Archive for the Category ◊ Life Lessons ◊

05 Aug 2010 On New Perspectives
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons, Travel  | 2 Comments

GEF_0480

At its most pure, travel is an effort to explain life, not just from the familiar perspective, but from every perspective. To understand it fully, you must look to its extremes and taste them side by side.
– Andrew Bill

I’m touched by the response from my last post. I always write in the middle of the night while I’m working on other things, which makes for abbreviated meandering posts rather than the cohesive paragraphs I wish for. Sometimes I get carried away by the stream-of-consciousness writing, and I have to reread it in the morning to see if I made any sense. This may be one of those times, we’ll see.

I have one thought I wanted to express in this short time frame before my brain shuts down completely for the night. It was something I said during my research study interview for the University of Toronto a couple of weeks ago, exploring “joyful body experiences in women” and discussing what brings about these feelings. For me, travel brings out the side of me that is the most “me”. While many people cite a familiar place as the situation where they feel most themselves, such as a family home or a home city, I am the opposite. Maybe it’s because I have lived in many places from childhood to adulthood and I don’t really have a home city, nor is there a family home where I grew up, but I feel most myself when I’m plonked down amongst strangers in a place completely foreign to me. In unfamiliar territory, I feel totally free.

I don’t speak the language of my parents, thus I have become very accustomed to hearing without understanding, and it doesn’t bother me when I don’t know what people are saying — I don’t panic or become stressed. The idea of not knowing is not only fine by me, but it brings out the best part of me: the resourceful side. I operate very much by instinct and intuition when I don’t have a direct experience to draw from, and over the years this has served me quite well. I can only get better at it, over time. This lack of fear for the unknown is a quality I take great pride in, because it means I am in a constant state of learning rather than anxiety. Paradoxically, it is when I travel that I feel most at home.

04 Aug 2010 Are You Happy?
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons, USA  | 7 Comments

GEF_5332
[Boston subway]

Why yes, I am. Life is good, productive, and fulfilling. Time is spent in a meaningful way, with people whose company I enjoy. There are new experiences, new places, and brain space devoted to creativity. It’s an exciting time.

But my ultimate goal isn’t excitement or happiness, per se. Being happy is like having fun — it comes and goes and is a temporary state of being. If I were happy ALL the time, i.e., every waking hour, I’d probably be delusional and institutionalized, or declared simple-minded. I can think of plenty of instances where I wasn’t having fun, exactly, but still feeling motivated and positive. If we’re talking of a sustained feeling that endures a temporary state of being, maybe contentment isn’t the right word, either. It makes me think of Buddhism, and I don’t make claims to having a Buddhist philosophy.

I think of a couple weeks back when I was discussing world travel with the Italian who motorbiked his way from Europe through Asia to South America and North America. Within five minutes of meeting, we were talking about the logistics of his journey. I asked him about the motorcycle breaking down, whether he was able to repair it himself, and if it was easy to get parts. Were the locals helpful? Would he have done the same journey using the same bike, or another? Did he have trouble storing it? How did he choose his route? Was that route a good choice in terms of securing visas along the way? I had so many questions. I didn’t ask him if it was fun, but apparently other people had, because he brought it up.

“It’s not always FUN,” he said. “Things happen along the way that are definitely NOT fun! But it’s always an adventure.”

Of that we were in agreement: adventure encompasses more than fun. It means taking the bad with the good, dealing with unknown quantities of risk and reward. There are no guarantees. Adventures often come with their fair share of hardship and setbacks and stages of discouragement, yet the adventurer presses on because he or she feels it is worth it — and everyone has a different concept of reward. I don’t ask the question, “Are you having fun?” because I don’t think of fun as the reward for a large-scale undertaking such as this. There has to be more to it than mere fun. I’ve done plenty of things purely for fun, but they were relatively minor and not of any great consequence. I think if I asked a triathlete if Iron Man was a fun race I would feel sheepish. Or how about: “Sir Edmund Hillary, did you have fun climbing Mount Everest?”

So to me the question written in this Boston subway station should be changed from “Are you happy?” to something a little broader, something that people would think about longer than a subway stop. That’s the part I’m a bit stuck with…

However, I would like to ask people, “When’s the last time you had an adventure?”

If someone asked you “Are you happy?” would you say “yes” and move on? Would you say “no” if the case were true? Would you speak only about right now, today, or generally? Would you choose not to answer the question?

24 Sep 2009 Yonder
Author: Gail |  Category: Blah Blah Blah, Life Lessons, USA, Working Life  | Leave a Comment

Day 3: yonder

I’m posting this on the fly (yes, another photo from Fire Island, there are plenty!), after showering in my neighbour’s suite (yes, still no hot water!), off to pick up the rental lenses from Vistek (yes, broken filter is still stuck on the 17-55mm!), after a flurry of computer activity this morning (post-wedding client meeting follow-up from last night), a small Photoshop project this morning (I can’t show you yet!), and trying to figure out what to throw in my bag to wear to the charity boxing match after work…

I’m posting this photo from Fire Island because it looks a little unreal. It’s processed that way, too, but it matches how I feel this week: that my life is a little unreal, but in a positive way. I’m doing what I love, I feel challenged but not overwhelmed, I’ve met some truly wonderful people through photography, my website, The Firm, and being out and about. Life is good.

And I’m looking forward to see what’s over Yonder.

04 Jun 2009 Why You Should Tip Your Taxi Driver
Author: Gail |  Category: Africa, Life Lessons  | 2 Comments

petits taxi interior, where many a prayer is sent up with white knuckles

Because when you drop your mobile phone in his car, he will (hopefully) make an extra special effort to get it back to you. True story, it happened to me today. He got it back to me in about half an hour!

I didn’t know if he’d find it because I had it on vibrate, so he wasn’t able to hear me phone it, anyway. My last dialled call was to Vancouver and that’s what he dialled, too, so when my cousin Tosca called and asked, “Did you get your phone back?” it took me a couple of seconds to figure out how on earth she knew it was missing in the first place!

Photo: Meknes, Morocco — a petits taxi interior, where many a prayer is sent up with white knuckles

08 Aug 2008 08/08/08
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons, Loss  | 8 Comments

08/08/08This date is significant to many people, especially the Chinese. Eight is supposed to be a lucky number, for some religions as well. The Summer Olympics in Beijing starts today. My friend, Arliin, told me on several occasions that her 30th anniversary with her employer (a major Canadian bank) would be August 8, 2008. She was looking forward to it, and we joked on New Year’s Day — our last time together — that it was now her lucky year. But she never made it to 08/08/08, she died of unknown causes sometime in the early hours of January 3, 2008. Whether you’re superstitious or not, don’t put off living or wait for your ship to come in or hold out for your day in the sun. [Stop buying lottery tickets!] There is beauty and life even under clouds. Make each day count, even the grey ones.

01 Aug 2008 A Critical Eye
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons, Photography  | 5 Comments


[original]

twilight Neesa
[post-processed]

There was a time when I would have been happy with the top photo and uploaded it right away, but that time has come and gone. Now I look at my photos differently, and look for things to improve on. Part of developing a critical eye is learning what Photoshop can do, but also learning what it can’t. You can’t perform miracles with it, but you can do wonderful things.

That said, I don’t want to take photos with the idea of fixing them after, because — let’s face it — Photoshopping is onerous work. From a purely creative standpoint it’s exciting, but the work itself is nothing short of painstaking, even with shortcuts such as actions (basically macros, or a series of tasks/commands played back/automated). There are people who shoot only in RAW format, but I’m not one of them — that kind of workflow would mean I’d sleep even less than I do now.

If I had a choice between pre- and post-processing, I’ll take photography any day. But cameras, no matter how sophisticated and expensive, will NEVER ever match the ability of a human eye to focus, find the perfect exposure, white balance, or replicate colour. That’s where Photoshop comes in.

{ continue reading… }

31 Jul 2007 Lessons in Patience
Author: Gail |  Category: Iceland, Life Lessons  | 3 Comments

Hallgrímskirkja
Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík

Been a little too busy lately to indulge much in extracurricula, so this entry’s going to be brief. I wanted to post this picture of Hallgrímskirkja — Iceland’s most photographed church — a while ago as an example of patience.

Hallgrímskirkja took 38 years to build. 38 years! I haven’t even been on the planet that long, so it’s hard to fathom tackling a project for that length of time. As you can see, Hallgrímskirkja is an unusual structure. I imagine when it was commissioned in 1937 that this particularly stark design raised a bit of a ruckus, but at least the architect’s vision eventually came to fruition.

As I get older, I have a greater appreciation for architecture because there is an underlying conflict in that we expect things to stand the test of time… but scramble to build them in the least amount of time. If you live in a city, the most visible example of this is the glut of condominiums. Both Toronto and Vancouver are cities of cranes erecting a soul-less condo building every 15 minutes.

I reckon the best way to restore your faith in engineering is to get yourself to a place where old and new co-exist, but the aesthetics of the new don’t eclipse the old and vice versa. An example? Say, Valencia, Spain.

14 Mar 2007 The Chronic Revisionist
Author: Gail |  Category: Life Lessons  | One Comment

how I wanted to end a long day

How I wanted to end a long day: at a cafe with a big mug of latte, a Toblerone shortbread cookie, and some music in the background. My brain was still echoing with work when I drove to ground school, it was that sort of day. I decided to postpone my PSTAR exam, but attended the preamble so I would have more information with which to prepare. I drove back home two hours earlier than usual to park myself at a cafe and unwind enough to write a poem.

I haven’t written a poem since high school English, when I got graded on it. (That’s not counting the silly limericks with David online.)

It took me a long time to write it, simply because I’m so out of practice (although truthfully I was never in practice) and the fact that I’m a chronic revisionist who can never achieve an acceptable degree of satisfaction without rounds and rounds of editing. I blame my old boss for passing along this nasty habit (Mister M knows who I’m kidding about). But in the past few months or so, I’ve been willing myself to embark in new directions without the comfort of previous firsthand experience because I want to feel personal growth. Where I feel progress is best charted is not in the territory I’ve already explored but in the execution of new ideas. Because I think now is as good a time as any; I definitely wasn’t ready last year.

Every day I come home feeling spent because everything is new and my job takes a lot out of me. I’m not complaining, I know it comes with the territory, the new territory.

The poem took me more than two hours to write. At one point I was ready to throw in the towel and ask Socar to help me, because she’s a wordsmith. She did me a huge favour by writing a poem for David, a favour I asked the day he was transferred to hospice. But I plodded on, wincing now and then. See, my problem is that my vocabulary goes out the flaming window when it comes to poetry. Seriously, I have to mentally cycle through the alphabet and it makes me feel like a grade schooler. Phooey. I can’t tell you how many drafts I made.

Anyway, I emailed off the latest version, hoping for some overnight inspiration. Maybe it’ll come to me in my sleep. My plan is to read it out loud tomorrow at my bereavement group. My hope is that if I read it out loud to them, it will give the poem a sound. And if the sound rings true, I will know it is finished.

The poem is for a daughter who lost her father. I know one day that will be me.

05 Nov 2006 Ramon Stoppelenburg, a Lifetime Ago
Author: Gail |  Category: Chez Gail (Vancouver), Life Lessons, Linkage, Raconteurism  | One Comment

July 22, 2003
Chez Gail, Beach Avenue, Vancouver

Something bizarre happened when I was in New York City at the end of September. I was enjoying a Magners with JimmyOK and LarimdaME at an Irish pub in SoHo when Jimmy turned to me and said, “I met you years ago.”

“Really?” I said. I mentally scanned back to early trips to NYC in 2000 and 2002, and I couldn’t recall meeting him. My facial recognition skills have always been above par, but maybe the last year has taken its toll on my faculties.

I was flummoxed. Could it have been abroad? He has family living in Europe, did we meet in Amsterdam? I’ve been there four times. Finally I broke down and asked, “Where???”

“Through Ramon Stoppelenburg,” he said. “I’d been following Ramon’s travels and when I saw your photo on Flickr, I said, ‘I know her!’ Ramon stayed at your place, and I’d invited him to stay at mine, but he never came to the U.S.”

The backstory is that a Dutch guy named Ramon Stoppelenburg travelled the world for free from May 2001 – July 2003 through his website called LetMeStayForaDay.com. (The website is still active as of this writing.) I don’t remember how I found his site, but I sent him an invitation and he stayed with me for a few days in February (by that time the “a Day” part was found to be rather unsustainable) at the beginning of his Canadian tour and passed through in July at the end of the trip.

February 21, 2003
February 22, 2003
February 23, 2003
July 22, 2003

Steve Savage of TheSavageFiles.com also stayed at my place in 2003, and between their websites, I gave up the idea of anonymity on the internet. My name was out there. (Nearly four years later, I can tell you it didn’t matter. You know what’s worse? Putting your name in a prize draw at the shopping mall and getting junk mail and telemarketing calls forever. At least on the internet there are spam filters.)

When I found this mock interview video clip to upload to YouTube (it was previously hosted on my SFU webspace, which is now defunct), I remembered some of my conversation with Ramon that day and how he felt about reaching the end of his travels through the website. It’s been several years now since that afternoon, but for some reason his words stuck with me. Ramon write a bit about it on his homepage:

I know some people can be very happy with one job in a lifetime, but I didn’t see me travel the way I did for a very long time. I am even surprised that it took me so long!

When I just finished this project in August 2003 I was very bitter about it all. I did not want to think about it and for once not care about a website.

Fortunately things went better with me. Nowadays I look back much more happier about the amazing feat I have accomplished.

- Ramon Stoppelenburg, LetMeStayForADay.com

Interesting how perspectives change, given enough time.

I told Jimmy that I had one other connection to Ramon, that is he invited me to Orkut.com back in January 2004, and that was where I met David. In a huge twist of irony, David was invited to Orkut by his first girlfriend from high school. (The ironic part is a whole other story.)

The point of all this, other than the need for some kind of flowchart for my life, is that the intersection of lives and experiences is

  1. accompanied with varying degrees of risk (i.e., fear of strangers), and
  2. resultant in outcomes we won’t know for years, or maybe will never fully realise.

Last week someone asked me about when I met David, which later led me to admit, “If I had not bought that plane ticket and met David when I did, I’d… never have met him at all.”

While I edited this videoclip I thought, “Thanks, Ramon.”

TechnoratiTechnorati tags: , , , , , , , , ,

05 Jul 2006 The Thunderstorm
Author: Gail |  Category: Aviation, David, David's Writing, Fave, Flying, Life Lessons  | 5 Comments

Layers
Layers by AviatorDave

There’s a story David told me early on, before we’d actually met, about a turning point in his life. It was after a thunderstorm he experienced while flying to Ohio in 2001, a storm so intense he worried he might not make it through. David told the story to a few people, but I managed to find one instance where he’d written it down, in an e-mail, in June 2004.

I was flying from my home ‘port in the Poconos to Cincinnati, Ohio for a conference. I was going to receive an award I had been given, for education. Two other pilots were going to go with me, but they cancelled the morning of the trip. I decided to go anyway, even though it would mean flying alone in instrument weather, which is a heavier workload. I was flying a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 172, a little four-seat plane about the size and weight of a Volkswagen.

Across Pennsylvania as far as Pittsburgh was all grey clouds and light rain, I never once saw the ground after taking off. As I crossed into Ohio the clouds began to get darker, and the rain fell harder. The Cleveland center controller gave me some headings to steer to keep me out of the worst of the rain and lightning.

Fairly quickly the clouds went to a deep grey, and the rain even more intense. The windscreen was totally obsured by water, like being in a carwash, and the sound of the rain was like sizzling bacon – louder than the engine. The turbulence was so bad that the simple autopilot couldn’t keep me level, so I clicked it off and hand-flew the plane, trying to stay upright. I was thrown up and down hundreds of feet; the engine howled and sighed, as my airspeed went wildly up and down.

{ continue reading… }

« Previous Entries