Yesterday, the vibrant beginning to a new year
Posted on | January 27, 2006 |
It was so lovely read all of your kind birthday wishes. Thank you!
Driving back from this show at midnight, the temperature hovered just above 0, and wind sent gusts of snow whirling across the road. The region of Canada around Montreal is remarkably flat—all geographic features rubbed smooth by the glaciers of the last Ice Age. Now, fields stretch out as far as the eye can see in either direction from the road. Every mile or so, there is another dairy farm with golden light spilling out onto the snow in puddles underneath the smudged glass of the barn’s windows.
Things felt rushed up to the point of our departure. The company we bought flooring from delivered it to the new house yesterday, and the big truck couldn’t make it up our long snowy driveway—even after we plowed it. So we spent the better part of two hours transferring sap maple flooring into the bed of the pickup truck, and then driving it up the hill and unloading it, before leaving.
We also found ourselves caught off guard by the sudden foreignness of Montreal with it’s maze of one way streets, fast drivers, and French language. The show was intense and amazing. Thousands of lights, and multiple screens allowed the dancers on stage to interact with a computer-generated graphic environment. Once I let go of my expectations of seeing a typical Cirque performance with acrobats and clowns, I became engrossed in the intense visual and musical performance of Delirium, that narrated human being’s quest for self-knowledge in a world that is at once isolated and mechnaized, and yet intensly passionate, dynamic and fleeting.
I left inspired and overwhelmed. The sheer volume and brightness almost felt invasive— the thrumming of the drums making my heart alter its rhythm—but the seeing art in such intensity was also invigorating, and the bright technicolored images of lithe dancers in a forest of sky high dandelions spun through my dreams all night.
Today the air is cold. Hoary fingers of ice travel up windows like the fronds of tiny ferns. In the kitchen my mother-in-law is making cheese cake. Upstairs the neighbors feet make knock-knocking patterns across the floor. The house is wrapped in warmth and early evening comfort—the cats purring in the lamplight, and Bean investigating a pile of blocks. This year was a fitting way to launch the year—with intense creativity, with family, and with a handful of quiet moments.
sunset yesterday
snowy woods at dusk
Canadian farmland
silo silhouette
snow gusting across the road at midnight
Montreal tunnel
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12 Responses to “Yesterday, the vibrant beginning to a new year”
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January 27th, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
Are you a Montrealer? I am. You take such beautiful photographs. I’m a professional photographer and a Graphic Design student, and appreciate your photographs/blog. Thanks for sharing!
January 27th, 2006 @ 7:43 pm
Sounds like a wonderful way to start a new year in the life of your topography.
We saw O in Las Vegas years ago and I remember that feeling of dreaming in vibrant colors and surreal space. Like the world had suddenly taken on a new twist, where people could dive from dizzying heights and land in pools of water that just seconds ago where not there. They are inspiring artist. What a great birthday gift!
January 27th, 2006 @ 7:48 pm
I am glad you had an interesting birthday.
January 27th, 2006 @ 9:13 pm
sounds like an amazing show!
and i didn’t know you were in montreal…
i didn’t know you were in canada for that matter…
funny.
i found myself thinking of your blog
tonight when doing the tasks in the artists way…
it said to list 5 people
you secretly admire…
secret no more.
January 28th, 2006 @ 5:09 am
snow snakes! speedy ones, though, it looks like. What a great way to spend your birthday, watching the Cirque! Happy happy!
January 28th, 2006 @ 9:11 am
What a really fun birthday treat to see Cirque de Soleil in Montreal! I have seen it several times in NYC, and it was pure delight. When I was at school in Burlington (UVM for my freshman year - about a million years ago), a friend and I hitchhiked to Montreal for the weekend. It was quite an adventure - like being in a totally different world. Your photographs are beautiful. Did you take any of the city?
January 28th, 2006 @ 10:17 am
Everyone seems to have missed the line:”We also found ourselves caught off guard by the sudden foreignness of Montreal with it’s maze of one way streets, fast drivers, and French language.” We’re not in Canada either–it’s VT for us, though it’s lovely to live so close to another country & to be able to slip away into a world of cobble stoned streets and French bistros at will.
January 28th, 2006 @ 11:09 am
That is lovely to be so close to Montreal. I would be in heaven if I were in driving distance from there. It’s a little bit like living in Europe to be so close, isn’t it?
Happy birthday, Christina. I’m sorry I missed it. You will feel a lot of changes in your soul between 28 and 30 if you’re anything like me. I was so afraid of turning 30 and suddenly I’m here and I feel prettier and smarter than I’ve ever been before and I think this decade will definitely be the best ever. I tell you this because at 28, my thirties seemed like a vast and scary prospect.
And Cirque du Soleil… You lucky devil. I LOVE their shows.
January 28th, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
Montreal is beautiful, isn’t it? I fell in love with the history of it, of the beautiful buildings and the language and the streets and lamp posts and … everything. Even though I could barely string two words in French together (and the only real words I know how to say in French are off of the McDonald’s menu).
I really like pictures of the farmland and silos…they’re beautiful.
January 28th, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
I was quite sure you were in the depths of connecticut.
wow.
January 29th, 2006 @ 1:20 am
beautiful pics!
January 29th, 2006 @ 12:14 pm
what a beautiful day, wonderful moments spent celebrating you and embracing the new year ahead. happy birthday to you!!! 28 was a big year for me, i’m not sure why but it seemed bigger than the big 3-0. perhaps it will be for you, too, since there is so much newness and change on the horizon with the new house and all. enjoy it all, cherish each day!