The Void or The Las Vegas Wedding Chappel of Personal Identity learns to choose her fights rather than pick them

Back when I started this blog I was about to graduate, and was ready to reinvent myself. I said that I was ready to leave behind my identity as a philosophy student, that I wanted to be a person instead. After graduating I went to Iceland for three weeks where, in addition to finding myself in arm-tubes lying on the ground in the middle of a road blockade, I fell in love with consensus decision making. I fell in love with communal living. I fell in love with direct action, with anarchism, with activism. I felt empowered and alive. I wanted to spend the rest of my life living like that. So I walked through my Las Vegas Wedding Chapel of Personal Identity and committed myself to activism, embracing my new identity as an “Environmental Activist”. This wasn't something completely new, I had been an activist all throughout university. In fact, I'd been an activist all my life. At age 7 I spent my recess time at school cleaning up litter in the playground. At 9 I decided to be a vegetarian. At 14 I staged my first sit-in and blockaded myself into the bathroom in protest of a family trip to Utah. I have always had a passion for making the world a better place. Activism has always been in my blood. But that summer after graduation, I made activism my primary occupation, I made it the defining feature of my life. In rejecting my identity as a philosophy student I had created a void, a raw gaping hole that begged to be filled. What I should have done was to let the hole heal. To allow the void to evolve, to encourage something real and genuine to grow into that space. To become a real person. But voids are scary. Growing is scary. Even healing can be scary. And I was scared. So I stuffed activism into the hole and forgot about the whole issue.

But since labelling myself as an activist, I haven't really accomplished much. I've been flailing around trying to figure out what to do. I've been thinking myself into circles about what kind of activist I want to be, what form of activism I want to use, which form would be most effective, whether tactics can be justified by their effectiveness, with whom do I want to work, with whom would I be willing to work... And with all this thinking and flailing, there hasn't been much doing.

In addition to using my new activist identity as a way to avoid dealing with the post-graduation void, I also used it as a way to justify coming back to Edmonton. Because, hey, if I'm an “Environmental Activist”, and arguably the most environmentally disastrous development project on Earth (aka the Alberta Oils Sands) is happening where I grew up, how can I possibly justify being anywhere else, right? The move couldn't possibly have had anything to do with feeling lost and not having anywhere else to call home. It's not that I didn't have anywhere better to go. I obviously came here out of a sense of duty. That's what I told myself at least.

The ironic thing is that for all my flailing and thinking and self-righteous dedication to the cause, I find it really difficult to fight for Alberta, because deep down, I don't even like Alberta. I didn't come back here out of a passionate love for the place. I don't lie awake at night lamenting the destruction of my beloved homeland. It's difficult to be passionate about fighting for something you're not passionate about. And I'm tired of fighting anyway.

Shortly after taking on the label of activist I also took on the label of anarchist. In the basic sense of the word, I am an anarchist. I believe in non-hierarchy, I'm anti-authoritarian, I'm anti-capitalist at least in the sense of being opposed to our current capitalist system. But the term anarchist also brings with it a whole lot of baggage that I'm not so sure I want to carry around with me anymore. I'm not interested in class war. I'm not interested in organizing the workers. I'm tired of struggling, and fighting, and waiting for the revolution.

I was a better anarchist before I took on the label, a better activist before I made it my identity. The problem is that I let the labels become prescriptive rather than descriptive. When you can look back at things you've done and retrospectively decide that a particular label is in fact appropriate, go with it. Descriptive labels act as verbal shorthand. They make communication easier. But when a label becomes prescriptive, it ceases to serve it's purpose. I let my identity as an activist define my actions. I started doing things because I was an activist, not because I actually wanted to do them. So I'm not going to be an activist anymore. I'm going to gather up these skills and ideas and experiences that I've been collecting over the past few years and store them on a special shelf in my heart next to my vegan ideals. And I won't hesitate to dust them off when a situation calls for them. But it's time for me to start choosing my fights rather than picking them.

And now that I've pulled activism out of that gaping hole in my identity I'm left with the void again. This time I'm not going to stuff it full of something just for the sake of filling it. I'm going to have to wear it on my sleeve and let it do it's thing.

The entry that wanted to be a poem?

Hot and sticky, I climbed the stairs
one by one, then two by two as the suits rushed past,
bumping me with their briefcases,
our lives colliding while we trudged up the escalator,
propelled by the momentum of the City.

Surfacing long enough to get a coffee, I walked to the next station, anxious to hear the beep and the click of the opening barrier, ready to descend back into the underground. For me the destination was simply an excuse for the trip, the real goal being the time spent in transit.

I watched the other passengers, guessing at their lives, fabricating the stories of the girls with hoop earrings, and the elderly couples with matching fanny-packs, while they simultaneously fabricated a story for me. Jostling back and forth in unison to the clacking of the rails beneath us, I hoped that I passed for one of them, hoped that the me who lived inside their heads sounded like she belonged.


I used to ride the tube to pretend that I lived in London. I rode the tube to pretend I was one of the people who rode the tube, not realizing until it was too late that I was never really pretending. These days I ride the train to pretend that I'm not here. I pretend that I can get off at the next stop to change platforms and go in a different direction. I pretend that when I press the button, the doors will open to reveal a bustling station alive with possibilities.
I pretend that when I get off the train I'll be home.

Soon I will run down those familiar tunnels again,
craving the gust of warm air that will tousle my hair,
and fill my lungs with the dust that turns
my flip flop feet black,
hoping that maybe this time it will settle.

Cowboy Wisdom

I took the bus to my parents' house this afternoon. After having a short conversation of pointing and smiles with the child sitting across from me about the coffee I was drinking, I gazed out the window watching images of the city speed past. I found myself saying good-bye, not sure if I would ever see that office building, that flower shop, that particular piece of graffiti ever again. I was flooded with memories, riding past a park in which I had sung an a cappella rendition of 'kiss the girl' with my friends the summer I turned nineteen, past the Alberta Choral Federation where I had held a part-time job during high school as the librarian of their sheet music library, holding my breath for old time's sake as we passed the large downtown graveyard. I said good-bye, knowing that I would not miss any of it.

Ever since I've begun to entertain the idea of moving back to Britain as a real and immediate possibility, I've been happier than I have been in a very long time. Happy to be here, at this point in my life, having so much to look forward to. My Mother commented on how I don't seem angry anymore. A friend told me that he's glad to finally see me excited about life. Another friend told me that he always knew, from the moment he met me, that I would go back.

A strange customer came into the bookshop last week. I'd say he was in his seventies, smelled of rich tobacco. He told me stories of his old man who was apparently a legendary cowboy. I zoned out for most of it, but one thing he said stuck with me: He said the most important thing his father ever told him was to always tell the truth, that way you didn't have to have a good memory, and you'd never be embarrassed. Almost more important than being honest with others, I think, is to be honest with yourself. I'm finding that life is much easier, much happier, much better, when I allow myself to follow my heart instead of the idea I have of what my heart should want. Irrationally following my heart is what got me to Scotland in the first place, how fitting that it should take me back.

Blueberry Whine

I walked past a liquor store this evening and spontaneously decided that it would be nice to have a glass of wine with my dinner. When I walked in, the first thing that caught my eye was a bottle of blueberry wine. “Mmm, blueberry wine”, I thought, “that sounds perfect.” So I bought it, and walked the eight blocks back to my apartment. I unpacked the rest of my groceries, got out a wine glass, and opened the drawer to get out the corkscrew.... Corkscrew? I was sure I had one. How could I not have a corkscrew? Have I seriously not opened a bottle of wine in the entire eight months I've been living here? I guess not. I didn't have a corkscrew. So I tried to open the bottle with a metal coat hanger, but that didn't work. I was getting pretty desperate, so I plucked up the courage to knock on the door next to mine and ask my neighbour, whom I've never met, if I could borrow one. She didn't have one either. I knocked on every single door on my floor. Nothing. Eight households, and nobody had a corkscrew.

One of my co-workers lives a couple buildings over from me, so I called the bookstore to get his number. He didn't answer. It was a long shot anyway: he doesn't drink. While I was thinking of work I remembered that we got a letter in the post a couple days ago with a complementary swiss army knife key chain in it, which happened to include a corkscrew. The downtown location of our bookstore chain is only a couple blocks away from my apartment, so I walked over there to see if they got the same thing in the mail. Of course they didn't, but Chris searched the store for me just in case there was one hiding somewhere. When his search failed, he told me that there was a wine store around the corner that was probably still open. When I got there, there was a sign on the door saying they were closed for a private wine tasting party. Just my luck.

I crossed the street and went into a small upscale grocery store. I found a rack of pretentious kitchen utensils. I found five different spatulas, a garlic peeler, a garlic press, a nut cracker, a lobster cracker, a melon baller, even a citrus zester. No corkscrew. So I asked an employee for help. He showed me to another rack of kitchen supplies. We found more spatulas, two different kinds of can openers, a silicone pot holder, a beer bottle opener (we were getting close now). No corkscrew.

I was about to admit defeat and began to walk home when I decided that I'd come too far to give up. I was so frustrated by that point that all I wanted was a drink. Ironic that. That the frustration of not being able to open a bottle of wine only increases your need for it's contents. And I knew that if I returned home without a corkscrew I'd spent the rest of the night staring at the bottle in agony. So I walked the eight blocks back to the liquor store I had left nearly three hours earlier and bought a bloody corkscrew.

And after all that, the wine isn't even very good.

The Day My Visa Came Back

When I originally made the decision to come back to Canada, I made the decision with the knowledge that if it didn't work, getting back into the UK would be relatively easy. At the time, something called an ancestry visa existed. All I had to do was prove that my grandparents were born in the UK, and I'd get a five year visa to be able to live and work in the UK, after which I could apply for permanent residency. Just as I moved back across the ocean, however, Britain overhauled it's immigration policies. My visa disappeared. And my hope of easily returning to the UK crumbled with it.

For the past eight months I've felt trapped. With my life in Britain locked behind a big door of bureaucracy, I've felt stuck in Edmonton, legally obliged either to stay here, or to start over from scratch somewhere else in Canada. I've been angry at Edmonton. Angry at it for sucking me back in and holding me hostage. I've tried to blame it for my unhappiness. I've tried to forgive it and give it a chance. I've tried to make it home again. I've tried to detach myself and know that my time here is temporary. I've tried imagining a life for myself on Vancouver Island. I've even tried imagining a life for myself in Calgary. Yes, Calgary. That's how desperate I am to get out of Edmonton. The truth is, I just want to go back to Britain. I miss the life I had over there. I miss my friends. I miss my oyster card. I miss having a good fry-up with my hangover. All the other viable options just look like second choices and consolation prizes.

I did the skype thing with two of my best friends still up in St Andrews this morning, and felt the familiar pull of wishing I was living with them again. So I went back to the UK visa website, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to make it work, and I discovered something that changes everything. The ancestry visa still exists. It never disappeared, they just re-did the website and hid it in the fine print of the work visa. I feel like my life has tangibly changed today. That a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I'm free of the shackles holding me in Edmonton. Free to go home.

Post-Veganism Revisited

I have to not not eat the cheesy pizza, which doesn't mean I have to, but I do anyway, because it's tasty. That's how Harry described my post-veganism last spring when I first started using the term. In my year of inhabiting this new dietary identity, I've been post-vegan in the sense that I am not vegan anymore, clearly illustrated by the half-eaten pint of Häagen-Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream sitting by my side as I write this. But I want the term to mean more than that. Rather than this being an era in my life after veganism, I want to move beyond veganism. To reject the rules, restrictions, and martyrdom that so often accompany the lifestyle. I want to deconstruct the very essence of what it means to be vegan, and to rebuild it in a way that actually works as a healthy and enjoyable way to live. What I want, is for my diet to be about what I do eat, not about what I don't.

I want to fill my body with delicious, healthy things that have been produced in an ethically sound, environmentally and socially sustainable way. Sadly, that isn't always possible, or, at least, isn't always practicable. No amount of rules and regulations, no matter how strictly adhered to, can produce a best solution. Life's more complicated than that. Sometimes the eggs from the hens who run free in my friend's yard, devouring kitchen scraps and fertilizing the garden, are a far more ethical and sustainable meal than the tofu, made from genetically modified soy grown on land that was once a rain forest, that has been shipped from a packaging plant in China. Yet that tofu will always be a better option than a McDonald's cheeseburger.

The point of my post-veganism, however, is to avoid getting lost in such ethical comparisons. The decision to always choose the most ethical option in any given situation, while more flexible than strict veganism, is a rule nonetheless. I want to eat falafel because I want to eat falafel, not because I can't eat anything else on the menu. Falafel's too good to be eaten by default. I want to eat what I want to eat and I want to want to eat things that are good for the earth, good for animals, good for me. I want to not eat the McDonald's cheeseburger not because 'I don't eat cheeseburgers', but because I want to eat something else. This means that there may come a time when I do eat the McDonald's cheeseburger. I ate one a couple weeks ago. I wanted to rebel against the last vestiges of the vegan moral code that I had internalized so long ago. I had a coke too. And for the first time in over a decade, I didn't feel guilty. It upsets me that such things as McDonald's cheeseburgers and Coca-cola exist in this world, but I'm glad that I can consume them now without feeling the sting of those whips I used to have in my mind. Letting go of the whips, I think, is a greater accomplishment than a year of veganism, than a life of veganism, because now every time I choose to eat a beetroot and cabbage salad, that decision is one made freely. I tried the stick, now it's time to choose the carrot.

Constructing the good: "wherever you go, there you are" Part II

“It'll be alright. If you construct the good.” That's what the man in the LRT station said at least. He swaggered down the escalator toward me wearing big headphones connected to nothing, mumbling to himself. I assumed he was just another harmless loony riding the train and willed him not to bother me. “Just keep walking”, I thought. “Please.” Lucky for me, he ignored my silent pleas. He stopped a few feet away from me, didn't look at me or speak to me, but mumbled within earshot: “It'll be alright. If you construct the good”, and walked away.

I've been in a funk recently. I've been bored with life, ready to leave Edmonton, biding my time until I can get out of here again. So I went for a walk tonight and told myself I wasn't allowed to come home until I was in a better mood. I wandered around my neighbourhood with a coffee listening to the snow crunch under my feet, and thought about how I always seem to be waiting for my life to begin. With every new life plan I come up with – be it building an earthship on Vancouver Island, squatting in London, or pursuing a masters degree at the University of Tokyo – I'm always telling myself that life will be better when I get there. What I realised tonight as the snowflakes danced around me was that all this time I spend positing my future life where I'll finally be happy could instead be spent living in a way that makes me happy now. At this point I found myself heading toward the LRT station and decided to take another aimless ride across the tracks; I seem to do some of my best thinking on planes, trains, and automobiles.

So it'll be alright if I construct the good. What's that supposed mean? Something told me that what was coming out of this man's mouth wasn't connected to anything meaningful going on upstairs, so I didn't spend much time wondering what he meant by it. Rather, I pondered what it could mean to me. I'm thinking it means something along the lines of: “wherever you go, there you are”. That life isn't about going somewhere to find yourself, but finding yourself wherever you happen to be. That everything can be alright wherever and whenever you choose it to be. And that the “good life” I've been searching for isn't something you can find, but something you have to construct for yourself.

This doesn't mean my thoughts on Edmonton have changed. I still want to leave. I'd still rather be anywhere but here, and I don't think anything will ever change that. What it does mean is that I can enjoy the time I have left here, and stop worrying about where I'll go next. I can devote my energy to constructing a life and living it rather than mopping about waiting to find the pot of gold at the end of my imaginary rainbow.

Near the end of my aimless train ride I shared a flirty moment with the cute boy who sat down across from me. When I got off at my stop he looked wistfully out the window at me as the train pulled away and I walked home with a goofy grin on my face, firmly planted in the good mood I'd promised myself at the beginning of my little adventure.