Weekend of Enlightenment
Not sure how to describe how I feel, though I for some reason wish to attempt to express it in words in my blog.
It's like, this weekend, I woke up. From a fog. A dream. A haze.
I found myself again, or part of myself, and maybe even found something that hadn't even been there before.
I love my new chessboard!
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Over the last couple of weeks I realized what my gifts were to give to the world that I'd been either poo-pooing or not giving enough weight. Mostly because I didn't think they'd make a big enough difference in the world. They are: writing and helping others. I realized I should more seriously pursue them both, so now I'm contemplating trying to publish a real book of poetry, and I've got an interview next week for tutoring in a volunteer adult literacy program. This is a good start.
That is the background to where I started in my weekend of topsy-turvy thoughts and crazy coincidences.
Friday night I was out looking for several books by Karen E. Gordon that teach different elements of the English language in a unique way that really really appeals to me. The first book in the series is The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. My thought was if I am to become more serious about my writing, I should bone up on, you know, some of that English stuff.
Crazy Coincidence #1: I didn't find the book, but I did find books on how to get published.
Saturday, I went to see the Modigliani exhibit at the Albright-Knox gallery in Buffalo. I don't know how to put words to what I saw in his works and what I got out of it. It really opened my eyes, to different things about people and human nature. I'd never even heard of the guy before, but let me tell you, he is amazing. Not necessarily at first glance, but he is.
That night, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, I had a crazy-intense conversation about art. It was so great, I hadn't had a crazy-intense conversation that brought me to new thoughts and ideas about anything in,... too long. We covered a fair bit of ground, but the thing that sticks out with me which comes up later is the concept of people who write about things that they haven't really experienced, like poverty, sounding very amateurish. Almost like, what right do they have to bash the government when they're still in The System and reaping benefit from it? You need to experience something in order to have a say.
Then I partied in St. Catherines! How weird is that! I'm living in Toronto and haven't had enough energy for partying in a long time, but psyched myself up for a wild night this weekend and it too brought me to new levels of understanding about myself and others and woke something in me. Again, it's a feeling that's beyond words.
After partying, my friend's friend wanted to play a game of chess with me on my new chess board. This is *the most amazing board you have ever seen.* Well, at least, it's the only board I have seen since my interest in chess starting a couple of years ago that has screamed out JILL at the top of its lungs. I found it at the Albright-Knox gift shop. It's designed by Karim Rashid. It was WOW. I have been playing email chess with my dad for almost constantly for a couple of years now, and lately he's been giving me a lot of handicaps so that I can learn from my mistakes. Mostly I've been feeling like I'm a pretty poor player. Which is why coming close to kicking this guy's ass felt *really good.* (He used to win tournaments, he says!) It didn't hurt that my friend who was watching oohed and aahed when I made really smart moves. :)
On Sunday, when I got home, I had probably the only potentially unpleasant email I have ever received from this one friend of mine. This was a wake-up call. About how I'd been being with him. About how I'd been being with my life! Everything became so clear to me, and this is possibly the moment when the fog lifted.
Actually, I think the fog lifted during my run, which was coincidentally the first good run I have had in maybe a month. I've been too tired to keep up the pace I should be keeping, and today it was, well, I wouldn't say easy, but certainly doable.
During this run, now that my mind was suddenly clear of things that had been ailing me recently, I had incredible amazing new insights about the world. Not just my world, the world at large. I'd been trying to figure out for quite some time what I think is wrong with the world and why the heck do I keep feeling like I need to save it. Save it from what? It became crystal-clear to me, the big picture of what had gone wrong. It actually contradicted some other theories I have held for most of my life. Following that, it became clear what I need to do to get the ball rolling on how to fix things. One of the first things to be remedied is my lack of understanding of the past. Besides beginning to study it (if this still seems like a good idea to me tomorrow,... sometimes ideas are HUGE in my brain until I go to sleep and I wake up the next day and think "what the hell was I thinking???" but these ideas are still from today so they're still big on my brain and still sound like a good idea :) I would also need to closely observe another culture that is still living elements of what the Westernized world needs. Learn from it, and more importantly, experience it.
Off tramping to a big Vegan potluck that had a poetry reading and was being filmed by CBC. Watch for me! I'm pretty sure I'll be on, they filmed me talking to the poet.
When speaking to people over dinner and then listening to the reading, I gained some new levels of understanding of vegetarianism and of my Grand Save The World Plan. I also got great new ideas for my writing. I've actually been getting several great ideas this weekend, which is part of the fog lifting as well, I'm pretty sure!
Crazy Coincidence #2: Someone I was talking to after the reading started telling me about a book he's read that is all about how the world got to the point where it is today. How crazy is that?! Upon further questioning, the author's vision is not exactly but sounds quite complementary to my world vision ideas. The history in the book sounds like *exactly* what I realized today that I need to learn.
Crazy Coincidence #3: This guy has the same ideas as me about going off to observe another culture to bring back some of the concepts into our world.
Too much of a sign.... Well let's see how I feel after I sleep on it. :) For any of you out there who are reading this and starting to worry about me traispsing off to other places, don't worry, it'll be quite some time before I do, if I do.
I used to have crazy enlightening change-my-world weekends all the time, but that was a long time ago. Feels really good to have one again. :) And hey, even if it turns out nothing comes out of this weekend, or, heaven forbid, I even lapse back into my fog, I have the coolest chess set ever!!! so it's all good.
posted by Jill 11:10 p.m.
