What will I do with my life…

I have spent the better part of the last year wondering what I am going to do with my life.

What are my skills, interests, talents?  What I’m most interested in knowing the answer to is–what is my calling?

I take this notion of calling as serious business, one that I am ready to orient the whole of my life around fulfilling.  Indeed, if I was sure of my calling, I would be entirely willing to live differently, sacrificially and purposefully. (Pain and sacrifice make sense when they have meaning, and I long for that meaning to be imparted to me via a firm call…one that would steady me on dark nights and in times of heart ache).

Os Guinness writes of calling as a primary and secondary thing.  My primary calling as a follower of Christ is to live for Him above all else and I can indeed be sure that to live differently, sacrifically and purposefully for Him is the right path.

My late twenty-something angst surrounds that secondary calling.  You could think of it as a desire to know my vocation, my place in this world that may express itself in my work life.  Will it involve Art? Students? Writing? Teaching? Performance? Missions?  All of the above?

This question is of deep interest to me.  I wonder if my vocational calling will also be what puts bread on my table and student loan repayments at bay.  Living without a clear sense of calling in this regard feels like anguish.  What holds me together is the ability to continue being faithful to my primary call – to love Christ and this world full of neighbours.

Whatever it is that I end up doing, I want it to be something He will be proud of.

Open letter to iTunes Canada

Greetings iTunes Canada,

I am writing to you today to tell you that I both love you and hate you.

I know that is a harsh way to start a letter.  I know I should have started with a bit on the weather and perhaps a general update on my life, but with the advent of your genius feature, you probably know all that stuff anyway.  So I’ll get right down to it.

1.  I love you.  You can probably guess why.  You bring new music so easily into my life, and not just new music, but audio books and podcasts and Canadian content!  Oh how I love Canadian content!  I really respect you for picking free songs of the week from a group of indie artists that are looking to make their way in the world.  I’m more aware of Canadian artists than ever, and having my patriotic buttons pushed so frequently, you help me believe that all of our culture won’t be swept away into a globalized and bland vat of dribble that sounds like it was engineered in southern California.

I’ve only once bought an album from your recommedations and not liked it.  You’ve enabled me to spend money on music and not feel resentful.  I like buying the songs I want, and not comitting to the whole album just yet.

And don’t get me started on the genius feature!  How do you get into my head like that?!?  You have my affection.  (As long as you keep refraining from selling my info….if you started doing that, I’d have the separation papers drawn up immediately).

2.  I hate you!

WHY, WHY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND TRUE, DO YOU KEEP ME FROM PURCHAISING OFF THE AMERICAN iTUNES!?!

For instance, yesterday I was eager to support one of my favourite shows, “This American Life” and saw that they were selling their new TV season on iTunes.  I should have know better than to get my hopes up…   I went to the iTunes store, and low and behold, if I was but an hour south, I could have purchased aforementioned series.  Right then.  Immediately.  To be enjoyed post-haste.

I took a perusal around your US store and there was so much more content!  Stuff I wanted to listen to and watch!  Things I would have spent my money on.  Shame on you iTunes.  Shame on you.  Are you punishing Canada for our lax copyright laws?  If its not that, than is it our stance on gay marriage?  Our connection to the Queen of England?  Our coloured money?

It’s bad enough that any Wal-Mart in the states has 40 different kinds of yogurt (and 80 different flavours at that).  That’s not your fault, but its still a bone of contention with me.

So, iTunes, that’s what I needed you to hear from me today.  I’m frustrated and upset, but am hoping we can reconcile.  You could start by taking a step toward acquiring the rights to sell ‘The American Life’ episodes in our store up here.  That would help.

Think of the children.

Sincerely and somewhat warmly (its snowy here),

Wendy

Cosmically bad days

For the last few days all sorts of factors have piled themselves on top of one another.  And collectively, on me.

Whether or not I’m actually being pinned down by circumstances at work and in my life, I feel like they are still sitting on my chest and occasionally taking my hands, slapping me and taunting with ‘why are you hitting yourself?  Why are you hitting yourself?’

So what’s so cataclysmically bad?  So cosmically awful about my week?

Besides the regular work stuff, I’m in the process of needing to raise some funds to do what I do.  I was on a roll, and then lost momentum due to my own procrastination (read: I am annoyed to no end with myself).

My attitude towards life in general has been grouchy.  More than that–its awful.  As a Christian, this is what I call ‘letting my sin run amok’ rather than letting God captain-the-Wendy-ship.  Truely, when God’s the one at the helm, I’m far less likely to run aground, scornfully blame someone else for the shipwreck that, if I’d had my way, would have taken out some smaller annoying boats on the way.

What I wanted to say about all this is that, after a few minutes in the massage chair and a nap in the wellness room at work, I’m doing better.  My prayers aren’t coming through teeth clenched quite as tightly together as they were this morning.  In fact, I feel hopeful that by tomorrow I’ll be on the right track again.

My favourite author, Doug Coupland, once mentioned that if you’re ever in a ‘cosmically bad moment’ that you should have a glass of orange juice.  It’ll probably help with the low blood sugar that you previously weren’t aware was kicking your butt.

Instead of orange juice, for me, it was a quick nap.  But same outcome.  I feel better.  Less ‘cosmic’ about how big the normal stresses of life seem.

I think my mental age is oh…all of 23

I’ve been thinking about why I freaked out a little when I turned 27. (And why I freaked a little more when I turned 25….and why the thought of turning 28 is also not so good…)

There is nothing wrong with being 27, or 28 or any age older than that actually. I am not uncontrollably ‘age-ist’. Nor does aging bother me primarily for vanity reasons.

I think what bothers me most about turning 27, is that I don’t in any way feel 27. My life doesn’t look that different from when I turned 24 actually. I’m still working for the same organization. I’m still single. I even still live in the same house that I first moved in to when I came to Vancouver. Other than weighing just a few pounds more than I did (to my deep chagrin) at 23, not much is different.

I guess I don’t know the ‘cues’ about aging, once you pass 25. At 25 you can rent cars without that extra service charge. I know you’re supposed to have a big ‘Ahh! I-just-turned-30-party!’ but in between? No clue. I will not own a condo or a house anytime soon. I probably won’t be having kids anytime soon. Reason for this being? I don’t reeeeeealy see myself married within the year, OR, within the next year. And, I’m actually pretty fine with that–my life is good. Even though it feels like I’m in stasis sometimes.

Like one day, I’ll wake up, be 31 and still doing the same things (pretty much) that I was doing at 24 and I’ll wonder with horror “WHERE DID THE TIME GO? HAVE I BEEN ON A SPACE SHIP SLEEPING WHILE THOSE I LOVED ARE WHEEZING WITH OLD AGE? “

My entire life up to the age of 25 was spent knowing how old I should feel by the milestones in my life. Who knew that after that rental car marker at 25, that I’d feel cut loose?

Douglas Coupland says that the best years of your life are between the ages of 31-35, that your ‘mental age’ (the age that you see yourself in your head) will stop here for the next 2 decades, and that you should grin and bear how awful your 20’s can be. Now, my 20’s have NOT been awful by any stretch of the imagination, but I do wonder when my ‘mental age’ will make its next shift ahead, to catch up to my actual age. It weirds me out. I think I’m missing things about being 27, because in my mind I’m all like ‘oooh, I’m still 23 and have all the time in the world!!!!!’

So that last sentence uncovers what really gets me about the incongruence between the age I feel and the age I am. If I still think I’m 23, than I’m not grasping how serious it is that my youth (and all this potential that public school taught me that I had) is not going to be there forever…to take for granted.

This thought kicks me in the but when I think about being more creative. And how 99% of my life is not oriented towards creativity–shamefully, I’m in consumption mode most of the time. True creativity always always always gives rather than just re-arrange what’s already out there. Rather than just appreciate, consume and move on.

I panic because I think I may be wasting it.

Wondering if I’m giving up dreams too easily. Wondering if my choices now are too safe. Wondering if I’ll deeply regret my easy-does-it 20’s when I’m older….wondering why I didn’t have more dreams in the first place.

Your 20’s are a time to dream and try things out. See what fits–what doesn’t. To pursue, instead of just talk.

I think I want my actual age, to be my mental age too.

Will you ever forgive me?

I’m not sure that stopping blogging for a little over a month was a good idea.  But I had too—the crushing weight of guilt that comes when I waste time on the internet is bad enough, but when I’m working from home on tough stuff for work, it makes it even harder.

So, please forgive me.

Things I would like to blog about in the coming weeks:

-vampires

-my new job

-being 27 and feeling 23 in your mind

-how my one class is going

-dating (maybe…)

And, well, I’m sure a host of smaller things in between.  There is much I’d like to say about what I’m reading/thinking, and thoughts regarding creativity and why its so…. elusive.

Anyhoo, missed you.

August, blessed August.

With a month left before September makes happy-fun-summer-time go away for another year, I am wondering all that this next few weeks will hold.

I’ll be starting my new role in the president’s office.

I’ll actually have to *work* in an office, not just visit occasionally and distract the others.

I’ll be embarking on a regular journey of a 2 hour commute to and from said office.

Oh.  And I’ll be working for two of the most dynamic and admirable leaders I’ve ever met.  Easily.  Hands down.  No question.

And, I’m looking forward to it!

Ahhh. Made it.

So, I’m back in Vancouver and its just hitting me right now, at this very moment, as this is my first opportunity to have actually slowed down long enough to realize….that I am tired.

I had a great conference for work in Whistler, despite fearing that the landslide on the Sea-to-Sky would keep us up there forever.  I loved catching up with friends, taking part in the main sessions and such.

Today I could do many things.

What I will probably end up doing?  Napping.

HOORAY FOR NAPPING.

All’s well that ends well

My mom surprised me today with a trip to Stratford, ON, which was a very pleasant on-her-toes decision.

We were suposed to be on our way to St. Jacob’s for a little mom/daughter time, but due to the almost-life-ending-down pour on the 401, we pulled over around Woodstock. My mom makes the call, and off to Stratford and hopefully good rush seats.

I was just thinking that I hadn’t been to Stratford as a ‘grown-up’, and I was pleased to see Will’s ‘All’s Well that Ends Well’. I’ll admit to you though that I feel asleep in the first 25 minutes. This play got off to a SLOW start.

I’ve been thinking as of late about poetry, or challenging prose, and realizing that my education entirely skipped this rich literary well. There were a total of 2 poetry units, but they were lame, and non of the beauty and potential for understanding the human condition was really explored. Everyone endured them until we could get to creative writing or something.

I’m sad about this, and of course, have not the poetic ability to express that with more flare!

Ethanol plant sold Chatham a Monorail

Chatham is located in the agrarian haven known as southern Ontario. This small city is not known for its cultural savvy, or its economic bounty. But, as my mother reminds me, its a nice place to raise kids.

Chatham is also the corn producing capital in Canada. Detasseling is a right of passage for teens here.

So, in the mid-90’s, when the economy was looking no better in Chatham than it does today in the US, Chathamites were looking for a way to attract industry, and inject some life-giving employment into our area. Looking around we wondered what we had that the world wanted. Answer? Corn. Lots and lots of corn.

It ended up that we struck a deal to bring an ethanol producing plant (gasoline made from corn mostly) to our little corner of Canada.

I even shilled for them as a grade 7 student. In a radio interview I remember touting how ethanol was better than dirty burning fossil fuels, helping to reduce particulates in the air, and thereby helping to reduce Chatham’s alarmingly high youth asthma rate. I remember talking about CO2 emissions and the glories of having this ethanol producing plant come to invigorate our economy. (Oh, and if you weren’t aware, I apparently WAS Lisa Simpson as a child. Ha!)

Regardless of who courted who, its my opinion that Green Field Ethanol sold Chatham a proverbial ‘Monorail‘. They built an Ethanol plant on the edge of town. Despite their claims of clean burning fuel, Chatham noticed a distinct smell in the air not soon after they opened. Was is burnt toast everyone was smelling? Someone burning grass clippings that had been soaked in pesticide first? Either we were and are all still having one perpetual stroke, or this is one smelly plant.

According to researchers and environmentalists alike, biofuels originating from plant matter like corn, take more fossel fuels to produce than the net energy they produce. In short, they don’t make sense as a solution to our fossil fuel quagmire.

To be sort of fair, all biofuels are not created equal and the technology is still in the works.

If you’re interested in reading more here’s a few links:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050705231841.htm

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9861379

And one for their side:

http://www.journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html

Bon Iver

I have been meaning to tell you about this album.

You may have already heard of Bon Iver (think ‘good winter’ in French for pronunciation), and listened your brains out to ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’. You may already agree with me that this has quickly become one of your most favourite chill out albums in years.

I first heard of Bon Iver after my enviably-cool –yet-down-to-earth –which-makes-her-even-cooler friend Karen Ho leaked some of her internet savvy to me. She reads Heather B Armstrong’s blog. (And now so do I!)

Heather posted about an album that she had been listening too non-stop. It’s been labeled neo-soul, or in other words the kind of album you listen to when you need to feel something deeper than JT and Madonna can provide in 4 minutes, but aren’t ready for REM’s ‘Everybody hurts’.

This is music that feels honest. Tender without sentimentality, and vulnerable without being messy.

I love that the music is pulsing, with a great rhythmic guitar and baseline without being dance-y. ‘Lump Sum’ sounds like my heart beating when I’m entangled in feelings for someone of that blessed opposite sex.

Was that cheesy? Who cares! I love it!

Listen to this album! My favs are ‘Flume’ and ‘Re: Stacks’. The song below is ‘Lump Sum’.