Just because it’s busy doesn’t mean I can slow down. When the tugs and pulls of the day move you when is there time for reflection? The opposite is true when there is too much time to contemplate where are those forces that guide? As you can see I’m directly on that tightrope right now. 

  
It would be hard to imagine being that guy who walked between the towers. Or for that matter the great Walenta the old patriarch who showed much skill and determination. Or those guys on a slack line… I’m not after such feats but the skills required to balance and move from one goal to the next are not unlike those used by them in the physical world. It’s a mental balance much closer maybe to that guy who spun plates on fairly long sticks and kept adding more. He usually put them all away unbroken except for that once that I’m trying to picture. That guy that broke them wouldn’t of have made it onto television. 

  
 On the move because that sense of mastery at my present occupation is starting to come back. It is a flow that regardless of the obstacle proceeds efficiently and to a successful conclusion. That sense of knowing what to do and the pure joy of successfully compleating something that has some challenge. My next challenge will not be a mastery of something I already know but something new. That is something that I need to find. Some signs are already there it’s just noticing them and grabbing on for the ride. 

“A glitch” they said it was some kind of computer error that prevented me from completing the purchase of my ticket for the quoted price. 

  “Yeah right” I thought to myself when I read that email. It’s total bullshit but I can see why they kaiboshed my purchase. It was more than two hundred bucks cheaper than the other prices quoted elsewhere. That is cash that someone is missing out on. There have been a few emails between me and the company and the further I correspond with them the more glaring their punctuation and grammatical errors. This company is sounding shady to me. 

  
I’ll try again tomorrow or the day after to buy a ticket. One needs to compare all the available options. For now with work and a few social commitments that kind of time is unavailable. One of those commitments is attend a reading put on by the group that Barb is involved with. They have been working on their monologues for a while now. Must be over a year. From what she has told me about it the stories are highly personal and at the same time they provide both warm and gut wrenching stories. It is a process that has facilitated healing as well as expressing the reality of experience of those involved. 

  
Barbs has had a tough time lately. There was an issue with a classmate online and it turned a bit nasty. She took it quite hard and tonight she had to perform a monologue expressing some of her experiences dramatized a little bit for the stage but one of her own creation. She wanted some support and she got it from me as well as other friends who showed up and became part of the many faces that sat in the pews watching the performance. The many faces and personalities that were on stage took the audience from sadness and despair to laughter and silliness that gave an insight into the realities of a segment of the population that is often marginalized and maligned. The way that we treat them says a lot about us as a society. That extends to any group that is unrelated to them. We see this now in the vile treatment of a whole population based on the actions of a few. 

  
We talked about her emotions after the performance. She said that a lot was passing through her as she tried to focus on the performance and not the incident that she experienced as the class rep. Barbs did spectacularly well. I wonder about the transference of one energy into another as it swells up in a particular direction. Coalescing forces that move randomly yet rationally in the aftermath of analysis. At the beginning it is hard to know what another needs in order to calm down emotionally but intuition is that guide along with the presence of mind. 

  
The actual performance of this piece will happen in March. I won’t be there to watch it as I’ll be somewhere else. This is my only chance to see this. I was able to come after work it’s nice that I wasn’t scheduled to be there in the afternoon. The production has good stories and strong moments. When it finally will be on stage it will have the added aura of lighting, visuals and sound. As with any production it will be the words themselves that will carry the full weight. 

In the morning I had the idea to go to North Van to a store to get a jacket that they didn’t have in my size. I was all set as I entered the station only to notice that the trains were packed and backed up due to some kind of earlier fault. I waited for a bit but quickly realized that going that far at this time wouldn’t be a good idea. I decided to enjoy the day and go for a nice long stroll. 

  
The sun shone brightly in the sky. The sun hangs lower in the sky now due to the time of the year. It illuminated the city as I tried to capture it not knowing if I would have this chance again. I’m still in an experimental mode with this new lens. I’ve been having thoughts of my own as I ponder the things that have happened in the days before and the things that will happen in the future. I second guess my decisions and then build them up again. What I am doing is taking a dive. There is no right or wrong. There is only what will happen. 

  
There is more to say but my time is limited and I have to go to work.