Jan 12, 2025- Falling, Flying

I’m looking at my feet again.

I always used to do this, as a kid. You’re supposed to look where you’re going, but I always wanted to see where I was putting my feet.

Right now, my bare toes are in the sort of chalky dark brown dirt. Not really a ton of grass to go touch, which is a little bit of a shame, but dirt is nice too. A little bit of dirt left on the carrot after dunking it into the water barrel, fresh out of the garden is the best way to each them. That’s how I used to do it as a kid.

I used to do this as a kid, too. I’d run up here and throw myself off the ledge, often. The water below is nice, to be sure, but my favourite part has always been before that. I love the moments where I’m aloft in the air. I love anything that can make me feel like I’m flying.

This used to be easier when I was a kid, I think. Maybe I’m wrong. The walk up here seems shorter in my memory. The cliffside seemed less high.

I don’t feel afraid of the height. The water’s down there, and I’ll like being in it well enough, even if it is a little cold this time of year. I’m not afraid to do this, but I would be lying if I said there was no apprehension. It’s not the height, I do know how to swim; I think it’s the fall. The best part. I do this because I love the moment, hanging in time, soaring through the air. I’m not afraid, but what if this time it just feels like falling?

What happens if I’ve gotten too big for the air to hold me, and I just fall? What happens if I don’t get to fly anymore? I can’t make myself younger, can’t make myself smaller. 

I know I won’t need to. I know that my body vs. the air, the air always wins the first battle. Even like this. I know that.

The ground at the edge of the cliff face is more rocky than chalky-dirt-y under my toes, which is a good thing. A stable thing. The view is pretty much the same. The evergreen trees across the water, on the other side. The deep blue-grey water itself. The air is fresh and clean and it feels right,  through my nose, in my lungs. It settles something in my chest, a nice, comforting little weight, and I bend my knees. Rock on my feet, straighten and shake my arms, then bend again. Breathe the air in, feel that nice little weight. Start to lean forward, feel it start to become a fall, and push, the texture of the rocks leaving a familiar memory on my toes. I am mid-air, hear its gentle, welcoming rush past my ears as time slows. I’m suspended for only a moment until gravity tugs, and I begin to fall.

And the fall feels like flying. 

Oct 20, 2024- In Pursuit of the Piece of Paper

 I’ve been kinda writing/not writing on paper, and some of it I want preserved on here just because. So today is a spam day.

:::

Don’t tell anyone, especially not my piece of paper, but sometimes, I wonder if I missed it. Briefly, but I do wonder. 

I’ve never really doubted that I want to become a music teacher, even now. Do not mistake my wondering for doubt. I’ve been very lucky in my certainty. I will be a good music teacher. I see that confirmed in many places in my life.

But musically? Musically, I never feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be. I know I’ll teach it well. But I’ve spent 6+ years of my life pursuing this thing that, at times, I feel I’m no good at. May have never actually been good at. And in pursuing it, I have been asked to set down all these other aspects of myself. I’m supposed to only care about music, want to be the best at it, want to dedicate my entire life and being to it.

But I don’t want to live and breathe only music. And I don’t want to be the best.

I wish I hadn’t given up writing. I look at my musical self in the context of this new world and I see the innateness of my writing. Not that it’s any good, not anymore. But it was natural. It came to me in a way it does not come for others, even if they love the word. And I wish I had nurtured it more. Wish it was not something I felt required to give up to get my piece of paper.

I know I have rose-coloured glasses on right now. Music makes me feel bad about myself. Writing could too. Still. Maybe I feel bad because I have divorced myself. I wish to write. I wish to art without pressure. Without the weight of paper crushing rock.

I don’t regret what I have achieved. I guess I just still miss myself.

23

23 was a hard year for me. Freshly 24 (though I feel like I've been this age for months, feels like I've been going on 60 for years), I find myself looking back on the last 365 days. This time last year I was fresh in the grief of suddenly losing my beloved aunt, and in the midst of great turmoil in my job. I was staring down the barrel of, finally, the last year of my drawn out degree, and ready to be done with it all. 

The following months were akin to when you try to climb a snowbank. You try to put your feet in the spot you think is sturdiest, only to find all the snow shifting from under your feet as you put the weight of your trust in and on it, sinking waist-deep into the snow. The trouble at work only grew worse, and I took on far more responsibility than ever should have been an option. What should have been a standard three-class term became a depth of sticky snow I got stuck in. I could prioritize my classes and let my beloved department fall apart around me, or I could keep the show going and give up on my classes. Neither were a good option. I regret being in the position to make that choice at all. I failed two of my classes as a result, just scraping by into convocation.

But I did convocate! Six years of struggle led to a proud walk across a stage, a wave to my conductor and a hug from one of my favourite profs. Bachelor of Music Honours, a piece of paper to be proud of and a few letters to tack on to my email signature. We threw a party, and I got to bask in my own accomplishment for maybe a week. 

The deadline to apply to enter my sequential degree had come and gone without fanfare, and my notice, thanks to the turmoil in the department. Shortly after convocation I found myself with a void in front of me where my future should have been, the path I'd been banking on for years having slipped away. Chasing emails and playing phone tag, trying to carve something back into the new void took up the bulk of my summer. 

I remember telling my mom shortly after I received my degree that I felt like I finally had my feet back under me, I was ready and able to take on whatever would come next, and in someways it feels like the universe took that as a little challenge. I made the sudden choice to move four hours away from home to a new university and program, to live in a city where I knew absolutely no one, to try my hand again at a full course load, which I'd never been able to achieve before.

Achieve I did. It was hard, but not nearly as hard as I had expected. I got rolled a little when the void had appeared, but what I'd told my mother about being ready was true. I cut a new path into my void with no expectations, and I cannot believe that I've come out unscathed. In fact, I've come out better. I achieved great marks in all my classes, even when I was scared of failing. I've never done so consistently well in my university career, especially impressive considering I've done so with five classes, some student-teaching, an ensemble, and private lessons, never mind the massive change I'd made. My mental health is back where it hasn't been for the better part of a decade.

I've been looking in the metaphorical mirror for the last six years and haven't been able to recognize myself hardly at all. I've been so ashamed of who I've become, how little I feel I've been able to do. I happened across my grades at supper today, and it felt like looking in the mirror and seeing my own reflection again. I recognize myself. Who I am today is who I used to be, not who I've been. Capable. Creative. Busy. Sometimes even happy. I wish I could take this reflection back to who I had become. I wish I could show her, in the moments where she questioned if she'd ever get better, get back to herself, this proof that she would. I wish I could show her, in all of the times she has felt so stupid, these grades, tell her that I've felt that too but there is objective proof that's not the truth. I wish I could show her this path through the void, under my feet, and have her look back across what she's traversed, show her that she's not nearly so small and so afraid as she feels. 

The thing I should be proudest about this year is probably my degree. It was a lot of work, took a lot of awful years to achieve, and I am proud of it. But not nearly as proud as I am of myself and these last four months, even setting the grades aside. I've accomplished more than I had come to believe myself possible of. I am so, genuinely, proud of who I am as I sit here writing this. 23 was hard, and I came out on top, came out the other side so much better than I went in. So, here's to the challenges of 24!

 I did a free write the other day, and I'm not mad at what I wrote.

:::

I am capable of doing hard things.

I think this to myself as I sit in Chamber Singers, intensely uncomfortable within myself. My range is gone, my breath evades me, and I watch my skill disintegrate before my eyes as I am enveloped by the sound of strangers to no one but me. 

And I think to myself: I should quit. I should call it. Maybe try the other choir. I cannot do this, I lack the skills, it is so clear I am not meant to be in this room with these people. I dread returning on Thursday.

And then I think: I've felt this before. A long time ago, yes, but I know this. I know how this goes.

It goes like this:

You are scared (suicidal). You want to sneak out (lay on the ground until you rot into one existence-nonexistence with the earth) and never return. No one will notice, you have no one in the room to miss you. You do not belong there, regardless of what anyone says.

Until you do. Until you return, and fail again, and return, and fail again, and return and someone says hello. You loan out your pencil, a piece of yourself. You return and fail until you don't, until you triumph over your toughest piece and years after still long to make its music again. You don't belong until you do.

And then you do.

And then you know, then I know, that time is both cruel and kind in equal measure, and while what goes up must come down, so too shall you rise up to the challenge.

You do not belong, that's true. Until you do.

-T

I wanna talk about my copyright assignment

One of the classes I'm taking this term is called the History and Future of the Book. One of the major assignments in the class comes in 4 parts: a presentation, short essay, tiktok/short video, and blog post on a chosen topic. This is my blog post for that assignment. I'll talk a little about what I learned, but I mostly want to share what my learning process has been like for this assignment.

I picked the topic of the invention of copyright, and researching it was certainly an experience. I started by acquiring about 13-14 different sources to read through, including 11 physical books. In order to get most of these books I had to find the Law Library on my Campus, and from there had to navigate to the Stacks to find majority of the books I needed. I'm very thankful for the librarian who helped me locate the Stacks hidden in the basement of the building. As a whole, finding my sources required a good amount of effort!

That's to say nothing of reading my sources. Given that most of the books I used were from the Law Library, I found that the texts expected me to already be familiar with copyright and some of its history, which was challenging. In the end, I narrowed my sources down to 7, and spent an entire day reading them thanks to my procrastination. My goal for my presentation was to develop a sort of timeline regarding the invention of copyright, and that was a little more challenging than I had anticipated. I had to piece together chunks of history from many sources in order to get a clear sense of the events. As my knowledge stands now, this is my simplified timeline (emphasis on simplified!):

15th century (1400's)- Printing Press takes off

1487- Court of Star Chamber established in England to control the press

1530- Henry VIII's proclamation for a licensing system

1556- London booksellers establish Stationer's Company

1557- Royal Charter gives SC control over book trade

1637- CSC attempts to codify its laws

1643- first of many Licensing Acts, based on CSC's laws

1662- every printed item must be registered with SC

1695- Licensing Act expires, booksellers lobby for protection

1710- Statute of Anne invents copyright

1774- Donaldson v. Becket ends argument for perpetual copyright 

To sum up centuries worth of developments, here are the absolute basics: if you wanted to print a book, you either had to get permission from the Crown or register with the Stationer's Company, who would then get the legal rights to the copying and publication of the book. The Stationer's Company was allowed to run its monopoly because it centralized the book trade, which made censorship by the Crown easier. 1710's Statute of Anne is the first time that authors get copyright, but its wording is super vague and things continue as before until 1774. Publishers argued that they should have perpetual copyright, rather than the 21 years allowed to them by the SoA, since you don't lose the rights to a piece of land after a certain amount of time. This argument is demolished in the Donaldson v. Becket case.  

We are also asked to include at least one image in our post, and so I figured I'd use the image of the Statute of Anne. I found this on Wikipedia, here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne 

If for some reason you find yourself interested in the invention of copyright, I'll list the sources I used below. My recommendations are the Ross article and the book by Birrell, even though it is very old (copyright from 1899!)

Works Cited

Edited Bently, Lionel; Suthersanen, Uma; Torremans, Paul. Global Copyright: Three Hundred

Years Since the Statue of Anne, From 1709 to Cyberspace. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.,

2010.

Edited Porsdam, Helle. Copyright and Other Fairy Tales: Hans Christian Andersen and the

Commodification of Creativity. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2006.

Birrell, Augustine. Seven Lectures on the Law and History of Copyright in Books. Cassel and

Company, Ltd., 1899.

Loewenstien, Joseph. The Author’s Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright. University of

Chicago Press, 2002.

Rose, Mark. Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright. Harvard University Press, 1993.

Ross, Trevor. “Copyright and the Invention of Tradition.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 26,

No. 1, 1992, Pp. 1-27.

Slauter, Will. Who Owns the News?: A History of Copyright. Stanford University Press, 2019.

Teilmann-Lock, Stina. The Object of Copyright: A Conceptual History of Originals and Copies

in Literature, Art and Design. Routledge, 2016.

J

We were asked to write a childhood memoir for my English class, and I'm actually ok with how this one turned out. 

 :::

J

            I had a best friend at the age of 7, although the role has a new actor now. Back then, she was played by a girl the same age, with chubby cheeks and glossy, dark brown ringlets. She was essentially a life vest that floated herself over to me, when I was thrown over the side of the boat into the waters of second grade at a new school, in a new town. Things didn’t end neatly and peacefully, but I owe her my gratitude for reaching out to a shy, new girl.

            The friendship was lovely at first. Our first argument was over who would get to play the princess at recess, both insisting that the other was more deserving. Playdates abounded then, on a kid’s snowmobile in our pasture or out on her grandparent’s farm. Shyness dissolved into unbridled joy, her family became mine and mine hers.

            Back at the beautiful beginning, I remember a formative playdate. Fall at her grandparent’s farm, the chill that precedes the first snowfall hanging in the air. We sat in the dark, linoleumed basement, watching YTV’s The Next Star on a tiny old box of a TV, fascinated by the tweenage Canadians competing to be the next Shania or Avril. Inspired by the episode in which they wrote their own songs, we clambered upstairs to the wooden dining table.

            With leftover paper and her grandma’s kitchen pens, we sat down to compose our own songs. The first song I ever wrote was with pen on borrowed paper in someone else’s home, the outline of her hand in pencil on the corner of the page. Pens were forbidden in elementary school, and we were both very excited to get to use them for the first time. Now I make a point to use pencil writing songs, as it’s easier to correct mistakes, to change my mind. Perhaps it’s fitting, however, that such a formative experience used ink. There is no eraser that can scrub the experience from my memory.

            We tried our best to recreate the pop songs of the 2000’s we heard on the local radio or Disney Channel. As far as songs go, it was terrible. As is to be expected of a second-grader, and to be expected of anyone’s first creative endeavour. At least a third of my lyrics were ‘ooh’s, ‘oh’s, or ‘yeah’s, Hannah Montana’s influence evident. To be technical, it was actually two songs, on one page, distinct to me despite the identical melody. We performed to each other in the living room, the other pretending to be a panel of judges from the show. I think this was followed by a trip to the trampoline outside the front window, but I’m not certain.

            I say often, now, that my memory is terrible, and I’m afraid it’s the truth. A small piece of me, to my surprise, feels guilty that I don’t remember any of her song. I spent years memorizing August 10^th, to not forget her birthday, I remember so many parts of our friendship I no longer have use for, but I’m struggling to remember a formative part of my own childhood to achieve a mark in a university English class. I feel a sadness, as if I’m forgetting my own self in doing so, never mind any complicated feelings trying to rise in the background as if I haven’t buried my emotions regarding that friendship.

            Inspired by how Taylor Swift used her songs as therapy, I returned to song writing as elementary school progressed. It was how I charted and dissected my own overwhelming feelings, and I’d like to think that over time, I did get better. Pages and pages of my songbook have been dedicated to the collapsing of our best-friendship. Even now, in my comparatively old age (21, I’m truly over the hill), I return to that friendship to mine it for fool’s gold, feelings to put into words to soothe myself.

            When I went to yet another new school, song writing had become such an important part of my identity that it was how I introduced myself to new people. From this passion grew my interest in creative writing and music, which I now pursue an education in. Writing songs was a lifeline through almost all my years of schooling, all my tumultuous emotions, until it stopped working.

            Now, the pages of my songbook are like my little secret I keep close to my chest. Far from introducing myself as a songwriter, I refuse to bring it up to my musical peers. I know they don’t write songs how I did, and I can’t trust anyone so skilled with something so terribly important to me, lest it receive unsolicited critique. I don’t wish to be good at writing songs. At this point, I wish for the ability to simply write a song, work through my emotions, feel better, back.

            I still have the paper I took home that day, tucked into the back of my old songbook. It’s one of the most important things I would want to save from a house fire. I kept diaries, but I think that songbook is the truest chronicle of my childhood, multicoloured ductape holding the spine together and all. Nothing fancy, or polished, or anywhere near perfect. So private, yet occasionally publicly performed. The pages where I learned to question my role in the falling out between me and the girl who started me on this whole journey.

            I have no answers to any questions, not that any were explicitly posed. Despite the feeling that my back is curving over like my grandmother’s spine curved over her walker, I know I’m not that old. I’m sure one day I’ll look back on my twenties with the same bleary memory I look back with on second grade. There is no neat end to that friendship, there is no neat end to my days of writing songs. I hope that an end to one does not contain the end to the other. 

 

-T

 

The snow is brown. Well, the snow is white, and the sand is brown, laying unusable on the ground, the rust from the underside of my truck box long gone. My bumper sits atop the snow at the side of the shop, the latest addition to the pile of junk— pardon me, parts— leaning against the outer wall. Past the ugly green snowplow, the little Ford tractor, the rusty 38, I find an opening in the fir trees. To my left is the gas tank from Red, propped up against our recently deceased freezer, and to my right, the pull-behind mower I broke twice in the same day. The snow pile where the garden used to be is so ugly, the sky is barely a different grey than the ground, and we don’t even have the car that hood and roof belong to anymore, but despite the appearances, please know this isn’t a junkyard. It’s just debris from the projects started on a warmer day. Six months ago, there were zucchinis growing where that tractor sits, and the sickle mower was out in the ditches off of the #3. Seven years ago I was out here with a big stick— pardon me, a staff— and a wand and a friend who wanted to tell the same fairy tale I did. We were climbing those fir trees and shooting arrows into those straw bales and we were sure we could save the world from that evil wizard, because you can do anything you want in middle school. She’s a mother now, and I’m stuck at home taking a class I started two years ago, and my toes are so cold from being stuck in the snow like the rest of this junk. My father calls me to feed a bale, and maybe I am junk, but at least I can open a gate. Spring will come, parts will become projects again, and I'll grow up too.

:::

I'm taking a creative writing class again. I've gotten so rusty, but at least I was able to submit my junk on time. Take what you can get, I guess.