No. 78 - Falling Off the Face of the World
It can happen.
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Dear friends:
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HI.
I fell off the face of the world. Or so it felt.
Falling Off the Face of the World happens to be a song by Gurf Morlix, and is a favourite of my husband David P. Smith. The phrase kept coming into my mind as I asked myself, ”…what has happened to you, Betty-Ann?”.
I would answer (in my mind), “I’ve fallen off the face of the world”.
SO dramatic.
But here’s the thing. I’ve posted a newsletter every month without fail for over six years. In the last couple of months, for the first time since January 2018, I’ve failed to produce a monthly Feed the Monster post like clockwork.
For shame.
I mean, whatevs, right? I’m the only one who cares. But I’ve also lost my footing with Taking Note, the weekly hand-painted posts I started in March of this year. Things got out of control. Shit happened. Shit piled up. Life got in my face, as it sometimes does. So much so that I fell off the face of the world.
If you’re in the mood… maybe grab a beverage, put your feet up, and relax. I’m going to tell you the story of my May and June and show you a ton of pictures and videos, which is about all I’m good for at the moment.
UCLUELET
On May 3rd, David and I drove up island (as one says in these parts) to Ucluelet, BC for four nights. One of those nights was my birthday, May 5th.
When we arrived at the Airbnb, we immediately went to the nearby beach because our dog Dinah had suffered through a five-hour car ride.
What was it about that beach? When you live on the west coast of BC, awe-inspiring beaches are a dime a dozen. But this rainy beach made me feel like I was on mushrooms. A hippy-dippy BC teen on mushrooms. I’m not sure why.
It rained most of the time we were there, but on the Wet Coast (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, never heard that one before), that can be part of the experience.
How do I manage to take all this rugged beauty for granted? Easy. I grew up around here. Sorry, beauty. Sorry, world.
Seriously, though—I was tripping.
Journaling workshop!
On May 16th I finally conducted the online journaling workshop I’d been talking about since God was a baby—TAKING NOTE: Creating Ourselves Through Journaling. I did a lot of work towards this, so some of the other balls I had in the air were already falling.
It was good! Those who answered my questionnaire all indicated that their expectations were met, if not exceeded.
If there was one complaint, it was about the lack of time to debrief and discuss after each exercise—participants indicated that the exercises brought up things they weren’t expecting and they would’ve liked to talk about it. Sorry—I know—it was a lot. I was so determined to cover all the material I’d compiled and created—and also to keep the workshop under two hours—that I sacrificed discussion time (until the end).
I’d never hosted an online workshop before—it was a learning experience. Thirty-nine people signed up for the workshop, and twenty-four showed up on the night of. My intention was to test out the workshop material with a longer, more involved course in mind, and I learned that what I presented is more than enough to develop and expand. Plus I have more to boot. When will this expansion happen? I don’t know. I’m still trying to catch up with myself over here.
First item on my to-do list: finish the participant-free version of the 2-hour workshop to offer for sale as a download. My intention was to have that finished weeks ago, but then I—you know—fell off the face of the world.
A couple of testimonials I received:
I enjoy your teaching approach/style/attitude/sense of humour. A big thank you for sharing yourself and your approach and ideas, as it really did make me feel much more motivated to journal again! —Lesley Long
TAKING NOTE energized my journaling practice—and loosened me up! I had been journaling somewhat regularly, but the workshop suggested new formats and directions for letting it rip on the page. —Mason Currey, Subtle Maneuvers
Thanks Lesley and Mason!
Alberta
My mother-in-law Margaret Gilchrist sadly passed away mid-March, and we headed to Alberta for the memorial service on May 25th. We stayed four nights in a house that I described to my friend Jill in a Facebook message: “Coming to you from Didsbury, Alberta in one of the strangest Airbnbs I've been in. On a farm. Rural Alberta. I'm not sure how to describe it apart from... old. Awkward. Stark. Religious. Prairie. Stifling. Proud.”
Instagram reel by David P. Smith.
David spoke about his Mum at the memorial service and it was a wonderful, felicitous tribute to a formidable woman. Later that day, Margaret’s ashes were buried at a small, rural graveyard.
Emotions ran high at certain points during this trip, and it’s possible that it took a bigger toll than I realized at the time.
COVID
By the time we got back from Alberta, I was already falling behind with both Feed the Monster and Taking Note. I was part-way through making the participant-free version of the journaling workshop when I got Covid.
DUN - DUN - DUN
The fall was complete. I knew I wouldn’t be getting back on the world anytime soon. I could hardly get out of bed.
I had a trip to Montreal planned, and it was ten days away. I googled obsessively about how long I’d be contagious, and I kept seeing “5 - 10 days”. That didn’t stop me from Googling it some more. On the day before leaving for Montreal, I finally tested negative.
Montreal
I lived in Montreal many years ago, so I knew it’d be warm. What I didn’t know was that the city was under a heat dome at the time—33° “but feels like 40°”. Oh Lordy. I also didn’t realize how depleted I still was from having Covid. Being away “on vacation” masked that initially.
I muscled my way through the first couple of days. My daughter Chloe had come from Toronto to join me for three nights, and her presence kept me going. Unfortunately, the Airbnb I’d rented had advertised a pull-out sofa that wasn’t there, so Chloe and I were sharing a double bed. This didn’t help me attain the rest I needed.
On our third day there, the weather broke and there was a thunderstorm.
I broke as well.
We were walking up Boulevard St. Laurent toward a Latino grocery store Chloe wanted to visit when the deluge began. This is a different kind of rain from what we get on the west coast. For one thing, it’s powerful and insistent… dare I say violent. Okay, that’s just how it felt to me that day.
Chloe was fully enjoying herself, and on a different day I might have too. But not that day.
The other thing about this kind of rain is that it’s warm, so we were drenched and dripping but not cold. That is, until we got to the Latino grocery store, which was air-conditioned. Chloe was merrily doing her shopping, while I followed her around like a zombie. A dripping wet zombie. Freezing. In shock.
When we finally got back to the Airbnb I dissolved and fell to weeping. Good times. It became glaringly apparent that I had not miraculously bounced back from Covid just because I’d tested negative and flown to Montreal. I was utterly exhausted.
Chloe left the following day and I spent that day at the Airbnb holed up and napping, venturing out only once to get some take-out lunch. Not much of a vacation. The Airbnb was located on Boulevard St. Laurent and I kept looking out the window and saying “Why did I come to Montreal? Why didn’t I go to a forest?”
Vermont!
Enter Sheri, my friend of forty years who I’d come to Montreal to visit. She and her husband David bought property in Northern Vermont a couple of years back, and she’d mentioned driving down there a few weeks previously. Seemed kind of crazy though… why would I leave the Airbnb I’d paid for, and what about all the stuff I wanted to do in Montreal?
When she mentioned it again however, I couldn’t get out of Montreal fast enough. After a two-hour drive, we were at their house in Vermont. Overcome with emotion to find myself in the trees I craved, I wept upon arrival.
Lucky me… I got the forest! And I got to spend time with Sheri, which was a balm I didn’t fully understand I needed.
We ate good food she made, we walked in the forest, we drank G & T’s, we saw fireflies, we relaxed. I felt comforted and taken care of. THANK YOU SHERI! ❤️
We got back to Montreal the day before I flew out, and I realized I hadn’t done one damn thing I’d planned on doing while there. Oh well.
Victoria
So here I am, clawing my way back to the world by writing the story of the last two months, thereby (I hope) processing it a little more. I’m not saying that anything that unusual happened in the past two months. Not at all. There was just a kind of domino affect of occurrences that culminated in me falling off the face of the world. No biggie.
It’s always a bit of a challenge getting back into the swing of things creatively after a trip or illness, or both. But this time feels extra because I *thought* I knew what my new direction was back in March when I started my weekly hand-painted Taking Note posts. I was going to host my journaling workshop, and the Taking Note posts were going to be all about inspiration, journaling, and generally taking note of your life. I imagined that once I got the general public hooked on Taking Note, I could make it for paid subscribers only. At the same time I’d be developing my longer, more extensive journaling course, and I’d become a maven of inner excavation, eventually ruling the journaling world.
I’m exaggerating of course, but I do seem to trip myself up when I go down these roads of thinking I have it all figured out. BIG PLANS! (God laughs at those, apparently). Now it feels like the slate has been wiped clean again and I’m wondering, when did I become so unreliable? How many times am I allowed to pivot before I’m deemed …DUN DUN DUN… inconsistent?
GASP!
Okay well, here’s the deal. For the time being, I’m making no promises. I hereby release the reins. This is me letting go: WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Feed the Monster will happen when it happens (though as I’m writing that I’m thinking, for sure it’ll be once a month as usual, haha). Taking Note will happen when it happens (though as I’m writing that I’m thinking, I still want to do hand-painted posts, but I want to release myself from all previous concepts of what they *should* be about).
THANK YOU!
to everyone who reads these posts. Please give me your thoughts… I never get enough thoughts.
Love from B.A. xo
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Matters such as creative process, skill building, artistic innovation, and trying to earn a dollar may be the dirt that Feed the Monster is planted in, but I think its' true nature and purpose is to give you (and therefore all of us observing) the fertilizer to grow out of the layers of the shoulds and should nots and be liberated from them so to flourish. It is a privilege to have these opportunities to be allowed in, and be witness to you. Keep facing the sun!
I’m almost glad life got in your face and you fell off the face of the earth because we got this glorious post! I completely understand the negative feelings that may come with not following through with what you set out to do AND I think that gathering life experiences will make our art that much more expansive. Cheers to you!