An Expat's Ennui - The Real Reason I Won't Ever Live in Vancouver Again

 

I ain't making any apologies. 

Here is a maudlin little sentiment spawned by red wine, Fleet Foxes, heartache and impending departures:

It seems like the speed at which Kathmandu and I are ending our relationship is increasing at an alarming rate, and despite my whining and complaining about this city in the dead cold of winter, I don't think I am quite ready for my time here to be over. The boy on the bike may be long gone, but in the meantime I have made some new amazing friends, said goodbye to some old ones and realized that - unequivocally -  I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. GO. HOME.

Listen, we all know that I cried like a baby in February, faced with the daunting number of months between me and the comforts of Vancouver - the food, the familiar faces and the friends who know what a fucking weirdo I am and who love me despite (because of?) it. I then said "fuck it" and booked a fantasy vacation in March,  spending money I should have saved for grad school to help pass the drudgery and ease the ennui of the Kathmandu cold. And then I spent April enveloped in the drama and romance of a new boy, one who was destined to leave and break my heart a little bit (let's just say "thank god!" that valium is over the counter in this country).

But now it is May. Now I am nearly finished my report on voluntourism and how it relates to the abuses perpetrated in orphanages in Nepal. I now know how to ride a motorcycle and I am itching - absolutely itching - to stay and ride across Asia. Tempted to apply for one of the myriad UN/Red Cross/VSO jobs dancing at my toes, enticed to stay here, in a country where I can make a difference. 

Itching. To stay. To stay and be in Asia and maybe work and maybe travel and just. fucking. live. Because living here feels bigger and scarier and more important than anywhere else. Fuck you, Edward Said - this may be Orientalism, but it sure feels intoxicating. It feels like sex and death and life. My own home country feels like rules and boredom and should. I hate should.

Vancouver, my hometown, seems like a cemetery in comparison to the weird thrill and excitement of every moment on this continent, the dirtycrazybiazarre landmass on which I am convinced I was supposed to be born. 

Don't get me wrong. I love my friends. I love my family and I am thrilled to be able to see them. I am aching to drink a Starbucks iced tea lemonade and to eat sushi and to wear teensy weensy short shorts and guide walking tours and guzzle triple hopped IPAs on Beer Island. BUT. buuuuuttttttttt......

The four months I will be home between Nepal and grad school in London feels like a step backward. Like a hiatus between this - my real life - and grad school, which is a mandatory precursor to the next phase of my real life. 

I can say with confidence that I will never permanently live in Vancouver again. I need to go there now to guide and serve and sell all of my belongings and make as much money as humanly possible so I can live in London (which is financially still up in the air - who wants to help pay for my Masters?! WHEE!) where I will gain the skills and the piece of fucking paper that makes me a legitimate candidate for UN jobs.

And c'mon - I love my city. I love the beaches and the food and the history, but the baggage and dysfunctional personal relationships that follow me around, attached to my neck like a pillory? No thank you.

I would rather be in Phnom Penh or Hanoi or Addis Ababa or Ankara or Guatemala City, trying to make a difference, protecting the built culture of world heritage and trying to stop the exploitation of locals in the name of tourism. And a pretty big part of me wants to stay right here in Kathmandu, eating at OR2K, working on human/childrens rights and spending my Friday nights romancing travelers and dancing at Purple Haze to hard rock cover bands, the taste of cheap local vodka lingering in my mouth. 

But that is enough complaining - which I always seem to do. I do miss Vancouver. I am excited to see the mountains and the ocean and my friends. I want to eat at Tacofino and drink Parallel 49 beer and ride motorbikes with Tara and cuddle with Christina and hug all of my pals. I love my city. I love my mum.

I have big beautiful tattoos of the Marine Building and a dogwood to remind me of where I am from. But really? My heart isn't there. It hasn't be for a while. I don't belong in Vancouver.

It's the real reason some of us are expats - it's the curse of a vagabond. I'm a wanderer. I won't be happy in one place - I need to go everywhere. I need the stamps in my passport and the wind in my hair and the roadrash on my knees.

Come meet me along the way.

A Canadian Living in Kathmandu: A List

Here is a list I have composed of some random things I've learned about living in Kathmandu.

Now listen: I love this city, and I know that I have absolutely no right to complain about any Western conveniences that I might miss. As my new friend Claire Naylor puts it, "#firstworldthirdworldproblems applies to pretty much all conversations that we bideshis (white people) have about our lives in Nepal over our caramel lattes at Soma, organic cheese and bread at the 1905 farmer's market and Tamarind happy hours!" 

She is so, so right, and it is important to remember my immense privilege at all times. But... (and it's a big but) I can't deny that many things are different, many things are.... interesting and some things are damn challenging. As a serial observationalist (lookit me making up words!) I can't help but document them. This is likely to be part one of a series, so here it goes.

Things that I have learned as a Canadian living in Kathmandu:

My neighbourhood.

• There are no actual addresses on houses. For instance, my “address” is: Lazimpath. Schoolhouse Galli, the small lane on the left just past Sherpa restaurant, red gate on the left. 3rd floor. This means that I can't get mail delivered (which is ok, because by all accounts any packages will have been rifled through and stolen from), and I haven’t tried to order from Pizza Hut yet.
   
• Vancouver party:
  “Oh. Hey. I know we’ve met 10 times, but let’s act vague and disinterested in each other.”
  “Yeah. That works for me. I guess.”
  Kathmandu party:
  “HI! HI HI HI! I just met you, but we seem to be within a decade of each others ages and both speak English! Want to hang out all the time?”
  “FUCK YES I DO.”

• Expats who speak fluent Nepali and Nepalis who speak fluent English are regarded as demi gods who can help us mere ignorant mortals in countless ways.  LIKE HAVING THE GAS BOTTLES REFILLED (which power the heater and the hot water). Seriously. Can someone help me with this next week?

• Everyone works for an INGO (International Non-Governmental Organization) or has started an INGO or has an idea to start an INGO. Seriously. I have like 3 ideas. And most of them won't actually improve anyone’s lives, cuz, like, that’s how things (don’t) work here.

• If a group of expats are together for long enough, we will start talking about “The Earthquake.” At this point we usually drink more because that shit is terrifying.


• Due to the fact that women need to be covered up, when I watch TV I get shocked when I see cleavage, thighs, knees, shoulders, collarbones or shins. I think to myself “good god, that woman needs to cover herse…. Oh wait a second. She’s not in Nepal.” Carry on.
  
  
    
  From Battigayo, a loadshedding app. This is when I have no power on Tuesdays.
   
• I am strangely used to loadshedding, the scheduled rolling blackouts that are a result of the mismanagement of Nepal’s hydro resources, a country with the second largest water supply in the world. (THE FUCK, GUYS.) I light candles, make sure everything is charged and get out of the house during the 18 hours a day with no electricity. When I was in Bangkok recently I was always in a panic that the electricity was about to cut off, but then I would realize that I was in a real, functioning country with a real, functioning government.
   
• There is technically no government or constitution right now. That’s right. Nothing works, and nothing can be fixed because there ain’t no government. *jazz hands*
   
• I have a gas heater for my shower, so technically I can take a hot shower even during loadshedding, but if the water (which is stored on the roof) needs to be pumped, well, that takes electricity. I have been caught with shampoo in my hair twice when the water ran out. I’m not talking about hot water running out – I mean, there is no water at all. I had to use bottled water to rinse my hair.


• The grocery stores are filled with off-brand Western products like mayo, peanut butter and ketchup, all manufactured by weird Indian companies with names like “American Garden.” I am pretty sure that no American had any input into the canned hotdogs I saw. CANNED. In some kind of preserving juice. *shudder*

 Come and knock on my door.

• Everyone’s furniture is made out of wicker. It’s like Three’s Company up in here.
   
• Nepalis can mimic Western food extremely well – perfect pizzas, pulled pork, ribs, lasagna, cakes and coffees – this is the best Western food I have ever had in Asia. Hands down.
   
• Star World, one of the only English channels I have on my satellite TV, plays: How I Met Your Mother, Grey’s Anatomy, Homeland, Melissa and Joey, Two and a Half Men and Rescue Me. On a loop. Literally. All day. AND I WATCH THEM ALL. *sobs in shame*
  
  That is all I have for now, but I am sure that I will have many more entries to add to this list as the days turn into weeks and months. If you have anything to add, leave a comment!
  
  xoxoxVD

Some things I learned in Kathmandu today.

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Things I did NOT learn: How to make this map make sense.

1. As a part of my position at Next Generation Nepal I will attend regular meetings with the UN. (!!!) For a gal like me who plans to one day work for UNESCO, this is a dream come true.

2. This city is four years overdue for an earthquake that is predicted to kill about 25% of the population. I come from a city that has its own fears about the “BigOne” but the idea of 200,000 casualties kind of blows my mind. My new boss strongly suggested that I prepare a “go bag,” try to get a room in a UN-worker certified flat and register myself with the Canadian embassy. I can’t say I am not a bit shaken by all of this. Ha! No pun intended. *adjusts collar*

3. There are elections called for March, and it is predicted that they will spur massive strikes, protests and violence in the streets. Nepal is a politically unstable nation, and I guess all of the talk of Buddhism, the tinkling prayer bells and the calls of “Namaste” make me forget the grim realities of a nascent democracy.

4. And finally, I learned that I had forgotten how much vagina and boob touching occurs during an Ayurvedic massage. Turns out it’s a lot.

Living in the Before

Walking toward the new and the strange.

Sometimes I manufacture a brand new set of circumstances that is guaranteed to shock my life into a dramatic change. Circumstances that will make things "never the same again" and will define all of the time that precedes it as "BEFORE." For other people, these are things like getting married, or deciding to have a baby. For me, it's moving to Nepal and leaving everyone and everything I care about behind (except my hair straightener. I will be bringing that).

I often don't have any notice or control over when these moments are about to happen - things like accidents or deaths or job loss sneak up behind me and catch me by surprise,  so it is a strange feeling indeed to know in advance that everything is about to get weird.

Right now I am sitting on a precipice and my toes are dangling just over the edge of big scary unknown. And while I know that in the past, these seemingly dramatic changes eventually mellow out and become a part of the tapestry of random shit that makes up who I am, it's a bit disconcerting to be able to see that EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TO GET DIFFERENT. And to not know exactly how that will look,  just that I won't ever be the same. It's also a bit crazy-making. While I am completely and totally not ready - financially, physically or emotionally - in some ways I am raring to go. I want to get into it. I am sick of the "before." I want the "during."

First, a few days in Singapore to eat and hang out with my pal Tanya, and then on to Kuala Lumpur for one night only. I have only a few hours in the afternoon, so of course I will be spending those hours eating - I am going to take a street food tasting tour.

When I arrive in Kathmandu, I start with a month in a monastery where I will study Dharma and be silent and meditate and detach and fumble my way toward enlightenment. This stay is bound to tighten - or pry loose - some screws in my head. And then 6 months working with children who have nothing - literally nothing - but who are well behaved, funny and sweet. I have a lot to learn from them.

I will not be the same person at all when I am done. It's exciting. And terrifying.

AND OK ONE MORE THING - I promise that this is the last "before" post. The rest will be "during." And maybe even some "after."

See you in Singapore -
xoxoViolet Dear

We sail tonight (or Sunday night) for Singapore....

The Angry Itch

Handmade Tara statue at the Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India.

So, lately as I embark upon a slightly more spiritual path in my life and explore Buddhism and Hinduism earnestly (that is, without calling myself a douchebag in my head) I have, along side a growing sense of calm and contentedness, an almost animalistic urge to go traveling again. I can barely prevent my quivering fingers from tapping out the web addresses to travel sites and spending the last unspent chunk of credit card limit on a ticket to India or Bali.

I have been dreaming of the smoke filled chaotic streets of Delhi, the train station that I would have to navigate and conquer to find my way back to Dharamsala, high in the Himalayas and home to the Dalai Lama. Dreaming of landing in Hong Kong for a few days and then rushing through the traffic choked lanes to find the bus to the airport, barely making it in time for my flight to Denpasar, Bali where I would settle in the hills of Ubud and drink tea and drink wine and pet stray cats and commune all barefoot with my Buddha nature. Sigh.

About to set flowers in the Ganges in Varanasi.

Do I have a right to complain, and I sit here at my Summer job that countless other students applied for, in the middle of the luxury of being an adult scholar? I have pretty things, happy cats, fresh make-up and clean fingernails - but I just want to cash all of that in for a seedy room in some nondescript guesthouse, dirty feet and grubby fingers; for shots of blinding rice alcohol and heart thumping motorcycle rides and those moments when you breathe in and you're just - free and young and the whole world is just everything it is in that one moment. Y'know?

Alas, my schooling is more important and has to, for once and for all, get finished. And then I need to knock off my Masters, all in pursuit of my dream job. But, I have a feeling that this itch, this squirming, howling angry itch will not go away. I need to get back to crazy India. I need to go and meditate in the hills of that magical volcanic island in Indonesia. I need to live my true Buddha nature - as a traveler.

Bells at a Kali temple in the Chamba Valley, Northern India.

(And maybe you could help me and click this link so I can win a trip? It takes two seconds and I would be oh so happy!)

Cold, Damp and Productive?

Ahh, Beautiful late June skies behind some of my favourite neon...

When the weather is disappointing, as it so often is in dreary Vancouver, it can be a good time to do a mental inventory and get some of the intangible messy tasks in your life accomplished. Or at least started (after you draw pictures of dinosaurs, of course)...

I often think of myself as lazy, a notion that must have gotten stuck in my head as a child with a messy bedroom (it was epic. Until I was 20, cleaning my room took 2 days.) Like many ideas I have about myself (I am tall. I hate exercise.) it is actually really distorted and mostly false. As one of my best friends chortled as she nearly choked on her tea, "V, you are the least lazy person I know!"

And so maybe that is kind of true. I am a type A personality (although many only see my DD type personality, if y'know what I mean...) and I have a hard time relaxing if everything is not just so. That means, when I get home from work/yoga/school (and sometimes a combination of all three) I don't sit down - I cook, clean and do laundry first. Then, finally, when it is all done - I study. It's usually midnight at this point, and I last 20 minutes in front of an episode of "The Ugly Americans" before I fall asleep on the couch. (Even my facial cleansing/teeth brushing regime is long and complicated...)

BUT - there is always that annoying list of huge tasks lingering at the back of my brain somewhere - things that never get done because they are inconvenient and time-consuming and costly. And this fucking Summer? I am tackling them.

Perhaps it is the muggy, hazy, chilly weather we have been having that is filling me with ennui and making me push to get these un-doable tasks done. Vancouver is experiencing the worst Summer I can ever remember, with rain, clouds and cold breezes the daily norm so far in June. It's preventing me from the fun Summer things that I love: the beach, bike rides and BBQs - and giving me all of this free time to make appointments.

a) Mah Harr: Little known fact: my hair is actually not black. It is Clairol 121A "Natural Deep Brown" but on my shitty dishwater coloured hair it turns shiny jet black. For years I have been lamenting this fact, moaning that my hair was indeed "really dark brown! Look at me in the sun! Loooookkkk!" No one bought it. So now, tomorrow actually, I am having my hair stripped to a dark dark brown (think Zooey Deschanel), like I have always wanted it. Of course, now I am filled with nervous apprehension. Will it change my look too much? Will it be me? Will I lose my edge? ("Honey, you is like razors hidden in a candy apple, I wouldn't worry about that" - Inner Drag Queen.) It remains to be seen. I will let you know.

b) Sick Tribe: Yes, like most tattooed folks nearing thirty, I have a piece of tribal artwork on my back. And it is purple. Yep. Purple. I have an appointment to have it removed (well, at least lightened so that it can be covered prettily with this) on Saturday. Thank God for lasers.

c) Wonky Jaw: I have a wonky jaw (yes, that is the correct medical term.) It is simply a bit too small for my face, resulting in headaches, ringing in my ears and even causing me to bite my poor tongue on a semi-regular basis. Hard. Enough to draw blood. And as I get older, I am even developing a wee slight lisp as my muscles are having a hard time correcting the problem (especially when wine is involved....) I choose to find it endearing, but c'mon... thirty year old lisping woman is not so cute. The solution? My jaw needs to be broken, with an actual hammer, and somehow soldered back together in a hopefully kickass bionic way. It also means braces first, and even if they are clear I can't shake the terrible vain feeling that I will be a hideous freak. Le Sigh. Pain vs Beauty? I'm torn.... (or more like broken with a hammer.)

d) Framing - Last but not least - I know this one seems mundane at best, but since I began traveling at the age of 18 I have collected prints and posters and photos from around the world. And like, 2 of them are framed (and my mum did those ones for me.) I am the world's WORST procrastinator when it comes to framing - I think it intimidates me a little bit, all of those choices and colours, and it has less instant gratification than say, a pair of pretty heels, or a tattoo. I have a beautiful Egon Schiele print, a lovely Francis Bacon and a Marc Chagall gallery poster from Cesky Krumlov and goddamnit - by September 1st they will all be framed. And hung. Just do me a favour. Remind me?

So is this dull, drab weather a blessing in disguise? I'll let you know by August - if I'm not down on the beach, procrastinating....

xoxo
Violet Dear

Rainy City, Shady Past.

Gassy Jack - our boozy, child bride marryin', cheatin' founding father.

Since becoming a tour guide for the Sins of the City Walking Tour, I have developed a passion for Vancouver’s heritage that borders on madness. I want to know it all – the details of every seedy story, the tawdry tales behind the burnt out neon signs, the whisper of tassels grazing flesh at the countless closed burlesque houses. This is the Vancouver that I am hungry for – its sordid tales replaying themselves through my voice under the mottled grey skies, skies dark and purple like a bruise on a junkie’s arm, like the shadow on the eye of a bawdy house girl.

The history that lies just under the cobblestone streets of this much-maligned neighbourhood is strangely present all around you, and if you start to listen and learn you can plunge your hands inside of it, all the way to the elbow and dig around, find the stories that interest you and connect them to the buildings in front of you.

The heritage buildings along Alexander Street - Vancouver's red light district circa 1910.

Take, for instance, the 400 block of Alexander Street, now a no-man’s land of halfway houses and factories. In 1910, it was the bustling centre of Vancouver’s colourful sex trade, women of all shapes and sizes hanging their heads from balconies and windows to entice passersby. The deeds to these house, and all of their original water and power records are in the names of the enterprising women, mostly Californian and escaping the ruins of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, who built them. Their names are even inscribed in the tile work of the doorways. Standing with mouth slightly agape at the corner of Dunlevy and Alexander, the history springs to life.

One of the only remnants of the Japanese community on Alexander Street, destroyed by the internment camps.

A lot of the areas on the first half of walking tour are eerily empty, the streets abandoned during the day with only the occasional factory along the way. But it is in these areas, down on the wrong side of Hastings St along Powell and Railway and Alexander – it is down here that the down and dirty early stories of this rough and tumble little town took place. The Hastings Mill that started it all, bustling Japantown and its tragic end, Gassy Jack and his barrel of whiskey – it all started right here.

Studying for and running this tour has opened up my eyes and piqued my interest in such a fascinating way. Every walk I lead, every step I take around this city feels like an exciting discovery and there is so much more beneath the surface that I want to scratch away and reveal.

So come and take a walk with me. There is nothing I would rather do.

This blows my mind - the wooden bricks originally used to pave Alexander Street 100 years ago are still intact!

Vancouver Girl Thinks Aloud

A larger than life representation of a weaving spindle, at the Squamish Lil'wat Centre in Whistler.

It's easy to forget, here in Vancouver, that we have cultural riches at our fingertips that the world flocks to see. We grow up surrounded by totem poles and learn about potlatches at school but it never really seems to sink in. Perhaps because here in Canada our First Nations population suffers from so many social problems it becomes easy to overlook their current culture - we think of it as antiquated and archaeological, as arrowheads in museums rather than a changing and dynamic population of artists, athletes and regular folk.

Where I work, in the Downtown Eastside (DTES), it becomes all to easy to reflect only on the social woes of the First Nations population who are trapped there - caught in cycles of addiction learned by years in residential schools and foster care with no modeling of functional families to base their adulthood on. Day in and day out I am confronted with the desperation that hangs in the air above my beloved DTES.

That's not to say that it is all sadness - no, I am just as likely to have a smile smacked on my face as I witness the loving and caring atmosphere that the DTES community creates and nurtures. The fierce pride of the First Nations people living on the fringes of wealthy Vancouver is awe inspiring. The days though, the days when I see junkies overdosing or people in the crack dance, teenaged prostitutes with meth sores and old women begging for money - those days I am broken.

How can my country claim to be so advanced, and my city be heralded as having the highest standard of living in the world when this is what we have done to a race of people? Decimated their land, outlawed their language and customs, forcibly sterilized them until 30 years ago - this country is a monster, not a saint. And despite current good intentions, the statistics speak for themselves. How do I reconcile this with my patriotism?

**************

Xstina is a cage, with a cannibalistic wilderness wildwoman looking on, part of a Squamish myth

I find it ironic that the first thing that North American travelers rush to see when visiting Asia are the "tribal" villages where you can purchase handicrafts, view carvings and artifacts and take pictures with the locals when we have such amazing examples of such in our own backyard. Again, for some reason we ignore the First Nations culture that permeates this land.

For a tourism challenge offered to museum workers in Vancouver I was given the opportunity to visit dozens of amazing museums and cultural centres, earning stamps toward an annual pass as I went. The final centre on my list? The Squamish Lil'wat Centre in Whistler. Xstina and I headed up the mountain last weekend, excited to earn a stamp and wander Whistler village, its vacation atmosphere always making a day feel special.

Singing a welcome song that moved me to tears.

We were not expecting to be moved to tears by the dance, the film and the exhibits that we witnessed there. The centre has been designed in a way that allows the visitor to see the Squamish and Lil'wat Nations as growing and changing cultures, highlighting their current successes rather than their past archaeological value. The Squamish Nation is of particular relevance to me, as they are the people that once inhabited downtown Vancouver and the DTES and have over the years been forced into smaller and smaller Reserves.

We tried on the ceremonial garb, ate bannock and salmon stew and entered the longhouses, a sense of hushed, guilty awe between us. Should we, the third and fourth generation daughters of European immigrants, feel guilty? We tried not to, instead choosing to relish the amazing display in front of us.

*************

Today, while I was guiding a historical walking tour through the DTES, a First Nations woman overheard me say the word "alcohol" while telling the story of rum running during Prohibition and mistakenly thought that I was referring to current affairs. She accused me, in front of my 30 tour participants, of calling "all Indians drunks" and that I was telling "White person's lies" to the tourists. I wanted to defend myself, to explain to her that I was not and that I, of all people, understood better.

But do I?

It's something I struggle with everyday. There is no easy answer.

Cultural misappropriation or respect? You decide. It's like those HSBC ads....

Taking the Pen from Paris - A Writer Wakes Up

At Cafe de Flores in Montparnasse, trying to soak in the inspiration.

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
-Ernest Hemingway

Eventually, I always thought, eventually I will be a published and praised novelist/poet. From the age of 14 this just seemed like an inevitability in my head, something that I wouldn't have to work at and would just one day, y'know, happen. "Live an exciting and interesting life, Dear, and you won't be able to STOP yourself from jotting down the next great novel!" As if it would happen absentmindedly in between rounds of vodka sodas, or on top of a cathedral in Europe, or perhaps even in the line for the washroom not used for sex at the Gay bar.

But the opposite is true.

There is a famous quote by Tallulah Bankhead: "Good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time." And it is true. It's a catch 22 that the busier, the more exotic, the utterly fabulous stories that you acquire and rich layers of experience you gain - the less time you have to write it down.

Not that that is my only excuse for the last 15 years, the 15 years since I promised myself, a raccoon-eyed, Manic Panicked 14 year old, that I would be an brilliant novelist at some point. No, my main excuse comes back to complacency, to school essays and 9-5 jobs where you get home and just want to watch 6 hours of Arrested Development and pet the cats, not pick up a pen or a keyboard and weave magical worlds of complexity. I have been lazy. I haven't wanted it enough. I trusted, stupidly, that it would just happen.

And so of course it has not. This isn't some hilarious sitcom moment where I am going to find out I've been sleepwalking and fulfilling my life's passions while unconscious. I need to put time in, the put down the facebook and the news, to schedule my schoolwork more effectively so that I have the time to write.

BUT, and its a big but, it's not just about time, is it? It's not just about amazing, life-changing experiences and galavanting travels. It's MOSTLY about confidence, inspiration and gumption.

And I got me somma that in Paris.

Great writers have lived in Paris for hundreds of years , and while I am fascinated by the age of the Bohemians, by the characters depicted in Toulouse Lautrec paintings, by the earlier poets Balzac and Baudelaire - the era that fascinates me are the years between the wars.

The writers of the Lost Generation -American and British writers flooded Paris in the 1920s to soak up its rich artistic atmosphere and its relaxed social mores- spent hours in cafes and bars producing some of the most compelling writing of the twentieth century. James Joyce, F Scott Fitzgerald (and his crazy wife Zelda) Gertrude Stein, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Samuel Beckett - that's just a sampling of the writers that I adore. And they all.lived.here.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary - Ernest Hemingway

Despite (and maybe because of) Hemingway's personal problems, he is one of my favourite writers. His sparse, clean style is what I try to remind myself of when I get overly verbose, and though this photo is all kinds of cliche I was truly happy at this moment. I am seated in the Cafe de Flores, where a coffee is the exorbitant 6 Euros and wannabe writers from around the globe flock to spend it.

Why? It is in this cafe that Simone de Beauvoir huddled during World War II and wrote The Mandarins. It, along with Les Deux Magots next door, is where every single writer listed above has sat and written in the worn wicker seats.

Best address ever.

Montmartre, Montparnasse, the Latin Quarter - neighbourhoods so steeped in lore and fairytale that walking through them feels surreal, like I need a good pinch (not on my rear, either - although S is happy to oblige) to really be able to absorb that I'm there.

No, actually? This is the best address ever.

As if fate stepped in, in our wanders we unintentionally stumbled upon a place that I had planned on seeking out a few days later - Shakespeare and Company. This place is truly legendary amongst young writers - a bookstore on the Left Bank of the Seine that opened in 1919 as part shop/part library and part hostel for aspiring writers. In fact, I found out that to this day there is free rooming upstairs for impoverished scribes - and I may head back next Summer to take them up on that offer.

Catching up on my literary smut in the Latin Quarter.

In the 1950's a competitor, George Whitman, took over the name and applied it to his shop, formerly called Le Mistral and also on the Left Bank. In this era the famous erotic novelist (and longtime paramour of Henry Miller) Anais Nin was a frequent visitor, and her quote is posted in the back room:

And there by the Seine was a bookshop, not the same, but similar to others I had known. An Utrillo house, not too steady on its foundations, small windows, wrinkled shutters. And there was George Whitman, undernourished, bearded, a saint amongst his books, lending them, housing penniless friends upstairs, not eager to sell, in the back of the store, in a small overcrowded room, with a desk, a small stove.
— Anaïs Nin, Diary, Vol. 5.

I got goosebumps being there.

Yes, I rinsed my mouth. A lot. With wine. And more wine.

After an Edith Piaf walking tour, we ended at the Pere LaChaise cemetery to visit her grave. I then made a beeline for Oscar Wilde's tomb, and in keeping with tradition gave it a big lipstick smack while S looked on, horrified. "It's all for art!" I exclaimed, giddy with life and promise and, well Paris.

So maybe I have it now. Maybe I have that missing piece - the bone-soaking, encompassing inspiration that walking Paris' cobblestone streets gives a writer. I mean, if they could do it, why can't I?

And it's a good lesson, no matter what. Your dreams - especially if they are scary and bewildering and overwhelming - won't just happen. You make it happen. I make it happen.
And so it's time to grab life by the balls. Or, in this case, the pen.

My Life as a Writer

I was about to start writing about my experiences visting the writer's haunts of Paris, then I realized that this short piece I wrote for an assignment in a writing class sums up my history as a writer quite nicely (and I hate reinventing wheels) so here it is - the Paris part will follow tout suite!

When asked to describe myself, I often use the word "writer." I like the way it sounds, the images that it conjures of a mad poet awake until all hours scribbling frantically into a notebook because what he has to say will vanish into thin air if he doesn't get it all out as fast as he can. This image stems from my romantic teenaged ideas about Bukowski and Baudelaire, authors posessed by inner demons that could only be expelled by putting pen to paper and living tortured and decadent livee. I am a poet at heart - I have examples of four line cuplets that I wrote when I was six years old.

But the word "writer" is nice because it can also refer to a journalist – an intrepid traveler scouting the globe and documenting her experiences one hairy situation at a time. I just recently was hired as a freelance journalist for a nightlife magazine - not quite the same amount of responsibility, but the situations could get just as hairy....

I write fiction as well – stories both long and short and I one day hope to finish a novel. It used to be very easy for me – as a child and teenager I was quite prolific, filling binders decorated with band names and logos with hundreds of pages of fiction. I have just recently started again, writing short character studies and even working on a script for a graphic novel for a friend who is a comic book artist.

When I write regularly it does something wonderful to my brain – I stop and stare at the most mundane sights, I listen to people differently, hearing new things in familiar voices. Words become play things, like children's blocks that I can move around and manipulate. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I feel somehow more myself, more alive when I write.

I have gone through long periods of writer's block. Throughout much of my twenties I have written little other than academic essays, with the exception of the last year. When I stop writing or slow down dramatically, it becomes incredibly easy to not write, a skill and a hobby that falls by the wayside as I choose to watch films or read instead. Ideas still pop into my head, but with less vibrancy and frequency. When I wasn't writing I certainly didn't text myself ideas when no paper was handy like I do now. Writing can be urgent for me.

Reading is like fuel for my writing. I was a voracious reader as a child, taking out the public library's maximum allowance of books per week and racing through them. Children made fun of me for using big words, but it didn't – couldn't – stop me.I still read fiction constantly. Studying does cut into the time that I have for pleasure reading but I still try to squeeze it in as every book I read changes the way that I write. I do have to be careful – at various times I have found myself imitating the styles of Hunter S Thompson, William Burroughs and others a little bit too much after reading their books.

Despite giving myself the moniker of "Writer" I have never been published. Part of this is laziness. The literary world seems so vast and overwhelming that I don't know where to begin. Even my website, with its twelve hundred readers, could be a lot more popular with agressive promotion. Part of me likes that my poetry and fiction is just for my friends and I to read, but the other part craves an audience, especially for the pieces that I like the most. I plan to get more serious about getting published once I have graduated.

Academic writing is a challenge for me – certainly more challenging than the random collections of pretty words that I churn out on a daily basis. The main reason that I am taking this course is to shave off the more casual, personal feel of my papers. After five years away from school, I also want to refresh my brain in the art of academic discourse, re-build my confidence and ensure that I am prepared to correctly write papers across the disciplines that I am taking. Who knows – maybe I'll even write a poem about it.

My Love Tate Relationship

Even the building is amazing! A converted power station.

Admittedly, I know little about art. Sure I know about the main movements, the big artists, some symbolism, but I can't tell you that "mmm, Oh, yes, well it is apparent in Krasner's work the pain over losing her husband, Jackson Pollock. oh, mmm. Yes. This squiggle here is, rawther indicative." Like, I'm not an asshole about it.

That said, I can immerse myself in (late) nineteenth and twentieth century art for hours. Even days.... S and I visited one of the world's greatest modern art temples, the hallowed (yet accessible - in Britain museums are free, and man - there were a lot of strollers and wee ones!) halls of the Tate Modern on the Southbank of London. After a morning at St Paul's Cathedral, a short walk across the Millenium footbridge, we arrived at 2 pm thinking that 4 hours would be enough. It was - barely.

With my new boyfriend, the Tate Modern Audioguide (it's like an ipod Touch! With extra pictures! And videos of interviews with the artists! And you can listen to commentary on almost all of the works in the museum! AMAZING!) I could have spent 4 more hours inside. Easily.

Now, I don't have the space to show you all of my favourite highlights (I took 100 photos. That'd be a loooooong blog) in my own words - no fancy schmancy art-critic talk! I will show you a few of my faves:


Venus of the Rags
Michaelangelo Pistoletto

Something so mundane as these rags coupled with the divinity of ancient Roman sculpture? From my photo it is hard to tell, but this statue is not made of marble or stone - it is a plastic garden version. Now, I have an affinity for Venus as I am a Taurus (my birthday was yesterday, matter o fact) and because she represents love and passion - does this common material cheapen her, and love itself? With her back turned to us, is she ashamed to be surrounded with something so mundane as what is essentially dirty laundry? This artist is from a school called Arte Povera (literally "Poverty Art") in which the artists use mundane materials to make their statements. I just love the colours and the questions it raises.


Untitled
Glenn Ligon

As a self-professed Neon Sign historian (like really. I am obsessed lately. Ask my pals - they'll roll their eyes.) I have always liked neon artists (Keith Sonnier is another fave) and I love that this piece breaks convention by depicting the word "America" - a word that invokes so much imagery, good and bad - in black rather than the fruit-punchy colours that we expect. I want to see this lit up. Badly.

Skulls
Andy Warhol

Oh Warhol, you will forever be linked to my teenaged coming-of-age, mixed in with memories of Candy Darling, Kenneth Anger, Jon Moritsugu, Robert Mapplethorpe and John Waters. How I love thee, and yet how cliched it can easily become to admit it.... Oh, screw it - despite your fame, you introuced the world to "pop-art" and for that I am thankful.

I love this photo, because there are actually two pieces of art in it. One is simply the wallpaper - Warhole designed this when a pal lamented that "no one paints farm landscapes anymore" and the other is the painting of 6 skulls. On its own, without context, this would be a bit of a boring piece, I mean, even then skulls had been done. But when I think of the other subjects that Warhol painted in this repetitive tile pattern (Marliyn Monroe, Elvis, the glitterati of Studio 54 and Max's Kansas City) it takes on a darker, more genuinely sinister meaning. Once celebrity has been done - what is left?


The Music From the Balconies
Edward Ruscha

Sometimes you don't have to get it. You just love it. This is a quote from a JG Ballard novel, he of sexual violence and depravity (don't worry, we'll get to Francis Bacon soon) and it is like a line of poetry, which is art itself, and so why not?

Nude Woman Reclining in a Red Armchair
Pablo Picasso
She's so chubby and sweet and a lot less "cube-y" than his earlier work! I'm actually a bigger fan of Georges Braque than of Picasso, but I really am drawn to this painting. I think all of her femininity and naked sexuality has been rendered non-threatening by this somewhat over-cutesy depiction - especially when I remember that Picasso used a lot of prostitutes as models and that this may have been his way of disarming their power over him.

The Carnival
Max Beckman

This was painted in 1920 and I think that it shows current artists such as Mark Ryden to be the self-indulgent, overly-derivative posers that they are *smiles sweetly*

Bacchus, Psilax, Mainomenos
Cy Twombly

Walking into this room (there is a third monolithic piece on another wall) was like wading into a warm bowl of pent up lust and rage and something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Despite these very serious emotions, there was also something homey and comforting about the way that the red and pink and orange blended together and it was kind of reflected on people's skin tones as they walked through and it was magic.

Study For a Portrait on A Folding Bed
Francis Bacon

Last but not least - my favourite: Francis Bacon. No other twentieth century artist depicted such chaotic, deeply layered and passionate emotions, all with an undercurrent of death, rot and metamorphosis. His artworks remind me of the body-horror of Bunuel, Dali and even Cronenberg - of things slightly not as they should be, askew in a way that recalls war and change and even sex. While this is simply a study, it evokes such strong emotions that I can't even imagine it completed. Bacon's personal life was just as facinating as his art. Oh you crazy thing!