There’s a little article in The Metro today about the gallery. In the picture, around the harpist, is part of my Fruit and Body series. I’ve decided to make it a limited edition print of 100 each at 18"×12". So far I’ve sold four, with two potentials.

It’s the last day of the exhibit. I’ll be there again tonight because another paper wants some pictures of the artists, and so I can meet with any guests, including one of my buyers. If you stop by, don’t forget to sign the guestbook!

My therapist is still getting to know me. Now I have books to read and worksheets to fill out. It’s somewhat strange; I’ve been putting myself through self-help for years, but I’ve never traced it so far back to my childhood. I don’t like to blame my parents because I see how Darren and Pat have survived far “worse” but it’s getting more and more obvious that there’s trauma in my childhood that still affects me to this day.

• Apparently, I’m moderately depressed, and “moderate” is not normal.
• We’ve figured out that my unassertiveness is the result of conflict avoidance. Even if I practice a situation in my head where I say something that may bring up conflict, I often can’t follow through. I feel helpless to fix this, and this leads to a self-defeating attitude.
  • This stems from my childhood. I’ve almost never argued with my parents (there were two times in my life I felt strongly enough to stand up against them, both ending in me submitting because there was no reasoning with them). I’ve always felt like I wouldn’t be loved unless I got good grades and did everything I was told. In other words, it was an extremely conditional love.
  • This means I care about what people think of me, and I define or evaluate my self-worth through them. Knowing this pisses me off because philosophically and pragmatically I don’t agree, but can’t do anything about it.
• Every time I’ve been in therapy, I’ve cried at least once. This happens whenever I bring up specific aspects of my relationship with my parents.
• Hearing my therapist say, “Wow, that’s bad” brings me a comforting validation to what I feel.
• Aside from being slightly verbose, my therapist is great. He’s a non-judgmental, ethical, open-minded intellectual. He’s also a good listener.

If a woman sleeps alone, it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.

—Zorba the Greek

There exists a spot on every woman that needs to be kissed.

It can be as innocuous as the curl of the lip, the web of the hand, or a mark on a landscape of skin.

It’s the responsibility of a man to find this spot. Not as a service to the woman — sometimes she isn’t even aware of such a spot — but as a service to the creator of such things.

I feel utterly intoxicated.

With a hammer and a ladder, we hung my pictures tonight, carefully deciding where to place each one to balance the colours, the orientations, the shapes, and the concepts.

Amongst the wine and the wood, the kids and the colours, we stopped to admire the art in the house. Adrienne dropped by to share her latest graphic poems with us, along with her alcoholic findings. “From The Desk Of” Penelope was written that day, dense and deep, full of details taken for granted. The words must write themselves, I thought.

Misun and I seem to share a kinship through our appreciation of expression, something I’ve never had with my friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but I’ve always felt like they can’t relate to me when it comes to emotions or creativity. As I seem to be the creative brother she’s always wanted, and she seems to be the supportive sister I’ve always needed, we agreed to be adopted siblings.

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In a recent interview, Frédéric said, in his ebullient Parisian accent, that one of the reasons he wanted to open the Salon is to promote dialogue and interaction. Perhaps it’s this hunger for dialogue that connects us. He also mentioned to me he was stressed out about being interviewed; being put on the spot made him freeze up. I told him I had the same problem with pretty girls. “You’re affected by beauty”, he said, something I knew, but not something that everyone understands.

I left, feeling like I was a part of something wonderful, something greater than myself.

On the bus today, a reporter from the CBC called me for an interview. She started asking me why I got into photography, where I wanted to go with it, and the like. It was strange to be answering these questions because as far as I’ve gone with my photography, no one has ever asked them before. I suppose most people assume it’s like another hobby, without purpose or meaning.

There was also a little mention of my name in the local francophone paper. I find it funny that when translated literally, the title of the article in English is “Go, all with the Living room!”.

I miss being outside during the golden hour.

I miss Hong Kong.

I miss going to the theater to watch movies with John in the summer.

I miss Collier family dinners.

I miss camping.

I miss watching good Chinese romantic comedies.

I miss Bronwen hugs.

I miss Hong Kong Milk tea.

I miss physical contact.

I miss being able to drink and eat what I want without having stomach problems.

I miss getting buzzed.

I miss unrequited love.

I miss residence.

I miss being in my last year of high school.

I miss being missed.

And I keep hanging up.

The first thing she asks, nonchalantly like nothing has happened, is whether I’ve eaten yet. This is something thing she used to say at the beginning of every phone call. One of her old habits, to make sure I’m eating enough.

I didn’t answer her question, but asked what she wanted. She told me she just wanted to see how I was doing.

She doesn’t get it. I don’t want to talk to her. I never want to talk to her again. Every call is a reminder of the wounds that haven’t healed.

It’s like having your rapist show up at the door with flowers.

Well it wasn’t so much my fault as hers for walking by one of my candles as I was lighting it.

It’s a full seven days between sessions, and at this point, my pschologist is just starting to know me. In between, I can never stop reflecting. I’ve always believed that I know myself well, but these sessions are probing ideas and memories I haven’t thought of in a while, and opening up completely new areas of reflection.

And while I could write for days about these thoughts and epiphanies, I simply don’t have the time, so I figured I’d briefly touch on them in point form.

• I need to respect my psychologist in order to accept help from him. i.e. If he was a Freudian and I was a Jungian, I wouldn’t be able to agree with any of his methods.
• I get very anxious when I’m in his office. This is because I don’t like to admit to myself that something’s wrong with me, but when I’m in there, it’s a very tangible reminder that I have mental problems.
• I’m very conflicted on several issues.
  • I don’t want to lose my emotions because I need to suffer to create. Yet the emotions are bad enough that I don’t want to have them anymore (or have them in moderation at least).
  • I want to love and be in a relationship, and at the same time I cling to being single because I’m scared of being hurt (in addition to the fact that the freedom is intoxicating). I do this by pushing others away from me or cutting them off.
    • This stems from two significant childhood memories, where I felt betrayed in friendship, as well as my relationship with my parents.
  • I want to be settled and have some stability (in terms of schedule, relationships, finances etc.), but the struggle to be settled is what makes me grow and be stronger.
  • Many of these issues can only be resolved from decisions I should make. (i.e. No one else can make the decision for me)
  • Turning to Taoism, which is very paradoxical in itself, has only helped so much.
• Without my creativity, or my desire to express myself, I’m nothing.
• I don’t want to “blame” my parents for confidence problems or perfectionist tendencies, but I’m slowly starting to find out that they’ve affected me even more than I thought before.
• As a hedonist, my greatest fear is losing my joie de vivre. If this happened (and it has once), I would consider killing myself. This is because the joys of life balance out all the bad and makes it worth living.
• I’m dependent on other people for happiness. I don’t see my friends often enough for me to be satisfied, and it’s a simple fact of life. They all have significant others, and I’m the only one left single. I don’t blame them for not spending enough time with me, but it makes me very sad.

Knowing his preference for how he likes his coffee¹, I jokingly told him he should get a Wayne Gretzky on the way to Timmies this morning. Until today, he had never even heard of Tim Hortons, and must have thought that all Canadian products are named after Canadian heroes. “What’s that?” he asked me. “Nine cream and nine sugar, like Gretzky’s jersey number; 99″, I told him.

“That sounds good”.

So I walked up to the counter, made my order, and looked at him. He gave me a nod, so I turned to the girl behind the counter again, and said, “Extra large coffee. Nine cream, nine sugar”.

In a completely deadpan face, she asked, “Are you serious?”.

“Yep.”

And this is probably the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced.

1. The previous day, I asked him how many cream and sugar he takes. Expecting a quantitative measure, he just told me, “A lot”. [↑]

I’m exhausted today. I try not to acknowledge it, but my body keeps reminding me.

How is it doing this?

I just peeled a banana, and with the peel in my hand I threw the banana in the garbage.

My dad did the same thing once with an orange. “The old man’s going senile”, I thought to myself.

Hopefully, it’s not due to some degenerative brain disease, but the 12-hours I put in at work until midnight yesterday.

My new schedule involves going to therapy after work on Mondays. Today, I also have to go to my framer to sign my photos and mats afterwards. I was going to pick up a drop cloth and background stand at the photography store in between, but I think I’ll skip that.

We’re in the middle of a server swap at work, so I expect client computers to be bursting into flames today. I’m also organizing a pot luck for the company at the end of the week.

My mind feels like it’s going in eight different directions at once.

But as long as I feel, I know I’m alright.

A reader sent me this letter (posted with her permission, of course):

Almost a year after I had managed to leave the island behind, the room, the floor, the sheets, the rape – I accidently ended up on your blog entry called “The beginning to the end” and it changed my world. It awoke feelings inside of me that I had for a years time tried to suppress and scare off so that I never again would open up to anyone, never trust anyone and therefor never end up in the same situation again. At that time, all men were a potential threath to me.

Reading and watching that very blogentry have had such a great impact on my life and will to become ‘myself’ again, to reclaim my body and to dare to move towards feeling and being ‘beautiful’ again. Your video granted me the sensation of how sincere, pure and giving love and affection truly are when it’s shared and not forced. It made me remember blocked out feelings and situations and it made me start to long for something that I had completely shut out for over a year.

I have been wanting to write you this email for quite some time, but I havent been sure of myself or if the “new” me (which is the old in fact) would survive and I didnt want to make this into a sunshine story if it really wasnt – but after many downhills, trials and tribulations, theraphy and social interaction, I am there, I am back and I am standing strong again. Nothing will ever be the same, but at least I made the right choice, for me. I have always been lifeloving in overload and even if I am only halfway there yet, it is still enough to keep me going.

I still watch that video every now and then, to remind myself that anything is possible and that you can recieve “help” from the most unexpected sources. It used to make me cry, now it makes me smile instead, isnt that beautiful? I know perfectly well that you never meant to post that entry for me, but it helped me in one of the most difficult times in my life and for that I will be forever grateful. Thank you.

Yours sincerly,
Emma

I’m at a loss for words.

The Emergence Exposition: Opus 02 vernissage is coming up in three weeks and if you’re in the Ottawa area, you can drop by to see my exhibit!

The show is free. Over three hundred people were packed into the last one. I’ll be the one walking around with a camera strapped to his hand.

Four exhibition rooms, Four creative styles

Like the exhibitions of old France, the idea of this gallery-house is to have a mixture of different artistic styles.

J’ai eu envie de recréer quelque chose dans cet esprit-là. Il ya un côté intimidant et même assez froid aux galeries d’art. Les gens n’osent pas toujours entrer, mais je veux leur montrer que l’art c’est pour tout le monde, dans une ambiance chaleureuse.

— Frédéric Daty, gallery owner

There will be four visual artists — metal sculptor, ceramic sculptor, painter, photographer (me) — and three musical artists — concert pianist, harpist, soft pop musician. Featuring champagne and homemade truffles too!

For more details and a glimpse at some more of my work in this theme, you can read the description in the new photography section, as well download the invitation.

It snowed all day yesterday, and well into the night. The whiteness outside reflects the sky and has filled my house with bright light. It’s the weekend and I’m awake.

I’ve fallen in love with smoothies. They are usually comprised of three bananas, three tangerines, a third of a pineapple, yogurt, juice, and frozen 4-fruit berry or summer fruit salad. I have three a day. This makes me poo like crazy.

Life has been exhaustingly busy. The photo sessions are over, post-processing is done, and my pictures are all printed. The only thing left is to get them framed. I had my first session with my psychologist. I’m cancelling my Tai Chi tomorrow. I have to plan my relaxation, and this doesn’t make it very relaxing.

This weekend I hope to:

• catch up on my e-mails
• fill out a bunch of forms my psychologist gave me, including a multimodal life history inventory
• order some Moo cards
• work on a client’s website
• add a photography/portfolio section to my site
• fit some fun in there somewhere

Next week is going to be even more crazy, no pun intended. Monday I’m meeting with the framer, Tuesday and Thursday I have Tai Chi, Wednesday I’m having dinner at the gallery and meeting the other artists.

I haven’t been sleeping well. In the midst of all this sociability, I’ve been battling my anxiety. It’s filled me with a quiet determination, but the long exposure has worn me down.