Woke up this morning, remembered the Paper Purge,
broke out in a huge smile, felt happy, excited,
and ALIVE!
I didn’t lose any time on the internet; I had breakfast, made myself a cup of green tea, put Charlie Haden’s “Nocturne“ album on the stereo, and got down to business.
I noticed a stack of documents still sitting on one of the shelves.
They have since joined the pile on the floor.
Choosing what to go with first was easy. Yesterday, when I emptied my cupboards, I noticed a package wrapped in brown paper, marked 2002. Bingo!
And that’s how it all started for me, today.
Nothing more to say.
I’m not the only one who’s been waiting over 19 years
for this Paper Purge to happen.
The people at the Canada Council for the Arts
have also been very patient.
In 1989, they granted me $13,532 as part of a program which I can’t even remember the name of, but it was for an artist’s first attempt at getting their work “out there.” In my case, I was to write a book — largely based on my life story — and get it published. En français.
Well, needless to say I went bananas when I got the phone call telling me I was among the chosen few in Canada to get what I had asked for: one year’s salary ($13,200); expenses such as paper and ink cartridges for my Apple ImageWriter printer ($352); and last but not least, their vote of confidence in my talent and my determination to make my dream come true.
After the excitement,
I panicked.
I totally sabotaged my dream. And right about then, my whole world started to take a turn for the ditch. After a series of sad and sometimes tragic events, the ditch collapsed under my feet and I went down, down, down, till I finally hit bottom around 2003.
All through this hell, I tried — year in, year out — to write that darn book. When I’m through reading everything in the pile you see up there, I bet I’ll have found over two dozen manuscripts, almost all of them identical, relating my birth and the first five or six years of my life. Once or twice, I went as far as to recount parts of my teenage years and one time, I even wrote about meeting the man who was to become my husband. But after writing about the wedding, I became very sad and depressed. You will, too, when you get to read that part. Then again, we might all have a good laugh, because I hope to give it a shot of humour. A real BIG shot.
This is why I’m so grateful to see that not only am I now willing to plow through the pile, but I feel emotionally and mentally ready for it. In other words, I’m definitely eager and curious and enthusiastic about the whole journey.
Yeah…I know…we’ll see how I feel next month or even next week, hardy har har! Still, I’m sure all will go smoothly if I get plenty of rest, go out and walk every day, meet with friends on a regular basis, and practice breathing, meditating, and being in the moment. Being in the moment is without a doubt the key to an enlightening, joyful, and fun experience.
So there ya go…
Wish me luck
P.S.: Somehow, I thought the pile was going to be much bigger.
Why did it seem like such a MONSTER all these years?
Apparently, I consumed ONE THOUSAND AND FORTY NINE dollar’s worth of extra electricity during the months of April and May, this year. Yeah right, as if that’s possible.
Because absolutely nothing has changed in the composition of my five and a half-room flat, or in my habits or lifestyle, that could justify such an increase in consumption:
I live alone (more so since my dog died on April 1);
rarely use the stove because I’m vegetarian and eat mostly raw foods;
own a 4.3 cubic inch refrigerator;
wash my clothes in cold water;
don’t have air conditioning (and if I did, I wouldn’t be using it in April and May when it’s not that hot in the first place);
last fall, changed all my old light bulbs for the fluorescent ones, which cost me a pretty penny ;
and in the winter, I insulate my windows with plastic sheeting, a ritual that I have grown to loathe more and more with each passing year, but to which I am committed in order to save money and energy.
So it’s clearly a mistake — either the woman who came to read the meter didn’t jot down the numbers right, or the meter is out of control.
The man I spoke to on the phone — at Hydro-Québec Headquarters — said it could be that a neighbour has somehow plugged into my meter and is using my electricity. Which I told him was an improbable scenario. I’ve lived here for twenty-six years, the people in this housing co-op are my friends, and I know the neighbours well enough to swear they would never even think of doing such a thing — to me or to anybody else around here.
After I had so eloquently pleaded my case, instead of sending someone over to check the meter, this man sent me a form that I will have to fill out, and then have an electrician examine my circuits and appliances and have that guy fill out his part of the form, a form that upon reception, Hydro-Québec will no doubt carefully study before deciding that there appears to be evidence to the effect the problem or error could be theirs. And send someone over.
This is the part where I took a series of long, deep,
peace and love breaths.
This is where I practiced being in the moment: I didn’t panic, I didn’t project myself into the future, and I didn’t feed the situation and have it grow into a full blown I’ll-never-be-able-to-pay-that-frickin’-amount- damn-life-is-so-unfair catastrophe.
Walk walk walk!
I quickly got out of the house, went to the library, picked four books (three of them funny cartoons), and then dashed straight down to the river, down to the river I dashed.
There, in one of my favourite little hideaways, I sat down and relaxed.
I did what I like to call my Quack Meditation, which is mostly gazing at, and talking to, in both French and Duck, these beautiful creatures without any expectations of a sign or a wise reply.
And, of course, I lovingly reassured myself
that Everything Will Be All Right.
Question Du Jour: Why am I writing about meters and ducks when
I should be working on my Paper Purge?
When a problem arises, one that disrupts my normal, ordinary, day to day life, and sometimes even threatens to cost me a lot of money, money that I don’t have or can’t spare because I’m financially challenged at this stage in my karma, when a problem arises like the one that arose this morning, I don’t panic anymore.
I don’t feed it with my insecurities and drama anymore.
I simply do whatever action I can do at the moment the problem hits me, which is what I did this morning, and then I get my sorry little self out of the house and I walk.
Walk walk walk.
And somewhere before, during, or after the walk,
I sit and I meditate.
Not for long.
Just long enough to realize how good it is to be alive and well and able enough to deal with the problem in question. And I relax and drift away jut long enough to really feel — deep down inside my soul — that all is well. Everything will be all right…I can go on being happy.
I had a nice talk with the ducks, by the river, today.
I’ll show you the pictures tomorrow, promise.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME 
The Monster Meter 
