Adventures in Oz

This morning I had to get up and go deal with our pump yet again. For some reason the power to the shed where it's plugged in died. Might have had something to do with the rain and wind. What a great way to start the day and it only got better.

We had winds gusting to 100km/hr, driving rain and lightning in the afternoon. This in the equivalent of the northern hemisphere's December. It took down trees everywhere, the native vegetation park looked like the trees had been mown. We shut the shop at 2pm because there was no way the power was coming back any time soon. Fortunately, the worker responsible for clearing downed trees off our section of road used his head. He drove the dozer back to town along the rail trail. I'd brought a saw along just in case but I'm pretty sure it would have taken an hour or more to ride home if the trail hadn't been cleared. This on a ride that's normally 15 minutes.

The pub next door lost the roof from a bungalow out back and part of their front veranda. Tin from the bungalow roof ended up across the highway wrapped around a tree 10 meters off the ground. A house a couple of k away lost it's entire roof. We were lucky. All it did to our place is blow the back door open which fortunately is so far under a veranda that no water got in.

I went over to pub to see if they needed any help. Here's what I love about country life: as I talked to the owners maybe half a dozen people pulled up to see if they could help. Everyone was touching base and making sure everyone else was okay. Sure, a lot of these folk are rough as guts but they care about and look after each other.

We dug out some candles and our torches for light. I trudged across the highway to the creek and filled some buckets so we could flush the toilet. Claire made dinner on the barbeque and we ate by candle light. Our pre-bed play with Em consisted entirely of games where she got to sit in my lap.

Me: Emlyn, it's 10 degrees in here, you need warmer clothes.
Em: No, I'm warm.
Me: Yes, put on this jumper...
Em. No, no, No, NO!
Me: Look, if you're not cold why does every game involve you sitting in my lap?
Em: Cuddle me

She did tell me a fabulous story though. She gave me a piece of paper that she'd carefully folded up.

Me: What's this?
Em: It's your ticket.
Me: My ticket for what?
Em: Vesher.
Me: What?
Em: Vesher!
Me: Take that dummy out...
Em: Adventure.
Me: An adventure like with pirates?
Em: Yes we sailed on ship to island and there was a hole and the wormmies got the hole from the wormmy store and they went wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle and got it out for us. *
Me: Breath my love, breath. Got what out for us.
Em: Treasure.
Me: I love this adventure.

The power came back on after 7 and and a half hours. I've got to say that that was pretty quick work and that I'm a little disappointed. As unpleasant as it was to sit around in a cold house it was also kinda fun. A nice, safe adventure to break up the routine. For us at any rate; tomorrow will show just how bad it was for everyone else.

Gender

Okay, I can talk about other things really. No seriously I can, honest...er, well that said, I've got to get this off my chest:

Meccano has re-issued it's classic metal construction set. When I saw them for sale I bought two for Emlyn despite her being less than a year old. She's just under three now and we're going to wait a bit longer to break it out. I don't really care if she takes to it or not, but she's going to have the opportunity for that kind of constructive play.

Em is an intelligent, curious and energetic human being. You can almost see the potential radiating out from her, like some kind of Van der Graaf generated nimbus. I don't understand how anyone, male or female, could see that potential and want to limit it in any way. It makes me grit my teeth to think of it. Saying to your daughter "I love you." while shoehorning her into a narrowly defined gender role is the very height of destructive ignorance.

I can and will denounce, demean and fucking destroy if necessary, anyone who tries to limit my daughter because she's female.

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/panta/

Happy Birthday...

...to me.

I got woken up by the most beautiful and smart toddler in the whole wide world who gave me the new Gogol Bordello CD and help me unwrap it. An impromptu gypsy-punk pajama dance party ensued in the kitchen. With a start like that how could it not be the best birthday ever?

Fears

If I could name them, my fears would fill whole books. Great dusty tomes smelling of sweaty hands and dry rot. I try not to think about them in quantitative terms lest I be overwhelmed by the shear weight of those volumes. Two years and ten months ago a new set of fears came into my life, almost identical to those old familiar ones. For every fear I have for myself, I have one for Emlyn. Even in those moments where the joy crushes my lungs until all I can do is laugh those fears sit waiting. This too is parenting.

My fears for myself once threatened to bury me. No single one was enough to do it, but the weight of them all together was almost too much. I can't think why I never gave up. Perhaps, deep down, I really am an optimist. Whatever, the why of it doesn't matter anymore.

My fears for Emlyn are fundamentally different. They cannot overwhelm me, because if they did, if I succumbed, Em would be damaged. This is not an irrational fear like so many I have, this is a simple fact. A fact borne out by the damage I got from my father succumbing to his demons.

I can't prevent some of the things I worry about from coming to pass. Em will get her heart broken, it is even healthy that she do so. One can learn so much from such things. But I will be there to wipe her tears and say, "This too shall pass." I will be there to hold her and say "I love you."

I will be there.

Fuck all my fears. They have less worth than the tiniest part of the most insignificant moment in my daughter's life. They're dusty words in dusty books, and even if I can't be rid of them entirely they shall never threaten me again.

This is what joy looks like:

Stan Rogers, The Beatles and Me

Once upon a time this was a blog about my life in music. These days, not so much. Funny how having a child and owning a business takes up all the time I have. Funny too how such a tiny little person takes up so much of my thoughts. I'm not complaining mind you, for the most part life's pretty good.

The thing I haven't confessed to anyone is that I haven't even been listening to much music for the last couple of years, let alone making it. I don't like having music on in the background, I've never really understood the point of that. Either the music is interesting and deserves my attention or it isn't so why have it on at all? Em and I have impromptu dance parties once in a while but that's a different thing.

Another problem is I like to listen on headphones. Unfortunately I'm not kidding about tinnitus and I'm afraid that headphones make it worse, even when the volume's low.

At work I mostly listen to podcasts. The nice thing about them is that if I have to pause it because someone's come into the shop it doesn't really matter. Unlike music, non-poetic spoken word pieces don't suffer much when repeatedly interrupted.

All of this has resulted in a long hiatus that I've recently broken. Broken to good effect I must say. My ipod hasn't been updated since I left Canada. The songs on it are all old favorites worn thin my repeated plays. This hiatus has refreshed them to a remarkable degree. The song at the end of this post has always been one that really kicked me in my soft, squishy emotions. I listened to it today for the first time in what must be two years. I'm not ashamed to say that I got goosebumps and tears in my eyes. I'm not presenting it here because I feel anyone else will have the same reaction, but it's a damned fine song with a damned fine sentiment regardless.

As to making music, I've finally set up my digital recorder. In a fit of inspiration I wrote and recorded a couple of things. At first it was just a verse structure, pretty simple and straightforward with just bass and guitar. Claire said it sounded like the most optimistic thing I've ever written. There's no lyrics yet but I have an idea of what I want to say and what Claire heard in the music was spot on. But then I thought it needed some kind of slower intro/bridge bit. I took the elements of the riff and played around with it till I got something I liked. Only to find that the intro has become something that can, and probably should, stand on its own.

This happens to me every time I try and write a complete piece. I can write one thing that I really like but when I try and write something contrasting to go with it that bit ends up being something else that no longer fits. Then I end up where I am now, feeling just too tired to try and think up yet another part that'll probably end up not working either. Ah well, at least it's a start.

The other thing I've been thinking about is writing more about music. My latest idea is to go through the Beatles discography from the beginning. You see, I've never really listened to them. Sure I've heard the songs, it's almost impossible to grow up in urban North America without hearing them. But I've never listened to them in detail, nor have I read much about them. Just the occasional short article where the author asserts that they had some profound effect on youth/music/culture etc. Assertions that never seem to have any backing other than that author's opinion.

The Beatles are perfect for such a project. They have a limited output, only 12 or 13 albums depending on how you count Magical Mystery Tour. They're 1/2 dead and never reformed in any way. I won't have to deal with issues like deciding whether The Who minus Keith Moon was actually The Who or did Entwhistle's death mark their final demise. And they have that huge mythology surrounding them.

I wonder if they hold up as anything other than nostalgia. I wonder if they'll speak to someone like me, an adult who grew up in another era on an odd combination of punk and classical. I wonder if their music is still relevant in the 21st century, divorced from cultural movement that is was so much a part of. Ha, I think I might just have talked myself into this. We'll see.

In the meantime please enjoy Stan Rogers' "The Mary Ellen Carter" It's too bad the video has credits running over it. I preferred this one because the only other I could find didn't have footage of Stan singing.

Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions | Video on TED.com

Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions | Video on TED.com

Not exactly the way I wanted to start blogging again but it'll have to do. Mind you(?) no one's listening anymore. :)