A lifestyle blog documenting my move from the city to the country (and back to the city) as well as my daily inspirations, including food, fashion, travel and love. And celebrities.
I can't remember when I started working at the Concordia University libraries.
I had probably already started university, which made me at least 18 years old/young. I wasn't looking for what Oprah describes as an Aha! moment, but I sure as shit found one.
I found him...
I found Jack Kerouac.
I was shelving books and suddenly, somehow, everything changed.
My job was to take carts of books that had been returned by students and replace them on the shelves according to Library of Congress classification.
As I entered the PS section, dedicated to American literature, the air changed and something in me shifted. I opened a book called On the Road.
I didn't know who Jack Kerouac was, and I sure as shit didn't know what a hipster was, but I did know that for the first time in my life, I read something that described almost exactly how I felt.
I was floored.
Like, literally, on the floor.
Reading, reading and reading.
And then, reading some more.
Everyday, I would sneak into the PS section, find Kerouac and read.
When one book was done, I would start another. When they were all done, I read them all over again.
I was in heaven. I was in love. In love with words.
In love with the truth.
Since then, a lot has happened.
Some good.
Some bad. No matter what happens though, I can always count on Kerouac for pointing my soul in the right direction.
I'm not one for talking about my emotions, and maybe it sounds cheesy, but I literally cannot read one of his lines without shedding a tear.
A big, fat, long, juicy one.
Even though I graduated in Journalism (and Political Science) and live for words (metaphorically, of course), I'm not great at saying them.
Thinking them, sure.
Writing them, maybe.
Saying them, definitely not.
So here's to my hero, the great thinker, speaker and writer of words.
Born in Lowell, Massachusetts to French Canadian parents in 1922. Started writing On the road in French. Died in 1969, at the age of 47, while drinking whiskey.
Whether it's the weather, the lack of exercise or the chicken I just couldn't say... but I know that something (could it simply be me?) is off. In an effort to "funk-off" I've taken a few steps, like getting rid of my television, joining a gym and eating healthier, to name but a few (um, who am I kidding?).
Also known as... all but the ONE STEP I really need to take! While I don't believe in New Year's resolutions and actually spent a large portion of New Year's Eve rolling my eyes at the pathetic uplifting NYE resolutions and proclamations splattered posted on facebook, I actually made one of my own... and posted it on the evil beast.
But I cleverly disguised it in the form of a Jack Kerouac quote: "One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple."
On that fateful night, at approximately 10:52 pm, I promised myself that I would do the ONE thing that I know will make me feel better. The ONE thing I've thought about, and talked about, for years. The ONE thing I want to do, and am meant to do, but for some unknown reason simply cannot do.
And I'm not talking about getting a new tattoo.
I'm talking about writing a book.
There.
I said it.
I've mulled over countless ideas (38 years is a pretty long time to mull) but I'm fairly certain my latest one is the best yet.
Cellular memory. Or transgenerational inheritance.
When I first visited a homeopath a few years ago she mentioned cell memory to me in relation to my health problems, anxieties, phobias and some nightmares I was having. At the time, cell memory believers hypothesized that memories get stored in individual cells which are then passed on through the generations. As all of my (Polish) grandparents went though the Second World War, my homeopath believed that the traumas they experienced were passed on to my parents, and then me, through cell memory. She hypothesized that these traumatic memories were the root cause of my problems - health and otherwise. When I mentioned this theory to people a few years ago they largely laughed it off but it looks like the "scientific" world is starting to agree with what homeopaths have been saying for years. Fear can be inherited through sperm.
According to the now-proven theory, "animals inherit a memory of their ancestors' traumas and respond as if they had lived the events themselves."
Cellular memory. Or transgenerational inheritance.
What's funny is that I have three tattoos. None of them are images - they all consist of characters, text or words. Now that I've finally decided to apply myself to my life's work, I finally want to get a tattoo with a picture - and no words.
An anchor and some cherry blossoms. I think it's a sign...
There’s a fine line between madness and creativity. It's hard to know exactly where it is, but it becomes pretty obvious once it has been crossed (think of Vincent Van Gogh lopping off his lower lobe, Ernest Hemingway pulling the trigger or Sylvia Plath turning the oven on).
I was perusing a friend's Facebook page the other day when I noticed a link to an article titled 'Creativity - similar to schizophrenia?' The article states that studies have shown "striking similarities in the thought pathways of highly creative people and those with schizophrenia." As someone who has known both highly creative people, as well as those with varying degrees of mental illness, I can't say I disagree.
While watching The View the other day (that's right, you heard me, The View!) author Stephen King made an interesting statement. He said that when he sits down to right a book he goes into a kind of trance. Once he's done, he's not even sure where his ideas came from.
It's not surprising (to me, at least) that people able to write sentences poignant enough to elicit tears, paint paintings beautiful enough to take your breath away, or write music so powerful it literally brings you to your knees, have a little more going on up there than the rest of us.
We are all assaulted with a battery of sensory information - some might even call it overload - on a daily basis. Both schizophrenics and creative geniuses have a lower level of latent inhibition (LI). This means they don't filter, or discard, the information as readily as most.
The creative ones are able to manipulate it without being overwhelmed by it while the truly mad ones simply allow it to seep into their consciousness, unable to distinguish between internal and external stimuli.
Creativity does have it's dark side though, with creative types more prone to depression, bipolar disorder and even schizophrenia. "People who have mental illness in their family (also) have a higher chance of being creative." As my spirit animal Jack Kerouac wrote in The Bible On the Road: 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. Cue tears.
My favourite book is On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. I first read it when I was a teenager and have since reread it too many times to count. It struck a chord so deep in me that I had the last line, "I think of Dean Moriarty," tattooed on my forearm.
The book speaks to me for many reasons, too many to count, but I think what first attracted me to it way back when was the overall feeling of freedom I got from reading it.
Segway to Gypsies.
Alternately (and incorrectly) referred to as Romani, Travellers and even Tinkers (look it up), what my father calls Tsigani most probably originate from a single ethnic group that left northwestern India about 1500 years ago. (Travellers and Tinkers are actually mainly of Irish origin.) During World War II, Gypsies, along with Jews, Poles, Soviets, Jehovah's Witnesses, gays, the mentally ill and the physically disabled were all targeted by the Nazis as inferior, undesirable and even dangerous.
While six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, the mass slaughter also saw the death of 2.5 million Polish people and up to 1 million Gypsies (plus all previously mentioned targets) bringing the total number of innocents lost during the Holocaust closer to 17 million people. Segway to my grandfather.
Growing up, my grandfather used to sing a song called Ochi Chernye, which means dark eyes. The tune always left me with a mournful, nostalgic, feeling that I couldn't explain.
Segway to last week.
While visiting my mother last week, we watched a movie one night called The Man who Cried. Directed by Sally Potter and set during the time when the Nazis marched into Paris, the movie stars Johnny Depp who portrays a Gypsy and Christina Ricci a Russian Jew.
While the movie left me thinking about many things, including intolerance, ignorance and xenophobia (fear and hatred of the unknown and/or foreign), it also left me thinking about what a beautiful lifestyle the Gypsies have. With their nomadic existence and focus on family instead of consumerism, the Gypsies have, in my opinion, zeroed in on the meaning of life.
Experience. Or knowledge though experience. Another one of my tattoos.
My dad may not have a caravan but he does a shopping cart. And I can pack a suitcase (or apartment) like nobody's business.
I'm not saying being a nomad is for everyone, but it's not surprising that I ended up with someone - the infamous beau - who lives out of a valise.
While I didn't actually prancercise my way through Hull today, like Joanna Rohrback (LLC!)...
... I'm sure I did get some exercise - travelling through time.
One of my favourite books, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, was recently adapted (to put it politely) into a film. Said film (that's all I have to say about it after watching it) was partially filmed in Hull. Now, every time I find myself there, I'm suddenly transported to the '50s. Groovy.
