Quiet now, my little pitter-pattering heart.

Haaa HAAA! I am writing. This is a bit dear diary like but I dohnacare! Hopefully some more interesting word action is soon to come.

But for now:

Simple, silent evenings are the best.
I wasn't too pleased about spending 2 1/2 hours in the most boring training session(for elections Canada) eeeevvvaa, so once I was free I hopped on my bicycle like la bomba and decided to make the best of the rest of my evening. My bestie was at work so I passed by and mooched a hot apple cider off her. After some riveting conversation about sharks and hitting the road(travel wise) again I left. Back onto my baby and I was off. Riding a bike in a skirt is so much fun. I was in a bit of a quirky mood today style wise. I was wearing a creamy white sleeveless silk blouse tucked into a almost poodle skirt that was covered in Jackson Pollack like splashes of white paint onto a black background. With this I paired a silk scarf covered in woodland animals, leather sneakers, and some fabulous clear plastic wayfarer's. Oh! And let's not forget my hair. Classic retrofab waves pinned high to one side. I love dress up. I was thinking about how I spent a lot of my childhood playing dress up. My mom would always pick up these ridiculous dresses from Salvation Army and add it to my dress up box. A day rarely went by where I wasn't putting together some fantastical outfit and prancing around in it.
I struck me today how much my clothing choices these days reflect my childhood ways. Outfits are just like costumes to me. I love to dress for every occasion even if it is entirely inappropriate. In fact, it gives me a little thrill. I love to create a persona around myself. The idea that I can be, or should I say look, like anyone is so integral to expressing my personality. I can't decide on who or what I want to be because I have so many different tastes. Instead I have just chosen to be everything; a chameleon of sorts. Sure, I can often be found lounging in jeans and a worn to death rowing hoody but underneath my submissions to comfort and practicality lies a passion for living art and everything fashion forward.

Anyways, on with the quiet evening.
I cycled around in the evening light until my hands went numb. I discovered that someone I work with lives on the same street as me. I thought I saw someone I once new too. Didn't get close enough to be able to tell.
Dropping my bike off at home I wandered over to Grand Boulevard where I had spied willow clippings all over the ground. The city gardeners do their big snip once a year but always leave the clippings there for days afterwards. I collected a ton of the long sunny yellow branches and left them by my gate. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet but it's going to be good. I visited a willow weaving master on Hornby and his work was pretty swell. I want to buy some willow saplings and make a living sculpture or woven wall out of them.... We'll see. Sounds like one of my on the go art project ideas that I rarely finish.

Home again, I grabbed my camera to take a picture of my flamboyant hair so that I would remember it until next time and ended up spending an hour sitting on the stairs looking at all my Hornby photos. I think I may make an album of them after all. All snow capped trees and misty mornings or ridiculous grins and filtering sunlight.

It's just me and my dad at home right now. My Mom, sister, and brother are all in Europe right now doing their things...Sister lives there, brother is working there, Mom is at Nana's funeral. My other sister is in Toronto for a few weeks doing work related stuff. So here we are just the two of us with this big ole' empty house. My dad jolted me out of my walk down memory lane on the stairs by coming home.
We put on really loud cello music and made mango sesame chicken salad stuff together. That's not really the name of the dish but it tasted pretty good for a 10:30 dinner. We don't spend that much time together so it's been really nice all of a sudden to find ourselves making to time to see each other.

We just sat and ate and chatted and now I sit here writing across the table from him. He has fallen asleep, chin in his hand, part way through a "revealing article about the state of the American government" in Harper's magazine.

The candles are burning low and the heated whir of my laptop is beginning to irritate me.

Goodnight!
Toodle Pip'

-S

It's been a while.

It's been a while since I wrote anything even for my own pleasure. Dry spell indeed. Every few days I try and pick up the ole' pen and paper or open a fresh word document hoping for the next Wuthering Heights ... and nothing. A few distracted sentences leading to the middle of no where.

This problem isn't exactly unheard of. I wouldn't call it writers block. As I am clearly capable of writing- this being my proof. It's more a problem of I don't have anything to write about. I went through this insane three day writing binge, where I slept a cumulative seven hours and wrote pretty much the rest. I didn't change my clothes, barely ate.. you get the picture. I keep reflecting back on that episode with fear and regret. I feel like it sucked all the creativity out of me. Do I have anything left to give? Some fourty pages of garbled fact mixed with fantasy. So much of me went into those sheets which until now remain(other than myself) unread text.

I'll admit, not much of a post. But it's a start. At least I'm writing. Even if it's complaining about not being able to write. Yeah yeah, I get it. The joke's on me.

Toodle Pip'

-S

What are men to rocks and mountains? *

I already feel as if I have been living here for months on end despite it only being my oneish month anniversary since I forsook all the city comforts to go "rough it" on Hornby. And yet, I don't mean to say that time has been lagging for I am often caught off guard wondering how it could already be next week. I have been rather fixated on dates all of a sudden since I arranged to go home for a few days to celebrate my birthday. Afterwards I'll be making the drive back up with M'Colleague who is convenieniently on reading break. I am quite eager to see my family and friends although I daresay I will quickly tire of all the people and noise and wish to back in my little Hobbit Hole soon enough.

All this time has left me to do the things I never found a moment for otherwise. I have been reading and writing a great deal again as well as consuming pot after pot of piping hot tea. Long hikes through the lush greenery, wandering along endless stretches of coast or across the cliffs of Helliwell. Also to be included in my daily activities is a sudden surge in painting, sewing, and baking. All the homemaker activities in which I not so secretly delight in.

There is an incredible silence out here that is only occasionally interrupted. Sometimes if I'm lucky I can get my head to quiet down enough and then all that is left is pure silence. Not much really scares me anymore as it did in the beginning now that I know all the creaking and groaning of the cabin. I find myself walking around at night sometimes. I wander down to the shores of Sandpiper and look up at the moon and the stars for a while. Without the city lights to dull the night sky it really is a sight to see all the stars out in their splendour. Oh dear, I just looked back at what I wrote and must acknowledge that there is a great deal of airy faerieness in my writing - but I won't remove it - because that is how it really is. There is something so magical about this place. I have always had a niggling hope in the back of my head that elves and other such woodland folk might really be real. If it were so, here they would reside.
I had best stop now before you think I've really gone off my rocker!

Toodle Pip'

-S
* Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen.

Standing at the punch table, swallowing punch.

Hey Readers or should I say Mom...

In case anyone has been looking and caring that nothing new has come up at all, then I am sorry to have disappointed you. My laptop is dead to me, and unfortunately anyone else who tries to turn it on, so things have been off to quite a rickety start. Unfortunately my only other computer with Internet option is paid for by the 1/2 hr and not in a place I like to sit and write to no end.
I am keeping a journal quite diligently so we'll all have to catch up together soonish.
I have plans to come back to Vancouver for my 20th(EEEEKKK!) in February at which point I will be procuring a new laptop and everything will be all hunky dory again.

As for the island so far...
Apart from a few big storms, some minor flooding, and electrical failures everything has been quite wonderful. My little Hacienda is very cozy- some have even commented that it makes quite the love shack.
Come hither, island boys!
I've had tons of time to talk to myself and take long walks around the island. I have locals recognizing me around every turn which is kind of nice. I don't know how they make the connection as I must have been thirteen since I spent any significant time around here. Be I an old face or new one to them, I am slowly carving out my little niche of familiarity here.

I've gotta run since the CO-OP closes soon and isn't open again til' Monday! Oranges to be bought, scurvy to be avoided!
Toodle pip,
-S

~Inaugural Post~

It appears the inevitable has happened. I am now joining the realm of bloggers in hopes that I can make my posts something that you all clamor in anticipation to read each week!

I don't really have a plan for this whole blog experiment, however I do know that I want to write. With an expectant(hopefully) audience each week to keep me on my toes I will do my best attempt at delivering coherent and entertaining anecdotes, a documentary on country life, and my thoughts on... well everything.

At first this idea came about from the need to have a condensed way of staying in touch with family and close friends while I am off my little sabbatical. I know, I know, I am barely twenty years old and I take sabbaticals. The desire to write has always been there but then I realized what better way to document the next four months in relative isolation than by blog. Isolation? What could she mean you say? In a terrifyingly short two weeks I'll be leaving behind a rather well-adjusted North Shore lifestyle to live on a small N. Gulf Island known as Hornby. No phone, limited access to internet, and a little nearly waterfront cottage all to myself. My toilet may be on the deck- but at least it flushes! But more on that later.

When I first started to ponder making the move; being lonely had been the last thing on my mind. Since I started telling people about my choice to go the first thing I always hear is "living all on your own? Won't you be lonely? Scared? I couldn't do that..." I have to admit I let the comments get to me a bit. All of a sudden I started to doubt whether I made the right choice to go it alone. It wasn't too late to find a room mate. I knew I could pull together a few flower children who'd love the idea of it all. After a few weeks I reflected why I hadn't done anything about it yet and realized it was because I want to be alone.

Yes. Some nights when the wind is howling and the power is out I will be miserable and climb under the covers until it's all over. There will be days where I will be hitting my head on the wall out of boredom, hating these boondocks. I will miss my friends terribly but they will visit. If I was there with someone else we would probably run naked out into the storm and dance around in wind and rain, howling like the untamed free folk we believe ourselves to be. Then we'd go inside and light up our little home with all the candles we could find. I need to learn to do that by myself.

Just like I need to learn to edit. What I'm posting here is a severely chopped down edition of what I initially let stream out.

There are a lot of inner voices yelling out for me to stop this immediately. I think I can safely assume that means I am scared. Scared of the commitment, scared of looking bad, scared of YOU. I think it's high time I started being a little more vulnerable! Huzzah!

I hope you were all reading that like it was an epic speech building up to warrant that cheer at the end.

In the spirit of openess, here's the first thing you aught to know about me:

When eating a bag of trail mix I will always eat it in this order. Smarties, misc. dried fruit interspersed with bites of almond, seeds, peanuts, brazil nuts, walnuts, cashews to the squirrels. I will only eat cashews in chocolate or cooked in a savoury dish. I just had an epiphany. I could eat the cashews with Smarties at the same time and it would be like cashewy-chocolate!

See! Nothing but good can come from writing this blog.

Your Truly,

Sonya