m used to the hammering and talking and even the beeping, but the house-shaking smack of blocks of concrete dropping is a little harder to ignore.

Maureen

A Writer Minion

I have a writer minion. I shall be the envy of all my writer friends, and I shall gloat.

My younger daughter is helping me this summer, with research and filing. I have a new filing cabinet and my filing system needed serious attention. It’s becoming pretty now, with sets of coloured folders and beautifully written labels. The best part? I didn’t write them!

A minion, a minion. I have a minion.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I have a minion.

Maureen

Recovery in Calgary

While for most of the city life is back to normal, it really isn’t. We’re edgy, tense during thunderstorms, uneasy when it pours, waking in the night to thunder and wondering.

I hear about kids who are uneasy, too. A four year old whose parents were away for day after day cleaning out their flooded basement checks to make sure Mommy isn’t going too far, or won’t be away for too long. He asked his grandmother when she said goodbye – Is this forever goodbye? No no, just for now. I’ll see you later. A long time later? No no, soon. Soon. A twelve year old girl crawls into bed with her parents when she wakes in the night, still upset from being evacuated. And these are the children who are home and safe.

What about those still out of their homes? Families fighting with insurance companies? Unsure what new provincial rules mean for them? Not knowing how much help they’ll receive from the province?

Businesses that were struggling to keep their doors open before the flood lost customers simply from being evacuated, or from loss of power for a day or a week, or from being flooded. They’re trying to stay in business, hoping city and community efforts to help them will be enough.

Those of us who are safe and dry try to keep supporting the recovery efforts, through donations and buying from local stores and supporting fund raisers and supporting friends who are struggling and – whatever we can do.

And so I’m happy to see the city functioning, and sad as I begin to understand the long term damage.

Maureen

The River Throws A Tantrum

A week after the flooding began in Calgary, I met with my writer friend Rona Altrows, and we talked about how amazing a story the flooding was, We both wanted to write about it, and quickly agreed to co-author a children’s story about the flood. Rona was inspired and wrote a draft, and after some discussion, I took on the role of editor, while she was the writer. (This was my wish. It was her story and her inspiration, and I was delighted to support that.)

Last week, days after the story was completed, Simone Lee from Pages Bookstore messaged me to ask if I’d be interested in working on a chapbook with her for a reading Mayor Nenshi was doing the next week. I sent her on to Rona, and soon they were deep into editing for the chapbook, illustrating (Sarah-Joy Geddes ), layout and printing, just in time for Nenshi to read The River Throws A Tantrum at Wednesday morning’s story time.

It was chaotic and funny, with kids crawling all over him. Rona’s grandson recognized himself in the story: “I said that!” The mayor is in the story, too, and, of course, recognized himself.

Nenshi’s reading was recorded, as part of the city’s YYC is Open campaign, to support businesses hurt by the flood. A short video was created by the Calgary Herald, and has since been picked up by the Huffington Post and canada.com.

I’m delighted to be a part of this, and to be able to watch it unfold so quickly. Publishing is an excruciatingly slow business, so to have a story go from event to chapbook to national coverage in five weeks is breathtaking. And it’s a joy to work with all these wonderful people.

http://www.ronaaltrows.com/

http://www.calgaryherald.com/entertainment/Mayor+Nenshi+launches+flood+book+kids/8704503/story.html

Maureen

Coffee Shop Ambiance

My latest bit of writerly play is running coffativity (http://coffitivity.com/) with music as a background for writing. What does that mean, you ask?

There’s a theory that the noise level of a moderately busy coffee shop is good for stimulating creativity. I’m now working to a background noise of saws and nail guns, as a house goes up next door. Sometimes I just leave and work at the library or in a coffee shop. But I like to work at home.

So I link in to Coffitivity, for coffee shop background noise, add some music, adjust volumes so the music is just a little louder than the coffee shop babble, and get to work.

Does it help? Yes, I think so. Maybe it’s a placebo effect, maybe it’s crackpot and I’m in the pot … but for now, I’m trying it. It’s kind of fun. I listen to Latin music and want a cafe con leché, listen to classical and want some tea… at the very least I’ll be drinking more.

Maureen

 

White Camas

Wildflowers bloomed everywhere on our last trip to the mountains. My best picture: white camas (Zygadenus elegans). According to my sister’s guidebook, still one of my favorites even though it was published in 1990, white camas is poisonous, although not so much so death camas.

http://www.amazon.ca/compact-guide-wildflowers-Rockies/dp/091943357X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1374325583&sr=8-1&keywords=wildflowers+of+the+canadian+rockies%2C+C+Dana+Bush

White Camas

 

 

Watching the Mountains Change

We’re in the mountains, staying at Baker Creek at the western edge of the recent flooding. We’ve seen signs of flooding all the way up – roads open but not fully repaired, stream beds hugely larger than they used to be.

Buddhist teachings say change is inevitable. I love the Burgess Shale site as a constant reminder of how even mountains, which seem changeless, exist because of change. The site used to be an under-water ledge near where Australia is, and is now a fossil bed high above Emerald Lake.

But to see change in action is another thing altogether. The mountains were created by the movements of tectonic plates, and then carved by water. We see that power at work now, in the aftermath of the flooding – in the piles of gravel, the creek beds four times as wide as they used to be, following new paths, as parts of the mountains are reshaped. Change in action.

It’s hard to simply accept it, as is the Buddhist way. I find myself tense, reminded again of the power of the damage, and edgy at dark clouds building.

And I’m fascinated, too.

Maureen

The new gravel at Baker Creek

How Language Changes

We’ve been through trauma in Calgary and southern Alberta, as flood waters poured across the land. It’s been an amazing story, of fear and heroics and compassion. Grief, and anger, too. And a weird thing has happened to our language.

We learned new vocabulary (cubic metres  per second is how water flow is measured. Also sewage, I think).  Words took on new meaning. Some we needed to avoid – the puns flowed deep and fast. There was a flood of puns. We were inundated with puns. It was raining puns, often unintentionally. Who knew we had so many water-based words? And new words emerged.

Our beloved Mayor Nenshi scolded people who were boating on a flooding river and endangering rescuers who might have to come after them. He said he was not allowed to use the nouns he wanted to use to describe them… and they came to be called nenshinouns. Don’t be a nenshinoun.

I’ve heard him referred to as His Awesomeness, as he became the face and voice of the emergency workers doing astounding things to protect the city. Into his second day without sleep, a twitter hashtag emerged – nap4nenshi – as people encouraged him to get some sleep. This spread to others who were working long hours – nap4yyc for emergency workers; nap4markusoff, one of the Calgary Herald reporters who was tweeting breaking news; even nap4maureen as I struggled to retweet breaking news on Facebook to keep friends up to date, either in Calgary and inundated with other stuff to deal with (yeah, another pun), or out of town and trying to follow the story.

There was a brief revival of nenvy ­­– envy of our wonderful mayor by other places who have less wonderful mayors (you know who you are).

As a writer, I found this fascinating. And a little painful, to learn from the inside out. I still wince at certain words, shy away from certain language. We’ve grown new prickles, all flood-based, and they’re reflected in our language. It’ll be interesting to look back in a year and see what has eased, and what persists. I suspect we’ll always have nenshinouns.

Maureen

Life in Contrasts

After a month of rain, sometimes torrential, and then blistering heat (brief, thankfully), the garden is bursting with blooms. In the humid heat, so unusual for Calgary, the boxwood is bringing the fragrance of Spanish gardens. Roses surround it, and lavender will be blooming soon.

Squirrels are stealing peony flowers faster than they can open, even after I coated the stems with a little cayenne powder to deter them. But the garden is gorgeous anyway, green and lush and spangled with colour.

Of course, the bird chirping is accented by hammering, drowned out by the cement saw cutting the sidewalk next door, and frightened off by the squeaking of the never-oiled tracks on the excavator.

My life is lived in contrasts.

Maureen