Showing posts with label leap of faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leap of faith. Show all posts

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Some Thought as to What I Should be...



The other day, a few nights back, I stayed overnight at my buddy Rachel's house and we pulled an all-nighter, drawing stuff and generally having fun. It was awesome and during that time we had some interesting conversations, from how time lapses for artists when we work because the act of noticing time pass is a left brained thing - and we are right brained, so in using our right brains we literally lose our ability to perceive the passage of time when we are concentrating on our creative pursuits - wow - to a bit about my future. My buddy said that when I'm thinking towards my future, I must consider what I am willing to give up. To me, I also find I must consider what is absolutely the most important things to me and to not lie to myself, as I'm pretty good at doing. The fact that I'm a liar to my own soul and a procrastinator is why I am still in Vancouver, despite my heart saying that it wants to go back to square one in the Okanagan.


(Photo Note: These images are from the Heather Trail in Manning Provincial Park, a backpacking expedition I did with my brother and my dad in 2007. All photos taken by my father.)

So what am I willing to give up? Nothing. The fact is, I'm the type of person who believes that you can have your cake and eat it too! What's most important to me? Family, not being alone for my whole life and hiking. Yep, hiking. Hiking trumps art though I love art. Here's how things go in my had:

1. Family & Being Loved + Giving Love
2. Hiking
3. Writing
4. Art



Thus, the most important thing to me besides my base need for companionship (I am NOT a dog who can be happy being left all day alone in the backyard, then get a piddly walk and a cuddle once and again THANK YOU) the most important thing to me psychologically is hiking. This is pretty good; hiking is usually free, the only thing that makes hiking beyond my reach right now is my inability to drive a car, so I need a license and a job that'll give me gas money to get to my precious hiking trails. Now, I could get into animation and make a stupid amount of money, but the problem with the animation industry is that it is usually centered around large cities and if there is one thing which is absolutely true about big cities, is that the hike offerings most often range from nil to almost nothing. If I live in a big city like that, I will be denying the wild part of my soul which wants to HIKE! So, the animation is not an indefinite career choice, though I think I might be willing to work in it for a while, just to figure things out and get some finances going. If I join the animation industry permanently, I will be denying a very large part of my soul and thus, lying to myself.





BUT, I can not deny that I'm not a fully trained artist either, or that there's a big part of me that also wants to draw, draw, draw! SO, what I need to do is find a career which either:

- Is an outdoorsy job which gives me enough free time for writing and artsing.
- Or, is an artsy job located in some outdoorsy town which gives me enough time and resources for hiking.

Most of all, I need to find a life partner who wants to hike as much as I do, because unfortunately, dogs and cats can't hike everywhere! A life partner would also help take care of my need for loneliness and family. Again, I am NOT a dog who can be left alone in the backyard. I whine and I yelp and I howl and I start to do stupid things like dig up all the tulips. A wolf can NOT be without a pack!




So far, the only ideas so far for my near future are thus:

- Move back to Okanagan where parents are, preferably before winter.
- Save up money and learn to drive a car; driving a car opens up outdoorsy career opportunities as well as gives me more freedom to get to my hiking trails.
- Take a NOLS course! Yukon, Alaska or Wyoming! Maybe two! I'd love to be able to do horsepacking as well as backpacking.
- Figure out career after NOLS gives me experience and thus more deciding power.

I think that's a pretty good game plan for my life. Plus, I might kill two birds with one stone and meet my perfect life companion at NOLS! You never know... I can be hopeful... but all this costs money, so in the meantime, I will be applying for jobs in the animation industry, preferably in the Okanagan. No matter what happens, at least I have a plan now... somewhat! If anyone has any ideas which combine art and the wilderness, I'm all ears!



Photos: Bryan B. Brost
Art: Rosanna P. Brost

Sunday, December 19, 2010

360 in Life?


As some of you may know, I recently went through Capilano University's Commercial Animation program and trained to become an animator. However, despite my qualification, I have decided not to go into that field and in fact, I don't draw art for other people anymore unless I should so choose to. I just don't like it. When I draw something, I'm putting part of my soul onto paper. I can't sell my soul. It hurts, which is why I do not plan on going into the animation industry. Instead, I'm considering going back to where I started, the first dream I ever had, even before I became a writer and which for years, was my life's plan - until high school came and I chickened out because of terrible math skills.



My dream as a kid was to become a wildlife biologist and study wolves. As a kid, I likely watched more National Geographic and Kratt's Kreatures than I did cartoons, despite my aptitude for art and animation. I had and still do have, a passion for large predators. In late elementary school, I became a Chief Scout under the guidance of Scouter Dean Trumbley, a biologist who taught me pretty much everything I know about survival. Because of this man, this god of the forest, I learned to track, orienteer, avoid bears and I gained an understanding for survival in the wild. I loved it. I can rant for hours about how my life in 1st Pleasant Valley scout troop was perfection and to me because it was. It's very likely that those two years in 1st PV will always be the best ones of my life, just because I had such amazing people to work with. We were the perfect team. In fact, in Scouting competitions, my troop never lost. Whenever I put my uniform on, just in remembrance of those beautiful days, I feel like I'm touching something sacred or brushing a very happy past. I can still recall our decisive shout of "One, two, three - FIRST PV!" at Scoutvivor, which we won by a landslide. Running through the brush at Dean's heels enroute to the canoe lake and seeing Labrador Tea growing was one of the greatest things I have ever done. I felt powerful. I wonder if we all did.

In recollection, I think what killed my dream of being a biologist was simple stupid fear. I took an easy path, despite knowing somewhat that it probably wouldn't work. I remember sitting in animation, first day and wondering what the hell I was getting myself into. I have never told anyone this. It was not a waste though; I would not be the artist that I am now without animation. I grew in leaps and bounds creatively thanks to it and I will always be forever grateful to Capilano. It's the best animation school in North America. (And that's not an entirely bias opinion either.)



What was I afraid of? Well, here's the truth; the dead, true truth. I'm extremely stupid when it comes to math. Ask me to do a complicated math problem and I feel like I'm drowning in impossibly deep water with no surface in sight. Even if I do do the equation right, my answers often turn out to be wrong, no matter how hard I try. There has been many a math multiple choice quiz where I have simply picked at random the answers, because I had no idea how to actually come to them despite all training and assistance. Math leaves me helpless, foundering for salvation which is not there - and for some daft, definitely retarded reason, advanced math skills are required for a person to become a biologist.

I will never understand why educational systems insist so on having math in school lessons past Grade 8; since leaving high school, I have never done any math more complicated than basic elementary Grade 5 level. It is clear to me at least, that any math above Grade 8 is torturing children for no reason. I think math has its place. I think it should stay in the curriculum, but only as an elective past Grade 8. I will also never understand what math has to do with biology - science. Today, a marine biologist who had been a professor for 40 years at UBC came and told me that he has never used math at all in his studies. He said it was a shame I gave up my dream of becoming a biologist like him; he actually said I would have been good.



So, what I'm wondering now is if I should turn around and go back to my original dream. I probably can't make money off of my art and creative writing is still a hobby more than an occupation. Shall I dip my feet back into the water of Canada's educational system and get my proverbial paws wet again? At this point I don't know. The challenge of how I left math in 10th grade remains an obstacle as steep as Mt. Everest between me and this potential goal. I am stupid at math. It frustrates me and hurts me. I have rarely ever been happy doing math and have more often then not gotten extremely angry doing it, just because of my own helplessness. This is the truth, yet on the other hand, I know that my spirit is pointing me back to the wild. Wildlife biology may just be what I was always meant for, if the little girl watching National Geographic and the Chief Scout have anything to say about it. I excel at retaining knowledge pertaining to animals (my mother called my mind a 'sponge' for information) and as a scout, I was Patrol Leader, the alpha female of the pack. Biology, the science of living things, impregnates my writing. In the wilderness I have charisma. It is the only place where I ever stop being the bumbling omega kid with the mild speech impediment.

Shall I go back to where I started from? The road would be long and full of danger, both mathematical and otherwise. I might actually have to learn how to intelligently communicate, which I'm not altogether sure I can do. When I speak, words often get lost on the way to my mouth unless my brain is absolutely, passionately into what I am trying to say. I think far faster than I can speak.

I don't yet know what to do, but I can feel my future reforming itself. There is hope. I am only twenty and if there is anything I may be certain of in this life, is that I can hear the Call of the Wild. Perhaps not studying wolves, but any big predator, any interesting beast would do. I think I could do that. I think I could work to save the beasts that I love, which have been so prosecuted by our peculiar kind.

Just some thoughts.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Don't Be Afraid to Get Your Paws Wet

This is the lesson that was again impressed upon me today after I had moped around Lonsdale unsuccessfully looking for a job. After a lot of lack of luck, I turned into a spiritual store - you know the type. They sell tarot cards, pendulums, incense and books about all matter of spiritual and psychic insight. There had once been a store of the same type in Vernon, where me and my mother used to go called Dreamweaver. I hadn't really been looking for a job when I went in there. Me, an apprentice in the spiritual work there? I hardly even know what my spiritual beliefs are yet, other than that they are heavily focused around my spirit guide the arctic wolf! But I got to talking with these people, these masters of the occult which is no more different than how other people go to church. I have never been to a church except for Cub meetings and funerals. I am not religious. Do not call me Christian because I am not. I don't believe in God, because I'm not sure that there is one, but I am not atheist either though I do sidle towards agnostic. Yes, there might just be a god or gods and I like to think that just like every plant has a spirit and every rock does, then the earth must have one too. If there is anything to be called 'god' in this world, then it is surely the Earth. It is here that we live and it is here that we die. Nothing more.

In any case, I spoke to these woman at the shop and they asked me what I want. I replied that I wanted a job and the old Jamaican woman said something along the lines of "But what type? You have to be more specific for your spirits if you want them to give you something you like! Understand it's the Law of Attraction working here! Don't be afraid of using it; you deal too much in the negative side of it, use it for good!"

Yes, I'll admit it as I admitted it there. I'm kind of afraid of the Law of Attraction because if there's anything I really believe in in this world, it's that. It's scary shit because it's as real as I'm Canadian. Recently after I had just learned the Law of Attraction, we had decided to go to the hospital, I believe to visit one of my Mom's roommates who had kept her company during the surgery she had had. I had found out, somehow or other, that the hospital only allows two visitors at a time, so I spent nearly the entire car ride to see this old guy worrying about this. I'm not sure what I wanted. I wasn't very specific, but the root of what I wanted was to be able to visit this old man without trodding on hospital law. I was, as usual, thinking that I should be left behind in the van as we parked.

That's about when my Dad's window suddenly could not roll up.

Now, I know what you're thinking - it was probably jammed before or something. Well; it wasn't. It was only after I had had all that angst about the stupid rule that the window would not roll up and since we could not possibly leave the van with the window open, my Dad offered to stay behind. When I came back he could miraculously get it down.

The moral? The Law of Attraction - this shit works.

Now, as the anxious little thing that I am, I thus developed a mild phobia of this very important Law. (It's basically along the lines of 'ask and ye shall receive' for biblical people.) But now I'm reminded as my Mom has reminded me so many times - use the Law of Attraction. USE IT. It will work. Don't let any doubts cloud your mind and ask the spirits or whatever it is you pray to for help... that's what I was reminded of by the ladies. Feeling weirdly like I had just gotten run over or winded (possibly because I've been inside all week for the most part) I left feeling like a wreck, determined to ask the spirits for help in finding a job. There's a lot at stake with this. If I don't find a job, I can't stay in Vancouver and I'll have to go home back to the Okanagan, where my mother will annoy the living daylights out of me until I do something. She'll make my life at home a living hell. I don't fault her for it. She does it because she cares - she creates incentive for me to get my scrawny little ass in gear.

So I went back towards Capilano, but I knew that if I went home to my room I would accomplish nothing. This thing I'm typing on right now? My laptop? Lappy286 named for Strongbad's computer? Yeah. MOST DISTRACTING THING IN THE UNIVERSE. Especially when you're trying to appeal to ghosties which may or many not exist. Y'never know. I like to think they do and I've felt a lot of personal proof that they do, particularly from Wolf (who completely hated it when I tried to dye my hair dark brown instead accidentally dying it red - he said it made me look like a fox when I'm supposed to be a wolf. Ironically, a year later he calls me Grey Fox because the red's fading now, giving me back my natural very greyish ash blonde hair colour. He doesn't want me to ever dye it again. For now I'm inclined to listen.) and a few times I've felt that I might have some sort of horse totem. (The Horse is my zodiac sign as well.)

Anyway, after I veered away from home, I decided to give my head to Wolf and let him decide where we should go. Now, for those potential perverts in the audience (if I have an audience at all) I'm referring to something in Equestrianism and horse racing when you give a horse their head which means you let the horse judge how fast and where you both go. So, Wolf chose the way. I can't describe how I knew where he wanted me to go. I think it's mainly intuition. Wolves love to wander in any case, so Wolf led me on a meandering path through the forest where I had never been, starting from Inner River Park. We got to a place called Hastings Creek and walked in. Here there was a little elbow bridge and two arms of a babbling brook. After some wandering around, I went and crouched on one of the slippery green rocks in the creek there.

Creeks have a magic quality to them. My mind, which typically works at the speed of light unless I'm really concentrating, like now, is generally very distractable. I mean, at any given point I can suddenly change thought pattern without warning. People who know me, who have let me rant, are sometimes left completely blindsided by this little quirk of mine. I'm like a hound dog with two many scents to follow, but get me on a thread that I'm really passionate about and I just seriously do not shut up. End game. No more conversation - it's just me going "blahblahblahblahblah" and usually about Rimer. Rimer's my favourite topic of any conversation. I'd probably blow most people's minds with how intensely obsessed I am. Ah, but creeks! The creek quieted my mind and I was able to have my quiet little spiritual moment. It filled up the extra train of thought I always have running, quieting my hyperactive mind. I just sat there, getting a bit of a pain in the leg by the way I was crouching and feeling sleepy, thinking about what sort of job I wanted. Well, I learned what kind:

I want a job where there is a flow of information between me and other people - a job where I can learn and have fun. To inspire me to greater heights. That's the type of magical job I want. (Haha I like the word 'magical' but really I just want a fun job, like working at an outdoor equipment store or something!)

After I had this epiphany, which wasn't much of one because I believe I already knew it, I just needed to allow my brain to sort it out, I felt that it was time to go, to carry on. I looked across the creek and feeling that Wolf wanted me to go across and since there were plenty of rocks, the wanker made me go across it on foot.

Well, here's where he reaffirmed the lesson he keeps trying to drill into my head of don't be afraid to get your paws wet; I slipped and my shod foot went in the water. But the water was warm! I was amazed; it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, so I put both feet in the water and splashed across. Wolves don't use rocks anyway! There I realized my direction was a dead end and I turned around, splashing back across. I started hiking, thinking this lesson over as I went and the meanings of it - in life, we must not be afraid to get our paws wet. Chances are, the water's not as bad as you think it is. Don't make mountains out of molehills. Just do it - step in. It might be freezing cold, but y'never know - maybe there's a tasty fish waiting for you if you work for it.

As I started hiking again, my head sort of aching, I almost turned back, then thought of something else and that is that when you go hiking, you usually always feel kind of bad at the start if you are unprepared, but within a few minutes, once you really get into it and forget to be a human with a hella stressful life, that headache goes clean away. So I sucked it up and I kept hiking, letting Wolf tell me where to go. Letting myself just be a bystander to my own life was weird, but there's a good thing about being a long time hiker. You can fully and absolutely trust your feet. They know what to do in pretty much every situation imaginable. It's like typing once you're really good at it - you don't think about it, you just do it. I haven't the slightest idea of what my hands are doing right now as I type, even though I use what some people call the 'chicken peck' tactic to type which is where you search out every key then hit it. But I don't look at the keyboard at all because my fingers absolutely know what they are doing. They've been doing this so long, typing my manuscripts that this is just old hat to them, like a trail is old hat to my feet.

My feet and Wolf led me down a strange downhill avenue path of short little moss covered stick trees like a bridal path. It followed a sort of tube type thing for water (wow I'm so descriptive) all the way down to a river. By this time, I was kind of lost. I have no idea where I was, other than the vague notion that I was in West Lynn, which is not an area of North Vancouver which I am familiar with. At the edge of the river, surrounded by nothing but green, lush Vancouver forest, I stepped out and felt the crazy idea that Wolf wanted me to follow this sort of metal thing protecting the culvert tube that kind of dammed the river a little. Water was flowing over it just to clarify, but this thing made a tiny two foot waterfall. Wolf wanted me to cross the river just above it to where on the other side there was a cement thing. I had no idea what was over there and looking at the water, which wasn't deep but was questionable, I was not sure what to do. I wandered around on the sandbar for a good five minutes, standing on rocks and the like and I figured that if the water was lower, the river would be easily crossable. In fact, it was easily crossable as it was, but based on the logic that I had no way of knowing what it was like exactly, except that it was only about 1-2 feet deep, I elected to stay on my side of the river. There is a point where in hiking you have to stop being a wolf and become a human again.

I kind of regret not crossing that river. I wanted to, but I just didn't have the balls for it. Maybe if somebody else had been there, egging me on I would have, but it was just me and Wolf, a mortal and her spirit guide. He was asking me for bravery and he was trying to reassert his lesson of not being afraid of wet feet, of having faith, but I was nervous. Yes, I'll admit it - I'm really guilty for not crossing that river. I could have, but I didn't. I will probably keep making excuses to myself about why I did not for quite a while. I'm sure I'll have another opportunity to get my paws wet like the river and hopefully it is as safe as that, but it might not be. I'm very sorry I did not cross that damn river! In time the regret will fade. It's a small thing. I chose common sense in the end. Most sane modern humans just do not walk across rivers. But y'know, I'm pretty sure that had somebody been with me, I would of. This is another thing about humans and wolves - we're pack animals. We're always braver in a group.

So here I sit, back at home on my floor, my back to my bed and my body pillow. My lower legs are wet and itchy, for I did indeed step into the river tentatively for a bit. My thighs are warm though, warmed by my laptop as I write this and the steady tapping of the keys fills my pricked ears. Tomorrow I will continue my hunt for a job and my hunt for knowledge and hopefully, on either front, I shall come up successful. I hope so. This time I'll let Wolf guide me and you never know... it might work better. He did get me home, leading me for a loop and so he did take me for quite the run today.

I seriously had no idea where I was for a while back there!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Just Jump!


Growing up, this has been something which time after time has been shoved in my face, a truth which has helped me on many occasions. As a little girl, I was quite nervous of everything ranging from heights to deep natural bodies of water to driving in cars. Driving along cliffs (as well as any other sort of movement along them) still makes me incredibly nervous and to this day, the only form of locomotion I fully trust is that of my own two feet. In truth, I fear that if it was not for hiking I would not even trust these and if modern medical technology was not what it was when I was born, I would not of ever set foot to a trail. I was born an anxious little thing with feet that if they had continued to grow the way they were, would of crippled me forever. Thus; my middle name - Pauline, given to me after my great grandmother who had the same lameness at birth as me, but whose mobility fault was never corrected. The shocking thing about this is that all it took to fix my legs were simple casts and in truth, I did not even know that I was born lame until I was around five years old.

To the concept of jumping though; I have always been an anxious person and over the years, from my father dragging me across Yukness Ledge in Lake O'Hara (Yoho National Park) to leaping off of diving boards and job applications, I have learned that sometimes all you need is a leap of faith. Most of the time, I find that the expected burn that I was so terrified about is not so terrible as I made it out to be. So in short, sometimes you just have to jump! The following is written from memory.


I am a nervous person. On this day of May 19th 2010, I walked along Brooksbank Avenue towards the first perspective job place and I stalled a bit, nervously wondering what would happen when I entered the first establishment. I'm always nervous going into job places to hand in resumes, but the truth is, is that nobody really cares there that you are handing anything in. Usually the people are nice. So I did, reflecting over this as I went about my rounds, hoping dearly for a job, then finishing up with an application at Blockbuster. It had started to sprinkle before I went in, but I was not concerned, thinking that after I was done this final job application I could go home and rest out the remainder of the day. I had done well. Stepping back out approximately a half hour later, I was horrified at the sight of a classic Vancouver torrential downpour. Horror was my reaction because firstly, I was wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt with no outer layer for protection and secondly, because I had no money for bus fare.

I was stranded. With a cool wind blowing across me, I settled down under Blockbuster's eaves to call my parents so as to kill some time, hoping to walk home in clearer weather. Yet if there is one thing to be said about Vancouver, it is that waiting out a rainstorm is a losing battle. They don't call this place the 'Wet Coast' for nothing. Rain is as normal as sunshine here, in a way that is very different from my semi-desert homeland of the Okanagan.

So I stood there for a another good half hour, contemplating the very wet silver bullets flying down from the sky, shattering onto the parking lot and turning it to lake. I did not want to walk home in this; I cursed myself for my idiocy of forgetting the doctrine of BE PREPARED that had been drilled into my skull since my days as a Cub. Earlier I had looked outside and seen only cloud scudded sunshine, then I had glanced at my red coat and left it behind. Idiot! Often I find myself cursing myself for failing to listen to my own intuition, that little voice that quietly whispers to me "you're going to need that later."

Many, many times in my life I have encountered situations where I have balked. I'll admit that I am anxious and make mountains out of molehills. In a past life I was surely a horse and the worst kind of one - the kind that no matter how many times it sees its own shadow, it still bolts. It still cries out in terror and bucks. I wasn't afraid of the rainstorm, but I was afraid of the cold combined with the damp that could give me hypothermia and I was afraid of my precious sketchbook getting wet. But I was also hungry and I had the distinct need to pee, so after a few minutes of grudging consideration, the shortness of my attention span eventually won out and I sprang out from under the eaves of the building into the lot.

The rain was warm, feeling like the best kind of shower, like what Okanagan Lake feels like on a hot day. Wonderfully wet; welcome. It wasn't freezing; it was quite pleasant and I actually found myself enjoying it, though I was soaked within five minutes of leaving Blockbuster. I did not actually feel cold until I had been resting at home in dry safety for over ten minutes, forcing my stiffened fingers through the writing of a cover letter.

So of course, the moral of the story is the same as usual - sometimes you just have to jump. Sometimes, you have to pad to the end of the rickety teeter and stand on the edge, then lean over the edge until you have no choice but to leap out into the unknown. Sometimes you have to do stuff like this and trick your own mind, to give yourself no choice. Usually, when you jump you'll discover that the water is actually warm and not nearly as bad as you imagined. In fact, the water is wonderful. Water can be good.

Just jump.