January 21, 2011

It’s a good book – and I did not read it today.
I intend to craft a proposal for ACF – and I did not touch it today.
I need to find another $5,100 USD to take the painting holiday in February – I asked no one today, although I DID redo all my timelines, budgets and projections!

Gestation.

Procrastination? Inauthenticity? Getting ready at a deeper level? Waiting? Perhaps all are true at the same time.

I did chase down money – Dan, Elizabeth, Jay. I did reconnect with the ROM. I did connect Nick with Mike with SmartDraw, Helen with new tasks to serve her and WPIT while I am gone, begin an employment reference for Chris. I also went out, visited Leonard, had lunch with Bill, saw the world a little.

I woke up this morning to the crane moving – perhaps carrying a cube?, but just for the briefest of moments. Then it was still again.

Stillness. It is winter. Why not be still?

Some of me longs to be still. Some of me wants to move quickly while the path seems open. Most of me wavers – still to busy to busy but unproductively – a kind of back and forth among “I want to…”, “I MUST…”, “I’m not…”. Why not be still? Why not be satisfied?

The light is beautiful these days. The rising of the sun is underway when I awake most mornings. The subtly intense winter sunset lasts well into rush hour. I cannot remember being as present to the beauty of Toronto any time before this – my sojourn in South Etobicoke.

Today, as Helen and I drove from Mississauga to Riverdale I noticed how familiar has become to me the stretch of the Gardiner from the 427 to Parklawn – essentially the northern boundary of my neighbourhood. Something about nearly not being on this planet for this, my sixty-second year, has made me very present to where I am actually located.

At the same time I am not thinking about dying nearly as much as I used to. Formerly I thought about death, and whether or not I was about to expire, at least a dozen times a day. Lately – once or twice, or even not at all for more than 24 hours. Is it the blog, WPIT, Farmville? I don’t know, but it is wonderfully strange to me.

The ultimate motivation is about to kick in. There are four things to complete this weekend or I will be disappointing someone I care about! The first edit of the autobiography – Mike, the ACF proposal – Mike again!, The employment reference – Chris, the strategy plan for the Grad Liaison team – Shirl. I have my work cut out for me!