Now We Are Home

A blog/podcast about building, being, creating and dreaming in rural Nova Scotia by writer Sheree Fitch and her DDFM, Gilles Plante.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Current e-VENTs

                                    VENT  ing    in-VENT-ion    ad-VENT-ure

                                         e-VENT- u-ally


        No news to anyone,  but in these first two weeks of 201l, the breaking news has been overwhelmingly… depressing. (Heart) breaking news. Excruciating. 
      
    Verse for universe: Carry your hearts in shatterproof jars / hold beneath the midnight stars / hush hush whoever you are/ be/still hope


       Not that anyone needs reminding...but I'm going to VENT. 
       From floods and tragic deaths in Australia to the shootings in Arizona, to a stabbing in Dartmouth, not to mention- no, I won't mention details here but it has to do with children hurting children. The violation of innocents.  
     
      Verse for universe: Carry your hearts in shatterproof jars / hold beneath the midnight stars / hush hush whoever you are/ be/still hope

      & there was the story of a single father of ten whose home burned down in Winnipeg. The teeth-scraping comments posted after the article made me think a lot about class and judgement and compassion or lack thereof. My own included.

     & then there is Sudan  
                   Pakistan, Uganda
        the plight of Haiti a year after  
                    refugee camps 
                 women raped
                          children sick

                       MADness. SADness. BADness? 
                                Woundedness.
     So I remembered a poem about a women named Diana who suffered “Death by Empathy.”  
     Diana lives on the moon, looks down, ruminates. 
     Asks how we still have “gall enough/ to call ourselves/ a human planet.    
      

    
                                                                     ********

      I realize creating a blog/video about building a home is a luxury in this sadmad world and yes,  
     another survival/thrival strategy. A diversion. Medicine.  
     Yep.  Narrative therapy. One more time, creating is a way to live in a world I might not want    
     to be in 
     if I let 
     sadmadness 
     in 
     too 
     deep

                                                           

    In a world that makes no sense to me, making nonsense has always made sense. Telling stories 
    makes sense. Connecting makes sense. Children make sense.Writing makes sense.  
    
                                                   Writing instead of writhing?  
    Writing as All Righting ?  


                       Beat a drum. ( scream)  On a trampoline. (scream)
           
                                        Drumpoline. (Scream.) 


       Play music.  Make music.   

       So.  Life is mixed. 
      And the first twelve days wasn't all bleak grim hopelessness  

      I also: watched episodes of Extreme Makeover ( Yes, I do like those H&G channels ) and blubbered over an amazing  couple who fostered special needs children and lived in a trailer with ten. (Where do people like that come from?)

     Also: had sneak preview of a terrific book on gardens bloom in my hands 
               cross-country skied     
               made snow angels 
               listened to CBC radio /heartened by the series on mental health issues on 
              THE CURRENT 
               learned of two upcoming marriages, one new baby
               re-read a poem by Howard Thurman I love  
               a poem about the  work of Christmas just beginning. 
              
   Yep, I sent up some prayers. Beams. Wishes. Whispers for Sad-glad-ness.

    So on the home building front?  The metaphors?        

    Well, I discovered the word vent also refers to the slit in the back of a coat or a jacket. 
    I digress. All is a digression.  Writing /rewriting  building/re-building  or  in this case ---  "re-route-ing" 
 
     We also discovered that before the wiring, which goes before the installation of insulation, ( I mean the upcoming art exhibition)  in what will e-VENT-ually be the family room, we had to re-route a vent. It’s not that the DDFM forgot, he just had his mind on other things.

     First, we had to clean sawdust from cracks and then, well, watch and squirm? Maybe, smile a little?  The Frenchman plays with words too.

Line of the week: We're too young to be old hippies and too old to be young hipsters.
  
Singer of the week: Mary Boyoi  http://youtu.be/hfiR5xp1SgE


Soup du (many) jour s)was : Black Bean Leek and Turnip Stew  ***** 

Quote du jour :“When you’re safe at home you wish you were having an ad-vent-ure, when you’re having an ad-vent-ure, you wish you were safe at home.” Thornton Wilder
Rebuttal:  Not necessarily. Sometimes home is not that safe. Sometimes the adventure is home. Sometimes you  gotta VENT!  

4 comments:

  1. Sheree, you are inside my head, and spilled out what I've been feeling this week far better and more beautifully than I could. Thank you for this. <3

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  2. Healing with words, you are, dear wise woman! xo

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  3. Sheree, thank you for sharing your sense-making and for reminding me to make some sense myself.

    Looking forward to seeing your new home in person.... e-VENT-ually.

    Hugs
    xo

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  4. Fantastic, Sheree. The first days of 2011 have not been great for us, but I am not giving up and still plan to make it an amazing year.
    Glad you are writing this. I will be following.

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