Saturday morning epiphany.
(Perhaps a common symptom at 23 weeks pregnant? "Expect increased urination, some mild lower back pain, and the occasional epiphany this week.")
...I want to be a documentary film maker. To write and produce real life stories of controversial subjects, that impact the most ordinary of everyday people. Subjects like immigration. Educational, entertaining, gut-yankingly emotive and dumfoundingly gobsmacking feature-length movies of the most mind blowing proportions that stimulate the audience into revolutionary action, and win awards. Yes. THIS is my calling. ...(Unless week 24 brings symptoms such as "dissolution of any previous epiphanies.")
----------------
Since our return to Canada in March, I have suffered a level of lethargy comparable to that of my most treasured pet-of-the-past; our family’s alarmingly overweight and dribbly tabby cat, Louie, who purred his way to a fat and happy twenty years of age.
While on our year-long travels full-circle around the globe, it was always my intention to commence writing nothing other than a best-selling novel or Oscar-winning screenplay immediately upon our return. With every faith in my ambition and ability, Guillaume bought me a computer, set me up an office and got himself a full-time job to bring in the pennies while I would stay at home creating genius… But I wrote one chapter of crap and gave up. Fortunately, he doesn’t care, and remains as supportive as ever he was. But I care. I am a terrible failure.
Of course, it’s not entirely that straight forward… I had unknowingly acquired a more desirable form of Bali-belly from my husband, while travelling in Indonesia. The kind that gestates and grows for approximately 40 weeks until you are presented with the world’s most difficult life-long house mate. One who will make noise at all hours of the night and never apologise. One who will not clean up after himself, but expect you to. One who will not pay his way, ever. And one who is impossible to evict, not because of housing laws or some squatters-rights nonsense (it actually gets better once they can squat) but in fact owed to an inevitable and ongoing unconditional love.
During our two months on the sweaty island of Bali, we were able to secure an apartment to rent in Edmonton on a month-to-month basis. One that could be ready for us upon our return to Alberta. Somehow we managed this through email communication and online form-filling alone, without a present address or phone number. We also scheduled an Ikea delivery for the move-in date. Nothing fancy. Just a mattress, some pillows and bedding.
When we arrived at the city of Edmonton’s northern boundary, there was snow on the ground. Just as there had been when we left Calgary eleven and a half months earlier. We had journeyed by Greyhound (bus, not dog) from Vancouver, following a 14 hour flight from Manila in the Philippines. We were a little bedraggled, a slight look of homelessness about us (which was, up until that point, accurate), carrying dirty backpacks which towered above our scruffy heads, and I was five and a half weeks pregnant.
Nevertheless, Michelle Bagy (the woman with the key) greeted us with nothing but welcoming warmth as we paid our deposit and signed the paperwork that morning. The apartment was in a new-build, with shiny hard wood floors and stainless steel kitchen appliances. Unfurnished, apart from our Ikea arrival that afternoon. With nothing but a mattress on the floor and plastic cutlery, we began to settle back into a luxurious, organised life in this developed western world.
We’d been living there for two days when I took the pregnancy test. We knew it was a possibility. And I was late. We’d always said we planned to start a family after our travels. I ran out of pills at the end of January and we just thought we’d let fate take over… After all, it rarely happens for people right away. Often couples try for months or even years… But of course it happened immediately. Must’ve been all that healthy-ovulation-promoting cassava I consumed, or the folic acid we both started taking (just in case.)
You’ll often hear people say they’re not yet ready for kids. They postpone their procreation desires because they fear they’re not financially capable of the addition, or their house isn’t right, or their career hasn’t flourished, or perhaps they’re not ready to consider that uncool mini-van purchase. For me, I just wanted to make sure I’d drank enough in my life to see me through at least nine months of sobriety. And Guillaume, well – he had no criteria for being “ready.” He just wanted children and knew we’d make it work.
We’d been baby craving since 2011. We’d engaged in many a broody discussion over the past four years. But those were the kind of talks you have with your other half about the future. A yearning to one day be a parent which you know will only increase with time. We had big dreams and needed fun, adventure and spontaneity in our enjoyably irresponsible lives for a while first. We never said we wanted to have an established profession, we never calculated an amount we would need to have in the bank, we never created mood boards on Pinterest of nursery room themes and insist on having such a space in anticipation of the stork’s delivery. We just said we wanted to learn more, do more and see more, so we’d have more to share with our children whenever they came…
And now here we were, eating our dinner with our legs crossed and backs up against the wall, being careful not to accidentally snap and swallow a tong of the plastic fork. (But we both still did.) Neither of us employed. Thousands of miles from family and friends. Certainly didn’t have a car. We didn’t even have socks. And the savings we had attained prior to our travels, the money we’d made selling all our stuff to explore a little bit of planet Earth for a while, those funds were dwindling rapidly. This was us – baby-ready.
“Why would you choose to go somewhere so far away from loved ones?” you might ask, in that sort of condescending tone like we are a pair of complete idiots. Well this is where those government restrictions come into play. Those laws and rules that dictate what we can and cannot do with our lives. Some are familiar with them. Others manage to flit through life without ever noticing they’re there. Alberta (and Saskatchewan, but do I really need to explain why we didn’t go there?) is the only province that will give me free healthcare while I await my official Permanent Residency of Canada. And free healthcare is pretty paramount when there is a possibility of pregnancy.
If you didn’t already know, I am not Canadian. Guillaume is Canadian, and despite being married to him, I am not freely and easily entitled to gallivant around the country like a local. I previously held what’s called an IEC visa (International Experience Canada) which enabled me to work here for up to two years, which I did in 2012-2014. Such a visa is no longer available to me. You just get one shot at that one.
When entering the country this time, I was questioned like a criminal in that same back room of Vancouver airport that you might have seen on ‘Border Force’. We’d done our homework (or awaywork in actuality), and knew what was needed at this point. We’d paid the fee for a Permanent Residence application (a hefty $1,040) from a bulky 1990’s desktop PC, in an internet café in Lovina back in February, and printed the receipt. My Mum had posted our paperwork – marriage certificate and other important documents, to us at a hotel we stayed in for a while in Kuta. So we had that too. (Kuta is not on our highly recommended list by the way. Ubud is far better.) We also printed a few of our wedding photos from Facebook. All this was nervously presented to the stern-faced border officer who reminded me who was boss without me even forgetting. Always be nice to them. They have the power.
After some quick-fire questions, long silences, worrying frowns, computer gazing, disappearing and reappearing, she eventually let me in with what they call a ‘Visitor Record.’ It’s an embossed document they put inside your passport allowing you six months in the country, and I’ll need to renew it before September. Six months is the same travel time given to any British tourist, but this official little piece of paper is what I needed to get my health care. It carries more weight than a simple stamp. But I’m still nothing more than a visitor. If they caught me so much as walking a neighbour’s dog in exchange of a vegetarian lasagne, I’d (genuinely) risk deportation for engaging in voluntary work that could be undertaken by a Canadian.
Asides from the health care, Alberta is possibly the best place in the world to make some cash, quickly. Having exhausted all our past monetary accumulations and, as only the legal citizen of the two of us can work, the economic prosperity of a location was also an important deciding factor in where to nest.
Guillaume is a surveyor. For the past seven years he has worked in construction. He’s the guy that looks at the blueprints, and then tells everyone on site where they need to put stuff. (This is how I understand it, anyway.) He measures the reality of distances, densities and obstacles on the ground, underground and in the air. This is where you pour the concrete. That elevator shaft goes here. This pillar is an inch out – knock it down and start again. That sort of thing.
Luckily, after less than ten days back in the country, Guillaume was called for an interview with PCL who were building the new NHL ice hockey arena for the Edmonton Oilers as part of a vast downtown regeneration project. He’d worked for PCL before, in Calgary. His interview was short. “You start Monday” they said to him on a Friday. He’s been there for four months now, and recently moved on to the 61 storey high rise opposite the arena. It will be the tallest building in Western Canada. It’s a three year project, so there’s plenty to keep him busy.
In the meantime, I have been kept almost as busy by my immigrant status – filling out endless forms, gathering paperwork from the past ten years to prove I am educated, and not a mass murderer, bigamist or lumberjack smuggler. They want to know where I’ve been and what I’ve done at every stage of life since I was 18 years old. They need police certificates, tax records, medical reports (and a lot of this is costly to obtain.) And they need to know all about my relationship with Guillaume. How we met, where and when we met, when we went on a first date, if we gave each other gifts, if we went on holiday, did we call each other, text each other, email each other, skype each other, when did we meet each other’s friends and family, do we have a shared bank account, joint residential leases, are we on each other’s work benefits, do we declare ourselves together on social media, do we have matching passport stamps, flight tickets, hotel bookings, can we provide hundreds of photographs of us in different places, photographs of us with other people, photographs of us kissing and meaning it… I sent a copy of my ultrasound picture, but draw the line at pictorial evidence of how our baby was made…
Falling for a foreigner is a more complicated love story than most. You don’t think about that when you see each other for the first time, when you flirt and laugh and get excited about the next date, the first kiss. Those butterflies in your tummy, those lusty urges, that growing friendship, the special bond – it’s all automatic, unstoppable and natural. Then when you realise you have to abide by government rules and regs in order to stay together, it becomes rather unnatural. It’s office work. Businesslike. Factual and linear.
Despite these hurdles and barriers, people all over the world are falling in love with people from other countries, who speak different languages, who come from different cultures, or who have different beliefs. It’s a natural evolution halted only by unnatural necessities. But eventually this mingling will win. It’s inevitable, and fighting it only prolongs the process. A strange combination of fear and nostalgia encourages the masses to loathe immigration. We are desperate to preserve our unique histories and traditions, and think that outside influences will make them disappear. Of course that’s not true. Yes, I’ve befriended other Brits here in Edmonton. Yes, we drink tea and we haven’t lost our accents. We talk about British products and search out the best British chippy, and complain about the lack of cozy pubs and social ambience. We’re proud of our heritage, we miss bits of it, and we don’t mind bringing what we can of it to Canada. But Canada is not about to turn into Britain because of us. And if Canadians are ever concerned about that, then, well, they just need to ensure they uphold their Canadian traditions and culture. Go cut down a tree. Play hockey. Make some maple syrup. Enjoy being cold. Put your snow shoes on. Go camping. Be kind and apologetic. And know that all of the above stereotypes were generated in relatively recent times. Once the Europeans invaded this land. They didn’t complete any paperwork or respect the local ways. In fact, they just slaughtered everyone.
Of course there are other issues, and I am not ignorant of those – population. Too many people in one place would mean services will suffer, it will be harder to find work, housing, a good education. Too many people can make things very difficult. And countries want to prioritise their own. Take care of their natives. It’s not really a viable argument in Canada where they lack population. 33 million live here, in the second largest country on Earth. Almost double that live in the teeny, tiny UK. But nevertheless, we are all fighting a flow that won’t stop coming. Change will always, always occur.
So, asides from pondering the above, submitting my 300 page application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada and growing a brand new human inside my uterus, the fact is I have been a master of procrastination. Lazy. Doing pretty much nothing. Unable to string a creative sentence together. Motivation at an all-time low.
After conversing with a good old friend and fellow Screenwriting alumnae of Southampton Solent University, Ryan Webb, on Skype for two hours - while he became progressively drunk on an expensive rum, I realised that I was unable to progress with my writing because I didn’t care enough about my fictional story ideas. Ryan always has a hilarious anecdote to share. He’s always got an entertaining narrative. And it’s almost always unbelievable. Those who don’t know him well may think he’s just articulately weaving fabricated or exaggerated yarns. Often sounding like they should be played out on a post watershed TV series or naughty East-London movie. But they’re all true. And that’s what makes them all the more brilliant.
You might have guessed where I’m going with this? … I can’t do fiction. It’s simple. It’s obvious. Maybe the odd short ludicrous story in which animals talk, walrus’ ride in go-carts with their pet caterpillars and fluffy possums called Norma find themselves allured by an illustrious honey-bee named Bumble Bob. Yep, I’ve written those. Nonsensical jumbles of silliness. Maybe that’s different. But when it comes to a full length novel, or a feature film, fiction is tough. And it’s tough because I don’t care or feel passionately enough about made-up stories. They don’t evoke strong opinions, or drive me to manipulate my reader. I thought the excitement of being able to write about anything, anything at all, would motivate day after day of non-stop scribbling. The fact that this could go anywhere. Anything can happen. My characters can be whoever I want them to be. Surely that would keep my fingers rattling away on the keyboard for hours on end. But nope. It doesn’t work. My brain won’t engage because I just don’t care. The characters aren’t real. The stuff didn’t happen.
Of course I am envious of those who are able to create fictional beings and make-believe plots, fantasy worlds and non-existent entities. They are the real creative genius’. A lecturer once told us that being a writer is harder than being a brain surgeon. (Pah!) His argument was that a brain surgeon has to work with something already there – and fix it. A writer has to create the brain.
Well, I’m not that good. My passion, it seems, lies in truth seeking and sharing. Sometimes it might seem bizarre and outrageous (like Ryan Webb’s stories), but if there’s some element of reality to it, then I’m interested. How did I not realise this sooner, when the first thing I say to Guillaume every day when he gets in from work is what I have read or seen that day on the news, or in an online article about the enormity of the universe or a man who lost his memory after undergoing root canal surgery. There’s so many fascinating stories in real life that go unnoticed and ignored every day, yet they hold such significance, such importance, such mystery and magnificence…
People who used to work with me at Shaw will also recall my daily news story sharing and initiation of discussions related thereto. I have been angry and baffled as to why my brain has been nothing short of dead for the past four months, and I now understand it’s because I have been trying to do something that simply puts my mind on shut-down. If I don’t care or feel passionately about whatever I might be working on, then I drift into a disengaged slumber, from wherein my medulla omits only thoughtless rubbish which might, on a rare occasion, be mediocre at best. Its secretions will befuddle others, who’ll wonder how I even managed to finish High School (as it turns out, I barely did). Former co-workers may remember when I tried to use the word ‘aftermath’ in a 30 second commercial, or pitched a festive Christmas script called Dead Presents. I apologise. My brain was simply off.
It’s probably a very bad personality trait, and an unemployable attitude, but I must accept that this is me. I cannot do mainstream media (which is sadly rather patronising and slow across all of North America – apart from maybe Montreal, and pockets of San Francisco) or those short little blogs with as many pictures as mono-syllable words. Consequently my online travel diaries were read by very few, but I can’t fight this compulsion to unnecessarily elongate everything. I can’t hold back these rambles. And someone’s reading it, aren’t they? You. You are reading it right now.
One thing people can deal with better than words on a screen, however, is hearing and seeing, and being moved by combinations of emotive music and stunning visuals…
I watched a documentary on Netflix yesterday called Happy. They talk about how a rickshaw driver, living in the slums of Kolkata, is actually as happy as the average American. I always thought there was something to this. I wrote about it in my travel blogs. What I saw of the locals in Vietnam – they looked far cheerier and more content than the workaholics of the western world. ‘Happy’ states that beyond the basics – enough food to eat and a roof over your head, – money does not buy happiness. Neither does the pursuit of money. There is a difference in happiness between those earning $5,000 a year and those who earn $50,000 a year, as one would expect. But, there is no difference in the level of happiness between those who earn $50,000 a year and those who earn $50,000,000 a year. It talked about happiness being generated through compassion, social interaction, and partaking in activities purely for the experience/pleasure and not for anyone else, or for financial gain. Things such as surfing, or playing a piano when alone. Change too, they say, can make you happy. Something different from your daily routine – seeing something new. Experiencing something out of the ordinary. I really enjoyed that documentary. It taught me a lot, and made me think. Parts of it made me laugh out loud, and others made me teary. It’s about real stuff, real people, real places and because it’s real, it’s relatable.
I want to create documentaries like that.
----
We moved out of the apartment in the north of the city, and are now living close to downtown Edmonton. Close enough for Guillaume to cycle to work. We found a house to rent, with a garden, and enough space for family to visit, and for our imminently due little one, whom we are extremely excited to meet. Guillaume has been building some of our furniture. It’s much cheaper than buying it, and it’s unique, custom, and characterful. He’s done a great job. A new hobby he’s taken up.
And so for the next few months or so, until our baby arrives and changes our world completely, I must relish the available time and opportunity to work on this epiphany of mine. Research, write and prepare pitches perhaps… But seriously, if CIC find out, I could be booted out of the country without so much as a by your leave. I mean, I’m not going to try and sell anything or make any money, but maybe they’ll still consider my activity ‘work’. After all, they recently deported a guy for doing a spot of DIY at his Canadian girlfriend’s house. Just helping her out. Apparently he was keeping a Canadian out of a job by doing that. Ridiculous isn’t it? I keep a safe distance when Guillaume is partaking in DIY.
What do they expect people awaiting their Permanent Residency to do? (It can take up to two years to process the application by the way.) I don’t want to be forced into a dribbly fat mess like my dear old cat Louie (he wasn’t allowed to work legally, either.) Some amount of fat must be acceptable though… I’m pregnant and entitled to the fattest time of my life. (I’ll buy an elliptical machine after Christmas.)
....Lots of food for thought. Lots of fuel for the fire. Many documentaries to be written…
To read the travel blogs dating back to February 2014, click the Travel Blogs link top of screen (if on a PC or iPad) or find the link by clicking on the menu icon top left of screen (if on your mobile phone).
(Perhaps a common symptom at 23 weeks pregnant? "Expect increased urination, some mild lower back pain, and the occasional epiphany this week.")
...I want to be a documentary film maker. To write and produce real life stories of controversial subjects, that impact the most ordinary of everyday people. Subjects like immigration. Educational, entertaining, gut-yankingly emotive and dumfoundingly gobsmacking feature-length movies of the most mind blowing proportions that stimulate the audience into revolutionary action, and win awards. Yes. THIS is my calling. ...(Unless week 24 brings symptoms such as "dissolution of any previous epiphanies.")
----------------
Since our return to Canada in March, I have suffered a level of lethargy comparable to that of my most treasured pet-of-the-past; our family’s alarmingly overweight and dribbly tabby cat, Louie, who purred his way to a fat and happy twenty years of age.
While on our year-long travels full-circle around the globe, it was always my intention to commence writing nothing other than a best-selling novel or Oscar-winning screenplay immediately upon our return. With every faith in my ambition and ability, Guillaume bought me a computer, set me up an office and got himself a full-time job to bring in the pennies while I would stay at home creating genius… But I wrote one chapter of crap and gave up. Fortunately, he doesn’t care, and remains as supportive as ever he was. But I care. I am a terrible failure.
Of course, it’s not entirely that straight forward… I had unknowingly acquired a more desirable form of Bali-belly from my husband, while travelling in Indonesia. The kind that gestates and grows for approximately 40 weeks until you are presented with the world’s most difficult life-long house mate. One who will make noise at all hours of the night and never apologise. One who will not clean up after himself, but expect you to. One who will not pay his way, ever. And one who is impossible to evict, not because of housing laws or some squatters-rights nonsense (it actually gets better once they can squat) but in fact owed to an inevitable and ongoing unconditional love.
During our two months on the sweaty island of Bali, we were able to secure an apartment to rent in Edmonton on a month-to-month basis. One that could be ready for us upon our return to Alberta. Somehow we managed this through email communication and online form-filling alone, without a present address or phone number. We also scheduled an Ikea delivery for the move-in date. Nothing fancy. Just a mattress, some pillows and bedding.
When we arrived at the city of Edmonton’s northern boundary, there was snow on the ground. Just as there had been when we left Calgary eleven and a half months earlier. We had journeyed by Greyhound (bus, not dog) from Vancouver, following a 14 hour flight from Manila in the Philippines. We were a little bedraggled, a slight look of homelessness about us (which was, up until that point, accurate), carrying dirty backpacks which towered above our scruffy heads, and I was five and a half weeks pregnant.
Nevertheless, Michelle Bagy (the woman with the key) greeted us with nothing but welcoming warmth as we paid our deposit and signed the paperwork that morning. The apartment was in a new-build, with shiny hard wood floors and stainless steel kitchen appliances. Unfurnished, apart from our Ikea arrival that afternoon. With nothing but a mattress on the floor and plastic cutlery, we began to settle back into a luxurious, organised life in this developed western world.
We’d been living there for two days when I took the pregnancy test. We knew it was a possibility. And I was late. We’d always said we planned to start a family after our travels. I ran out of pills at the end of January and we just thought we’d let fate take over… After all, it rarely happens for people right away. Often couples try for months or even years… But of course it happened immediately. Must’ve been all that healthy-ovulation-promoting cassava I consumed, or the folic acid we both started taking (just in case.)
You’ll often hear people say they’re not yet ready for kids. They postpone their procreation desires because they fear they’re not financially capable of the addition, or their house isn’t right, or their career hasn’t flourished, or perhaps they’re not ready to consider that uncool mini-van purchase. For me, I just wanted to make sure I’d drank enough in my life to see me through at least nine months of sobriety. And Guillaume, well – he had no criteria for being “ready.” He just wanted children and knew we’d make it work.
We’d been baby craving since 2011. We’d engaged in many a broody discussion over the past four years. But those were the kind of talks you have with your other half about the future. A yearning to one day be a parent which you know will only increase with time. We had big dreams and needed fun, adventure and spontaneity in our enjoyably irresponsible lives for a while first. We never said we wanted to have an established profession, we never calculated an amount we would need to have in the bank, we never created mood boards on Pinterest of nursery room themes and insist on having such a space in anticipation of the stork’s delivery. We just said we wanted to learn more, do more and see more, so we’d have more to share with our children whenever they came…
And now here we were, eating our dinner with our legs crossed and backs up against the wall, being careful not to accidentally snap and swallow a tong of the plastic fork. (But we both still did.) Neither of us employed. Thousands of miles from family and friends. Certainly didn’t have a car. We didn’t even have socks. And the savings we had attained prior to our travels, the money we’d made selling all our stuff to explore a little bit of planet Earth for a while, those funds were dwindling rapidly. This was us – baby-ready.
“Why would you choose to go somewhere so far away from loved ones?” you might ask, in that sort of condescending tone like we are a pair of complete idiots. Well this is where those government restrictions come into play. Those laws and rules that dictate what we can and cannot do with our lives. Some are familiar with them. Others manage to flit through life without ever noticing they’re there. Alberta (and Saskatchewan, but do I really need to explain why we didn’t go there?) is the only province that will give me free healthcare while I await my official Permanent Residency of Canada. And free healthcare is pretty paramount when there is a possibility of pregnancy.
If you didn’t already know, I am not Canadian. Guillaume is Canadian, and despite being married to him, I am not freely and easily entitled to gallivant around the country like a local. I previously held what’s called an IEC visa (International Experience Canada) which enabled me to work here for up to two years, which I did in 2012-2014. Such a visa is no longer available to me. You just get one shot at that one.
When entering the country this time, I was questioned like a criminal in that same back room of Vancouver airport that you might have seen on ‘Border Force’. We’d done our homework (or awaywork in actuality), and knew what was needed at this point. We’d paid the fee for a Permanent Residence application (a hefty $1,040) from a bulky 1990’s desktop PC, in an internet café in Lovina back in February, and printed the receipt. My Mum had posted our paperwork – marriage certificate and other important documents, to us at a hotel we stayed in for a while in Kuta. So we had that too. (Kuta is not on our highly recommended list by the way. Ubud is far better.) We also printed a few of our wedding photos from Facebook. All this was nervously presented to the stern-faced border officer who reminded me who was boss without me even forgetting. Always be nice to them. They have the power.
After some quick-fire questions, long silences, worrying frowns, computer gazing, disappearing and reappearing, she eventually let me in with what they call a ‘Visitor Record.’ It’s an embossed document they put inside your passport allowing you six months in the country, and I’ll need to renew it before September. Six months is the same travel time given to any British tourist, but this official little piece of paper is what I needed to get my health care. It carries more weight than a simple stamp. But I’m still nothing more than a visitor. If they caught me so much as walking a neighbour’s dog in exchange of a vegetarian lasagne, I’d (genuinely) risk deportation for engaging in voluntary work that could be undertaken by a Canadian.
Asides from the health care, Alberta is possibly the best place in the world to make some cash, quickly. Having exhausted all our past monetary accumulations and, as only the legal citizen of the two of us can work, the economic prosperity of a location was also an important deciding factor in where to nest.
Guillaume is a surveyor. For the past seven years he has worked in construction. He’s the guy that looks at the blueprints, and then tells everyone on site where they need to put stuff. (This is how I understand it, anyway.) He measures the reality of distances, densities and obstacles on the ground, underground and in the air. This is where you pour the concrete. That elevator shaft goes here. This pillar is an inch out – knock it down and start again. That sort of thing.
Luckily, after less than ten days back in the country, Guillaume was called for an interview with PCL who were building the new NHL ice hockey arena for the Edmonton Oilers as part of a vast downtown regeneration project. He’d worked for PCL before, in Calgary. His interview was short. “You start Monday” they said to him on a Friday. He’s been there for four months now, and recently moved on to the 61 storey high rise opposite the arena. It will be the tallest building in Western Canada. It’s a three year project, so there’s plenty to keep him busy.
In the meantime, I have been kept almost as busy by my immigrant status – filling out endless forms, gathering paperwork from the past ten years to prove I am educated, and not a mass murderer, bigamist or lumberjack smuggler. They want to know where I’ve been and what I’ve done at every stage of life since I was 18 years old. They need police certificates, tax records, medical reports (and a lot of this is costly to obtain.) And they need to know all about my relationship with Guillaume. How we met, where and when we met, when we went on a first date, if we gave each other gifts, if we went on holiday, did we call each other, text each other, email each other, skype each other, when did we meet each other’s friends and family, do we have a shared bank account, joint residential leases, are we on each other’s work benefits, do we declare ourselves together on social media, do we have matching passport stamps, flight tickets, hotel bookings, can we provide hundreds of photographs of us in different places, photographs of us with other people, photographs of us kissing and meaning it… I sent a copy of my ultrasound picture, but draw the line at pictorial evidence of how our baby was made…
Falling for a foreigner is a more complicated love story than most. You don’t think about that when you see each other for the first time, when you flirt and laugh and get excited about the next date, the first kiss. Those butterflies in your tummy, those lusty urges, that growing friendship, the special bond – it’s all automatic, unstoppable and natural. Then when you realise you have to abide by government rules and regs in order to stay together, it becomes rather unnatural. It’s office work. Businesslike. Factual and linear.
Despite these hurdles and barriers, people all over the world are falling in love with people from other countries, who speak different languages, who come from different cultures, or who have different beliefs. It’s a natural evolution halted only by unnatural necessities. But eventually this mingling will win. It’s inevitable, and fighting it only prolongs the process. A strange combination of fear and nostalgia encourages the masses to loathe immigration. We are desperate to preserve our unique histories and traditions, and think that outside influences will make them disappear. Of course that’s not true. Yes, I’ve befriended other Brits here in Edmonton. Yes, we drink tea and we haven’t lost our accents. We talk about British products and search out the best British chippy, and complain about the lack of cozy pubs and social ambience. We’re proud of our heritage, we miss bits of it, and we don’t mind bringing what we can of it to Canada. But Canada is not about to turn into Britain because of us. And if Canadians are ever concerned about that, then, well, they just need to ensure they uphold their Canadian traditions and culture. Go cut down a tree. Play hockey. Make some maple syrup. Enjoy being cold. Put your snow shoes on. Go camping. Be kind and apologetic. And know that all of the above stereotypes were generated in relatively recent times. Once the Europeans invaded this land. They didn’t complete any paperwork or respect the local ways. In fact, they just slaughtered everyone.
Of course there are other issues, and I am not ignorant of those – population. Too many people in one place would mean services will suffer, it will be harder to find work, housing, a good education. Too many people can make things very difficult. And countries want to prioritise their own. Take care of their natives. It’s not really a viable argument in Canada where they lack population. 33 million live here, in the second largest country on Earth. Almost double that live in the teeny, tiny UK. But nevertheless, we are all fighting a flow that won’t stop coming. Change will always, always occur.
So, asides from pondering the above, submitting my 300 page application to Citizenship and Immigration Canada and growing a brand new human inside my uterus, the fact is I have been a master of procrastination. Lazy. Doing pretty much nothing. Unable to string a creative sentence together. Motivation at an all-time low.
After conversing with a good old friend and fellow Screenwriting alumnae of Southampton Solent University, Ryan Webb, on Skype for two hours - while he became progressively drunk on an expensive rum, I realised that I was unable to progress with my writing because I didn’t care enough about my fictional story ideas. Ryan always has a hilarious anecdote to share. He’s always got an entertaining narrative. And it’s almost always unbelievable. Those who don’t know him well may think he’s just articulately weaving fabricated or exaggerated yarns. Often sounding like they should be played out on a post watershed TV series or naughty East-London movie. But they’re all true. And that’s what makes them all the more brilliant.
You might have guessed where I’m going with this? … I can’t do fiction. It’s simple. It’s obvious. Maybe the odd short ludicrous story in which animals talk, walrus’ ride in go-carts with their pet caterpillars and fluffy possums called Norma find themselves allured by an illustrious honey-bee named Bumble Bob. Yep, I’ve written those. Nonsensical jumbles of silliness. Maybe that’s different. But when it comes to a full length novel, or a feature film, fiction is tough. And it’s tough because I don’t care or feel passionately enough about made-up stories. They don’t evoke strong opinions, or drive me to manipulate my reader. I thought the excitement of being able to write about anything, anything at all, would motivate day after day of non-stop scribbling. The fact that this could go anywhere. Anything can happen. My characters can be whoever I want them to be. Surely that would keep my fingers rattling away on the keyboard for hours on end. But nope. It doesn’t work. My brain won’t engage because I just don’t care. The characters aren’t real. The stuff didn’t happen.
Of course I am envious of those who are able to create fictional beings and make-believe plots, fantasy worlds and non-existent entities. They are the real creative genius’. A lecturer once told us that being a writer is harder than being a brain surgeon. (Pah!) His argument was that a brain surgeon has to work with something already there – and fix it. A writer has to create the brain.
Well, I’m not that good. My passion, it seems, lies in truth seeking and sharing. Sometimes it might seem bizarre and outrageous (like Ryan Webb’s stories), but if there’s some element of reality to it, then I’m interested. How did I not realise this sooner, when the first thing I say to Guillaume every day when he gets in from work is what I have read or seen that day on the news, or in an online article about the enormity of the universe or a man who lost his memory after undergoing root canal surgery. There’s so many fascinating stories in real life that go unnoticed and ignored every day, yet they hold such significance, such importance, such mystery and magnificence…
People who used to work with me at Shaw will also recall my daily news story sharing and initiation of discussions related thereto. I have been angry and baffled as to why my brain has been nothing short of dead for the past four months, and I now understand it’s because I have been trying to do something that simply puts my mind on shut-down. If I don’t care or feel passionately about whatever I might be working on, then I drift into a disengaged slumber, from wherein my medulla omits only thoughtless rubbish which might, on a rare occasion, be mediocre at best. Its secretions will befuddle others, who’ll wonder how I even managed to finish High School (as it turns out, I barely did). Former co-workers may remember when I tried to use the word ‘aftermath’ in a 30 second commercial, or pitched a festive Christmas script called Dead Presents. I apologise. My brain was simply off.
It’s probably a very bad personality trait, and an unemployable attitude, but I must accept that this is me. I cannot do mainstream media (which is sadly rather patronising and slow across all of North America – apart from maybe Montreal, and pockets of San Francisco) or those short little blogs with as many pictures as mono-syllable words. Consequently my online travel diaries were read by very few, but I can’t fight this compulsion to unnecessarily elongate everything. I can’t hold back these rambles. And someone’s reading it, aren’t they? You. You are reading it right now.
One thing people can deal with better than words on a screen, however, is hearing and seeing, and being moved by combinations of emotive music and stunning visuals…
I watched a documentary on Netflix yesterday called Happy. They talk about how a rickshaw driver, living in the slums of Kolkata, is actually as happy as the average American. I always thought there was something to this. I wrote about it in my travel blogs. What I saw of the locals in Vietnam – they looked far cheerier and more content than the workaholics of the western world. ‘Happy’ states that beyond the basics – enough food to eat and a roof over your head, – money does not buy happiness. Neither does the pursuit of money. There is a difference in happiness between those earning $5,000 a year and those who earn $50,000 a year, as one would expect. But, there is no difference in the level of happiness between those who earn $50,000 a year and those who earn $50,000,000 a year. It talked about happiness being generated through compassion, social interaction, and partaking in activities purely for the experience/pleasure and not for anyone else, or for financial gain. Things such as surfing, or playing a piano when alone. Change too, they say, can make you happy. Something different from your daily routine – seeing something new. Experiencing something out of the ordinary. I really enjoyed that documentary. It taught me a lot, and made me think. Parts of it made me laugh out loud, and others made me teary. It’s about real stuff, real people, real places and because it’s real, it’s relatable.
I want to create documentaries like that.
----
We moved out of the apartment in the north of the city, and are now living close to downtown Edmonton. Close enough for Guillaume to cycle to work. We found a house to rent, with a garden, and enough space for family to visit, and for our imminently due little one, whom we are extremely excited to meet. Guillaume has been building some of our furniture. It’s much cheaper than buying it, and it’s unique, custom, and characterful. He’s done a great job. A new hobby he’s taken up.
And so for the next few months or so, until our baby arrives and changes our world completely, I must relish the available time and opportunity to work on this epiphany of mine. Research, write and prepare pitches perhaps… But seriously, if CIC find out, I could be booted out of the country without so much as a by your leave. I mean, I’m not going to try and sell anything or make any money, but maybe they’ll still consider my activity ‘work’. After all, they recently deported a guy for doing a spot of DIY at his Canadian girlfriend’s house. Just helping her out. Apparently he was keeping a Canadian out of a job by doing that. Ridiculous isn’t it? I keep a safe distance when Guillaume is partaking in DIY.
What do they expect people awaiting their Permanent Residency to do? (It can take up to two years to process the application by the way.) I don’t want to be forced into a dribbly fat mess like my dear old cat Louie (he wasn’t allowed to work legally, either.) Some amount of fat must be acceptable though… I’m pregnant and entitled to the fattest time of my life. (I’ll buy an elliptical machine after Christmas.)
....Lots of food for thought. Lots of fuel for the fire. Many documentaries to be written…
To read the travel blogs dating back to February 2014, click the Travel Blogs link top of screen (if on a PC or iPad) or find the link by clicking on the menu icon top left of screen (if on your mobile phone).