Alternate Realities Begin at Home

Niagara Falls has (not really) frozen solid!!!!

When I was in University, I had the luxury of taking a first year Philosophy Course on the "Big Questions". I am an over thinker by nature so this course suited me well. If I remember correctly, we had two lectures per week and a TA led small group discussion where we meditated on these big questions.

I distinctly remember that in one of these discussions, we began talking about alternative realities.

Someone started talking about life on another planet, where say, life did not require oxygen or the common house fly ruled. My classmates would latch on, describing the alternative reality with terms, structures and ideologies that are common to our own world, assuming that they would be universally applied to a reality that was fundamentally different.

This bothered me to no end. "If a common house fly ruled all life, there is no way we would have been able to begin thinking about, let alone, manufacturing a fly swatter," I retorted.

"Even if such a reality were scientifically feasible, there would be fly police and fly surveillance and fly detention centres and fly miseducation institutes to teach us to worship flies instead of killing them. . .but that's STILL assuming that life would progress much as it has on earth. For flies to have become rulers, vastly different environmental circumstances would be required, first of all. Flies use entirely different communication mechanisms and organize themselves in entirely different ways than humans do. Without a deep understanding of the common housefly and it's desires, motivations, and organizational tendencies, it is very difficult to say how a fly-ruled-reality would play out. . .that is, if we're actually considering alternate realities and not just trying to make a cool scifi novel or comic. . .which I admit, would probably be more fun!"

"An alternate reality where flies rule is simply incomprehensible to us. So many interacting factors would have to come together to create this reality that we can't even begin to understand it!"

Alternate realities, are all theoretical, anyway. We only just may be able to get a glimpse of insight into whether or not parallel universes exist with the Hadron Collider back online. . .or back on time (and space)! But parallel universes are really only debatable philosophically.

What isn't theoretical however, are different cultures. Though not as incomprehensible as alternative realities run by flies or made entirely of chocolate goo, societies have developed in different ways across cultures and landscapes, usually for evolutionary purposes and are worth understanding. When my classmates seemed unable to grasp just how alternate an alternate reality could be, it made me wonder about the ability of the dominant culture to really conceptualize worlds different from those that raised them. My group was not very culturally diverse and I had only really been given a glimpse into Japanese culture at the time. Enough to have been confronted with a number of moments where I had to check my preconceived cultural biases, but not real immersion. My high school boyfriend, who was Vietnamese Canadian, offered only the tiniest fragments of insight into his upbringing as a child of immigrants and the alternative cultural influences of that experience. I understand that there's only so much one can really share--but I think more than that, his experience was wrapped with layers of shame and fear instilled by the dominant culture. The experience of his parents' adjustment to Canada was kept entirely hidden rather than held up as an example of triumph over adversity, likely because anything different from the "norm" was reinforced to seem embarrassing, abnormal and a target for bullying. . .and I totally get it. . .now. Then, I didn't know there was anything to get.

Today when I was driving around Niagara Falls with my mom and son I almost thought I could see Niagara Falls as if I was a tourist. There were a few brief moments where I was almost able to see through new eyes.

Then I started to wonder what I would think about other parts of the city if I were a tourist--the houses and the way the buildings are shaped, the hotels and commercial areas. Maybe, if I were a tourist I would be more impressed by the beauty of the waterfall. Maybe I wouldn't notice the rusted water tower and the stale, derelict residential areas. I may want to stay for a few days and just go down to the water and sit and think. I would listen to the rush of the water and be able to forget about my far away family and lovers and failures and worries.

These moments were fleeting. I think it must be nearly impossible to have a comparative opinion about the place you were born and raised. If I had come from Japan or India or Nigeria, I could imagine what I might think of Niagara Falls. A beautiful vacation spot--like the many I have witnessed in other parts of the world. But since I am from Niagara Falls, the spectacle is forever coupled with my entire life growing up here. Instead of seeing Niagara Falls in it's pristine natural beauty, the view is forever marred by that crappy first job I had in the Skylon tower and the summers that were spent behind the scenes in whatever restaurants would hire me. I am reminded of that time I went up the service elevator and hung out in the unfinished Hilton Penthouse and an ex-boyfriend who bragged about throwing opened containers of cream at tourists on Clifton Hill. I remember a brief conversation with a too skinny stripper who had stepped out onto main street for a smoke and a friend who had lived in an apartment above the same strip club and told me about how he was once warned that he was pissing off the Hell's Angels with his ecstasy sales and house parties.

Growing up in a tourist town makes you forever an insider and an outsider. It kind of spoils the illusion of things. . .

Maybe there is an alternate reality somewhere in which beautiful things are just beautiful. Maybe there is no time and things can not blossom or progress or diminish. Maybe the word ephemeral is incomprehensible to the minds or senses or whatever cognitive mechanisms are employed by such a place's inhabitants. But can that be real beauty? Would inhabitants (if there were any) be able to acknowledge it? Can beauty exist in a vacuum? Would such a reality necessitate an opposite alternative reality?

If it were possible to enter a parallel universe and stick around for long enough to study what it was like, all of our studying would still come with the baggage attached to our current experience of life on Earth. . .and this would probably be a great injustice. When we are self interested and only see that which may be beneficial for us, we miss the bigger picture--a picture that may provide great insight and wonder, expanding our consciousness and humanity. Instead we impose what we know in all of it's ugliness so what we want can be ours. Our tendency has been to humiliate, assimilate, murder and steal. What could be gained instead if we opened our minds and observed?

Purpose

Writing is not easy. It may come naturally and it may be intuitive, but that is only when you are actually able to sit down and eliminate the distractions and convince yourself that yes, this writing is important. No, this writing does not need to be reconsidered because of it's irrelevant/uninteresting/untruthful nature. This writing is the truest I can muster, the most articulate I can be on the topic of life as I have seen it and it is therefore, not only worth doing, but absolutely necessary.

It is the slippery nature of these beliefs that consistently make it difficult for me to write anything substantial. I second guess myself and my truths. I keep wanting my understanding of things to be more complete. I am starting to understand that this is a cop out. I am where I am and that too is a truth.  I am where I am and that is constantly changing and growing. Now is the only time when writing can happen, so I may as well start now.

This, I believe, is why many artists can not look at their past work or feel embarrassed when they are made to. It is painful to look at our naiveté, the self righteousness of youth, our idealism, after we have matured, even a little bit. It is like looking at pictures from the 80s.

Reading Hemingway has helped me to understand this. How cliche, right? But it's true. I only started to read him when I was in Nigeria and didn't really get what was so great about him. But I am starting to piece it together. What made Hemingway great is what has made all great writers great and that is writing the truth. The truth of a moment or a decade or a generation or a universe. Great writers--great artists, somehow encompass each level in a single work. It is important because it gives contemporary writers/readers a wider perspective of their present situation and thus (hopefully!) empathy . For those that come after, it gives history a pulse, war a conscience and revolution a breeze.

Writing is also important as a way of understanding what I think. Many writers have expressed similar feelings. When I write, it is like I am coming up for air. A few words of clarity and conciseness where my consciousness is really present and able to inform me. I find this increasingly necessary when there is commentary after commentary on current events. Response to response to response of whatever is going on. It is helpful to read other people's thoughts too, but that is again, why writing is important!  All of our experiences help to broaden the conversation and reflect the larger truth. I think a lot of the turmoil in the world right now is a direct result of the internet and user friendly social media platforms that have finally brought unique and diverse voices to the table.

Recording my own thoughts, trying to figure out what those are exactly, is the only way to ensure mine is included.

Voice

So often I feel like I am still finding my voice.
Approaching 30, I wonder why this is not yet something nestled snugly under my belt--a voice that I am confident to call my own.

By now, I should be certain and self-assured--about at least something!
But I have not learned to lay my certainties strategically. They seem to fall short, always on fault lines that shift with the ground beneath my feet.

This is not intentional. I am well educated and well traveled. I have learned things. I have seen things. I have thought and believed things. But everyday brings a new reality, a new challenge, a new question. And when I hold up my convictions like offerings to the alter of my voice, they are tiny balls of hail--collected through the storms and melted by the sun. Their watermarks make far less convincing an impression.

I question my memories and reconsider. Perhaps these beliefs and convictions were only the manifestation of an emotional state of being. Then, how can I be sure about something so transient? I shed another skin and those beliefs shed with them. Transforming to my next state. Butterfly, egg, caterpillar, cocoon. Endless.

So, I've been attempting to dwell in uncertainty. But this is dangerous territory. It is scaling the edge of a rocky canyon, tightrope walking across a fiery pit, exposing your heart, naked, to the elements. Hoping, always, for a favourable wind and encouraging words.

The trouble is, dwelling in uncertainty requires an element of conviction. A certainty that this is the final resting place and no further movement is necessary. Becoming sure and comfortable, starts to feel unsettling. And we find ourselves in a conundrum, which I imagine, is the door to the next phase. A trap door at the bottom a very very deep well.

Where on earth does it go?

All bets: to my voice.

Hiatus

Long time.
So long I've needed to oil the joints in my fingers to keep them from creaking as I write this.

Yes, I've been on a completely unintentional writing hiatus. This is my attempt to communicate with someone or something other than my own internal writer's brain. . .which seems to have shrunk considerably. There may need to be allowances made for my poor editing, boring prose or incomprehensible thoughts, but I'll try my best to make this an enjoyable experience for you, dear reader.

This writing hiatus has not been intentional and if I look at my blog, my last post was in July--which really wasn't that long ago. However, I have not been keeping up my practice. Since January, writing, which once bookended each day like two clear refreshing streams to dive into, became like trekking through mud-sucking river beds littered with the rusted corpses of half-devoured history. Usually I'd end up waist deep in mud, unable to take another step in any direction. After a while, discouraged by that hopeless feeling, I opted instead to sit on the river bank, staring out at the bleakness of my dreams turned to muck. Lately, I've been avoiding that place altogether, which is probably for the best.

I've found, over the past couple of weeks, that avoiding writing altogether has increased my urge to write. I've been getting ideas--good ideas--and I'm getting more and more excited about putting them into words, creating and working through stories and developing characters. I've been walking through different parts of my mind and forgetting about the past and the old stories and the old ways I was doing things.

I also started to think about my block in new ways. Sure, it started in Nigeria, after my hard drive crashed and my computer was out of commission. I was unable to access the drafts I had worked so hard on and my writing routine suffered. By the time I got back to Canada and got things with my computer sorted out, I was already  started down a new path of creation. I was growing a baby.

Now, I haven't read much about pregnancy's affects on artistry and I'm sure it's very different for every woman, but at this point, the baby is pretty much ready to pop out, and I can't help but wonder if that might have something to do with why I can suddenly write this blog post. It feels like the rains have come and the rivers are filling again, slowly, but surely. Perhaps the creative waters needed to be redirected for a while. . .
   
Another indication of this, I noticed, was an abnormally strong need to consume. I am an avid reader anyway, I have been for quite some time, but my reading patterns since I became pregnant have become somewhat unprecedented. I've read 28 books and notice that reading news articles and searching for information about random happenings in the world has been taking up most of my time. I've stayed away from TV (except for the Legend of Korra, book 3 and now 4!!! Which isn't even on TV anymore, so does that even count?!) and haven't watched too many movies or sought out a large number of new musicians, but books, books, books! It has felt unbalanced consuming so much with so little production, but perhaps I have been looking at the production end all wrong!

I am almost at the end of my pregnancy now (39 weeks!) and it feels like the streams that are slowly trickling back, covering up the muck to form new contours in the river bed promise to lead me to new places and old places to explore with new eyes. The eyes of a mother.

Attention

She sits at her computer unsure of whether or not she really has enough time to do this experiment. In fact, she is unsure of whether or not she has enough time to do most things she wants to do. There never seems to be enough hours in the day or days in the week or weeks in the month or months in the year to do everything she wants so she stopped keeping schedules. They just detailed her disappointments and missed opportunities.

The ring on her finger is not a wedding ring. It is silver with a white flower as the eye-catching feature. The pedals are made white by slivers of stone which could be white quartz. It caught her eye in Japan in a shop who's memory she wanted to preserve for as long as possible. It was a short walk in the opposite direction of her apartment where she lived in Japan. She often took the long way home to shop for socially conscious products, to rekindle her mind with questions and to delight her nose with natural scents. Just a few weeks ago, she happened to reconnect with those people and those times through the magic of technology to find out the shop too was becoming a memory of the past. Like the scratches on the silver band of the ring and the chip from the white stone flower, everything fades.

Her fingers have always been long. Piano fingers. Her pinky fingers always stick out. High class pinkies. Her nails have always been enviously strong. But not unbreakable.

Her legs are not long and not short. They are full of muscles and journeys and stories and pedal strokes. They know the earth in its many forms and the agony of pushing a bicycle with 25kg panniers up a mountain. They have raced up mount Fuji. They have washed themselves clean in 3 oceans. They have stood in 5 continents. They have kicked and ran and walked and cycled and skiied and danced and squatted and stood in many places. They have loved them all. They are looking forward to the long rest, but not anytime soon.

Her eyes are green and sometimes blue, depending on where they are. Ocean eyes. Many people have drown in them, many people have only gazed at the surface, afraid of their depths. One smart man brought a submarine and he's been exploring since.

Her words and thoughts are connected to things that are not always easy for people to understand. Her speech comes slowly but her pen writes fire. Her patience is commendable but imperfect. She is annoyed by anything that is not of the utmost truth, like this sentence.

She is not really boring, far from it, to be honest. But she often doubts herself and finds herself taking notes on which stories people listen to without interrupting half way through or changing the subject or leaving the room. She wonders how she could tell her stories better and is constantly working towards it. She also battles with the existential dilemma of emptiness and the lack of an essence and wonders if perhaps it would be better if she left nothing to grasp.

Window Shopping in Abuja

 While I am a volunteer in Nigeria, I am also taking a correspondence creative writing course from Humber College in Toronto. I am trying to write a book and applied for a workshop at Humber last year which I was accepted into and very impressed by. My mentor was Esi Edugyan who won the Giller Prize that year for Half Blood Blues. For this seven month course, my mentor is Sally Cooper who is the author of two books, Love Object and Tell Everything. I can't speak for Love Object because I haven't read it yet but I very much enjoyed Tell Everything even though it dealt with some very dark, Paul Bernardo/Karla Hamolka resembling, subjects.

The book I am attempting to write has to do with some of the experiences I had the first time I backpacked through India in 2009/10 which, if you go back through the records, you will realize is uncharacteristically absent. To be truthful though, a large majority of the important events in my life are not documented on my blog and remain somewhere in my body until they are ripe for the world to taste. So now I am weeding the soil around the seed and fertilizing it and doing some Biodynamic pest control rituals on the side for good measure to ensure that fruit is as sweet as I can make it. But as my good friend Kristine from Blue Chicory always said “It's best to make all your mistakes before you buy your own farm.”

For writing, it is all your own farm, but making mistakes and having a mentor to submit them to has been very helpful. It has helped me to see where my story is weak or awkward. Sally has also asked some insightful questions that have helped to pull out the story from the places it is still more comfortable hiding. I have already rewritten drafts and the results are much stronger but still not final. Writing is not an easy process. There is no real road map and no concrete directions. There isn't even a particular destination. After the peak of the mountain, you still wish you could fly higher. But somehow, the more you write, the more you understand yourself, the more you hear your own voice, the more you know what it is you're trying to say.

Good for
Phone cards, detergent, food, drinks!

One book that I've been reading is “Writing Fiction” by Janet Burroway which has been recommended as a text for the course. I think it was in that book where I read a suggestion to take an idiom or cliche that has lost its meaning and write a story detailing a new interpretation of the cliche that gives it meaning again.

Nigeria has provided the perfect example:

Siddharth checking out the goods

Window Shopping. :)

Turning Reservoirs into Mountains

Sorry for being so whiny in my post last week. I'm taking a correspondence writing course through Humber College and have been having a lot of trouble letting the words flow lately.
It's like agreements were written up, contracts signed and somehow before I had a chance to protest, the river was dammed and the crops I was growing in the fertile flood plains shrivelled.

Now I am hatching a terrorist plot to blow up the dam (but shhhhhh don't tell anyone!)*  FREE THE WORDS!!!! 

Please feel free to comment with hilarious puns that I can use as ammo :) (I'm confident there are at least a million) Your support is appreciated!

Anyway, here are some weird/interesting things that happened in Abuja this week so far.

They banned commercial buses in Abuja on Monday! They have replaced them with these buses!

shoddy picture of new 'high capacity buses'
from my 'low capacity' taxi

Many commuters in Abuja were unhappy with the sudden transition (transitions in Nigeria are often sudden. . .) and complained about long waits, increased traffic and poor planning by the transportation administration in Abuja who implemented the ban. High capacity buses were supposed to decrease traffic and cost to commuters but people are reluctant to embrace the change. Maybe because it was so sudden!!

I don't use the buses very much so my opinion is totally irrelevant and should be taken with a grain of salt but generally, lower costs and less traffic are good things, no? Especially if the cost can contribute to society and the local economy. Whether or not that will actually happen is another debate.
There are, of course, victims. Mostly, the owners of the hordes of green 16 seater commercial buses that used to crowd the streets and who are no longer able to operate. I wonder how their families are taking the ban. . .


Interesting thing number 2: carpets!

Carpet Mountain!

I went to get some clothes tailored last week at the tailor that operates under the stairs at a shopping plaza. I wanted to take a picture of that too but felt that it was kind of inappropriate. They had finished my two dresses and one shirt and let me try them on (under the stairs) to make sure they fit. Who knew that you can fit 4 sewing machines, three tailors and piles and piles of colourful fabric in such a tiny space!

Across the plaza from the Harry Potter tailors; carpet mountain!! Behold the wonders! A towering mountain of beautiful carpets to furnish your home.
It's not really that interesting or strange really. I just liked that it was outside. And since it was about to rain, Ogadi was curious about what would happen to them in the rain. . . . .
But don't worry, it has a rain coat!

It's bat time. . .in Kwara a
few weeks ago

So that's been interesting so far this week. It is only Wednesday though so lots more could still happen! And I think that maybe, just maybe, I've pulled myself out of the slump. . .perhaps (^^)V









*Wonder how many hits I'll get from the CIA/FBI/other security monitoring personnel for that metaphor! If you happen to be one, Thanks for visiting. I'm not really a terrorist! That metaphor was just a desperate attempt to keep my creativity alive! Hope you have a wonderful day ♥

White Whine

I've been trying to write a blog post for the past few days but every time I click on the 'new post' button and am sitting across from a blank page, I too go blank.
It's like all that whiteness is laying siege to my brain, spreading its empty freedom to the multitudes of firing connections. Insisting on an organized response.

Which, from the perspective of a rapidly white washed mind, seems like too much effort.

I try to think about the interesting things I've been doing, that friends might be interested in reading about.
I could talk about the weird dreams that my malaria medicine gave me (even weirder than normal. I've been to France, on a large cruise ship heading towards Canada, witnessed my own death and the end of the world a few times. . .).
I could talk about getting trapped in my stairway on Sunday. I was trying to visit my cat friend who was stuck on my neighbours balcony when a gust of wind blew the door shut behind me, somehow locking it permanently. The lock has never been stuck before. I had filled the pot bubbling away on the stove with more water than necessary, so at least I had some time to save the pot from boiling dry. I pried open the small window that opens from the kitchen to the stairway and banged on the wall and counter with a tin can screaming for Ogadi til he rescued me. He informed the neighbours of my predicament, who's front window I emerged in front of--cobwebs in my hair and dirt all over me from crawling down the abandoned stairway. Glad he was home!!
Now, Ogadi is convinced the cat is magical and responsible for locking the door in retribution for being trapped himself.

I could talk about my new flatmate, another volunteer from the UK who I took around Abuja for five hours yesterday. To the movie theatre/shopping mall for a coffee, to Wuse Market, to City View Restaurant. Before coming home to be sick, recover, finish Americanah, and finally work on my own writing project.

. . .all of which seem totally boring.

A lot of the things that WOULD be interesting (probably) are beginning to seem normal so I don't notice them as much. There's a certain point, I think, when you get used to a place and start to understand it on a level that makes the novelty of certain events or everyday occurrences fade. Or perhaps I'm just too accepting of differences at this point. I've kind of given up in noticing them and thinking they are so funny or peculiar or interesting. . .

Maybe it's just a slump. Or maybe I'm zooming in too much to detach myself for the moment.

Maybe I need some distance or some time or some. . .something.

Or maybe I just need to shut up and write like a Mother#^$*&@

Aljazeera interview with Binyavanga Wainaina

Interview with Binyavanga Wainaina, one of my favourite writers.

TED Talk from Elizabeth Gilbert

Now then, on to writing that book! :)