Does this mean I’m old?

I just gave my little brother a crash course on VCR operation.

I have a massive collection of Disney VHS tapes that I hoarded from my childhood. I also have a VCR player that was just recently hooked up to the TV downstairs so that the fiance and I could enjoy a classic Disney flick.

Several days ago, I got into a discussion with my other brother (while the little bro was present) about such Disney goodness as Aladdin, etc. I declared that, not only did I have the VHS tape, but I also had the means by which to play it.

Well, today, the little bro, seeing the means, decided that he wanted to refresh his memory as to the wonders of “Ahladin”.

“No, no, it’s Aladdin.”

“Oh, right.”

So I pulled out the tape and handed it to him. But then I paused. Certainly he had watched many a VHS in his early years… but he is now the ripe old age of twelve and video tapes are a thing of the past.

“So you know how this works,” I said. After a hum and a haw, I decided I would at least begin the discussion and see where he picked it up, where his memory came in.

We opened up the VHS and I saw that, indeed, it had been stopped halfway through.

“Okay, you’ll need to rewind it first,” I said.

“Okay.” pause. “What’s rewind?”

Ladies and gentlemen, I tell you, I am not making this up.

So I did the only thing I could. I brought him to the VCR, sat him down and walked him through VHS Watching 101.

It’s interesting, because operating a VHS tape could be seen as simpler. You put it in the machine, when you want a break, you hit stop, when you want to start again, you just put it in and it begins where you left off. None of this “scene selection” stuff, shifting through menus, etc.

But on the flip side, with a DVD, you slide it in the tray, press play and there you go. No fast forwarding through commercials, no need to worry about rewinding when you’re done or the picture and sound degrading.

DVDs are definitely a step forward. It’s just amusing to see the constraint that time has on certain technologies. There are entire generations that have no idea how to operate video tapes.

The beginning

It was the end of summer.

Everything was still green and growing and alive, but fall had begun to make inroads, had begun its attempted assault on the scenery. The leaves carried the slightest tinges of red, and the wind had a chilled note to it. But the sun felt ever just as warm as it had always been.

It had been a lazy afternoon. The field was golden in all directions. A line of trees was to the north; an equally lazy little river to the east; the house was south; and to the west– Oh, did the land stretch on forever.

She was lying on her back as near the centre of the field as she could manage. It was getting onto evening, and gentle breezes blew in from the west, brushing back the golden grasses and playing in her hair. The only clouds were clustered near the horizon, tinged purple and orange, and the land reflected back those same hues.

It was like so many evenings she had experienced over the course of her life, but something was different. Something in the air, perhaps. She sat up slowly and stretched. She was ready for a change. To the east ran the lazy little river, one she had never crossed. To the west ran the land, all the way to the horizon and beyond, somewhere she had never explored. Yes, something was different, but perhaps it was only in herself.

It was time for a change.

Defining

Let us imagine last night’s scene, shall we?

It is after dinner, shortly before the little brother’s bedtime. He has just finished a bowl of ice cream and is preparing to watch a (hilarious!) kids’ show, thus he is rather hyper. I am reading Pride and Prejudice, thus I am not.

We enter the scene in time to hear Matthew calling for my attention.

“Hey, Tara… Tara! … Tara? … Helloooo.”

I do not respond. Mostly because I am engrossed in my book. Partially because I am ignoring him.

“Tara!” he continues. I still do not respond. He jumps to his feet and stands right in front of me, waving his hands in my face. “Hello!!”

It is at this point that Mom notices what is going on.

“Matthew, what are you doing?”

“Tara isn’t talking to me!”

“Well, stop bugging her!” Mom responds (quite logically, I must add).

“But I’m trying to ask her something!”

“What’s that?”

“She won’t tell me what obnoxious means.”

Voting

Today I went to my local polling station to vote.

We have just moved, so we lined up to register in our new town. My parents were ahead of me in line and Matthew was beside me, doing what little brothers do (ie, pestering their big sisters). I pulled out my driver’s license and proof of residence. Little did I suspect what was coming.

An official-looking older woman approached us, anxious to be of help, asking the general, “You folks all set?” type of questions.

Yes, thank you, we’re fine.

And then she turned to me, noticed my driver’s license in hand and asked me the question I should have been expecting, yet was entirely unprepared for:

“Are you old enough to vote?”

Mom: *choke*

Dad: *cough*

Me: *sigh*

I smiled pleasantly and assured her that, yes, I am old enough to vote. “I’m 22.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, completely surprised. “I am so sorry! You look so much younger than that.”

“Yes, I know. It’s okay, I get that a lot.”

“Well, at least when you get to my age,” she continued, “you’ll be glad for it.”

Indeed.

Afterward, I turned to my mom. “So I guess I still look 13, eh?”

“No, she said you look 15.”

“Yea, no,” I said. “That was Matthew.”

Grooved pavement

The problem with being an English student and a writer is that you cannot help but see metaphors for your life in everyday experiences. Everything means something. Everything matters. Or maybe that has nothing to do with that and everything to do with my idealistic tendencies. Either way.

I was driving home from a friend’s birthday party last night (Happy Birthday, Sarah!). I tend to develop habits pretty quickly, and the one I’m talking about right now is how I drive to and from my University town. I used to always only drive country roads there and back. This summer, because I’ve been finding myself leaving my University town late at night (say 10 or 10:30), I tend to drive there using country roads, but back on the highway. Should something happen to my car, I guess, I’d prefer to be stranded on the side of a well-traveled highway, rather than on some back road somewhere that few cars travel.

So anyway, a couple of months ago, I was in town for an old roommate’s wedding (which was delightful, by the way). It was very late by the time I left, so naturally, I chose the highway to head home. After being on the highway for probably an hour and a bit, I noticed a sign on the side of the road: “Grooved Pavement”. I didn’t really know what it meant, and in fact, didn’t pay it too much mind until I was suddenly traveling over this grooved pavement. I guess they were in process of fixing up the road. The tires rubbing over this grooved surface made a load loud whir, and the whole car vibrated as it passed over each section of grooved pavement. It was a frustrating experience. I was tired, and this I found to be consternating. And it didn’t stop. I would travel over a section of pavement and once I was back on the old surface, I would breathe a sigh of relief and settle in again, only to be jarred when the car hit another patch. The journey was like this for probably 20 minutes, but it felt much longer.

Since that wedding, I’ve been back in my University town several times for different events, and coming home has always been the same: entering the highway, forgetting about the grooved pavement until the sign and then feeling frustration for that part of the journey.

Finally, this last trip, I think I had gotten used to it. I was heading home and I saw the sign still up, and I mentally sighed. Oh well, I thought. I was used to it by now. I’d just have to go through that frustration for a little bit and then forget about it for the rest of the journey.

I cannot even describe the shock it was when I drove over the dark, blissfully smooth new pavement that had been placed over the grooves in the highway since the last time I drove it. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought maybe that segment of new pavement had always been there. But as the journey continued, and the road switched back and forth from old pavement to new, I was convinced. They had finally re-paved the grooved segments of the highway. And not only that, the old pavement that used to be a relief when there was grooving, was now noticeably bumpy and uncomfortable compared to the new pavement. It was incredible.

The hardships in our life feel like that most of the time. When they first hit us, they are surprising and frustrating and anxiety-inducing. We can’t understand why they’re there. Perhaps at first, we can believe that they are there to fix what was wrong in the first place. But as the days, weeks, months go by, we find relief in what has been left alone. This area of my life is fraught with difficulty, but that area is ever as it always was—ah, relief.

And every time we encounter those difficulties, it hurts and baffles us. Why? we ask. Was it not fine the way it was? And eventually we drift into complacency. Not a happy complacency, but a dull one. Yes, this is hard, we acknowledge, but I am so tired. We learn how to survive, how to get through the hardships while remaining intact emotionally, even if the only way to do so is to dull ourselves to the pain.

And we believe that the pain will always be there. That part of my life is always going to be this way, always grooved and difficult, ruined.

But that isn’t God’s plan for our lives.

I don’t know the purpose for the grooving of the highway, but I understand that it is part of the process of repaving. It is necessary, even though it is inconvenient, frustrating, etc. And even though the grooving seems to be there indefinitely, eventually new pavement is laid. The plan is never to leave the grooving there, but the grooving is an essential part of making the road anew.

That’s the way it is for the pain in our life. The plan is never to leave the pain there, but it is an essential part of refining us. God must tear down the parts of our life that He wants to remake in order to rebuild us the way He wants for us to be. I think we look at those areas, just after He has started working on them, as having been just fine. “You could have left them alone, you know?” we cry bitterly. “They were fine just the way they were.” But at the end of it all, the difference is incredible. The new is better than the broken, obviously, but it is also even better than the old. But to get from old to new, we must go through the process of brokenness. But the result is incredible. It is better than we could have imagined.

Keep traveling, I say. He will make all things new, in His time.

“It happened to the friend of a friend of mine…”

(from coming soon)

(names have been changed )

“Have you guys seen Joseph anywhere?”

So began an evening of suspense and fear. We were up at our friend John’s cottage. Ben, Joseph, Sara, Mark and I were the group that had planned to stay for the weekend. By the time John asked the above question, it had probably been a good half hour since anyone had seen Joseph. The property was large, but not expansive, and there was only a border of trees separating it from the neighbouring cottages. Night had just fallen and we were huddled around a bonfire beside the lake. John had a large flashlight with him, and Sara and I were chatting in Muskoka chairs, wrapped in fleecy sweaters and blankets.

“I hope he’s okay,” Sara whispered to me. She was the last person to have seen him. It was right after supper. She and I had volunteered to wash the dishes. She had stepped outside to collect some miscellaneous plates or her bathing suit—something in the direction of the little cabin towards the road that the boys were staying in. With a shriek, she had come flying back into the kitchen.

“I saw Joseph walking to the cabin,” she said breathlessly. “When I turned around to come back inside the cottage, I heard him scream, and when I looked back, I couldn’t see him anywhere!”

I couldn’t help but smile. The boys had been trying to scare us since the night before. Mark had perfected the art of sneaking up behind us in the dark, while John or Joseph would look past us, a vaguely horrified look on their faces. When we would turn to see what they were staring at, Mark would suddenly jump towards us, usually producing shrieks, followed by an exasperated, “Guys! Cut it out!”

“It’s okay, Sara,” I said. “The guys are just trying to scare us. They’ve been doing this since last night.”

She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “Okay, you’re right. It’s fine. He’s going to make fun of me so bad for screaming.”

We laughed, finished the dishes and went outside to start the bonfire.

But now the group was getting uneasy. Joseph had been gone for awhile. Sara, John and I had swept up and down the property, from the road to the lake, and Ben and Mark had gone to look in the cabin. John couldn’t stay seated. He took his flashlight and kept walking back and forth along the edge of the property, sweeping his beam across the darker parts of the treeline.

“He looks really worried,” Sara whispered. “What if it wasn’t a trick?”

And the what-ifs began to play out. What if something had happened to Joseph? What if there was someone else on the property. Or, more realistically, what if he had hurt himself somewhere?

I stood to go walk with John as he paced back and forth across the treeline. Sara joined us.

“You doing okay?” I asked. “You seem worried.”

“Yea,” John said, distractedly. “It’s just… been awhile since we’ve seen him. I hope he’s okay.” His flashlight beam continued sweeping the trees.

“Stop!” Sara cried suddenly. John stopped the flashlight and slowly shone the light where Sara was pointing. It highlighted in the trees, strewn across a log and nestled among the leaves, a motionless figure.

“Oh my gosh…”

At that moment, Ben and Mark hurried from inside the cottage.

“Over here!” John yelled.

We hurried over to the figure. It was Joseph.

“Guys, hurry!” John said. “I think he’s hurt!”

Sure enough, he wasn’t moving. His eyes were half-open, a glazed over look in them. He moaned softly.

And suddenly all the dots connected. Maybe he was trying to scare us, at first. But then, while he was trying to hide, he must have fallen and hurt himself. What if that was the scream Sara had heard? And if he screamed loud enough to send Sara running back in fear, then, he must really be hurt. My first instinct was, Flee. The rest of the boys were there; they could handle it. They had no need for us to be there. They would handle it. Flee, flee!

Whether Sara’s thoughts were going in the same direction as mine or not, we both ran back to the cottage, breathless, startling the adults.

“What is it?” John’s mom asked. “What’s wrong?”

Still unable to accept that something must be – most certainly was – wrong, I echoed my words from earlier that evening. “It’s okay. The boys are just pulling a prank on us.”

“They must be,” Sara said, when John’s mom returned to the other adults. “It has to be a prank.”

Reassured by each others’ words, we opened the cottage door and stepped back out into the night, in time to see the boys carrying Joseph from the trees to the cottage.

Our words while we were inside the cottage now seemed hollow and untrue. Is this actually happening? He must really be hurt…

Then suddenly, unceremoniously, John dropped Joseph’s legs. And the other boys followed suit. And Joseph was on his feet, clearly not suffering any kind of injury.

Disbelief overwhelmed.

“Are you— ? Did you— ? This was a joke?” were our incredibly incoherent, and rather uncomprehending cries.

“Jerks!” But I couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face. One, Joseph was fine, meaning all was right in the world again, and two… all frustration aside… it was a pretty good prank…

“You knew about this all along?” I demanded of John, as he gave an apologetic, but amused hug (yes, hugs can be apologetic. And amused. It is a very difficult thing to ask of them, and they often struggle to accomplish it, but this was one of those times of success).

“Yea,” John said. “That’s why I was walking by the trees. It took Joseph so long to get to that spot! Man, I was waiting for ages!”

“And you guys, too?”

Mark and Ben nodded, laughing.

Exasperation, made light by relief, was all that Sara and I could feel.

“You just wait,” I said, after expressions of disbelief, floods of apologies for the fright, and all the details of the prank were traded. “One of these days, we’re going to get you back so bad!”

To this day, that debt remains outstanding, but that, ladies and gentlemen, is the infamous prank that caused me, years later, to momentarily doubt the testimony of an injured child.

And boys, one of these days, Sara and I just might get back in contact with each other and then? Watch out!

Can a sound creak?

These are the kinds of questions that plague an author.

I wrote that a door opened “with an old, creaking sound”. Is it “creaking sound” or is it just “creak”? Can I say, “with an old creak”? The creak isn’t old, so that doesn’t make sense. But the first sentence (“with an old, creaking sound”) doesn’t make sense, because it isn’t the sound that creaks: it’s the door. The door opens with a sound that sounds old and that creaks, but I can’t say that the door opened with a sound that sounded old and sounded creaky (or even that it opened and sounded old and creaky…). That is just poor sentence construction, and not even the least bit creative or artistic. It says what I want it to say, but the reader gets so distracted in my myriad uses of the word “sound” that the rest is lost.

Seriously, can I say that a sound creaked? Any alternative wordings?

Haha, and now you will all get on swimmingly if you ever end up reading this story until you hit that sentence about this darn door. And then you all be so distracted with trying to rework the sentence now that you know and understand the context that you will wind up stuck at chapter one, never able to resolve this sentence, and therefore never able to move on from it. Perhaps that would be better. You would have all the enjoyment of reading a novel by Yours Truly, and I would never have to write beyond the sentence of the creaking door. And henceforward, that is what that sentence shall be known as. Perhaps I will introduce an entirely new and unrelated title strictly for this section of the story: “The Sentence of the Creaking Door” and then continue. It sounds very epic, dontcha think?

…

And the above paragraph is the reason why writers rarely discuss (except with other writers) what is going through their minds during the story-crafting process. It is also why I shall end this post here.

But seriously, any thoughts about my Sentence?

Morning Adventures (and it’s only just 10:00am!)

4am – Groggily press the snooze button

4:10am – Groggily press the snooze button

4:20am – Groggily press the snooze button

4:25am – Finally convince self that rising would be best; groggily shut off alarm

4:27am – Begin getting ready for work

4:45am – Head out the door

4:55am – Arrive at work

5:00am – Work

8:40am – Break

8:55am – Arrive back from break; store is completely packed with employees; observe yet another employee walk through the door; negotiate with supervisor: “Well, I’m off in an hour anyway, if you really don’t have anything for me to do, I can just head home.”

9:00am – Drive home

Total hours worked: slightly less than 4.

Yet strangely, it doesn’t feel like a waste of time. As I was driving home, I was crowing, “People are just waking up to get their morning coffee before heading off to work, and I, I am heading home having finished work!”

Got a new bathing suit the other day, wanted to “try it out”. Jumped in the pool.

Jeepers, it’s cold! I thought as I bolted back up the ladder. Once outside the water, I reasoned that it really wasn’t that bad, it was just my initial reaction to the shock of colder-than-usual water. Proceeded to swim for a few minutes. Mom stepped outside, smile on her face.

“Do you want me to tell you what temperature it is?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Do I want to know?”

“79*,” she said (yea, I don’t know what that means either; thus the footnote).

Then she strolled casually over to the skimmer (the little machine that collects floaties, like leaves and bugs that fall in the pool) to empty it. She lifted the lid and then gasped, dropping it with a clatter and hopping back several steps.

“What? What is it?” I cried.

For a moment she just stood there.

“What is it?” I repeated, hastily swimming to the ladder and climbing out of the pool. “I don’t want to know, do I?” I asked.

“It’s a skunk,” she said.

Poor thing!

I guess it must have fallen in the pool overnight. I guess skunks can’t swim…

And so first thing I did after scrambling out of the pool was to dash into the shower, bathing suit and all, to rinse everything out.

“How do I dispose of it?” Mom asked, on the phone with the city. She was instructed to put it in with a certain classification of garbage (being collected this morning, thankfully). Mom asked her to repeat that, I, in my mind saying, “Yes, I don’t think you understand us. It’s a skunk.”

After swimming, rinsing, changing, and observing the disposal operation (because I’m a wimp and really couldn’t do anything to help Mom), I am sitting in my room blogging about the poor skunk and my very full morning (despite the early hour), sipping tea and really hoping it doesn’t rain tomorrow.

*79 degrees Fahrenheit is 26 degrees Celsius

Kingston

So, my disclaimers first. I had not the time nor the resources to touch these up the way they deserved. Also, I am not the photo expert that my dad is. I was just playing. My primary purpose is to make all my friends jealous and to surreptitiously (or perhaps not so much ) hint at how gorgeous a town it is, and you know, try and convince ya’ll to move up there .

The view outside our hotel window

A house downtown

Another house

Keep in mind, this isn’t some of the architecture in Kingston, this is most of the architecture in the downtown area.

Some construction workers

So I was standing taking pictures looking into the park and all I heard from behind me was “hey! hey, over here!” It took me a second to clue in that someone was shouting at me. When I looked back, this construction worker at the top of the ladder was all smiles, his hands thrown dramatically over his head. “Over here!”

So I took a picture (click for a larger view)

A building on the Queen's University campus

Looking up at an old church

A different view of the church

Don’t you love it? Come live here! Or at least come visit

Noteworthy Professors I: Dr. Gary Draper

Dr. Gary Draper was an excellent professor of mine. From what I understand, this past was his last year before retirement. This is what one student had to say about him:

Dr Draper has a one of a kind personality and truly enjoys what he is teaching. It is up to the students if they want to join him in his wonderful world of english or not. He is a hard marker which makes one really feel as if they are earning something in university. Awesome sense of humour and helpful to the fullest.

I’ve always loved writing. From the time I was old enough to hold a pen, I wrote, even before I could form letters. I’ve been telling stories on paper for as long as I could remember, and all of my old notebooks (when they don’t contain the silly “Dear Diary” scribbles of young girls) hold short stories and story ideas. I have easily an entire box of writing on paper, and a lot more in electronic form, but this professor was the first “outsider” (someone who wasn’t family or a close friend) who recognized me as a writer.

The very first class I walked into in my first term of my first year of University was his, and I still remember his opening speech. He walked up to the board and wrote “PLEASURE” in big letters across it, and then turned to us saying that this was why he wanted us to read. Not to analyze it, not to glean some truth from the text (although he hoped we would be able to do that, too). His primary goal in what we were reading was that we would enjoy it. It was a breath of fresh air, because that, after all, is why writers write. There are many who write to make a point, and who have all sorts of hidden messages and meanings, but primarily, writers write to put words to their emotions, and bring enjoyment to their audiences. As an avid reader and an even more avid writer, hearing these sentiments expressed by this professor assured me that it was going to be an excellent term.

I went on to take two more classes from him, and I enjoyed all three, even the Canadian literature class (coming eventually ), and most of the material we covered. And through his courses, I became a better writer, mostly because he came to expect it of me. I didn’t even realize that he did. I just remember speaking up in class, which I had never done before. His classes were often discussion style. He would take our opinions and ideas and pursue them further, pushing us, seeing what we could come up with. He seemed to learn almost as much as we did in a term, and his appreciation for our contributions encouraged me to contribute more.

The next year, I went to speak with him about a scholarship writing contest. It took him a moment to recall who I was. He asked my name and what class I took with him, and immediately recognition came.

“That’s right!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I certainly do remember you. It’s funny, as soon as I saw you, my first thought was ’she’s a writer’.”

He recognized the distinctness of my narrative voice, and in an assignment where we were given creative license to choose our own topic, I attempted to rewrite the ending of a narrative poem we were studying. He complimented my efforts, but said he had hoped to see more of an adoption of the original author’s tone. I spoke with him after class, and said that I had tried. I complained that I had found it very difficult to silence my own voice.

He said, “Yes, I can understand that. You have a very strong narrative voice.”

High compliments for a writer.

Anyway, the long and short of this post is to say that Gary Draper was an excellent professor; I haven’t spoken with anyone who didn’t enjoy a class with him, and I would highly recommend attending any lecture he might give in the future.