Self Aversion and Lemon Party

I read something recently on the subject of how we often try to avoid ourselves.  Desperately seeking TV or something to read or mindless tasks to perform, anything to allow us not to have to be alone with ourself.  I know that I have done this more frequently lately than not.  Knowing that I will have to go on a 15 minute walk to Whole Foods prompts me to nervously check that I have my ipod in my pocket so I can listen to music. If I should already begin walking and realize that I had left my ipod at home I will silently curse and immediately pull out my phone to check.....something, anything.  Anything so that I don't have to be left alone with myself.  It is such a knee jerk reaction at this point that it takes deliberate and conscious thought to actually reconnect.

But then I remember, those warm nights while I was working in Burbank.  I would walk 40 minutes home from work every day.  After having listened to my ipod all day while animating I needed a break and I would walk home in silence, just myself and I.  I remember thinking how beautiful the sky looked and how long it had been since I had heard crickets chirping.  And that maybe it was a good think that I was stuck in the Suburbs of Burbank because it has the smells and sounds that reminded me of my childhood.  I remember feeling really grateful at that moment.  The crickets and the grass reminded me of the barbeques we would have in our backyard growing up.  The setting sun amongst the houses reminded me of the time before I moved to the city when I could watch the sky turn colours from my driveway unobstructed by tall city buildings.  Walking the streets of Burbank and being comforted by familiar things in an unfamiliar place was really a special moment for me.  I don't think I would have had those experiences if I was listening to music or a podcast.

So why do I avoid myself now?  I think I know it is because on some level I am not being completely honest with myself and perhaps I am afraid to be faced with the truth.  There are things in my life I have been avoiding and because of this I am avoiding myself.  Doing this Failure Challenge has helped me come face to face with some truths.  It has also given me the courage to face other parts of my life I have been avoiding.  But I'll get into that another day :)

I've been getting some requests for my previous lemon attempts so here they are in order.  

These were all done on the same day.  I was determined not to let this lemon kick my ass completely!

Head and Heart

BLARG.  There is so much going on in my life right now that I have tried to write this post three times already.  All I've managed to do with it is throw myself a pity party which I am totally over!!!!  Without things getting too heavy I think I will reduce my thoughts into bullet points:

- I have a cold and feel totally worn out
- Job is going amazingly, I'm having the best time!  9am-7pm, Mon-Fri is a GOOD TIME.
- I realized lately that its been almost a year since I've done an improv class or performed improv.  This kills me.
- I need to work yoga into my life regularly to help me cope with the anxieties in my life that worsen when I go through transitions (i.e.- moving).  When things get bad I get obsessive AND compulsive.  I wouldn't say I'm at disorder stage but it's definitely not comfortable!
- I miss biking so much.  Hopefully when I get back to Vancouver there will be some rain-less days that I can take advantage of.
- I feel sad that I haven't posted on my blog in so long.  But today I feel happy that I am posting.
- I think I'm in some sort of personal rut.  There.  I've said it.  Now hopefully I can get out of it.

I have some pretty big thoughts about 2013.  I have a loose idea of how I'd like it to go but of course we won't know till we get there :)

Anyone else have some big feeling they want to share in bullet points?

Choosing Choice

With so many changes and transitions happening in my life in the past few months there were a lot of times when I felt like dissolving into a puddle on the ground.  I felt so out of control of my life and powerless as external forces moved the trajectory of my life around.  I felt like I was on a string being yanked every which way and I had no choice but to follow.  Somewhere in the midst of all the craziness I remembered this rhyme by Dr. Seuss that I had seen somewhere on the internet months before:

You have brains in your head. 

You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself any direction you choose. 

You're on your own. 

And you know what you know. 

And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go

Just reading this made me feel so calm.  Try saying this to yourself replacing the word "you" with "I".  Don't you feel better?  It made me reflect back on all of the times I let other people make choices for me when I believed I had no choice and all of the times I stood up and made my own choices for my life and where it took me.  We are all so responsible for our own lives.  We are as responsible for the choice of believing we are powerless and let other choose for us as we are for the choice of taking charge of our own lives and living a deliberate life where we choose our own paths.  Either way you are responsible for the outcome.  Be powerful or powerless, it is your choice but it IS a choice.  It is easy to slip between the spectrum of the two back and forth, and I think that this is how most people live their lives.  It's certainly what I used to do.  But I just can't afford to do that anymore, the stakes are higher now and I just can't risk my future in anyones hands but my own.  I get to choose where I go and what I do and who I spend my time with.  And if I make a bad decision then the responsibility is on me and I can't blame it on anyone but myself.  And if I make a good decision then I can own it and not say "well I was lucky...".  I know that my life is exactly the way it is because of my own doing.  Because of this somehow it makes me able to be as proud of my bad decisions as I am of my good decisions.  It feels good to own up to something and take responsibility, fixing it if it is bad or reveling in it if it is good.

So there's that.  Do me a favor, next time you feel helpless say this Dr. Seuss thing to yourself.  See if you can find a choice for change in your life where you didn't think you had one before.  When you do discover the power you have in your own life you will feel amazing, I promise.  Choose Choice.

In Celebration of Failure

I have failed so much in my life, both publicly and privately, professionally and personally, in any way you can imagine I have failed at least once but most often multiple times and more than once making the same mistake over and over again until I learned from it.  I have no doubt that I will continue to fail in the future.  This fact used to be upsetting to me and something that I would instinctively want to hide and deny.  Many times when I failed I felt like I couldn't even admit it to myself, instead making justifications as to why other variables out of my control had set me up to fail and that I was just a victim of circumstance, and even then I still managed to beat myself up about it. 

This is a topic I think about a lot, and I have been meaning to write about it for so long.  I think because of that I find it hard to write this post.  My relationship with failure is such a huge part of who I am now and I can only hope to articulate it well enough.  We all have our own unique relationships with failure.  I'm just here to share mine.  

"Failure is not an option"

I think we have all heard that one before, and I think we have all said that to ourselves.  Well guess what?  Failure actually is an option!!  And it's actually a pretty great one.  When I started drawing again I just wanted so badly for my drawings to reflect what I actually was seeing in my head.  This was easier said then done and after so many failed attempts at this I became so fearful to draw because I knew I would fail.  I froze every time I saw something I knew I couldn't draw.  This led to much self loathing.  It got so bad that everyday I would just totally freeze up and find myself staring at a blank page for minutes.  Finally I had enough and one day I looked down at a blank page in my sketchbook and said to myself "This page is for failing".  I gave myself permission to fail, and I made it my main directive to fail and only fail on that one page of my sketchbook.  Suddenly I felt like I had been freed and I drew things that I never would have attempted otherwise.  I wasn't frozen.  When it became my goal to fail I felt so free and I drew so horribly and it meant I had succeeded!  By giving myself this freedom I stopped being scared, I stopped beating myself up.  Self loathing ceased and was replaced by encouragement.  I kept giving myself permission and the goal to fail weekly.  Eventually my "fail" pages in my sketchbook became the ones with the most energy  and the best drawings.  Now when I look at a blank page the permission to fail is automatic and I think that this was the main key to my improvement in my drawing over the past year.  

This is just one small way in which I have embraced failure in my everyday life.  So in honor of this I thought I'd share a page of my sketchbook that I think is just about the worst!  I'm not ashamed of it, I know that this one page doesn't define me and I also know it is an important and successful step forward.  

GO FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually wasn't expecting to fail on this page but after I drew it  I was really not happy with how it turned out!  So here it is, a failed page.  

When I saw this couple I felt apprehensive about drawing them, but I gave myself permission to fail and I went for it.  I ended up really liking this drawing.  Technically it's nothing special but theres something about the energy of it that I feel like I captured successfully   

Growing Pains

Well this post has been a long time coming.  Crazy changes have happened and I've been physically and emotionally all over the map.  After SF fell through I thought about my options.  To make a long story short I ended up getting a spot animating on Robot Chicken in Burbank.  It's been crazy amazing and the studio is fantastic.

I've still been drawing every day and thank goodness for that.  In this time of my life that seems to be full of constant transition and change, drawing has been the one consistent thing that I can count on.  It is the one thing that after being laid off, with no job and few friends in SF, gave me a reason to get up in the morning and get out.  Every time before this time I knew when I would be unemployed and I was able to plan for it.  There would be an end date on my contract that I could prepare for it.  This time around it came out of nowhere and I wasn't prepared.  If I hadn't started drawing again so long ago I literally would have had nothing to fall back on.  If you move to a city for a job and then the job disappears, what are you left with?  A city that is indifferent to your existence.  When I am working and living in a city I feel like I am a contributing and valuable part of the community.  Anytime the work dried up in a city I've been living in I immediately feel like I've overstayed my welcome.  To stay longer in SF would have been like being the last person at a party that can't take the hint even though the host is yawning and saying "well it's getting to be that time....." as they load up the dishwasher.  I love Toronto, New York and San Francisco.  I loved working and living in those place.  But once I had no more work those cities seemed to close themselves off to me.  Every day I felt like they were saying "oh, are you still here?".  With no work I am not needed, nobody notices my existence and nobody would miss the absence of it.  This is a strange place to be in.  I had the option of staying in SF longer just to hang out but I left as soon as I could.  It became such an empty place with nothing there for me.  San Francisco is such a beautiful and vibrant city with so much to offer, but I had nothing to offer it in return and so our relationship felt like it had come to a natural (though abrupt) ending.

I suppose that is all there really is to say about that situation.  Now I am in Burbank.  A city that wants me here.  When I arrived last week it was very bittersweet.  I am in a job that I love, but I really hadn't expected to find myself here.  I don't regret anything but I feel like there is still a version of myself in a parallel universe still in San Francisco working on a feature.  And yet another version of myself in Vancouver still working on my short and living quite happily.  The past week when I have woken up it takes me a good few minutes to realize where I am and what I am doing here.

And then I get up and go to work.

I have begun experimenting with markers!  They are a more portable solution than paint.   Stay tuned for more fun experimenting with markers!!

SUPER shuttle

When I arrived at LAX a few weeks ago I took a shuttle to the apartment I'm staying at in Burbank.  I had a very personable driver.  It turned out to be only me in the shuttle so the two of us drove along in what started out as silence.  He asked me what I was in town for etc. and we started talking.  He said some really interesting things that I want to share, because I keep thinking about them and I think they were really special.  What I should point out is that he turned out to be an observant faithful religious man, and although I did not share his religion I related to what he was saying and we really had a nice conversation.
Here are the things I now never go a day without thinking about.

1) A person is a diamond.
You can get into trouble, you can make bad decisions.  You can be at fault.  You may even hurt people you care about.  You may be a victim of circumstance or you could just be responsible for some bad choices.  But a person is a diamond and no matter how much dirt you bury a diamond in you can always wash it off and it will have lost none of its value.

2) Everyday is your Birthday.
You know the feeling you get on New Years or your Birthday?  That hopeful clean slate "this could be the start of something new" feeling?  Optimism and reflection abound.  Well everyday is a new day.  Every day you wake up is a clean slate.  It's all about you today.  Every day is your birthday.

We spoke about many other things on the car ride but these two things have stuck with me the most.  In fact we spoke for a long time until suddenly there was a weighty silence in between his sentences.  It was only then that he shared with me the religion he believed in and I could hear in his voice that he was expecting for me to judge him perhaps and lose interest in our conversation.  But I didn't.  I truly was interested to continue talking and hearing his story.  I'm glad I did.  While he didn't change my mind about what religion to believe in he reinforced in me a feeling of decency in humanity.  He asked me to please pass on what he said although I think he also wanted me to pass on the goodness of his particular religion.  But really I don't think religion is the important part here.  I think humanity is what is important and when I think about the things we talked about I don't think about the differences of our religion, I think about the sameness of our humanity.  He was kind and warm and helped me with my bags.  When I got to my apartment I thanked him and shook his hand.

This couple comes every night to the coffee shop I draw at in Burbank.  They sit in absolute silence, both staring at their phones and barely acknowledging each other.  I often wondered if their relationship was so horrible that they never spoke.  Then the other night the man asked the woman something and she came over and giggled and pointed to his phone.  I glanced at the reflection of his phone in a window and saw that they were playing a game together.  They had been coming to the coffee shop every night to play games together.  Suddenly something I thought was so sad became so sweet.

Up and Down and All Around

Short Update on Big Change:

I got a wonderful job opportunity (for some stop-mo animation) and have moved to Burbank to pursue it.
This means - Physical production of my short has come to a standstill (although I'm making a effort to keep it on my mind....I still have some aspects of it that I need to trouble shoot so I'm constantly thinking about things like that)

So here I am.

AND NOW to ramble.

The first time I made a big move (from Toronto to New York) it sort of threw me for a loop and I stopped drawing and updating my blog for about a month or two.  That whole time I kept telling myself its ok, you just need to adjust.  But what I failed to realize is that by taking out the one thing in my life that I consistently did for myself alone, I had inadvertently sabotaged my total adjustment to my new situation.  As soon as I finally said enough's enough and picked up a pen and started drawing, thats the first time I felt at home in NY.  Looking back on it now I'm like DUH I should have started drawing immediately.  I think I would have adjusted a lot sooner and just felt better (not that I wasn't having a great time from the moment I arrived :) )  But lesson learned.  Then when I moved from NY back to Toronto the first thing I made sure to do was get out for a walk and draw EVERY morning.  Oh man....that was awesome.  An unexpected benefit: my mom and my sister even came with me a few times and it was really great being able to spend time relaxing with my family at the start of my day.
From then on every move I've since made (Toronto to Vancouver, then Vancouver to Burbank) I've only missed a day or two of drawing.  I finally draw again because I just want to.  Not because I feel like I have to but because if I didn't I'd be fighting against doing something I just want to do.  I still haven't achieved child like creative doodling (which is where I am trying to go) but the want to draw exists quite powerfully in myself and the more I do it the more I want to do it.