nouveau blog, un peu pour Danny

Alors, je fais ça pour Danny et les autres qui demandent sans cesse que je note ma vie a quelque part en ligne. Plus tôt cette année je pensais que j'allais faire ca sur le blog de elektra mais finalement c'etait un peu trop publique. Je pense que j'ai jamais fais ca à date parsque j'ecris tout ce que je fais et pense a des amis en chat alors un blog c'est du retappage. On verras bien combien de temps cela va durer. ET si vous pensez vraiment que je vais faire tout ca en français... haha, vous seraient deçus.
Alors, pour Danny, lui maybe en post-crise de la trentaine, moi maybe en pré-crise... mais vraiment je crois quèon est dans un stage pas mal pareil.

Je le copie totalement dans cette initiative, rien d'originale ici. Déja je le trouve un ami avec une bonne téte sur les epaules alors si il croit qu'un blog portant un vrai nom est la bonne chose a faire... ben... j'ai déjà raté mon coup... mais je fais l'effort au moins... on verras ce que ça donne.

you can see Danny's blog here :
http://dannyperreault.blogspot.com/

His first post, save a few details since he has a couple years on me, could have been written by me I guess, as our daily experiences in the past months have been similar. Maybe that is why we met, in Montreal, tired, working on the PD convention. Maybe you think now that this blog is going to be about Danny, well it isn't, just the inspiration to start it has come from him... or maybe I am just trying to show him up by also using his attempt at a cathartic technique of blogging to help myself.

Last year I also suffered some kind of professional burnout, that resulted in my physical body becoming very weak. With the help of my naturopathic doctor, my family and lots of herbs and lentils I averted taking any kind of anti-depressants. I started doing yoga many times and week and I still continue that now, in whatever city and whatever language is surrounding me. Finally, when I was back in some kind of standing-up shape, I received the support of the Canada Council for the Arts to create a small machine that makes rainbows, making it possible for me to have a bit more time to work on a personal project and on strengthening myself.

Since that time I have been in Europe. I feel a lot better, as in, I am no longer lying in bed but I still feel very anxious. I am still afraid of engaging myself to work with any art centers. I guess I feel kind of traumatised by my past experiences in this field, all chaotic, some positive and some negative. I have recently been working with some collectives and groups of people that i trust very strongly and making professional choices based on the "safe" and enjoyable qualities of the jobs rather than on the salary. I hope to continue doing this always, but I am also aware of the reality that in order to survive, I might be wise to start thinking about a different line of where where at least the most standard salaries are a bit higher. This has also led me through many months of reflection about what I like to do for work, what bits of my job are interesting and natural for me.

The people that have been around me in the last few years have most likely found me to be extremely independent, sometimes cold or closed or choppy with my emotions. In some moments I have simply been too stressed with professional things to even really be social or emotional with others. I think I have not stopped to share my daily emotions. In professional settings I rather want to appologise, in the same way a past mentor recently appologised to me, as I may have acted too stressed, scattered, demanding and even inhuman... Now part of my fear of returning to work in cultural industry is that for whatever variety of reasons, the limited conditions often lead everyone into these situations of chaos and many people get abused. I don't accept to work in this way anymore. The desire to work for 'the spirit of culture and the value of the projects' should not be instilled on anyone as a way to get them to work for small compensation. I continue to expect the very most of myself and of others but this now goes hand in hand with some more human values.

I think all this explosiveness was coming for years. Many years. Those who know me have surely noticed that i am often moving far away and on my own. I am not sure how I have managed to keep their attention or why they stay in contact with me because I regularly distance myself in order to deal with myself, thoughts and problems on my own. I have to thanks everyone who does stay in touch with me because it is what allows me to remember myself. Somehow through my work projects and even my won projects, I had forgotten about myself, my body and my place and I guess that is why I got so sick. I had kind of become a robot, or maybe a computer.

When I was sick I was forced to stop everything and so my time became my own again. It seems maybe ironic to say that my time was not my own before as I have always been working on projects where I have a huge amount of creative and time managing freedom. It was not that someone else or a job had taken me over but somehow I had put the control of this into a professional space myself and had in fact lost control of myself. Maybe other people noticed this before I did, maybe not. I wasn't able to catch on until I was quite sick because somehow I was still effective in my work. I remarked that this human wasn't able to see the problems with herself until she was very broken. Maybe its normal behaviour, to not want to face a problem, but I hope I have learned my lesson and won't do that again.

One thing I became aware of because my my friend Danny is that other people do not necessarily see how I feel. When he came to visit me for a calm month in Macedonia, it was a surprise to me that my calm friend, who has taught me a lot about calming down and always seems so professionally and emotionally together was actually not feeling well either. Somehow, even though he kept saying he felt like a huge disaster, he still managed to take care of me and help me a lot, and maybe I have done that for others. So I know that these things are internal, others can help a bit, but most of it is far inside and invisible. I will explore what i can express here, maybe it won't even be much. On that point I have to super thank a few people, some of which I didn't even know well at the time for noticing I was not feeling ok.

In this blog I will try to write a bit about things I have learned about myself, new things I will discover and surely I will insert some random information. I will write a bit about my travels. Its not likely going to be a full revelation and I am not sure if I am writing for you or for me. I think it is mostly for others to read.

In order not to make this into an obligation or stressful assignment, I will not worry about perfection, not stress about typos and not make any claims to write daily or even regularly. I will however try to keep you updated.

I hope for your contributions.

Kyd