Some book talk.

During the past two weeks my life has been revolving once more around writing my book, "This is not a book," so I think this is what I will be filling you in on this week because I have no other life to speak of.

Due to a very hectic schedule last month I hadn't had a chance to put pen to paper so I thought when the work hours soften (as they sometimes do) I can kick start the writing intensive with a creative writing workshop, a little gift to myself.

The workshop would take place over two days and be (in my mind) the most wonderfully inspiring exploration. However things were not to go as planned...

I arrived from an early bus trip to the country side of Quebec full of a creative hunger. I found another woman who was also taking the workshop at the drop off zone and together we waited in the middle of nowhere. We chatted well past thirty minutes when both of us realized no-one had come yet. The tiny bus depot was connected to a gas service station which was then connected to an A&W (big, fat, meaty, meat-burgers) restaurant.
We decide at this point to call but would you believe I don't have a cell phone and neither does my new friend. We do on the other hand have the organizers number so using the only phone at this gas station, a short walk into the freezing winds, my friend attempts to put five dollars worth of quarters into the long distance phone. She and I both try again and again over the next few hours to get through to the cell phone but to no avail. Meanwhile, I have been secretly debating whether to buy a tube of Pringles for the entire time. I write this in a scrap book to release the angst building from these fake potato things getting the better of my judgement.
After three hours of waiting a bus comes and in short I leave to go back to Montreal. What I thought would do the trick to start writing again was not to be.

A few days later, I began back in the bedroom that had a view of a thieving squirrel looting a cat's bowl from across the street. This is where I now currently sit, on a big, blue, bouncing ball for an ergonomic sound posture, writing a minimum of 500 quality words per day. And in just two months people this baby will be screaming, giggling and pooping.

You ready for a Chinese adventure?
   

The Grandpa Guru...

Occasionaly, when I want to escape the fluroscent buzz from my work and the lobotomy drill sounds from the one dollar coffee machine, I often meander down the street only to get stuck on the first shop on the corner. It's an 'Artisan Quebecois' shop primarily full of art, shoes and clothing made from local native artists with the exception of overseas products from Asia.
The man who runs this crowded little boutique is seventy years of age with gigantic ears, a huge nose and the appearance of a garden gnome who's look has been magnified.
He's become somewhat of a friend over the last few months because I seem to get lost in his store full of trinkets and pretty things and then before we know it we're both babbling away. To be honest, I have no idea of this mans name and in fact we have never even thought to exchange such knowledge but to give you a brief idea of him I have adopted him and named him my Grandpa Guru.
(Not that he has any idea of this, of course.)
He's the type of man - if you're ever privy to meet one - that has lived a life to it's fullest.
I recently had a problem regarding the cross bearing word choice. So one darkening afternoon, I opened up to him. I laid out all my thoughts and fears regarding this choice I felt somewhat responsible to make.
He stood leaning over the counter, listening like only a person with time can. I finished and waited.
He began with a story that went like this.
One day when he was travelling in a handmade canoe packed with stock through the Amazon Jungle, the water began to pick up pace. There were two other canoes also carrying cargo in front of their two maned vessel. He could see the rapids up ahead crashing against the rocks. The first canoe entered this dangerous part and turned over losing all their stock and injuring a man. The second canoe also turned over as they hit the troubled waters. The young Grandpa Guru lept into action ordering the other man in his canoe to copy him and lie flat. They lay flat just as they were entering the danger zone. The canoe rocked and tossed but regained its equilibrium.
"So you see," he says over the gypsy-jazz playing in the background, "if I hadn't got the guy to work with me we wouldn't have got through those fucking waters. And when the moment of choice comes about in your life, you'll have to work together with what you've got."
"But I wouldn't worry about anything until then..." he adds, "life has a strange way of working everything out. In the long run..."

I thanked Grandpa Guru and left feeling like I could get through those waters even if I had a canoe full of screaming cats.