-

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

Silence.

At times I think silence can be the most torturous thing. We can make words what we want them; twist them to our liking, but we cannot do this with silence. Silence can mean anything, but it can also mean nothing. Hearing nothing more than the echo of your own voice when you're anticipating a response might very well be one of the more frustrating conclusions of the human experience.  Perhaps from God we take silence as an invitation to take the reigns and attempt to seek liberation by our own means. However, when received from a person, we only become more curious. We seek more, we are offended - we pry until we know what they're thinking and why they won't share that with us. And if nothing else, we are at least more careful as to how we go about acting around them post-silence. How come with God when we hear nothing we don't assume that he'll answer our cries in his timing. How come we act as children with parents on vacation and step into the drivers seat? 

Things are Wrapping Up, All of a Sudden

All of a sudden my profs are saying things like: "two more classes left..." and "as the year wraps up..."
Wow.
Really? ... Already?


This year's been a whirlwind. It's been filled with all the things a school year could be, really.  Firstly, growth. I don't feel like the same person who left Alberta eight months ago.  Class taught me more than I thought was even out there to learn, and God's taught me even more. Things about myself, things about others, and things about the world and my role in it. With growth comes tears, and heartbreak; feeling uncomfortable, and missing the familiar. But I'm thankful for it all. I'm thankful for the people I've encountered and the lessons that weren't learned the easy way.  

Dirty windshield; perfect view
[See you soon, Mountains]

& did you know that
maple tress are for real?

Toronto is quite a lovely place
to call my almost home

Part of me looks forward to summer. Familiar friends and free rent; can't be so bad, right? But maybe a little part of me ran away. Maybe a little part of me isn't so much looking forward to trying to fit new Hilary into old Hilary's shoes. Thoughts of what people will think eat away at me.  I feel like an entirely different person in some ways, and I don't know how it'll look when I attempt to step back into the life I left behind last September.

Summer Adventures in March

Life’s good today.

The perfect amount of warmth. Crispy shoulders and sun burnt knees. Biking and more biking. I like today.

I woke up this morning to the face of a lovely friend. We stopped for an early coffee and bagels, and then sat at a waterfall and had one of those wonderful talks that will probably still impact your life five years from now. Psalm 139 guided our discussion, and where friends are reading the Bible together – things are good.

My classes finished by 1:00pm and it was not the sort of day to be inside. So I rode my bike back to that waterfall, and now I am just being - simply existing and loving each moment as it passes. I think these moments are what life is all about… what busyness robs us of. I have novels to read and tests to study for, but I have the perfect moment all around me, and I’m not going to do anything but sit here and exist in it.

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of the earth, overlaying our hard hearts." 

- Charles Dickens

India

I haven’t written yet about India. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I’m still processing everything I learned. I don’t know how to do it justice in a few words. It was unreal.

Here’s an attempt - but know that my literary skills severely inhibit me from having the ability to convey how much I was impacted over reading break.

If I was to take one “thing” that impacted me about my short time in India it is that I found the experience very humbling. My idea of serving the poor was entirely off. I think I had this North American ideal that I would walk around, hand each person 10 rupees, make their day and walk away feeling like a wonderful Christian University student who was bettering the world. But what about when there’s someone begging every two steps you take? What about the fact that there is a good possibility that the person you hand the money to isn’t actually the person getting it? …When you feel like all your efforts to help are contributing to a greater problem. I don’t have the solution. And here’s the real question: if I did, would I be doing anything about it anyways?

I hate to make my trip overview sound like a depression session, because despite the hard things I saw I came away with a general sense of encouragement and hope for India. I spent most of my time (well, all of my time that I wasn’t stuck in airports) at the organization that my sister has been working with for several months, Metropolitan Mission. This reminded me that God is working amongst such poverty. Every village we went into we were welcomed with smiling faces, flower garlands, and usually a meal. India knows how to do hospitality! Another thing I found was their incredible emphasis on prayer. It didn’t seem like an “add on” to their lives; in many cases in was undoubtedly the centre, where they legitimately placed their hope.

Religion in general seems to be celebrated much more blatantly in India (at least from what I saw). A majestically decorated temple sits right beside a catholic church and at both places people come to cry out to God in worship, and they don’t seem to be concerned with offending each other.  I’m not necessarily saying this is better or worse, because I think our culture in North America overall just doesn’t respond to blatant acts of any type of expression well, but at the same time I found it interesting and kind of found it intriguing that people with such fundamental differences had learned to live in harmony.

I’ve considered both scrapping and revising this blog about five times now; it all seems so trivial when I write it down - like such an impersonal way of explaining the impacts I experienced. But I suppose it’s start. More to come. Maybe. 

4 hours to India

Funny how life works, isn't it? After writing about the peace I felt about my visa, it came just a few days later. Which (fast-forward) brings me to the present... 

I leave for the airport in 4 hours to go to India. 

Once again I have that familiar feeling of my toes dangling over the edge, I'm about to jump, but fear sets in. Why is it that we get apprehensive when it's too late to turn back? The knot in your stomach doesn't form before you buy the plane ticket. No, it forms when you have no choice but to over come it. 

"I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength." 

That verse has been a great comfort to me today. Because Christ's strength is infinite, therefore that minimizes all the fears that attempt to immobilize me. Horror stories of other people's bad travel experiences haunt me, but when I think about having the strength of God within me, that seems so trivial.  All I'm doing is getting on a plane and waiting out a few layovers. What is that really in the grand scheme of things? Trivial.

So now, once again, I get ready to jump.  

Best friends with my Backpack.

I decided to mix up my font today. I hope you like it. If not, too bad - I like it. 


Each day I eagerly check my mail, and each day nothing comes. Well, things come - but not what I am waiting for. All is irrelevant when I don't see the package I await from the Indian consulate. I am waiting for a particular important person to put a particular visa in my passport and send it back to me so my adventure can begin. Those who sit beside me in lectures have the unfortunate distraction of watching a chipmunk dance on my computer screen while I browse plane tickets, something I prefer to have on the forefront of my mind while the prof drags on about a novel written before civilization.  It's like I'm cheating on my beloved backpack if I'm not planning something we can do together soon. I don't think other people wanderlust as much as I do; and if they do, they are less blatant about it. If I don't have an upcoming trip I start to get this claustrophobic feeling - as though I am trapped. Trapped and trip-less. The worst! 

So I still don't have a visa to India. (My next destination of choice). I would ideally like to leave Friday. Friday, 6 days from now, Friday. Yes, that Friday. However, despite me losing heart in some senses about my departure date creeping up and me remaining immobilized to hurry the process up, I am overwhelmed by peace. My stress coping tactics are slim to nil, being an overall stressless person is great, until you have to deal with something... and then you have zero practice. I generally like to handle such situations with a little cry and then brief hyperventilation session.  Doesn't solve much. But this time, this time is different. One thing I know for certain, it's not me getting any better at handling stress. Or maybe it is... because instead of trying to handle it on my own, I finally realized I can't. And I let somebody else. Sometimes I feel like a 4 year old... "no mom, I can do it" which is usually followed by the child spilling something all over themselves. However, finally just allowing God to step in is remarkably freeing. (Probably should have figured this out sooner, eh?). So now, no visa - no India. That's okay. Visa- India. Also okay [well, more than okay... freaking awesome!]. 

Mountains.

Homesick is a funny feeling. One that I rarely cross paths with, to be honest. Restlessness is usually a more accurate description of my state of mind. Normally I don't crave the familiar; I long for the unexplored. I'm always on to the next, on to the next, on to the next. But today I miss all the things I've seen before. I especially miss the mountains. Few things remind me of God's greatness like a big, imposing mountain. I've always been fascinated with them; even as a kid, I used to try and comprehend how that huge rock was finite compared to God.  I loved them. Every time our family took the weekend to go hiking, as we approached that place on the highway where the outline of the mountains starts to peek over the horizon, my face would light up and I would feel the need to confirm with my parents in the front seat that it was in fact "the mountains" that I was seeing. I'd get so antsy to be in their midst that every mile from there on in was more exciting than the next.

Now, living in a place where they call a slight gradual incline "the mountain", the rockies are a reminder of home. They're that token thing that I miss. It's not like I miss the actual rocks, or that seeing them will bring me a sense on completeness. What I miss about home is the people. But for some reason these towering mountain ranges are what I long for.  Maybe it's that childish feeling I'm actually nostalgic for. Being so excited about the very moment that you're in that you just don't even know how you are going to stay seated in that back seat. So content with the right now, and so excited about what's to come.  I'm not sure.  

East. West. Best. Everything Else.

Today I was feeling very west-coastish; is that an adjective?  For some reason I was longing to drink a JJ Bean chai latte and walk the coast of Vancouver, Seattle or Portland.  All day I was craving Portland's wonderful city transit and good recycling program, and Vancouver's unceasing dreariness.  Sometimes part of me is upset and how my body limits me to being in one place at a time.  I long to experience all that life can possibly offer me. I want to know all people, and see all places, and experience all culture. I want to hear the best music and smell the best smells. I want to take in all of life's rawness. Even if it hurts; part of me wants to know the pain that other people experience. I want to love. And not just love for my own sake, but experience selfless love. I want to jump off the tallest things and swim into the depths.  To experience all seasons without waiting or to get on a train and not know where it's going. To sleep on a stranger's couch. To lie on a beach in the middle of a snowstorm.  To drink the world's best coffee or smoke the best tobacco.  To eat cheap donuts and talk to uninteresting people; to experience the mundane but see it's beauty. I want to sit in a lecture of every university. I want to experience the stereotypical - to watch the american past time, to skate in central park, to fall in love in Paris. 

In some senses movies have cheapened these things for us; we will never have that perfectly lined up moment. But yet, I think they have enriched these things too. They place in us a longing for experience, and the feeling that comes with that experience, that we would probably never otherwise dream of. How sad is it that we have to let someone else do our dreaming for us?  

"I Believe"

I suppose most of these thoughts stemmed from the discussion we had at home church last night. For those of you who just thought "what's home church?" - it's more or less a trendy way to say Bible study.

So we were talking about Ephesians 5:1-20; in verse eight it says: "For you were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light..."

Live as children of light. 

Wow. That is a huge calling. I feel like we have a tendency to over- metaphor-ize things are therefore entirely disregard them. How influential would we be if we walked out the door every morning and exhibited Jesus' truth in literally everything we did. 

As an example... So let's say, you grow up your whole life thinking the colour we say is blue, is in fact Blue. Just as we've grown up hearing "women are sexual objects, indulge in all things, work towards your own advancement." And then someone comes along and says, no -- you've got it all wrong. Blue is Purple. Believe me and live the rest of your life accordingly. Now, first of all, if you said "I believe you", you would be making a pretty bold statement. If, from there, you went and submerged yourself underwater in front of a bunch of people to proclaim that in fact you now felt with your whole self that "Blue IS Purple", you would be saying a lot. Now, if you really believed this new truth it would change anything. Your perception of the world would be shattered. Or enhanced entirely. You choose. Everything you saw that you once saw as Blue would now be Purple, how enlightening would that be? Would you not want to tell everyone about how everything we'd ever been told was a distortion of reality, and you now had the key to Truth? 

But here's the crazy thing. Jesus essentially did this. He came and said, your society is marred. Here is the Truth. And we said, "oh yeah, cool - I believe you." Maybe some people got excited about it, but the majority of us (about 90% of North America) said, okay cool, so... how little can I do and get to heaven? People! BLUE IS PURPLE. Everything is changed. We have found TRUTH. Why are our lives not completely changed by it? Why aren't we sharing this amazing revelation we've been told? Why are we letting the rest of the world live with their eyes closed. 

We are children of Light.

Banksy; Modern Day Genius

So this week I've had a difficult time focussing to say the least...

In my lack of learning about cells and western civilization I have found myself once again enjoying the clever mystery characterized by Banksy.

This man is seriously a genius. He says so much while boldly defying societal norms.

Here's a few of my favourite quotes... (the pictures kept not working)

“You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.
You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation
at high speed with total clarity.” - Banksy

“The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages”  - Banksy

"Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.”  - Banksy

Toronto; not so bad

There are few places I've been that I would say I genuinely didn't like. In a boring town there is usually something unique to be found, in an urban cement-covered city somebody has usually expressed art somewhere tucked away in a corner.  Even in Rome, a city I didn't enjoy whatsoever, the beauty of their architecture is undeniable. (And the Gelato is good, too.)

 I've trekked from Vancouver to Montreal, and up to the Yukon at varying points in my two decades of Canadian inhabitance, but for some reason always avoided Toronto. Debatably, the centre of the country; at least in terms of commerce.  So last weekend, I finally went. I expected a cold, skyscraper-ridden, empty feeling metropolis. But I was pleasantly surprised. Everywhere I looked it seemed as though cultural diversity was prominent. While wandering through Chinatown to the Kensington Market, I felt as though I had left my home country and in fact entered into something entirely foreign.  Between the smells of fish out in the open, and an overwhelming montage of colourful scarves and blankets, the scene from the matrix that i'd envisioned was nowhere to be found.  Sure, Starbucks was everywhere and you didn't have to look far to see someone wearing a suit, but that also added an element of it's own to the feel of the city.  In Vancouver, you don't have to look far to find an environmental-supporting hipster, or an underground indie concert, but a little further you'd have to go to find a career-driven twenty five year-old rushing off to a business meeting. I think I liked Toronto because it felt like it had some of everything.  The "fringe of society" loving people were there, there was music, and art and poverty, but there was also people of importance in terms of how our country functions, finance majors and people key in insurance firms. At times, I think we get so involved in finding culture outside of culture, that we forget that the suit-wearing, Starbucks-carrying, business-minded people are just as much of our society as those of us that vote Green. (And yes, I vote green).

In conclusion, Toronto is now on my list of favs. 

First days in Ontario

note the person on the right- hilarious!

I packed my life into three suitcases, I hugged everyone I love, shed a few tears, and got on flight WS0404 to Hamilton.  For four hours I sat restlessly, with my mindset nestling between anxious and excited.  The resounding words of "the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign" finally signalled the end of my flight.  I stepped off, anticipating a legendarily warm Ontario summer day, only to be welcomed by a overcast gloomy sky. I heaved my bags off the luggage carousal, and was on my way to Redeemer.

me in my snazzy dorm

So now I'm here --

hard at work at my job...

The past few days have been filled [literally- FILLED] with meeting new people.  A sea of new faces, each one with a story yet to be discovered by me.  It seems as though I cannot shake hands fast enough around here.  Classes started yesterday.  My Wednesdays rudely begin at 8am (thank goodness for coffee).  Sociology, Biology, Philosophy, History and English fill the time until dinner. I didn't know my brain was capable of absorbing this much information, but I guess it's going to have to.  At nine I head to the Rec. centre on campus and perform the excruciating duties involved in my job: a few hours of facebooking, maybe a bit of homework, some online t.v. and maybe a blog post or two. At 1:00am I lock the door at the Rec. Centre and head to bed. And that's a day in the life at Redeemer!

The Jump is Scarier than the Fall

The Jump was Scarier than the Fall

Last week I jumped head first, intrusting my life in a harness.  I've wanted to bungee jump for ages, so I finally did it.  I looked forward to it all day, and it wasn't until I got the very edge, with my toes dangling over the edge that fear set in. At that point you're strapped in, you're standing there ready to jump, turning around isn't an option for anyone with a sliver of pride. So they count down ... 3...2...1 and then, you have no choice - you've comitted. If you try and run back, chances are the heavy cord would pull you down and make for a painful jump, you have to just dive foreward and make the most of the fall. So that's what I did.  I jumped. And all that anticipation, all the fear, came together into an exhilerating surge of adrenaline as gravity took over.  And then, as quickly as it started, the free fall is over, and you're back on your feet as though you'd never took the plunge at all. I guess this is how my life feels right now, I've got my toes dangling over the edge.

6 weeks.

In 6 weeks, everything changes.

 

Leaving my home city is something i've idealized in my head for years.  Since half way through highschool i've dreamed of packing everything, giving this city a wave and returning only for major holidays -- at which point everyone will express how desolate their lives feel without me, and perhaps throw a parade in my honour.

But now it's real.  Today I looked at the phone. July 23rd, it said. In other words: July just flew by without you noticing, just like August will.  'Home' is no longer going to mean anything.  In a sense, home is my parent's house -- but even that feels like somewhere that I left memories, and I no longer hold any personal attachment to.  My room now will soon be filled with other people's things, and they won't give thought to the conversations I had in there, the things I learned while sitting against that wall, the cries I had in that room.  And why would they? It will be more theirs than it is mine.

Rediscovering myself scares me, a little bit.  What if I don't like who I am without all my stuff? What if Hilary, without her friends, family and church has become quite a disgusting person? 

What if I wake up one morning and realize I don't want to come back?

rain.

Holiday Monday, and it's raining.
 
As Shiny Toy Guns would say, "On a rainy Monday..." 

I woke up to this soggy day and was moderatly put out that the tanning session I had planned for today would have to be put on hold.  But something about rain is nostalgic.  As I sit near my window with a cup of hot tea, I find the rain strangely comforting.  Maybe because you can't really do anything.  You can attempt to do your errands and get soaked and frustrated, but if you just accept the fact that it's raining and sit inside reading a good book with a hot drink, you will have a lovely day.  It's funny, how we coinside rain with so many varying emotions.  When we feel depressed and alone, the rain speaks into our hopelessness.  It's dreary nature feeds the addictive nature of our misery.  And yet, when in the rain with someone we love - or something we think we would like to love, there is nothing more magical than being together, shivering and soaked.   In some senses, rain will reflect whatever we want it to.



I think one of the reasons I loved England so much was the rain.  We were constantly forced to stay inside and be comforted by our own company, and of course our tea.  Then when the sun finally did come out it was like everybody transformed and was happier and layed outside all day.  But without the rainy days nobody would have cared about the sunny ones.  As much as everyone loves a sun scorched day, of all the elements I think rain holds the most emotional clout.


I really wasn't intending to parallell this to "hard times make you appreciated the good times" ... but it's kind of unavoidable.  Sometimes being stuck inside, forced to slow down and just breathe allows us to enjoy the sun that much more when it is shining.

Too busy - But not actually

These past few weeks have been quite busy.  I just realized that is how everyone starts their anual  Christmas letter. But with Michelle's wedding on Saturday, and starting at a few job, it seems there is rarely a spare moment to stop and just - breathe. A few years ago, I read a book called Too Busy Not to Pray. To be honest I don't really remember anything about the book... despite the fact that I wrote a paper on the thing.  But I guess the title says it all. But maybe instead, when referring to my life they should call it 'Too Busy to Care at all', or 'You're not actually that busy, you've just conviced yourself that you are as a cheap excuse to put God on the back burner.' 

It's interesting, I suppose, how the first thing to go from our daily routine when things get hectic is time with God.  When I'm on some weekend retreat, with 3 hours set aside for 'personal time' - oh, you can bet God and I are real close! But as soon as my evenings are full and I'm rushing between work and errands, the effort I put into my relationship with God slips pretty quickly.  I have friends like this.  We are great friends when they have the time. When all their other commitments are otherwise occupied or work slows down, that's when they call me and we go for coffee. Sure. It's still always a nice time, but when I look at our friendship from a step back I realize I'm not a priority in their life, it makes me realize that we arn't really friends at all. We are just two people who get along and hang out when there's nothing better to do.


So I guess what I'm gettting at here, is if I consider my relationship with God to be this important thing in my life, why do I have it on the bottom of the priority totem pole?

All. I. Want. To. Do. Is. Sleep.

Two nights of insomnia and I am at the breaking point.  I've tried it all... avoided caffine, washed my sheets, a 1am McDonalds run, tried lying there thinking of nothing and still - can't sleep.  You know that scene in fight club where he says with insomnia nothing's really real, everything gets the volume turned down.  Well it's true.  I've kind of gone through life's motions for the last two days on autopilot.

Right now I'm reading 'Through painted deserts' by Donald Miller. It's pretty good.  Perhaps when I have slept more than a couple hours I'll write something insightful about it, but now is not the time.  Right now it's just about Don and his friend driving around in a van and there is nothing more I can think of.  

I'm not even sure I could recall what I did today.  This blog is so pointless.  But I would just like to make a note that you should all appreciate sleep while you have it cause once you can't, you will wish for nothing more.

Adios for now.

I should like, get smart or something.

This September I am going back to school. I am super excited to move to Ontario, live in dorms, and dive into a new social pool.  I am less excited, however, to be drowning in reading and essays, feel underequipped and be under constant stress.  So, about a month ago I made a reading list for myself.  15 books I have to read before I go back to school.  For someone with the reading compasity of Twilight, this is kind of an undertaking.  And no, there is no Nicolas Sparks on the list.  I pretty much looked up '100 books to read before you die' and picked the ones that didn't sound stupid or I hadn't already read.

So here's my list:

(1) Dubliners- James Joyce [which I am finished]

(2) Atlas shrugged- Ayn Rand [I think I can get a scholarship out of this one]

(3) Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

(4) Age of Innosence- Edith Wharton

(5) Searching for God knows what- Donald Miller

(6) Through Painted Deserts- Donald Miller [Currently reading...]

(7) Fight Club- Chuck Palanhniuk [Finished]

(8) On the Road- Jack Karuak

(9) Nineteen Eighty Four- George Orwell

(10) Catcher in the Rye- JD Salinger

(11) The time traveller's wife- Audrey Niffenegger

(12) Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll

(13) Life of Pi- Yann Martel

(14) A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens

(15) The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold

At the bottom of Everything

So I've gotten in this strange habit where as soon as I write a blog post I will think of a bunch more random junk that I feel like writing about and then like ten minutes later I will post another one.  Tres lame, I know.

I was just organizing the chaotic collection of photos that have accumulated on my laptop during the past couple years.  I know I write about travelling a lot, but that's because it's one of the few things I am passionate about.  I'm not one of those people that has a hobby that they devote all their time to.  I literally work to travel and live a little bit of life in between here and there.  One of my favorite parts about travelling is the airports.  Kind of strange, I know.  There is something I very much appreciate about the awkward lag time at the gate.  No matter how long you have, you feel rushed-- and yet you are just killing time.  People will talk about being all alone in a sea of people.  I seldom feel that way, but the airport is the perfect example.  For some reason everyone feels the need to look important and it's as though wherever they are going is the be all and end all of life as we know it.  All airports are so different and yet they all have this interesting feeling of emptyness about them.   There are few things I like more than getting a latte and people watching while I wait for them to call my flight.

By the way, if you were waiting for me to get to it... this airport appreciation session doesn't really have a point.  

I have certain little rituals that I have crafted quite beautifully when it comes to my travel experience.  For example, while I wait for them to call the flights I like to listen to "Hello, I'm Delaware" by city and colour because it talks about "there goes my life with every departing flight"... and there is something identifyable about the fact that I am wasting my life that way too.  Then, when I'm on the plane... usually right after we've taken off I pop in Bright Eyes "At the bottom of Everything." You might recall that this is the song with the schpeel in the beginning about the plane crashing. It's comforting.  Then I like to flip through the emergency landing pamphlet and laugh about the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt talks about the smiling expressions on the people's faces despite the fact that their plane is crashing.  Then, to finish off the flight I usually listen to "Comin home" by city and colour.  I just realized how ridiculously specific this is, but I actually do it every time.  Give it a try sometime.  You might not seek as much comfort in Connor Oberst describing a plane crash as I do, but you never know.

I kind of hate people that just blog about things they like and random junk I don't care about, but .... I just did it.  So my sincere apologies for wasting for my own narrsistical purposes.  But now you have some insight into my well crafted art of the flying experience.