The tree.

The world is not like it once was, Cemented and concealed

Roots constricted and withheld. But grows tall above buildings,

It will not be held back, The tree.

Sad day for a duck

Walking in the sunshine today along the sea wall with my mom, we came across something rather sad. I looked down to the water - the tide was low - and I saw a sea duck just floating against the rock. It was flopping its head back and forth and was having a difficult time staying afloat. My mom and I stopped to look at it and it was then I realized that it's neck was broken.

I wasn't sure what to do, and the duck flipped on its back and his head went under water. It was bound to drown if I didn't do anything, or at least to suffer for a very long time. So I decided to walk down to the water and pick up this duck to prevent it from drowning. When I reached for it, his head was under water and I could tell it was scared. His eyes looked right at me. His feathers were smooth and I grabbed him gently.

A man and his daughter were walking by and asked, "What's wrong with it?"

"Its neck is broken," I said. The poor thing was flopping back and forth. The man suggested I put it out of its misery, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. He motioned to grabbing it by the head and whip its body around but I have never killed an animal before and wasn't about to do it.

Seeing I was mighty uncomfortable this man came down to me and he put to rest the poor duck. It was very sad. I carried the duck over to the nearest garbage and put it inside.

Horrible though it may be, I don't doubt that the duck would've died a slow and painful death if it wasn't for what this man and I did, and I feel better knowing we helped it die quickly.

scars.

Scars remind us where we've been,

 they don't have to dictate where we're going.

Welcome, Mr. Bug

Having a macro lens has strengthened my curiousity. The closeness I am able to attain with the lens is incredible. So incredible, in fact, that I have adopted a new friend in the process.

Last night while in bed I looked towards the bedside lamp and saw a giant bug flying to and then away from the lamp. Imagining it was some scary black and yellow wasp I let out a scream. Ben leapt under the covers. I grabbed the fly-swatter, determined to kill whichever it was. But then I discovered that it was this handsome bug, the Leptoglossus occidentalis, or the Western conifer seed bug.

The western conifer seed bug on my plant by the window.

After doing some digging with Ben on the internet, while Mr. Bug crawled quickly on my hands, we discovered that Mr. Bug is native to the western states and, according to accounts from another bug-lover, move inside homes when it gets too cold. Mr. Bug flew around the house towards the light, he sat patiently while I took pictures (as if he knew he were the subject of some new discovery) and then I placed him outside where I felt he belonged, on our windowsill. He was a very pretty bug.

But this morning I looked out and he was still on the sill, upside down. I thought, "Oh no! I killed him." But then I poked him and he moved. So, my thinking is that it is too cold for him outside and he'd be better off staying in our apartment where it is warm.

I think I'm odd in that way. Most people would squish him or flush him and that would be the end of that. But I can't help but feel that Mr. Bug has a sense of appreciation for me housing him from the cold wind. At least, that's my rationality. That, and he is very responsive to my playing with him and I find it entertaining.

*Update* Mr. Bug tragically died the other evening when he mistakenly flew into the web of said Mr. Spider, another occupant of Apt. 5 at 1035 West 12th. Mr. Spider proceeded to cast his web around Mr. Bug, suffocating him. Oh the irony of it all.

Poetry: Wordsworth

In an attempt to be more mindful, I'm going to start posting favourite poetry once a week. Tonight I heard this and looked it up. The poem is called Ode by William Wordsworth, and while it is nearly 210 lines long, I found this one part I particularly liked.

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

hiccup

hiccup
ears ringing, i am tired;
of the inconsistency.
the irrelevant encounters, the extraneous
beats and drinks and glances
met with a glare.
i am so tired.

The Cove

I've been meaning to watch The Cove for the past few months and only finally got around to it tonight. As it turns out, I am completely horrified. If you've seen it you are likely to have felt the same way I am feeling now.

What an amazing piece of work. A group of activists, filmmakers and freedivers try to uncover the secrets of the small Japanese town Taiji, where each year for six months nearly 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are murdered. Murder is a strong, visual word, but in this documentary it is certainly all that I see.

Fishermen gorge the dolphins with hooks, knives attached to poles, they tie the dolphins by thick rope to boats and drag them across the water in this particular bay. First, they tap on poles in the water to disturb the dolphin communication, and then after local and nearby dolphin trainers take the "pick of the litter" (the desired and trainable dolphins), the others are herded around a corner and to their death.

They even separate the baby dolphins from their parents. And in the end all die.

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but I will never again look at these Sea Worlds and other entertainment areas in the same light. Ever. In fact, this is exactly the kind of work I would like to get into, the kind of journalism I would be proud to be associated with.

Kudos for Ric O'Barry and the others for what they've done and for shedding light on this. For shame to Japan who continues to hide and even ignore the cruelty that continues.

swimming closer to you.

Loving the ocean.

To the flower..

is all it takes.

Meet me in Crooked River.

The Collisons, circa 1962.

DIH-SKUR-IJ

1. to deprive of courage, hope, or confidence; dishearten; dispirit.

2. to dissuade.

3. to obstruct by opposition or difficulty; hinder.

4. to express of make clear disapproval of.

Discouragement is something I've never been particularly good at tackling. It is something I am well aware of that diminishes my confidence and leaves me questioning my abilities as a journalist. But there are particular types of discouragement that leave me questioning the type of person I am or how others perceive me, and it is this type of discouragement that leaves me distressed.

I have grown a thick (or at least thicker) skin in the past five years, at school, in my personal life, with work, but the thick skin is not impenetrable. At times it even plays the role of a sponge, absorbing critique and criticism that should remain an exterior, things like suggestions and lessons.

Is there a discouragement repellent? Something I can spray like a mist, walk into and absorb, so that I no longer feel like I do at this moment.

old albums new.

When you're young, you forget that your parents at one time were not parents. You forget they went to college, had roommates, worked summer jobs. I myself have certainly, until recently, not understood this. I didn't even realize that my mom had stowed away in the spare room closet, albums upon albums of her life in film.

So for a few days this Christmas holiday I went through some albums and came across these photos taken of my mom when she was just 20, and beginning her first year at UBC. I like to think that if she and I were 20 at the same time, we would have been good friends.

Modest as she is, she says, "I never really thought anything of those photos when they were taken." Yet here I am, completely taken by how beautiful she is in them. A friend of a friend studying photography had taken them in 1976. I think now, almost 35 years later, she looks at them in a different light. I truly love discovering the things I did not know about my parents, like these old black-and-whites.