Updates and Life Lessons

A lot has happened since my last post about migraines and red bugs. I:


- Went to Toronto for a day. It feels so much more like home than Burlington. I drank great coffee, toured through the textile museum, bought fine paper, and had fun picking out goatskin for a little side project. 


- Learned that food colouring is food-grade aniline dye. That's coal tar, baby. Coal tar in your food. That chat was actually the second-most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. Forced into, like when your grandmother made you talk to her friends at the supermarket when all you wanted to do was buy jam.


- Realized that a lot of people here don't take me seriously, probably because I am young. We'll come back to this in a minute.


- Made beautiful, beautiful grey from walnuts. 


- Went on a hectic one day road trip to Montreal to see the Gaultier retrospective. High fashion and chocolate mousse were well worth 14 hours in a car.    


- Got a bike! It's an old 5-speed cruiser. Heavy and gorgeous as any cruiser can be. Handles like a dream. 


- Organized a natural dye demo for this Wednesday and was subsequently embroiled in the most vexing conversation I've been forced into in some time. It was actually an email exchange that I had to step away from, even though that meant letting someone else win...




I've been feeling for a while now that I'm treated differently because of my age. To be specific, I'm treated like a kid instead of a fully capable, educated adult. It's a weird thing to think about and maddening to experience, and in almost every iteration of defining it to others I sound like an unappreciative jackass. I do value the help and guidance I'm receiving! I DO! But there's a difference between support and hand-holding, and these hands do not want or need to be held.    


I was very much looking forward to being creatively challenged during this residency, but I didn't foresee every other punch thrown my way. Being an AIR here is trying my patience, my emotional strength, my grace, my ability to adapt, my common sense, my ideas of what I want to do with my life and whom I want to do it with, my budgeting skills, my faith in the universe, my bonds with the people I love, and so much more. 


I imagine, after six months of being irked and goaded and babied, there will be nothing left to bother me. I will be as tranquil as the moon. Direct as an arrow. More resilient than stone. Slower to anger than a glacier.