Theatre Artist, Traveler, Lover of Life

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Got a poppy the other day from a vet volunteer at a mall in Ottawa…almost Remembrance Day…although I do think it’s so wonderful there’s a day set aside in Canada for Remembrance, I do not think people need to be reminded to remember. I think it’s something we should every day, even if just for a second. Remember those who have fought in defence for our country, and those who continue for fight. Stand up and be proud to be a Canadian.

Re-reading Anne Marie Mac Donald’s “Fall On Your Knees”, an absolutely heartbreaking book yet there’s something incredible about it too. The father character, James Piper, goes off to fight in the First World War. Here’s an excerpt: “Near the River Somme in summer 1916, there are several innovations: Canadians have helmets, and rifles that fire most of the time. Germans have machine-guns. July 1 the British plan is this: a million shells to cut the Boche wire. Shoulder your seventy-pound pack as usual. Go over the top. Walk towards the German lines, they’ll all be dead by now. Keep walking till you hit Berlin. In four and a half hours, fifty thousand Britons and Canadians are shot. That afternoon, the British plan is revised: do everything as before. But this time, run. Abe is killed walking. Rudy is killed running. Neither of them killed any Germans. Aleihem Ha’Shalom…Ypres: gas— at least it kills rats too. Passchendale: it doesn’t matter if you can swim…It must mean something, there are too many of us— never have so many sacrificed so much for so little. It must mean something, otherwise there would not be this parade; there would not be this royal inspection, these brassy buttons, these slender wounds in the earth across Europe, these sturdy beams holding back the tide of mud and human tissue, this meticulous network of miniature mines, these lice, these rats, these boots returning unto dust, these toes lying scattered about my feet, like leaves, like fallen teeth.”

I spent a pretty amazing Summer 2009 in Gananoque, Ontario as an Apprentice Stage Manager on “The Blonde, The Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead” at the Thousand Islands Playhouse. These are just some of the pictures I took of this beautiful Southeastern Ontario town. 

XVII (I do not love you…)
by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Sometimes I wonder if I can keep on with this, finding love (or what I think is love) and then losing it in the moment between breaths. Maybe I’m just looking in the wrong places, looking at the wrong people. Maybe I’m missing the obvious one, the one standing right in front of me, the one I never thought of. Or maybe that’s just what the stories tell you. The many stories. So something in them must be right.

Speaks for itself, post secret is a wonderful idea that has come to fruition. A chance to tell something you need to get off your chest but can’t tell to anybody you know. 

The writer of this blog is currently on a CBC radio one show called Q, as I write up this description and add the link to my blog

Makes me smile, laugh, think 

Makes you appreciate the simple and little things in life

A state-of-the art vessel, sailing the warm & blue waters of the Caribbean. Sun, cheap shopping, beaches, frozen alcoholic drinks, food galore, fun, romance. All that and more come to mind when you think about a cruise ship. When people sail as passengers what they see & experience is quite different from the life lived “below decks.”

This is a generalization in a way, it depends on what kind of status you have on a cruise ship if you work on it— Whether you are an officer, staff or crew member. I am part of the staff catergory. I am part of the cruise/entertainment division onboard, one of the Stage Staff. Our prime area of concern is the theatre onboard but we also do other work. I am a little over a month into my second contract (this was party written then, edited & posted while on vacation between my 2nd & 3rd contracts), on the Enchantment of the Seas in the Caribbean. I was previously on the Splendour of the Seas, in South America & the Med. Slightly different itinerary I must say. But exciting in its own way.

Working on a cruise ship isn’t just another job, it’s a way of life. Just about 24hrs with the same people for months at a time. Of course, there’s always turnover. People sign-on & sign-off. You quickly, and I mean quickly, meet people and make friends. Everything is heightened and condensed. I bet people would love to study the microcosm of life onboard for crew, it would make a rather interesting National Geographic special. “Here in the bowels of the ship, the crew toils away…” Or something like that. We certainly don’t row the boat anymore, but we all work hard. We live hard. We party hard, no denying that. We also love hard, lust and love are intertwined on ships. Signals can’t always be trusted, and so many stories start with “well, one night at the crew bar.” It’s a little, okay a lot, like highschool. And by that, I don’t mean ‘Breaker High’. I mean that you can’t keep a secret, that nothing is sacred, that nothing is off limits. Sounds like an adventure? Sounds dangerous? A little bit. But fun, it draws you in. My first contract utterly transformed me, in a way that I could not have done on land. In a good way, I came out heartbroken (I can tell the truth here) but so confident in who I was and what I wanted to do with my life.

Let’s go back to the danger…Rumours spread with one snap of somebody’s fingers. Two people eat lunch together, or dance, or walk down the I-95 (the main artery for the ship’s crew, a very busy highway) and something is happening between them. And because every one of the ship’s crew members is horny (pardon the word) everyone thinks that something of a sexual nature is happening between them. And sometimes it is, sometimes it might happen, and sometimes it hasn’t at all & will never happen. There is hardly anything else to talk about, besides each other.

There are numerous stories of people finding their soulmates on ship, people who they later marry and grow old with, people who are from opposite ends of the world and would never have met otherwise. There is always a constant need for connection, for finding something real (or something that seems real). No matter what a relationship leads to after signing-off, at the end of the contract, you have had something wonderful and unforgettable (forgive the clichés, sorry if you’re drowning in them) with someone and chances are you’ll remain really good friends with that person for the rest of your life.

Sigh, life on board. No telling what’s going to happen next, for sure.

All three of these photos were taken on my first contract with Royal Caribbean, on the Splendour of the Seas which was in both South America & the Mediterranean

The first photo is from Piazza San Marco in Venice, which was our home port in the Med, where I spent the majority of my six month contract

The second photo is from Santorini, Greece; an incredible place I can hardly believe I’ve been too. We had two different itineraries in the Med which took us to Greece, Turkey, Croatia and Italy

The third photo I took when the ship sailed the Chilean Fjords, yes I have been around the tip of South America otherwise known as Cape Horn, twice

The first photo is of the Centrum on the Enchantment, looking from Deck 4 all the way up to Deck 10

The second photo is of Eagle Beach in Aruba, our main haunt on this beautiful island where we docked once a cruise for the last three and a half months of my contract