Passions Never Lie

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time with a woman who has made a living doing photography for 20 years.

She's a beautiful person, physically and emotionally. She has a way of speaking in which the words run into each other and somehow by the time she reaches the end of what she wants to communicate in a very stream-of-consciousness manner, it all makes perfect sense, articulate and poetic.

She told me a wonderful story about how when she was young, 21 or 22, her husband and her owned a storefront photography shop. She was doing photography but she hated it because it was nothing like the kind of photography that she'd had in mind. So, one day, really broke, with $4.98 in her pocket she went to the store and she saw the most beautiful Calla lillies. She really had to debate about spending the $4.98 on something as frivolous as flowers but she did. When she went home, she set them up under a skylight and photographed them for hours. She felt really, really guilty "wasting time" on something so "artistic" when they needed money. Her little toddler was yanking at her pantleg while she was taking shot after shot.

To make a long story short, around about the same time she was selling art cards that she'd made by hand. This was in Northern California. A publisher happened to see her cards and as a result of that her photography and the connection with the publisher ended up paying the mortgage for five years.

I really like her and I think I have a lot to learn from her. So, because I have very little to say today, let me share with you the work of these two artists.

While I was at Amy's house, I met this other artist. He's from Korea and as you can see from his website, his ceramic work is magical, precise, fun and creations that will help you dream yourself into your very own personal fairytale.
Meet Amy and Byungjoo

Help Wanted: Crazy, Angry People only

When people are creative in the fine arts way - writers, poets, sculptors, painters, actors - they are often forced to take jobs that have nothing to do with what they should be doing.

It doesn't seem to matter how many times they've proven in the past that this is a really bad idea, their courage falters, just for a short time, and somehow they Pretend Not to Know what they Know (A bestseller for sure. See previous blog post!) and Voila, they're sitting behind some desk feeling like a sardine in a suit behind an ergonomically screwed up workstation that will render them old before their time.

Take today for example. Take where I work. I've been really sick for a week. I had to go to the hospital. That's what happens when sardines wear suits acting as contortionists just to see the computer screen at a desk that is ergonomically set up by a quadriplegic or a midget or somebody other than the person who must sit at the desk.

It's like bad interface design. It's all about the equipment, not about the human who has to sit at and use the equipment. The phone's practically on the floor because the cord is only 3 feet long. The chair's three-foot arms are as wide as those on Lazy Boys from The Brick. As a result you can't get any closer to your computer monitor than passengers in an airport trying to read the Arrival and Departure Screens. Give me some binoculars so I can input the data because the data is everything.

The laptop is a laptop when it should be a desktop. You try to put the laptop on the yellow pages to prop it up but the laptop tips over backwards because it's too heavy because it's probably 12 years old. It was the prototype for some equipment that normally only gets used in operating rooms from 1952.

Picture Frankenstein at a desk. Arms stretched out in front of him. Fingers moving and still a few millimetres short of reaching the keyboard. I like to think of it as office golf. Move your body into the most uncomfortable position, turn the flourescent lights up to maximum velocity and then open the door to let the angry, crazy people in.

The door has an alarm that is connected to cameras to protect us from the crazy, angry people who have convened on this idyllic setting making you wonder how they got so crazy and angry.

So, every time one of those crazy, angry people walks in the door, we get to hear about it as if a car has just driven up to get gas. (I'm getting hysterical. Is it showing?)

And by the way, as an aside, I had to go to a massage therapist yesterday and she informed me that I'm just getting used to the "energy" here. Did I know that Salt Spring is actually, according to the Dalai Lama when he flew over [in a plane I hope] situated on a huge crystal bed and there are only a handful of those in the world. That's why it's special. Some people can't handle it here and have to leave. Maybe you've seized up because you aren't yet able to integrate the energy from here she says. No, I think the energy from here is just fine. It's the energy walking in the door that's in need of the Dalai Lama.

Today, one of those crazy people was some friggin little 17 year old guy who thinks he's king shit. Come in darling. I've been expecting you. You are what I refer to as a Gayle Mavor specialty.

He's walking towards me. I say Hi. He looks at me like I'm in HIS living room and he doesn't know how I got there. He's got that swagger that says, "stings like a butterfly floats like a bee" or whatever the hell that saying is.

There's this static around him, it's noise and at first I can't quite figure out where it's coming from. Like some 80 year old high school teacher, my nose in the air, looking around confused I say, what? What is that? What is that noise? Where is that noise coming from? Is that your music? I say, not hiding my indignance and getting a picture in my head that's so much a caricature of some grey-hair old lady squinting and wheezing with indignance I almost laugh out loud at myself.

Please turn off your music I say to him at which point he has a little melt down. You're supposed to be here to "FN" help me he says and walks out the door.

And, right at that second I had a little fantasy. I saw myself grabbing his IPod shuffle or whatever the hell it was, taking the strings, ripping them out of his ears, throwing it violently on the floor, jumping up and down on it and breaking it into a million little pieces.

We get the people walking in who say I need a resume. Did they think to write anything down? Do they know where they've worked previously? Do they know when? Of course not because they've just had so many lousy jobs. Go figure?

Now think about that way of being and what it takes to be that way. Like I'll just walk up to a stranger and say I need a resume as if they have been my little guardian angel put on the planet for my use only. They would have to know every aspect of my life's history and in the snap of a finger like Sabrina on Bewitched they will surely produce a "Save me from myself because I'm too stupid for my cat" RESUME!

Then, we get the single, older male flirts who are lonely so they have to come in every day to talk to us and tease us and look at our tits and they have worn the same pair of pants for the last 3 months with no laundry room in site, apparently but hey, yes, we would find them desirable wouldn't we? I mean why wouldn't we?They're male. Isn't that enough? Don't pretend Not to Know what You Know I say to them in my mind and MY GOD that statement is useful isn't it?

When people are creative in the fine arts way - writers, poets, sculptors, painters, actors - they are often forced to take jobs that have nothing to do with what they should be doing.

The Meaning of Magical Meetings

About a week or so ago when I was returning to my safe, quiet, little island from Vancouver,I decided that I would just take a ferry to Swartz Bay and then turn around and take the 30-minute ferry from Swartz Bay back to Fulford Harbour on Salt Spring. It's what people do when they live on Salt Spring to work around the fact that there are very few NON STOP sailings from Tsawwassen to Long Harbour at any time of day that makes sense.

If I leave at 2 pm I think to myself all naively, I'll be home in time for dinner. Fifteen minutes onto the boat,sitting looking out the window at Tsawwassen and suddenly there's an announcement.

"This is the captain speaking. I need to inform you that there is a small car fire on the car deck. Please be sure to follow the directions of the crew and I will get back to you with more information."

I'm sitting there thinking does he mean there's a small car on fire or there's a small fire as a result of a big car because hey, one is much worse than the other.

My next thought is oh no, it better not be beside MY car. I left MY computer in MY car. When you're poor, out of necessity, you become quite self centered. I don't care what happens to the 565 other cars on the boat just as long as mine remains intact.

Next announcement. This is the captain. I'm asking everyone to move to the forward lounge.

I start walking toward the lounge and after about 10 minutes of standing there I think to myself, I'm getting the hell out of here.

I decide it would be better to be out on the deck. So, that's where I go. Sure enough. Next annoucement?

"We are evacuating the ship. Please wait for the announcement and then vacate the ship from the forward lounge. Please enter into lounge four and five at the terminal and remain there. Thank you."

Everyone files out in an orderly manner and suddenly, like cattle, we are all crammed into the waiting area watching as smoke is billowing out of the left side of the ferry.

I sit down. I'm there for a bit. Suddenly a woman sits down beside me. I say something negative like, "I wonder how long this is going to take?" at which point she says, "Sometimes these delays have a way of turning out magical."

Magical? Did she just say magical? I think to myself. What mushrooms did she have in her omellette this morning I wonder to myself. I bet she's headed to where I'm going I think to myself.

Magical is not a word that a lot of people use anymore and it's a pity really because if you want to catch someone's attention just try slipping the "M" word into your conversation.

The next time someone asks you the requisite, "How are you?" you could take a big, theatrical inhalation and on the exhale, you could swing one arm across your body in a flamboyant The Price is Right kind of way, look to the heavens and in a breathy voice say, "I'm Magical, Just Magical!"

Then stand back, keep a straight face and see what they have to say about that.

So, when this woman said that, I got "that feeling" the one I get sometimes when I meet someone as if there's a little arrow above their head that's flashing on and off as if to say to me, pay attention to this one. Not from here. Maybe reincarnated. Has "The Secret". Celestine Prophecy in action. Taken over by The Mind of the Soul. Delivering a "message from the masters". You know. THAT kind of feeling.

We start talking and somehow she tells me she's writing/written a book. The book is called Stop Pretending You Don't Know What You Know. I love that title. I tell her that that book is going to be a best seller and she sits quietly, as if she already knows that to be true. Think about it. Stop Pretending That You Don't Know What you Know!

Stop pretending that you don't already know that you are gay! Stop pretending that your husband still loves you! Stop pretending that you're ever going to be any different! Stop pretending that you're going to write a book. Stop pretending that you're not fat! Stop pretending that you're nicer than you are. Stop pretending that you don't feel superior to every other person on the planet. Stop pretending that you really give a shit! And on and on and on it goes.

Try it. Add up your own list. Insert it here and repeat after me, all together now, on behalf of this woman. Stand up. Yell it out! All together: Stop Pretending that You Don't Know what you Know!

Anyway, back in the ferry waiting lounge where someone has now thrown up and about 10people have accidentally walked in it, we talk for a bit. She doesn't really tell me much about it as if I'm going to steal the premise and write it in a week or two before she gets it published.

Finally, I say to her, What's your name? She says my name is Gael!
"What" I said, not quite believing that she said her name was Gael.
Gael she says again more definitely.

That's MY name I say. MY name is Gayle. "AYL" I say. "AEL" she says back to me.

Now, is it just me or out of 900 people crammed into a little terminal waiting area, what is the chance that the woman who chooses to sit beside me has exactly the same name as mine.

Well, not exactly the SAME NAME as a very witty friend pointed out. Imagine if her LAST name was the same as yours? "You met a fairy on the ferry" she said. It's like a fairy tale. You start off in reality and suddenly, as your day progresses everyone you meet turns into some little person of the forest, spirit of the mountain or Matilda of the mist.


Okay, okay. But, you have to admit. Her and I - meeting - like that...

MAGICAL!!!!!!!!!!!