overthinking, overanalysis

Time goes by way too quickly, just a minute ago it was 9:00 and now its 10:06.. ?!?!? and yesterday it was Dec 1st and now all of a sudden its the 12th??? I think time is cheating me.

This post will have two parts
1. Semantics:
I just had another thought about semantics. The way we always say "they" to refer to that group of others who produce our material culture, decide which courses to offer us at school, basically anyone who has decided what we have the option to consume and how we consume it as well. We all do it. We'll be standing in front of a magazine stand and one of us will wonder out loud "I wonder why they decided to put so and so on the cover?" and the other will respond with some possible theories or simply think "Do they ever have a reason for doing what they do?" We talk as if "they" are looming above us sending things down for us to consume... or at least that is how the idea manifests itself into my head. But why do we imagine this "they" as sort of higher up individuals, they are most likely walking among us as we gaze at the magazine stand. We could even be they. In fact, I know some 'they's. But for some reason the word, in this context, signifies a mysterious other. Someone we don't know, have no control over but has some sort of omniscient power over us.

Language is just such a big cultural signifier. In this "they" case I think it says something about the way we perceive power structures in our society today. "They" in many of our minds do loom above us giving us a sense of powerlessness to make change. We take they for granted as if they were always there and the decisions they make out of our control. Some people aren't even aware they exist.

2. English:
Since France, I've started to see English in a completely different way. Sometimes I'll look at the way I've spelt a word and second guess myself thinking it looks completely foreign (for example I actually did just dictionary.com 'they' because for a second there the combination of letters looked really bizarre to me). This happened a lot in France. I'd be teaching a class and then I'd look on the board and think my god English is a bizarre looking language. Having a bunch of French students spend a whole class laughing because "I put my foot in my mouth" is a common phrase really makes you look again at what you say. Like 'phrase' I mean why on earth did we put a p and an h together and make it go ffffff?!? Anyways, French makes more sense to me even if I'm not fully bilingual. I'll look at French and think yes yes that makes sense and I'll look at something in English and think it looks like a bunch of gibberish if it weren't for the fact that I understand it. What an awful Latin/Germanic bastard language that I somehow was born into. Oh but I love it. What an awesome language English is and what a horribly biased thing to say. It is so much fun. As this article  states " no masculine, feminine, neuter, acute, grave or cedilla" give English  "its witty flexibility, its gift for pun and double meaning". I'd like to see the exhibit that article is talking about. A bunch of words on old paper aaahhh what a beautiful site that would be.

Walking home from the station while the snow is decidedly falling on a horizontal angle is not such a good idea. However, the sparkles the snow makes when they reflect the lights is just so very pretty it makes the whole walk worth it.

So I've decided to give up this reverb thing. Mainly because I'm not so inspired by the questions they keep asking. Maybe they will get better? I will try and post my own thoughts on the past year and plans for the next as December lumbers on and maybe that on its own will have some interesting results...?  As my one of my "flatmates" from last year always said, "On verra..."

In the meantime here is a beautiful animation to entertain you:

no dipppp for my chiipppss...

Anyways the point of this post is to do the reverb10 question before tomorrow. I have 1 and a half hours. Here goes!

December 3 – Moment.
Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

This. one. is. really. hard. Mainly because of my mind for the past few years. It's just been on pause really while the rest of me does cool exciting things. I've met interesting people, been interesting places, traveled the farthest I've ever been away from home to visit one of my best friends, yet still I wouldn't use the word 'alive' to describe the way I've felt. So I'm going with the first thing that popped (almost wrote pooped there it's been a lonnng day) into my head. This would be that trip to London. Two days and only 2 hours by train from where I was living in France but this trip just continues to stick out in my mind. The weather was bright and cold (that nippy at your nose kinda cold where you're not too cold but in the perfect middly kind of cold). Went to meet someone I knew from York for drinks the one night we were there. Some people just manage to get you talking about things you'd forgotten you loved to talk about because no one had talked about them with you in ages, nothing particularly mind blowing but it was nice. Went to the Tower of London the second day of bright sunniness and I think if I could hug a museum I would hug this one. It was just very much worth my 14 pounds. It's like when I went to Monet's gardens in Giverny, it was just one of those childhood dreams to see the place that I had read about as a kid and never really had imagined I'd get to see in real life cause it was so far away. Anyways, to conclude, I think this was one of the only times this past year that I've felt my mind has really been fully present... in the present... and I think, in general, that when you're present like that and happy with it those are the times when you feel most alive.

i almost didn't do this

but i said i would and i will and ill stick to it i will.

December 2 - Writing.

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

I go to work each day. And no I can't eliminate it because I'm dirt poor. For awhile I was writing poems on empty receipts during morning shifts when I was alone and bored. Maybe I'll post those on here someday they're not half bad. But the joy of blissful morning shifts has been sucked out of me by the Christmas gods. One thing I would like to do to write more fiction is pick a day each week (the same one so it becomes a routine) and go to a café and sit and write for a few hours. Maybe I'll get around to asking friends if they would like to join me. I work better when I can tell people about my ideas as I write them... or write for awhile and then run it by someone else. I just work better in a pair.

reverb10

The lovely Hezabelle has taken on the reverb10 challenge and has inspired me to try it too. It's going to be one crazy busy month with work and christmas preparations and school applications to finish and more school applications to begin, but I thought it would be nice to have something steady to do every day. Basically you're supposed to reflect on the past year and "manifest what's next" by using daily prompts from reverb10.
I missed yesterday's so I'll do it now:
December 1 One Word.

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

Challenging
2010 started with a great bang. I celebrated its arrival with a good friend in Edinburgh and then spent its first days wandering around a bright sunny and perfectly chilled London. I just turned the calendar I bought for half price at the London Transport Museum to its last page and it doesn't feel like its been a year. Yet, despite these hopeful beginnings, the year was an emotional and mental rollercoaster. By moving to France I hadn't given myself time to deal with previous years' emotional issues and I arrived in the country a bit of a nutcase. This, coupled with my worrying about the future starting around mid-February and trying to articulate all this in French to my new friends, resulted in a very stressed steph. All in all a challenging year.

Scholarly
By December 2011 I hope for nothing more than to be buried in a big noisy university library being a massive academic nerd - preferably in a city with underground transport or at least streetcars that go ding ding ;). I never realised how much I liked studying until I finished. I want to sit with a bunch of puffed up academics who make too much money and debate debate debate. That or in a classroom learning how to teach. I'm stupid, I need to learn more. Despite my reservations with academics and the education system, I don't know enough. In order to break the system down you have to know it first. And I'm willing to add to my pile of debt to get there.

Ah education again, a subject I like

This is basically the sort of thing I've been saying since High School and my Mom has been preaching about since I was home-schooled (till I was 8). But since these RSAnimate people just do such a good job of explaining exactly how I feel about our education system I'll let 'em at it.



There is one thing they do leave out here. And that is that students are always always resisting. Wherever there is a dominant paradigm there will always be resistance to it. Students do it all the time, they do cheat, they do collaborate with eachother, they even discredit the marks they get simply by not letting it govern their lives. The power of a mindset is too often overlooked. Just imagine what education could be if the constrains of traditional schooling were lifted.

I've been thinking though, how do we start changing our education system around so that it is a better model for today's children and society? It's a lot more complicated than simply saying "it's not working but here's the sort of thing that would". We'd need to first break down what's not working - a task that could take more than simple years to come about. Institutions like schools are so embedded in our social system on so many different levels that even to change it minimally would take years. And then, what do we change it to? I feel like there are an infinite number of possible directions a new education system could take, all perfectly viable to try - but which one? How does one decide how to completely rework such a fundamental pillar of our society?

These are just those mind boggling questions I wish I could answer better. And maybe I will someday. In 100 (200?) years maybe they will look back on our society and think what silly silly 21st century humans, did they really think that was a good idea? In fact, I'm positive they will. They'll have moved forward as we always strive to, or perhaps they'll have simply moved - to try something different.

Yup just a song I like, tis all.

 

kindred spirits

there was this very sweet old french man at work today who just made things just feel a little bit better. he was waiting to speak to my manager but i decided to ask him if he needed help, he responded in french and when he saw i understood he started talking to me about learning languages. i think one of the first things he said was "you should learn french, italian, spanish... just for fun not because it will help you get a job!" and i think my heart just swelled after he said that. that's exactly why i wanted to go to france after stockholm, just for the experience of learning a new language. its so rare here that you get that sort of attitude, french is literally forced onto everyone who already has a job with the government and then its forced onto those who don't just so they can get a job and as a result you don't really get much positivity towards it. you try to talk to people in french and they just switch into english because you have an accent or your vocabulary isnt perfect. it was just really nice to talk to someone who was so enthusiastic about you learning his language.

i think ive been having a bit of trouble living that sort of attitude lately - not just with languages, outside circumstances start to bog you down and you forget. you just need someone with the same heart to say something like that more often and shock you back into the way you'd like to be living. 

too many long posts. here's a short one. and a picture of a parka ive been drooling over. just imagine the winter fun that could be had in this thing. this with my ski pants and my new FAT knitted mittens and a hat under that giant furry hood... you would never want to go inside i would just roll and roll in the snow until some killjoy who doesnt like winter as much forced me to go inside. bring it on winter i am ready for your harsh winds, your icy rain, your blizzards and your flash freezes. i am so ready for slipping down my driveway every morning on my way to work.

Alright people, it is Confession time.

Since the next Harry Potter movie is coming out in t-minus 10 days and many a person seems to be caught up in Harry Potter mania (re-reading the books, HP movie marathons, arguing about HP facts in the streets, etc.) I thought I'd join in with a little Harry Potter confession of my own. Ok here goes Iusedtowriteharrypotterfanfiction. Yup you read that right Harry. Potter. FanFiction. Now I'm going to make it sound like it was a cool thing to do.

It all started with my Grade 7 teacher. She introduced us to Harry Potter by making us read the first book for a school project. I then spent the next two years  reading and re-reading the first 4 books. I was a huge Harry Potter nerd. I corrected people when they pronounced spells wrong and made everyone pronounce Hermione HerMOINE because I thought that was the right way, I was an HP bully. I also finally gave up my childhood crush on Wesley from Star Trek (c'mon you know who I mean... the doctor's son? no...?) to crush after Ron Weasley... in the wizarding world everything was possible, redheaded boys could be good-looking, I was sure of it.

Luckily this mania had started to fade by Grade 9, but another secret mania began. I've always been a writer, in high school I don't think there was a time when I wasn't writing something. I even remember sitting in the mall by my work writing before I had to start. So, naturally my two manias from this time of my life eventually converged in the form of FanFiction. And I had fans. Yup, people emailed me if I didn't finish my next chapter in time. I got hate mail from fans who wanted to know what happened in my stories next if I didn't update them fast enough. By Grade 11 though real life had just got too busy to allow me any time for updating. I never finished either of the stories I had started. I remember getting one email from a reader complaining about an unfinished story. I responded saying something like 'I'm sorry I'm in Grade 11 its a stressful time of my life, theres a lot going on' etc. etc. She responded telling me she understood, she was in 2nd year University. I thought that was so cool... I had a fan in university.

I think I only ever told one friend that I was doing this while I was writing. I might've told others afterwards I can't remember. But I always sort of felt it was socially unacceptable to be writing fanfiction (why on earth would I have thought that?!). Now, though, if I think about it... that was pretty cool! I mean how many other 16 year olds were writing pretty much full out novel sized stories and had readers to boot? I was really organized too. I recently found a notebook where I'd written out chapter summaries - so that I knew what was supposed to happen when and how to lead up to events I wanted to happen later on. I mean sure I'd stolen the setting but some of the characters were my own and the plot was all me. Basically, I think it was really awesome and I shouldn't have been ashamed of it at all.

So there you go, that's my confession. And if you can't handle it you can just go shove a Crumple Horned Snorkack up your....  

Discovering what's on the other side...

...of the river. When I first got to France and my new students found out I was from Canada, they bombarded me with questions about popular French Canadian music groups or artists. Not recognising any of the names, I had to describe to them the extent of the divide between French and English Canada. I felt completely ignorant about whole cultural phenomenons whose existence was revered a short bridge-walk away. I've spent most of my life living on the Ontario side of the Ottawa River only really crossing over to Quebec in summers to go to a heavily anglicised cottage-country. Sure, we took multiple school trips to Gatineau where the Museum of Civilization sits but, to any English Ottawan, thats still Ottawa. I had never taken any interest in French Canadian culture, or if I did, it was to listen to bands from Montreal who had started singing in English, or a mix of both, and were being played in clubs and bars in Toronto. I never realised how Anglo-centric my view of Canadian culture was until these French kids, thousands of kilometres away, started outsmarting me with their knowledge of Canadian artists (writers, artists, musicians alike). It gives you a bit of a shock when you're standing in a French classroom and a bunch of kids are telling you about a singer they like who found his fame only a few short hours away from your hometown, or a TV show they're streaming that was produced in Montreal. Weird.

So now that I've found myself back in Ottawa for the time being I am trying to take advantage of the city's strategic position on the border of this Canadian divide. Understanding the language ten times better helps every day, although I find myself a walking stereotype of "English Canadian learns French in France and can't understand a word of Quebecois". Yet, I'm understanding French-English jokes way better than I used to and, as a result, am picking up on cultural cues. A friend of mine, who has worked on her French and is pretty much fluent, introduced me to a show called Les Invincibles. Hilarious show about a bunch of guys who make a pact to break up with their girlfriends at the same time and the resulting consequences. I've recently discovered it was remade in France for French television. There's this whole cultural exchange between France and Quebec which I, as an Anglophone, had completely missed. My sister also recently led me to discover a French Canadian group who were apparently huge from the 70s into the 80s. They started in Montreal and my mother (also an anglo), who grew up there, had only vaguely heard of them. Here is one of their most popular songs, which, now that I understand the lyrics, I've come to love. They're called Beau Dommage and the song is La complainte du phoque en alaska .

The song is telling the story of a seal who finds himself alone on an iceburg after his 'blonde' has left him for the circus in the United States. It's just a very pretty song, I especially like this lyric:

"Ca n'vaut pas la peine de laisser ceux qu'on aime
Pour aller faire tourner des ballons sur son nez"
It's not worth the pain to leave the ones we love
to go spin circus balls on our noses (but much prettier sounding than that)

I still have a long way to go in understanding French Canadian culture, but its been a really interesting start. You never know what you'll find just across the river.

Our society and its twisted discourse

Every once in awhile you encounter a situation that makes you step back and think about how society shaped the way you dealt with it. At work a few days ago I was a little taken aback by a very inquisitive customer. He was in town house hunting and was a little bit too excited to finally find a native working in one of the shops. At first I thought I was dealing with a case example of "man comes in looking for his wifes lotion in hopes to surprise her with a lovely thoughtful gift" and began using my skills of fragrance deduction to discern his wifes tastes. However, the conversation went something like this:

"Does she like floral or fruity scents?"
"Are you from here? Like I mean were you born here?"
"Uh ya..."
"Where are the good neighbourhoods you know good for families I'm up from Toronto house-hunting"
"Uh... well I grew up in Barrhaven its great for families, full of them" (people call it Vanhaven there are so many although I didn't think this was an appropriate comment)
"Oh Ok whats the real-estate like there?" (do I look like I know anything about real-estate I'm trying to sell you body butter!)
"Uh I wouldnt know I'm with my parents at the moment..." (not that I would know these things anyway...)
"Oh you're back with your parents? What were you doing?"
"I went to school in Toronto."
"Oh what did you take?"
"Anthropology."
"Oh ya I have a cousin who does that he's doing really well right now doing a dig up in Northern Ontario right now finding some really interesting stuff."
"That's Archaeology..."
"Oh what's Anthropology?"
"Study of cultures... basically...."
"Oh... .... what do you do with that?"
"Well nothing right now I'm saving up for teacher's college."
"Oh ok... so what were you showing me?"

At first I thought 'that was a nice digression from the regular drone of boring closing shifts'. Then I thought 'creepy he just found out shitloads about me so incredibly effortlessly - I just spoonfed him my life story and didn't even think twice about it'. Thirdly - wait a second what was with the "What do you do with that" question? And why did I react to it that way?

His question just got me to thinking about how education in our society is seen to be something you do that will take you somewhere. We go to school so we can become something - a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a dentist, a boring government employee - but we seem to rarely portray education as simply education. Advertisements for post-secondary institutions constantly state their stats for graduates landing jobs afterwards, departments make lists of jobs that you could pursue with their degree. It's like from high school we're looking at education from a top bottom perspective. Your counselor will make you first find out what you want to be when you're done and then help you find out how to get there. I didn't realise how ingrained this way of thinking is until I noticed how effortlessly I threw off that customers "What do you do with that?" question, as if it was something completely normal for a stranger to ask.

The more I think about it the more I realise how twisted it is that the average persons first remark after you tell them what you studied is "what do you do with that?". And how scary it is that my first reaction was to answer it plain and simple. It's like we've all forgotten what education should be and what post-secondary education can be. If you're going to spend four years of your life studying something and get yourself into 20 grand worth of debt then I think you better be loving every minute of your time there. If our counselors just asked us to go pursue something we found fascinating and then let our futures shape themselves from there than I think the result would be a much more open minded and innovative population. Without the constant stress of the "will I be able to get a job when I'm done?" question and the ever present pressure of the impending "future" maybe more of us would actually be able to engage in our education.

Looking back I wish I'd answered him with, "It doesn't matter, I spent 4 years studying something I found really fascinating and I really enjoyed it and isn't that what education should be about? It gave me an interesting perspective on the world, its people, why we live the way we do and how we came to be this way too and that's enough of a gain for me to have made those years worth it."

you know you're home when...

1. everyone has something to say about the weather. always.
and
2. your friend says, "you know -15 C is the perfect temperature in the winter, cause -10 starts to feel too warm and - 20 is just a bit too cold."

hahah oh canada. lately I've been missing the French rain for some odd reason. summer is just so... sunny here.

nice morning music

Listening to some nice Ohbijou in the morning while you go about your morning stuff...

and so it continues...

what I encountered in a job description today:
...
Other Merit Criteria and Conditions of Employment


•Organizational Needs which may apply for this position.

• Selection may be limited to members of the following Employment Equity groups: Aboriginal persons, visible minorities

Statement of Merit Criteria

Applicants who meet the above criteria will also be assessed against the Statement of Merit Criteria for this position.
...
 
So based on merit, only after your colour has been assessed.

"For the purpose of employment equity, "members of visible minorities" means persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour. Based on this definition, are you a member of a visible minority?"

this question is just wrong

for the poetry lovers

For those of us who like poetry, I give you Hello Poetry

This is why babies are so squishy

redheads as 'visible minorities'... ?!

When you apply for most jobs in Canada, escpecially government jobs, you come across the 'visible minority' question at the end of the application. You are asked to state your 'ethnicity' and if you are a visible minority, or better yet aboriginal, you will have a better chance of getting the job. One application I looked at today actually specifically "strongly advised aboriginals and visible minorities" to apply in the job description - not specifically stating they would have a better chance but it was quite clearly implied. Being just as unemployed as my "visible minority" equivalent of course I find this very frustrating - but that is another debate I'm not getting into today.

On the other hand I'd like to discuss what counts as a 'visible minority'. Can I count myself as a visible minority? To most of the population on an unofficial basis I quite clearly am. The official definition of 'visible minority' refers to skin colour - but what about hair colour?! If we considered hair colour as well as skin colour then there wouldn't be any debate... I am quite clearly part of the smallest visible minority group in the country. I mean if we are going to superficially favour people with a certain skin colour why can't we extend that to hair colour as well? Why don't we include height too? Shall overly tall people and overly short people continue to be discriminated against?! Oh the injustice...

Don't even get me started about how I feel about ticking off the 'white' box when identifying my 'ethnicity'. I think next time I'll go for the 'other' box. And when asked to specifiy I'll just write 'I can legally work in this country, you don't need to know anything else'.

Strange to think that words, when placed together in a certain way, can evoke emotions. How strong a few letters can be when they are placed in the right order. Simple lines and curves can cause a body to shake, tremble, cry, laugh - how important language is! Of all human developments, language must be the most impressive.

you might not wake up in the morning...

i admit it... i am quite a lot of crap at writing blogs. oh but life goes on... on and on and on... that is something i can almost gurantee. although the catacombs we were in in paris today would like you to think differently. translated from french one of the quotes said something like, "wake up in the morning thinking you might not make it through the day, go to sleep at night thinking you might not make it to the morning." i suppose if you can manage to go to sleep happy and wake up to something you love than these words dont have to be so ominous. ah and so we continue

I wish I had a river to skate away on...

...No matter how much world there is still out there to see and no matter how far away from home I'll go to see it, I don't think I'll ever spend a winter away without having this sentiment exactly. It's just about this time at home that the canal opens up and those bright sunny frigid days begin to settle in. I don't think there's too many people in the world that love those bright sunny frigid days as much as I do. There's no denying it, I'm definitely at my best in winter. Sometimes others just put it so much better than I can, so I'll leave this one to Joni Mitchell's River it's a little out of season but it still hits the spot.

Broadcaster of the Year link

Bear with me as I flesh out my Identity

“Moi, je suis canadienne.” I say it as if it actually means something, as if defining myself as canadienne will actually help my listener understand who I am. I’m female yes, that we can tell by the pronunciation of the last few letters, but what else? In France, telling someone you are Canadian is just asking for a bit of confusion. “Ah! Quebecois!” Is usually the immediate response. No, no I’m not from Quebec, but I did spend a significant amount of my childhood there and I’m from Ottawa (do you know it?) which sits on the border of Quebec. “Odawa?” Yes Ottawa it’s the capital of the country. “Ah O-t-t-awa,” Ya that’s the one. “Mais, les canadiens parlent francais oui?” Well yes some do...  I’m still working on mine. This is the point in the conversation where our French friend usually turns to someone from a more recognizable place, like England where they most surely speak English, or Germany, where there is no question that German is the official language; Or even the States, a country that’s pretty much universally recognized. If I was French Canadian maybe we’d have more in common, but as it is I’m an Anglo-Canadian from a bilingual city, who isn’t quite fluent in French, who studied in Toronto (where the second language is most likely Chinese not French), spent almost a year in Sweden and is now living in France. It’s a little much for someone whose previous knowledge of the country was restricted to the province of Quebec. But still, with all this in mind, what does canadienne say? And how do others interpret ‘Canadian’ if we can’t even define it ourselves?

I’ve recently started reading Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady, I’m only about a quarter of the way through but it’s hard not to notice that the thing is chalk-full of comparisons between American and English culture. The fact that the book was written in 1881 just demonstrates how deeply rooted these differences were and have continued to be up to the present day. We have Isabel, the American lady who has come to see her relatives in England. She is interestingly ‘class-less’ to her English relatives, with a set of manners and ideals apart from the English norm. We have her uncle and cousin, who find themselves caught between English and American culture, and we have her aunt, who is quite decidedly English and takes it upon herself to educate Isabel in English ways. As I’m reading the interactions between these characters I can’t help but think how these differences in culture have continued to today and, despite the common language between England and the U.S., the cultural barrier is enough to cause quite a few misunderstandings and cultural mishaps; as it does in James’ book. Yet, Canadians aren’t Americans and Americans aren’t Canadian and that we both know quite well. So it’s all nice and good that the cultural barrier entre England and the U.S. is recognized and at least somewhat understood, but where does that leave Canada?

We tend to inevitably get lumped into American culture as generally ‘North American;’ which, for the most part, works quite well. We have a similar way of living, similar accent, we are mostly descendants of colonists and immigrants and most of us will know our country or countries of ancestry - I could go on and on. Yet, there are these underlying and subtle differences between Americans and Canadians today which do set us distinctly apart; so that when I read Henry James or another American author, I don’t relate to the Americans in the novel, but see myself as an outsider to both parties.

So, as a Canadian abroad how do you define these differences when you’re not even sure how to define yourself? How do you give the people you meet something concrete to grasp onto? Something that helps them start to understand who you are and where you come from, something that isn’t as superficial as sub-zero temperatures or a can of maple syrup.

To be continued...

All the times
she'd said no
to a bright summer's morning
spun through her head

There will be many more
she'd thought
and now the words echoed
through her mind and bounced
against her skull,
spinning out
into the dark expanse
beneath her feet

As she sat there
all the faces she'd rejected
passed by her mind
and nodded goodbye
and she wondered, she wondered who they'd
been or were

And then she looked before
her and she saw the swirling mist
that was her existence
flip and spin before her eyes
it was her universe
her stars, her milky way -
it was only beginning to form.
She watched as the mist turned
to pink, blue and orange.
It's beautiful she thought

and then it faded
dissappearing into the
darkness surrounding her.