Category Archives: Finding Home

Suitcase Time Machine

Posted in Finding Home, Life, Travel by

I’m packing my suitcase for Hungary. We don’t have a ticket, and I’m still totally unsure when we are leaving – or how long we’re going for, but nevertheless, I’m packing my suitcase.

Easter Monday in the Brunelle Samson household is really all about packing. Actually, we’re finishing with the packing of this apartment. Today involved Zsolt pulling apart the living room with his old PHD papers, contracts from England, left over visa applications, books and video games and more video games.

I’ve been in the bedroom, emptying the closet and dresser of every single bit of clothing I own. One piece after another, I folded the shirts and tank tops and socks and sweater and trousers and scarves, and stacked them on my grandmother’s old sofa (for which I’d made a dark blue slip cover, and now feel sentimental about giving away).

moving

Onto the bed I opened our burnt orange suitcase. This will be my case for the entire summer of displacement and –hopefully- escape.

Hanging from the curtain rod in my bedroom are a thick collection of dresses. Summer dresses, autumn dresses, cocktail dresses, gala dresses. I take the coral baby-dress from the rod and lay it in my burnt orange suitcase. The strap is broken, and I’m hoping Zsolt’s mother won’t mind sewing it since my kit is packed away. I can picture myself by the lake Balaton, wearing this little bit of coral nothingness, and feeling just like I felt almost a decade ago when I first found that slice of Hungarian paradise. I will pack this dress, Anna will sew the strap, and it can be like old times again.

There is the wine purple Karan Millen dress that I wear to nearly ever formal occasion ever. This is not a dress anyone would need at Lake Balaton in Hungary. But I slide it into the suitcase nevertheless, in hopes that somehow we’ll be able to take the boat between England and Halifax. I wore this exact same dress on the Queen Mary while we sailed to Canada (via New York) about two years ago. We were excited for Zsolt’s new job, and thrilled with the glamour of the cruise ship. It was a highlight in a life full of wonderful moments. So maybe, if I pack the dress, we can live it again.

There is this raggedy dark blue tube top folded and resting on top of the pile of clothes for consideration (do I put it in the suitcase, or put it into the cardboard box for storage in my friend’ basement?). I concoct some possible outfit in my head, and slip it into the suitcase. Maybe if I pair it with my high-waist black skirt… maybe I can get away with wearing it again. And even better, maybe my husband will notice. This is tube top I wore one fantastic night in Nice while out at a nightclub with a group of Hungarians. I’d had some light mesh shirt over it for most of the evening, but when we ended up in a club’s crowded basement sweating and dancing like crazy, I’d headed to the ladies to cool down. Off came the mesh top, up went my hair into a high ponytail, and on went the vibrant blue headband that matched the sleeveless top. Walking out of the ladies, I passed that cute Hun I liked. He did a double take and said, ‘woah.’ . . . he liked me.

summer

So, I’m here packing my suitcase for a trip that isn’t planned, and reliving memories imprinted into my clothing. And I stopped just now to write this blog post, because I didn’t even realize what I was doing until about 10 minutes ago. I’m taking action. I’m doing something to make this all real, and to have another summer, hopefully with a few new piece thrown into the wardrobe, to make all kinds of new memories.

The suitcase is now nearly full. It’s packed for Hungary. And whenever we get there, it’s going to be a damn good time.

A Normal Day: Random Post

Posted in Finding Home, Life, Writing by

This is what a typical day looks like. I mean the days that don’t take me out of the apartment. Those days ‘out’ are fairly typical too (since I do work outside the home as well). But not my favourite kinds of days. So here is what a typical favourite kind of day looks like:

(Why am I writing about this? I don’t know. I feel like it. Do we always need a reason for what we write? Antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest word in the English language, so a friend named Curtis once told me. Why did I tell you that? For no reason whatsoever 😉

Our Day

Zsolt and I wake up at some point. I wake up before him almost always without fail. That wasn’t always the case, but for some reason it flipped around. I guess that might be due to the days when I need to get up and leave – life outside the apartment happens early. But on days at home we don’t wake up early, that’s for sure. Typically we’re still up at midnight taking about business in the darkness of our bedroom, trying to figure out plans and the ‘what comes next’ – it’s not really good bedtime chatter, but we do it anyhow!

Right, we wake up. At this point there is a pretty big decision that needs to be made: do I wear pyjamas or not? Because you know, it’s a nice kind of day when you get to wear PJs, but it’s a far more productive day when I wear real pants. Ultimately I choose yoga pants because I’m busy but also lazy, and there’s no denying that.

Then – if this is a very good day – I do the morning routine: Wake, put on the kettle, blend frozen veggies and fruit and drink with my vitamins, make matcha tea, read the news.

After that, if it is a very, very good day, I clean something. Maybe it is the kitchen, or the bedroom, or maybe it’s the laundry that has likely grown to be about 5 feet tall. (Seriously)

Once that is all over, I hop on my computer to get to work. Ever since leaving one community management job, my morning has changed and I’m still trying to figure out how best to fill in this time. Do I build that website I need to build? Do I proof that story? Do I write an article? Do I get on with Easy-Patent admin? What about Sister Leadership? Do I go and wash more dishes?

Having written that paragraph, I realize what I should do with that morning window of time. I should write – just write. Maybe I write a random and unimportant blog post. Zsolt in the meanwhile is wrapping up the news, and just launching into his day of earning concrete bucks doing what he really enjoys: searching the internet.

Then at some point, lunch is made. Dishes pile up. We eat. Zsolt looks at the window incase something interesting might happen. Then, back to work.

We work throughout the afternoon. On the very, very, very good days I get to push along projects that make my heart buzz and face smile. And then, if I’m lucky, I eventually finish something. Often I don’t finish anything. That happens wayyyy too often, actually.

Then I go and make dinner. More dishes. We eat. We watch something on the computer. Back to work.

By the time 9 pm arrive, I generally stop working and jump over to cleaning more dishes, or doing projects that aren’t ever going to earn me a buck, or reading an excellent book (which only happens on the very, very, very, very good days) or maybe writing if I’m feeling ambitious. I might also be recording my podcast if it is a Tuesday. Zsolt keep working for Easy-Patent.

By about 10:30 I’m in bed. Zsolt will keep working, and he’ll stop around 11 ish. At some point during this day, we may have taken showers, and we will have brushed our teeth. These aren’t important details, but I thought I would mention it in case you are curious. Sometimes we play Super Mario, because it’s awesome, but that’s not a regular thing.

Zsolt comes to bed.

We talk about our day, and about the business, and eventually about stupid little things.

We go to sleep. I have hot flashes. I go to sleep again.

And that is that.

🙂

Champagne Explosion of Brain Bubbles!

Posted in Canada, Finding Home, Life, Novels and Stories, Writing by

(i.e. a rambling post about everything. Except anything useful. Though that does depend how you define useful.)

So, me and Photoshop have been getting to know one another. It’s a multilayered being, and I’ve been playing with Youtube to help me learn. As my friend was saying the other day – it’s a really powerful platform, but with power comes complication. Man, it’s so complicated.

Being the Lady McGuiver I am, and never ever investing more than twenty minutes into learning anything, I’ve been bouncing between photoshop, picmonkey, paint and occasionally powerpoint to design the elements for my new Claire Never Ending cover.

Geez, I love designing stuff. I love, love, love learning stuff and getting hands-on. But I just hate, hate, hate, studying. This contrast is a real flaw in my system of creativity.

Anyhow, all this internal jabbering to sayyyyyyy: The Cover is Coming Along!

CNE New cover1

Preview – I am going with this image, and have now bought it from istock.

Out there amoungst the papers on my desk is a list of TO Dos before 2014 ends. One of them is to finishing the Claire’s redesign. Another is to apply for Zsolt’s citizenship, although I really haven’t gotten that far yet in my productivity.

There are a couple other points, but I’ve completely forgotten them. Hmm. I’m trying to remeber now. Nope. Oh, crowdfunding videos! I remembered one more! I want to finished my crowdfunding series. That’s nearly done to be honest, and just requires a few more late, late nights or early, early mornings for editing.

YouTube is fun. This is another area where I don’t really want to study too much, but do really want to create content.

Where is all this content creation going? No idea where yet. J Zsolt says I need to make a business plan. “Make a business plan?” I asked him, like he was speaking a different language – is “Makeabusinessplan” Hungarian for “You are the best wife and I love you like crazy?”

Probably not.

He is right, actually, plans are good. Structure is good. Strategy is even better. And then, action. That should come along too at some point: Structure, Strategy, Action. Not my strong points, but probably useful.

And that is that.

Now for a story:

Last night I was lying in bed with the Zsolt Man, and he was relating the story of a business meeting he recently had – where he saw the fellows walking down the street, and it reminded him of being with the fellows at the ORC when they would go for lunch.

That got me thinking. Those lunches not too many years ago were a lovely daily tradition. So I began telling Zsolt why they were so lovely. Zsolt would come down to the staff club cafeteria for their lunch. Since I lived & worked on campus, I would very often join them. And after about 5 years of this, it was a comfortable, happy routine. We’d all get together, I’d get to kiss my husband, and then they’d talk about this and that – often around the stresses of being a PhD student, but not always. The conversation always ended on a very similar note, around the lines of: Let’s search it on Wikipedia. And they’d go back to their lab to look up whatever the heck they’d been discussing that day.

And through that group at the lunch table, I not only got to enjoy their company, but also the company of their partners who would arrive occasionally for the meal – girlfriends, children and wives. So we would pull two tables together, and have a great big lunch meal.

It was really nice. Friends, support and food wrapped up into one nice hour.

After I’d finished relating those memories, Zsolt asked me if I missed it.

So I thought about it. And you know what? I don’t miss it. I’m just very glad to have had it. I’m very glad to have been there then. I’m very glad to be here now.

And that had me thinking – several years ago, I missed everything. It was this deep homesick pit inside of myself. Something has changed. Maybe realizing you can’t ever have things as they were before. Or maybe it’s realizing that there are always wonderful people there somewhere to connect with. I don’t know. Maybe it was coming back to Canada – but I’ll tell you, this hasn’t been an easy transition either.

Whatever the reason. I didn’t miss anything in the sense of longing for those day. It was simply nice to have had them.

And that is when I realized, between Zsolt and I, we have friends all over the world. Amazing individuals who we’ve connected with at one point in the moving and travelling and life-living. None of them are congregated in a single spot, and we’ll never have again what we had before in those moments of laughter and friendship.

Even if all those people and all those moment are scattered across our past, and across the world – that is okay. It is better than okay – it’s awesome. Knowing each of them, doing all of that life stuff, has been a pleasure. We have this beautiful gift, and I’m grateful for it.

And I don’t miss them, because to me, they are still there somehow. Whether it’s in my memory, or on my Facebook page. They are there, doing well, and that makes me happy.

Happy picture2P.S. Over on Ottawa Writes this week (in the process of being rebranded) we have an episode about quotes you stick on the front cover of books. There’s also a nice interview around writing and community. Listen here. This sideshow passion project is one of those things that could probably use a business plan . . .