ORIGINALLY POSTED IN 2012 ON focusonsimple.co
I miss my life as a student. + it’s all because of Mr. Charles de Lint.
Carleton University became my school of choice because of its excellent Journalism program. I failed out of the program after first year. There were a number of reasons for this, but mostly it was because I attended about five of the required French classes out of the entire year’s worth of twice-weekly classes. I had done so well in high-school that I thought I could just breeze through. One of the big lessons of University Year One was that’s really not how University works.
So, I switched to Art History. Minored in Law. Took a lot of English courses. + found Charles de Lint. An author from Ottawa. The first book I thought I read by him was actually my second, but it wasn’t until I went through his book list that I realised I had read something by him earlier in highschool. So my first impactful experience reading his work was a collection of short stories that take place in New Bedford. A magical and gritty place…much like any part of old-Ottawa. Through his descriptions of the creatives in New Bedford, I found what I wanted Ottawa to be.
There is history, people with stories, and depth in every nook and cranny of that city. One might think of civil servants when they think of Ottawa, but to me, Ottawa will always be where I found little bits of magic. Where I had my own story of personal growth and a journey of self-discovery.
This morning I pulled an old, chipped, ceramic, wide mouthed coffee mug out of the cupboard for my morning coffee. I choose my mugs based on how I’m feeling; how I want my morning to start.
The small, white and green, cylindrical tinker-bell mug is for fresh spring mornings. The large, heavy white starbucks mug is for energetic, aggressive mornings or lounging, patio mornings..depending on the day. The set of four tapering, burnt orangey-red mugs are for a quick start when heading to the office. When it’s time to go to work, to make money to buy shiny things that match, to feel that we’re successful. The little brown pottery mug that my sister and brother-in-law brought back from Kenya are for mornings where I want to take small sips of my coffee and work on something meaningful and contributive.
But on this rainy morning, with a sweet, fresh scent on the air, wafting into the house, with a full day ahead of possibility, I looked in the cupboard and saw this wide mug, covered with peach painterly swipes and swirls, a green pear outlined on the front, little white chips around the rim…and for some reason was reminded of New Bedford. And the creative group of dreamers that live there. And I miss it. I miss that group of imaginary people. Who made Ottawa something more than a city I went to school in, where I found real-life friends. I miss that sense of endless possibilities that comes with spending your days learning. Of old buildings, books stacked in crates, gathering with your peers to talk about the latest ‘ism’, the art history section of the Carleton library, the art stores along Bank street, early mornings along Sussex, the Market at anytime of day…the National Gallery. Every view and vista in that city has special meaning.
So to Mr. de Lint I would like to say thanks. I don’t know whether your stories are so special to me because they allowed me to see magic and introduced me to people I wanted to be friends with, or because I found in your stories something I could so strongly identify with, and felt I’d come home to a group of people I already knew.
I could quite easily fritter my days away writing, drawings, day dreaming and imagining. Fritter isn’t the right word, because it devalues a significant part of who I am. I understand we all need to grow up and make choices and decisions that enable us to live an independent and responsible life. I can get really hard on myself because my natural inclination is to do anything but make money. I don’t feel compelled to aggressively and energetically make money. And when I think about practicing with discipline that which I enjoy doing…in order to make money…I don’t want to do it. It’s a really selfish way to think about life. It’s not responsible at all. I totally get that.
But it’s really important to remember why and how we have become the people we are, and make sure to honour those experiences that have had a deep and moving impact…and more importantly, those experiences which allowed us to feel and be the people that we already are.
Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.
Marsha Norman