Rethinking Appalachia

There are many places I have yet to write about. One of those places is Appalachia, where me and my then-husband Barry lived, from 2000 until 2002.

I am about to go back to my dozens of sound files that I recorded when I was down there .. square dances, old time fiddle music, clear mountain springs high enough that the pollution couldn't get to it ... the distinctive accent, the coal trucks, the clicking and hissing of mountain bugs on sweaty hot summer nights.

If things go according to plan (that is, if my arts funding comes through), I will be starting to create a documentary poem with my good friend Angelyn deBord. Ange is a mountain woman, born in North Carolina, who has lived almost all of her adult life in a hundred year old house on a mountaintop. She's an accomplished writer, actor, painter, storyteller and she's now learning how to play the fiddle. It will be wonderful to go to Angie's mountain and work with her again.

It will also be a time to process my own thoughts and feelings about a time which was very beautiful, transformative, full of of good things. But also full of challenges. We happened to move down there two weeks before the first US stolen election, and we also lived there when the planes hit the towers. There was a kind of intensity that was hard to put into perspective .. and a very good opportunity for insight into what America really is as opposed to what it says it is. Revealing, but also disturbing on a number of levels ...

It was also the beginning of the end of my 23 year marriage. I wonder sometimes if we would have split up if we hadn't gone down there, and whether it really was a good idea.

But that's hindsight .. and now there are stories to write ... I almost feel ready ... almost ...

Care of Newbie Daters

I'm still figuring out what my recent foray into the dating world was all about. It was good, it was difficult, it was a new skill, it was a whole bunch of new skills.

It was nice people who just want to connect with somebody. It was jerks who just wanted to get laid. Mostly it was just imperfect people trying to connect with other imperfect people. A lot of the time being their mostly lovely selves, sometimes being rather clueless .. usually a bit of both ..

I found a lovely post called "Care of Newbie Daters" that is full of wisdom and compassion. Having both been a newbie dater myself, and encountered a few newbie daters too, there are a lot of good things there.

By the way, I'm sitting by the side of the dating pool for a while. No more online dating, no more asking men out. I might go if someone asked me but I'm not going to make it a major hobby.

If I take the same kind of energy I invested into it and focussed on ME for a while, I will be Queen of the Empire by this time next year I(because I'm Queen Victoria and I need an Empire). And I'll much more grounded and centred -- when I understand my own heart a little better, I will be much better able to open my heart to someone else's.

Update -- I am doing really well, I am finally in the happiness zone. It took a while .. but I'm there. The last three months have been revealing and full of wonderful growth ...

My new podcast and blog

A Gypsy in Kashmir .. heading 300 miles south to winter grazing grounds

I am very excited. I've been trying to find a way to combine travel, listening and tourism. Lots of people do photography but I haven't found anyone who takes sound pictures like I do.

So I have started a new blog and will be doing a new podcast ... I won't be announcing the name until I get the domain name registered (it's competitive out there). It will be a place where I can post my sound art from different places and also my journalistic pieces I've done. I've got enough pieces done to keep me going for at least a couple of months. Soundwalks in Nairobi, temple bells in Kathmandu, falcons on the tundra ... listening to my sounds brings me right back there.

The whole idea being that you don't just have to take your camera .. sound recording devices and editing program are inexpensive enough and easy enough that you can bring home your memories in sound. And add them in a slideshow presentation to your photos .. maybe even do some poetry around it ...

I'll let you know when I get some content up ... I'm so excited. Especially about getting enough traffic to my site to get free trips ...

Current blog count:
this one -- Heading to Central Blissville
Sound Out Media - my tips and tools blog
My non yet announced blog and travel and sound

Podcasts:
The House of Sound and Story - (which I really need to do more frequently)
The Green Planet Monitor (a project of Earth Chronicle Productions -- new series coming starting in September)

I know that sounds like an awful lot of podcasts and blogs .. but believe me, I know people who have 10!

My Next Mode of Transportation

I'm going to move somewhere next year at this time.

It will probably be a city. I really want to move to Nova Scotia but I don't want to buy a car. Partly because of the expense, mostly because I had one small accident, the first and only in my entire 25 years of driving. And the insurance companies want to charge me extortionate rates.

The damage to the car was around $8000. The book value of the car was only $6000. So they wrote it off. The person who hit me only got a scuff on her bumper. So this is justification to charge me $5000 a year in insurance?

I'll stop ranting now. I will rent cars. And live in cities. I will not own my own car as long as the insurance companies want $5000 a year from me.

If I did move to Nova Scotia, I think I would buy a horse. It would be less than an hour to ride to Digby to get groceries. Of course, Superstore doesn't have a hitching rail, so that's something I'd have to lobby for.

Overall, in rural areas, it makes a lot of sense. Still haven't ruled out the idea.
But I think I will continue to be a city dweller. Maybe Toronto. Maybe Ottawa. Leaning towards Ottawa ... where for sure there is no place to hitch your horse ..

The Last Part of the Story

Here's a bit of trivia -- did you know that it costs TWICE as much to file for divorce in Ontario than it does in all the other provinces?

I have been postponing filing for divorce and putting it off and putting it off ... I just haven't had the emotional energy to deal with it up until now . So this is a triumphant development after such a long time of thinking I would never have the inner strength to do it. It's taken me a long time to get here, and I am glad I've taken the time. Rather than try to bury my feelings, rush through it and pretend everything is okay.

I've had a lot of help along the way .. friends who invite me to stay with them because they wanted to be there for me. Summers in Nova Scotia and BC. Working trips all over the place. (thanks to best friend Dave who said to me "you need some international experience. Where do you want to go? I'm packing you on a plane to do stories. I wouldn't have gone to India if he hadn't insisted)

I look at who I am now, compared to who I was a few years ago. I don't know what I would have chosen if someone had shown me the two different me's and said "you get to choose. You can be who you are, or the you who you see in the future. But if you want to be the future version, your marriage has to end".

I like the me who I am now so much more. But I still feel sad that it came at the cost of losing the most important person in my life.

But that was then, this is now. And, after time and distance, I am thinking that maybe my perfect marriage wasn't so perfect. Regardless, time to let it go.

No reason why I have to get a divorce, of course. One friend of mine stayed married for 15 years. He had good benefits at work. And she looked at it as an insurance plan of another kind .. if she found somebody she really wanted to marry, waiting for the divorce would be like a 'cooling off' period so she didn't do anything rash or stupid.

I'm not concerned about that. Nor am I in a hurry to get married again. Maybe someday but that's a long way off. So getting a divorce isn't about that. It's about closure. If it's going to be over, it really needs to be over. Spiritually and emotionally, it's done. But it's not over legally and technically. It needs to be.

This story needs an end. I'm finally ready to write it. This is a very good development.

Lessons in Patience

Trying to slow down for a good look around


The other day a friend of mine and I drove past a garden shop. They were advertising Impatiens for .69 cents. My friend said "you sure don't need any of those. You're already impatient enough".

I have never been known for my patience. I attribute it partially to my background working on current affairs shows. I could often get three stories chased down and written in the time it was taking others on the show to finish one. My secret ... know when it's not going to happen and move on to the next one.

It is very useful to know when to cut and run. But to live a truly balanced life, one must also have the capacity to sit and wait. And I'm not good at that. Especially right now. The last three years in my life have been one of those phases where growth took place slowly, (if at all, sometimes it seemed .. things moved so slowly for a while there that I think they were actually going backwards).

And now things are just bursting wide open. All kinds of exciting possibilities. Great things happening .. it's kind of like Christmas. So much to open, so much to be excited about. I want it all. NOW.

I am very consciously trying to slow myself down, telling myself that everything still takes time even when time is travelling at a dizzying pace. So much value in slowing things down a bit.

So I try to meditate (never have been very good at it), try to live in the moment, try to tell myself that some things are still going to take their sweet time. And not drinking as much coffee ... I am like a madwoman on four cups of coffee in the morning.

Ah yes, this quest for patience.

The biggest challenge is that I want more patience NOW.

The Richness of the Question

In my last post, I wrote a bunch of notable statements that I heard at the Deep Wireless Festival. One of them is staying with me.

It's from Chris Brookes presentation "Making it Rain". He told a story about a snake .. can't remember what the snake connection was, but this snake asked the question "Why would you destroy the richness of the question with the poverty of an answer?"

Maybe it's because I ask questions for a living. Or maybe I ask questions for a living because it's something I've always done. Journalists are the answer seekers. In my art, which is not always journalism, I am always an answer seeker.

In my personal life, I also ask a lot of questions. And I'm always looking for answers. Life is a mystery to be solved. Ambiguity is just something to be contended with, not something to be enjoyed like a foggy day.

The reason why I am drawn to Chris's (and the snake's) question is that maybe, finally, I am starting to enjoy the questions. For the first time in my life, I am starting to relax with the idea of mystery .. of not needing to know the answers to everything.

It's slow growth, though. I have to remind myself to be patient. I have to remind myself that not knowing what I'm going to be doing every minute of the day tomorrow is good. That there is a lot of life in the unpredictability, because then I am open to the possibilities I wouldn't see by requiring everything to conform to a predictable path.

Don't expect instant patience from me right away .. but I'm planning to be around this world for a lot longer ... so I do have some time to work on it. Another good thing that happens with patience is accepting that I am a work in progress.

I am the richness of the question. I am not the answer.