time

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time has always been such a strange idea to me.  we worry about not having enough time to finish tasks and we complain about its vast measures when we're faced with brick walls of boredom.  time was created to be simple; to be a system for determining the sequential relationship between two events.  and yet I so often struggle with understanding its simplicity... most of the time its staring me right in the face. 

these past few months have taught me a lot about the importance of investing time in others.  perhaps not always in a form that requires great lengths of physical time, but might just entail initiating short but honest conversation, expressing a genuine smile to the daily stranger I pass every day, or offering a listening ear when I have piles of homework on my mind.  and I can not fail to mention the ways in which others have shown such great kindness...  like a friend who prepares me a brie/pear rye sandwich for no apparent reason, a sick friend who goes out of her way to offer me a listening ear,  and as noted below - the genuine words of a talented housemate...

these hearts of ours were made to love, strung with live wires of compassion and mercy, and yet this flesh and this will is so unwilling to yield. - m.hers

east coast

five years later... and I am still feeling incredibly blessed by my friends from the beautiful lands of the east coast.  Moving across towns, provinces and countries alike has always been tough.  But like anything, these experiences have become an integral part of who I am.  One of the most disheartening parts of moving has been the idea that everything is temporary, leaving it difficult to find reason for investing in relationships and activities.  But in opposition to these thoughts, a conversation with an old friend reminded me that even though we have not seen each other in a couple years, maybe even talked in a few months, our conversations will always pick up right where they left off.

and these thoughts just made my morning a whole lot brighter.

fear

*this summer I have the privilege of taking an internship course, at OCAD University, that enables me to experience a taste of jewellery design and metalsmithing in a field placement study.  This course has been a wonderful experience but has also raised many challenging questions...what do I really want to do with my life? Where do I see myself in five years? Why do I spend so many hours in the studio?

Over the past few years, these questions have caused me so much anxiety and anguish…I’ve actually come close to transferring programs several times throughout my time here at OCAD University – because there is something so frightening about pursuing a career that does not necessarily have a stable and concrete direction.  But as much as my fear sometimes gets in the way of pursuing my passions for jewellery design and metalsmithing, it has also been this exact freedom of being able to choose the direction of my career that has stopped me from dropping all my courses and transferring schools.  I know that I love what I do and that the satisfaction of being able to design and create objects is what brings me joy and contentment.   I do not have the desire or pursuit to become a famous or well renowned jewellery designer (perhaps this will happen, but I would never want it to be my primary goal).  

My entire life, I’ve always been surrounded by lots of people – from being raised in a large family with three biological sisters and countless foster care siblings, spending my summers as a camp counsellor and most recently spending the past three summers working alongside children and adults with both physical and intellectual disabilities – these experiences have heightened my desire to be an advocate of the potential in every human being.  In many of these relationships, I had the privilege of catching just a small glimpse of the vulnerability that many of these children carry with them… a vulnerability that so often restrains them from chasing after their own passions and desires.  

I find it can be overwhelming to try and understand how we might even begin to empower these children and young adults, but it ultimately comes down to how we choose to live out our lives.  Statistics can dehumanize injustice, but they do not eliminate the problem.  Our habits comprise our character and these habits have the capacity to consume us.  While these issues may be large and my own individual ability to fight injustice might be small, I will not let my inability to do EVERYTHING make me do NOTHING instead of SOMETHING. -Michelle Brock, Hope For The Sold.

the simple joys

Sometimes I forget about the "little things" in life - like this yummy bowl of cherries that sits on the table every morning at internship, or the soothing melodies of classical music (weird, I know - but I've actually grown to like it), the sunlight that streams through the stained glass windows at church, homemade sweet tea, riding my bicycle, running in the rain, conversations with young children ...

Blessed and undeserving. Blessed in grace. - the ministry of imagination

sunday mornings

sunday mornings have always been my most favourite time of the week.  Living in the heart of the city this past year has lead me to appreciate the quiet, the calm and the peace.  These are three things that I often find difficult to see in the city, where people are always on the go, myself included, moving and working at a hundred miles an hour.  Not that moving quickly through the week is always a negative thing, but it becomes destructive when I find myself forgetting my intentions or reasons for even going about half the things in my week.

an anonymous post card I received in the mail this past week.  it was an encouraging reminder

another reason to love sunday mornings: one of the only times when the city doesn't wake up until noon and you actually hear the birds in the morning...it is refreshing.