Heart of stone.

Am I finally a boy?

I remember looking into the mirror as my six year old self and trying to tie a tie like my brothers. I remember looking into the mirror at 12 years old... same day i realized that once a month I would be tortured and embarassed for the rest of my child bearing years and wishing to god that I could just grow a penis instead.
I remember looking into the mirror through glossy, tear soaked eyes and swearing at all things male... all things capable of making that definitive separation between sex and love with more of a feeling of jealousy than contempt.


And here I am. Between adventures, between boys, between worlds.

I feel nothing.

This must be what all those boys who seem to go on with their lives and not feel the need to stop the world for something they love...


... and then the feeling came back.
I spoke too soon. wishful thinking I guess.



damnit.

T'was the night before adventure...

So here we are... T-6 hours till departure.

It is midnight.
The chances of me sleeping are zero.
I told myself that I need to write more if I was to be a journalist and I am ... writing.

I tried to write an article about boulderz climbing center, and it has yet to be finished... but not for lack of inspiration. I am finding that one of the hardest things to do is to write about what you love... to make something that you are truely enthralled with into a tangible, imaginable, impressionable and straight forward imagine. I get jumbled with different ideas, and all the personalities in my head and my life, who see Boulderz as something different, try to hold the same pen... ends up being scribbles.

Weaving a story... something I can practice over the next two weeks in Costa Rica.

I am planning to write... to video and to photograph my heart out. and then some.

oh boy.

An Adventure from without.

I suppose we really don’t get a choice as to when our writing will be best.
Here I am trying to carry on a normal day-loving life, when I know quite well that creativity comes when the night shift punches in upstairs and the logical, functional men of my brain are long gone to bed, home with wife kids and dreams of summer vacations.
All it takes is one late night, and the preface to a good book to get me started, here I am.

I have been trying to make words for weeks. I have been trying so hard and telling myself I can do it without actually trying. I suppose that has something to do with how I am currently conducting my life.

In one week and one day I will be in another world. How exciting!
I have never been to another world before, and I can already watch myself trying to dumb it down into not being another world at all.
But maybe it will be exactly what I need.
Lauren Watson, you are a traveler.

I have been told this before, by those who haven’t read my autobiography of course. If one did exist, and if they had put the time into reading it, they would have found that I have not really been all that far and definitely not in harms way. The North American tour can be pumped into a beautiful adventure, but it was safe. And other travels I have done have been leashed and time constrained or sheltered by friends and family.

I suppose next weeks adventure will be too in a way. But it will be a taste of something which I need to dip into. Travel… real sight seeing. The danger of the world, the preciousness of it. All that which we apparently have to see to believe, because as human beings we can never really trust someone else’s judgement. I suppose I still need to make all the mistakes to really want to be a vegetarian, not drive cars, not fly planes, not have babies, eat organic and boycott plastic and child labour.

I bought my ticket.
I can barely wait.

Week.

My mind is empty.

Thats what love is right?

Wake up and realize the last year of your life was just a dream.

Even before I open my eyes I know where I am.

I can hear it, I can feel it and I can even smell it. The sunlight is bathing me but I still feel enough cold falling on me from the window to stay wrapped in my thick heavy comforter. I roll, and hit the side of the futon. I never quite fit in the nook, but it always kept me company that way.

Speaking of company, the predictable sounds of scrambling and squeeking chime in above me... the squirrels upstairs are at it again. I roll again and open my eyes slowly... Everything is so comfortable.

For a very long second, I am waking up from a dream. I have a month left of school, and within the next 5 minutes I am going to remember my schedule for the day, full of climbing, swimming, library hours and most likely a visit to the market to start it all off, if its not too late.

For a very long second I mull over the details of my dream, the trip out west, living in canmore, discovering myself, hitch hiking, kayaking, climbing, living in toronto... all a dream.

I take a deep breathe and notice the comforter is not mine and the posters have changed.
I stretch my toes and roll again burrowing deeper into the covers, trying so hard to go back into my dreams.