2019

Posted on by vaganika

I did a lot of things last year— a lot I wanted to do and a lot I was scared of. Mostly things of both categories, and I feel rewarded for it.

time capsule

I road-tripped through British Columbia, which I’ve wanted to do for years.

I moved into a minivan for which I can’t say I was really eager to do but it went hand-in-hand with road-tripping and inexpensive minimalist living so I did it! because the idea made me uncomfortable and I wanted to be done with that discomfort!

I attended a post-secondary institution for the first time, 4 years out of high school. Pacific Rim College love ya.

I spent the first summer in my life away from the farm I grew up on.

I slept on a futon mattress for 7 months.

My van was broken into and I lost thousands of dollars worth of stuff.

and I drank my body weight in chamomile tea. It was a year of champions, I’d say…

***

So maybe you’re here because I took whole buncha clips while I was road-trippin 6 months ago and just finished compiling them into a video. If so here it is for ya. Thanks for reading and thanks for watching. I appreciate it.

I vlogged my life living in a minivan for a little bit.

Take care of one another. Live passionately and love generously,

Ka

Travelling doesn’t make you happy.

Posted on by vaganika

A few moments of gratitude over the past 2 months~

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🙏🏼

A state of mind or lookout on life is kind of like a pair of shoes. They’re at the base of all forward action— your mindset and the shoes on your feet. When changing them out for new ones you might lose your balance, become unsteady. You have to first take off your old ones, stretch out your naked feet for a minute (that is if you go foot-commando) and try on new ones until you find one that fits well or that you could see yourself growing into.

About a month ago I was introduced to a type of meditation where whenever you’re bringing your attention back to the present and your breath, you say a word or a few words— a mantra. The person who taught me liked to use the words “thank you“. He said for him these words were very powerful. Since then, I’ve started saying this to myself more, and I’ve truly felt really grateful. I attribute this gratefulness in part to this exact practice of saying thank you, and sending energy in the direction of inner appreciation. So, day after day for the past little while, I’ve had some beautiful, open-heart encounters with people, and with them I’ve healed some parts of myself, I’ve changed, I’ve put on a new pair of shoes and I like how they feel. I don’t think it’s chance I met and had these experiences with people, I think it was my energy that attracted it, or manifested it. I feel like the more grateful I have practiced feeling, the more I am being given things “to be grateful for“…

For now at least this is how I feel, these are the shoes I’m wearing. If after wearing them in a bit they don’t feel right or I grow out of them, I’ll put on some new ones. If your shoes aren’t comfortable I recommend you do the same. My new ones are grounding. They conduct energy, connecting me to the earth and to the moment of each step. They make me like walking. After all, life’s all about the journey isn’t it? You gotta have a fitting pair to walk it well. A fitting mindset. I believe just like a pair of shoes in this day and age, that you have endless options, and the power to choose a better way of looking at things for yourself.

✌🏼

So, I wrote a song about a week ago in Cusco, Peru, and yesterday I recorded it for the third time in a teleférico in La Paz, Bolivia. The word “shoes” is nowhere in it, however it comes from the same heart space as what I’ve just shared with you. Two years ago was the last time I wrote and shared a blog post, and shortly afterward I started drafting another titled “travelling doesn’t make you happy“, that has been an idea I’ve wanted to share about since. Hope you enjoy it— “Day by Day”

Un-Depressing Yourself

Posted on by vaganika

The above image of me was taken on the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland, Canada, by my partner in sweaty hiking crime, Max.

Have you seen The Truman Show? If you haven’t. If you have, this is world’s end. I found that clip through reddit recently, and it was part of what inspired me to write this post.

-=-=-

It’s been 7 months since I’ve posted. I’ve thought about it a lot… made drafts… gave up on them. Pulling together a comprehensive, thought-out piece of writing out of my brain (or maybe my ass) often feels as touch-and-go as I imagine it would feel to try to lure a street cat out from behind a garbage bin using a maraca (in this metaphor I’m the maraca and the street cat is the blog post in my ass… Illustrations to come). You gotta figure out just the right shaking strategy that will entice it without scaring it further inside yourself. Ya know??

It felt like my brain was constipated. And the more I push to untangle and straighten out the thoughts in my head onto paper, the worse it gets, solidifying into their messy shape and becoming harder and harder to penetrate… It’s also kinda similar to when you try to give a home to a pill bug (ie; rolie polie, potato bug, and the lesser-known by me doodle bug) and it rolls on up, or when you try to feel the magic of the cornstarch and water mixture that you make in Gr.2 science class but you’re an excited 7-year-old moving at hyperspeed and sCiEnce RuLes… It’s touch-and-go. That’s how it’s been recently. Shout out to you if you feel me on this one.

So when I can’t write and I’m hitting a wall, it’s generally a reflection of my mental/emotional health. And sure enough, 6 months ago, arriving from Mexico, I was depressed:

  • I hadn’t had time to process the stress and negative feelings I’d felt for months in a previous job (but shout out to the people I met because of it, it wasn’t all bad).
  • I had recently ended things with a guy I was seeing.
  • I had no goals and was just getting by, not excited anymore about what I was doing, and not knowing where to go from there.
  • I was worried about returning home, and to my life in Canada. Mostly about being moulded back into the person I used to be because the person I now was wasn’t strong enough to make a place for herself in my old life.
  • I was sick. Like weak and feverish, and no appetite. And when I did eat it was all whistle belly thumps, and then straight into the green apple quick-step on my way to splat-town. I spent just over a month there in splat-town, wouldn’t reccomend it.

I had to change something, and I needed to prove to myself that I had changed, I wasn’t making a mistake coming back, and I wasn’t just stepping back into the place/person I’d been before I left, especially since I’d spent a lot of time in that place/person being unhappy.

So within a week of being home, I found a therapist, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor to get referred to a psychiatrist, I started spending time a spiritual community that congregates on Sundays in Kelowna rather like a church (Kelowna Centre for Spiritual Living), I started seeing a piano teacher, and I joined tinder… Some of these tactics proved more beneficial than others. And I’d have to say there were three above all that helped me the most.

3. Trying antidepressants

The debate about antidepressants is a touchy one. I’m choosing to not take any black-or-white stance on them cuz I don’t like to do that and above anything I value keeping an open mind— open to all sides of an issue, always. I know both someone personally who is benefiting from taking them, as well as someone impersonally— a person I admire, Anna Akana. See her videos here, before antidepressants, and here, after.

…Now, two cases does not a study make, but nor should we ever consider another person’s experience invalid. That’s how I feel at least… So here’s the other side—

Irving Kirsch, in a study he titled Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect, was able to gain access to a large amount of FDA data sets on modern day antidepressants, the majority of which were unpublished. The attention-grabbing findings:

Only 43% of trials showed any statistically significant benefit of the drug to the placebo… Less than half.

This is a pretty famous article from what I can see in internetland. I found it really interesting, it’s worth the full read. Here it is, if that tickles your interest.

So the findings should shock you. 1 because that means the other 57% of trials were failed or actually showed negative results, and 2 because I underlined the word “statistically“.

Statistical significance in this case will tell you that a trial showed a significant percentage of participants (I don’t know what percentage they call significant, maybe 65% or 80%?, couldn’t say) felt an improvement from the drug over the placebo. But statistical significance doesn’t account from how much change the participants felt. That’s clinical significance, and for that Kirsch found that

Patients at the very extreme end of depression severity, those scoring at least 28 on the HAM-D, showed an average drug-placebo difference of 4.36 points.

4.36 points in this case, is a clinically significant change.

To find out how many patients fell within this extremely depressed group, I asked Mark Zimmerman from the Brown University School of Medicine to send me the raw data from a study in which he and his colleagues assessed HAM-D scores of patients who had been diagnosed with unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) after presenting for an intake at a psychiatric outpatient practice (Zimmerman, Chelminski, & Posternak, 2005). Patients with HAM-D scores of 28 or above represented 11% of these patients. This suggests that 89% of depressed patients are not receiving a clinically significant benefit from the antidepressants that are prescribed for them.

Excerpts above taken from Kirsch’s article, Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect section title “Severity of Depression and Antidepressant Effectiveness”

So yeah. That last sentence though.

What I will say about my experience taking antidepressants (fluoxetine was the one I took, aka Prozac) is that it made me see myself and my sadness differently. I’ve experienced bouts of depression and general low mood pretty consistently since I was 13 or 14. Since then my family and I have tried many things from meditation (which is great) to school counselors to artificial sunshine lamps. What I’d settled on for the last little while was a daily 5-HTP vitamin and mindfulness meditation. And I’ve improved a lot, but everytime I hit another spell of depression, I’d often wonder “What if this version of the world I see really is like this because I’m sick? and antidepressants are just modern medicine’s treatment.”…

So finally, when I became depressed this time around, after 5 years of pondering the legitimacy of my reality, I decided to get prescribed… I was on them for two months, so I’m obviously not on them anymore. Doctors sometimes say you have to try to find the right one for you but now having had a bad experience with them, and then knowing the controversy surrounding them, my faith in them has become broken. Which has been good for me in the end, because it did empower me slightly (as empowered as you can feel when depressed) to start to believe that the power to be happy was all in my own hands, and I could finally get my mind past the idea of chemical treatment.

2. Piano

I’m a big fan of reddit. I read this there the other day on the front page from the subreddit r/protips.

image

Before going to Mexico, living in hostels, living on my own for the first time, and staying in other people’s houses, I had never in my life, since I had the physical capability to, consistently made my bed. And that was just a reflection of my life I think, you know? like that thing that went around twitter a couple years ago— “my room is a mess just like my life.”

What a little thing is is to make your bed, and that’s what makes people sway in either direction like—

“Why don’t you just make your bed. It takes less than 5 minutes. It’s such a little thing.”

“Exactly. That’s 5 minutes of my life I can’t get back lol, and for something so little that doesn’t even matter.”

I used to take the latter stance, but now I subscribe to the idea in that life pro tip. Making my bed, keeping my space tidy, and having that little splash of accomplishment, changes everything. And in the same line of thinking, that’s part of what piano is for me (I’m saving going into depth about piano for a different post). When you’re uninspired, feeling hopeless, and scraping through your days confused and without motivation, then big, long-term goals aren’t easy. So I started small.

Make my bed, set up a time with a piano teacher, go to the lesson √

Get up, make my bed, eat breakfast, play piano √*

*I know that’s the square root symbol but rn it’s a checkmark.

For the past 6 months before I started travelling again I’ve made my bed and played piano nearly every single day, and for it I’ve been able to come out of depression with more focus, clarity, and self-confidence than perhaps I’ve ever felt.

1.Therapy

I developed problems with eating when I was about 13 years old. It’s probably what you would call an eating disorder and I have called it that in the past but those words never really felt so comfortable in my mouth— hard to swallow, you could say. But yeah so. I’ve done it all. I’ve lost weight slow, I’ve lost weight fast. I’ve gained it back, I’ve gained it back and then some. I’ve gone long periods without eating, and without stopping eating. I’ve “eaten my feelings” more times than there are calories in exactly 1 piece of low-calorie bread with exactly 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter and an apple just larger than my fist, when cut up is almost exactly 250ml of apple. I’ve felt proud to go to bed hungry, and I’ve exercised for 3 1/2 hours straight, alone in front of a TV because I was bloated. I’ve eaten so much that the pain in my stomach brought me to tears, and I’ve eaten so little for so long that feeling perpetually weak was just what I accepted as normal. I’ve felt resentment towards people for saying things like “I could eat” and “I’m so full” nonchalantly. I’ve attached my perception of my body to my value as a person and I’ve been caught in one of life’s many vicious cycles— addiction… And I’ve lived on a slow and steady incline out of that cycle for the past 6 years, with ups and downs to varying degrees.

Under the stress-pression I was feeling in and out of Mexico, the disorder resurfaced many times, often bringing more stress-pression with it.

So I knew, as I had decided to ride a wave of change in my life, that therapy would be necessary, and I started within 2 weeks of being home, seeing a professional based out of Kelowna specializing in eating disorders. One hour. We talked about everything going in my life. It often changed, each session, to whatever I was dealing with at the time. Not just talking about eating, but other things, too. Many times going in I would feel like I had nothing to say only to start talking (and often subsequently crying) and hit the end of the session without having stopped. Like most people I’ve tended to bury things deep. Now because of that time and my therapist Kim, I’ve come a long way. Just an hour, every two weeks. It’s not been the whole key to happiness but it’s been one of the steps up to the door.

Wake up, make my bed, go to therapy √

-=-=-

So this has been how I un-depressed myself this time around. I tried something different, I made goals, and I asked for help. I’m sure your experience in un-depression will be different, interesting, beautiful, and equally important.

Join me next time when I talk not just about living un-depressed, but actually living happily 😀 at least my view on it at 19 years old.

If you’re dealing with any of the feelings I’ve talked about in this post, feeling depressed, unhappy, or dealing with what you might think is an eating disorder, please talk about it. Tell someone. Preferably a therapist or counselor because although sometimes our family and friends often really care about us and can also sometimes help, I find that getting out of that bubble of your life and speaking to a professional on the outside can be extremely refreshing and beneficial.

We all have at least one song we like to listen to to try and boost our spirits when we’re sad, this is mine (I actually like it so much I learned how to play it)—

Ed Sheeran – “Even My Dad Does Sometimes”

Live compassionately and love generously,

❤ Anika

Where We Choose to Be (feat. right and wrong, and “quick threes”)

Posted on by vaganika

 

Goodbye, Zamora.

– – – – –

 A Colombiano, a Brazileño, and a Canadiense walk into a Mexicano salsa club.

Sometimes I struggle with the idea of definitive right and wrong. I don’t think it’s sensible, the question we often pose for ourselves—”Did I make the right decision?“—, because I think it’s rare that we can answer it with any sort of certainty or truth, and all we can accomplish by really trying to, is more uncertainty, and often, insecurity in ourselves and our actions.

The house was full— not a single empty booth or table in sight, band jamming on stage to a fast-paced rhythm-heavy Mexican salsa, bartenders squeezing through the quick-stepping dancing couples, and an energy in the air that could be felt in your lungs with each breath, like a numb tingling excitement.

With millions of moments happening in millions of places around the world, and therefore perhaps just as many possibilities available to us in deciding where to live our lives, can we really say that any decision we make about where to be in any given moment is definitively right or wrong in the long run?

The thing is that the world, its people, and every part of it— in every beautiful corner of it— is composed of the same matter. Just in new and different combinations. I believe that no matter where we are, we hold the possibility for all the same experiences— happiness, sadness, love, loneliness, excitement, boredom, etc. etc. etc— and really the only difference there is from place to place is in the form of composition of matter. The reason we feel changes in ourselves when we move from place to place, is really about our life before that point, our experiences, the familiarity we already have, and chance.

She was a shitty dancer.

Realistically, the only thing we can do is try to be aware of ourselves and our situations, and then make the best guess we can as to what is the right thing to do moving forward.

1. Accept uncertainty.

Recently I had to make a difficult decision. In light of this, my dad gave me some cookies of advice in the form of “quick threes” *

*Sets of 3 correlating questions or ideas that can help us in specific or general real-life difficult situations.

The first and second sets of “quick threes” he gave me follow:

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When I was really thinking about them, I found these questions— as basic as they seem— really hard to answer. Every time I tried to answer one, the voice of someone else came into my head; after days of listening to what other people thought and wanted, I was having trouble finding my own opinion.

2.Listen to yourself.

And although I was able to take away some valuable insight from the first two, I think the most beneficial quick 3 for me was the third. It comes in the form of a metaphor:

“At times, our journey can be like a road that winds around corners, has steep hills up and down, and long straight stretches. Sometimes we can’t tell if we are struggling on the hills rounding the corner, or barrelling down the straight stretches, and we ask ‘how do we know when we need to stop and change directions?'”

Quick 3 to help you decide:

1.Sometimes we miss the scenery if we are going too fast.

2.We learn best when we struggle.

3.It always feels good to accelerate out of the corners.

– – – – –

After 10 minutes spent weaving through the crowd, they found 2 empty seats in a little corner on the second floor, next to a railing overlooking the stage band.  The ambient light in the club appeared to flow in and around the space, swirling with the dancing couples and colouring them with a warm yellow-orange-red energy. And not before long, the three of them were a part of it.

In the universal language of dance, she was a baby, speaking in broken talk like mess up n not be fluently things + crawling. But in her baby eyes you could see that to her, this place was another world. And really, it was many. A building full of people composed of them. Each person in their own reality, with their own present motivations and past experiences. Their own lives, and their own reasons for deciding to be there.

It was a good night. She was happy. And because of that, the thoughts of what could’ve been didn’t come. In that moment, the decisions she had made to get there, had been right ones.

How we feel in the present, and the experiences we accumulate over time completely affect the view we have of our past (“hindsight” is the word). It’s not a question of whether we made the right decisions, it’s how we feel in this moment of our lives, and if that happens to be unhappy, why? and how can we change it.

Now for the third and final of my “quick three” three for making a difficult decision:

3.Make a decision, then move on.

– – – – –

What I had to decide in February was whether to stay and fulfill my contract in Zamora, or leave. It wasn’t easy. Sometimes I feel ashamed that I quit, but I still feel it was the best for me. Shout-out to anyone in Zamora who is reading this, lots of love always to the Culturlingua crew <3.

Now I’m in Mexico City. Staying in a hostel and taking some Spanish classes. Meeting even more amazing people and livin’ la vida loca.

image (11)

I’m enjoying it.

Anyway this post was to help myself gather my thoughts and realize that it’s okay to be confused about life. Life is crazy. If you can be okay with not knowing all the answers, and remain happy, well that’s all that really matters. I’ve always been a fan of this postsecret submission—

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Live compassionately and love generously.

Everybody wants to rule the world. For kicks.

Peace and Loneliness

Posted on by vaganika

These nights.
Close the door, turn on the light,
shut out the world, and hold myself tight.
They’re cold, these nights
and lonely.
.
Nothing matters anymore—
not the day, nor it’s pain.
My back is not sore
because I’m laying down now,
and I am at home.
I am alone.
.
And while there may be pain my feet are holding,
when I close the door,
I’m nothing more than unfolding
like reverse origami or taking a blouse out of a drawer,
but really like dropping your paper crane in a puddle
or accidentally tearing a hole in your heart
because these nights
I try to hold myself tight,
and I try to hold myself together.
I know my back hurts and I can feel blood pulse through my tired ankles
but it’s only the pain of an empty room that I can see.
It’s dark outside, and in here, there is only me.

 

+++

In Spanish there is one word to accommodate both “alone” and “lonely”. Solo/a. It depends on the context and how you choose to communicate yourself which connotation it will have.

In the same case, with English, because of the existence of both, we have the ability to express (with the same word bank) two very different feelings in what is, in my opinion, a very poetic way:

“I am alone, but I am not lonely.”

“I am not alone, but I am lonely.”

I feel my life so far has been a good mix of these two situations. Having the heart of an introvert, the first. And under the grip of depression, the second…

But perhaps there is a third to this sequence; “I am lonely, but I am not alone.” (It’s similar to the second, but I find that it’s important which note something ends on.)

And this variation, the third variation, is, in short, how I have been trying to approach picturing my loneliness.

In a swirling paradox of positivity and peace, I start by recognizing my own loneliness (I am lonely!), and then recognizing other people’s loneliness (but I am not alone!), and then realizing that if I am not alone in my lonely feeling, then can I really be lonely? And sometimes that works. And other times it doesn’t.

Okay:

  • I live alone in an a two bedroom, half-empty apartment.
  • In a quiet city, in a country that speaks a language that, for all intents and purposes, I do not speak.
  • My job, at the moment, is a substitute teacher at a language school. It is at times stressful and, without my own classes, I do not feel that I am really able to make lasting connections with my students, or that I am really fully fitting into the school atmosphere.
  • I am new here, and because of the various reasons listed above, I am having a hard time finding people with similar interests to befriend and make plans with.

This is a new experience for me.

Let me tell you about the first month I was here; I was new to Zamora, obviously (Zamora, Michoacan, Mexico, where I currently reside). I didn’t have wifi in my apartment, and I had very limited data on my phone. Every night after work, without friends to make plans with, or internet to talk to people back in Canada, I came home around 9pm to an emptiness in my apartment, and in myself haha deeeep.

Especially in these nights it would hit me very hard— the loneliness. I really wouldn’t talk to anyone, excluding basic conversation with clerks or people in markets, until I went to work the next day at 4pm (or in the morning, too, if I decided to walk to the school for internet)… So…yeah… those nights weren’t easy for me. Hence the poem⇑.

And although I still have my moments, I’m feeling a lot better than I was back then. My life has changed a little bit, and as well, the facts about my life that I choose to think about have changed:

I live alone.

I can be always naked. It’s great.

I live in a big, half-empty apartment.

There’s a space for every naked activity. (apartment *half-full)

In a quiet city.

It’s peaceful and safe. And I’m slowly finding my way into social groups and meeting people. Everything takes time, and I already feel that Zamora is going to be a wONdErfULLL place to get to know.

In a country that doesn’t speak my language.

Every day is a challenge, and every day I become a little bit closer to being able to say I can speak Spanish (which is kind of one of my goals). Not to mention that Mexicans are almost always happy and supportive when they hear a foreigner try to speak their language.

My job can be stressful, and I can’t connect with my students.

I really actually like my job. Right now it’s a little bit awkward, but I am learning soooo muchhh, gaining so much experience, and it’s getting easier… And less than month from now, I will have my own classes and my own students. I’m excited.

+++

Loneliness is something we all feel at one time or another, like any other feeling. I find it particularly helpful to look up [insert negative emotion here] quotes on the internet and just read them when I’m feeling [insert same negative emotion]. They are usually really helpful reminders. If you are in the same boat as me right now, this is for you. If you’re sad, here you go. Angry? here. Confused? Anxious? Stressed? Cats? …

The most important thing, I think, to remember when you are lonely, is to just keep on keeping on. I know if I keep saying yes to people who invite me out, if I keep going outside everyday just to do something, if I keep myself busy, and trying new things, then things will be okay. I will be okay. Nothing is permanent. My life changes in every second and will continue to do so until I die. I can’t expect to be lonely forever, I just have to make the best of this emotion while it is here within me:

It was because of my loneliness in that first month, that I took up blogging. I would write a post on a microsoft word document, and take my computer to the school for internet so I could upload it. And I’m so happy I did!…

Because I’ve been lonely, I’ve started doing new mood-boosting activities like zen-doodling and working out. Which is awesome!…

One day, because I was lonely, I went for a walk to central Zamora, and met an old Mexican lady in the park. She was also lonely. And she had dementia. We went back to her apartment and she showed me pictures of all of her dead relatives, two or three times in a rotation, because dementia. We drank fresca!…

And finally, because of my loneliness, I enjoy my time with people more than I ever have.

So there you go, there’s a positive side to everything.

image

(Another zen-doodle I drew trying to combat loneliness)

+++

I didn’t even swear in this post. Holy shit.

Live compassionately, love generously. You’re never alone.

Until next time,

Anika.

Being a “Yes” Person (Day 1)

Posted on by vaganika

The night before the day of my return flight to Canada for Christmas, I took a bus from Zamora to Guadalajara (because airport) and spent the night with my friend, Sam, in his room at the Vilasanta (pictured above), the hostel in Guadalajara in which we’d met, and that I had stayed in and come to know so well the month previous. This was the first time I’d been back to the city in just over 4 weeks.

For the trip by bus, I had trekked with me, my ginormopack filled with Mexican Christmas gifts, my sports duffle bag I use as a carry-on, and a small plastic bag with two containers of fresh Papas Zamoranas —*mouth waters*— that I brought as a dinner for him and I to share.

As we sat on the rooftop patio eating our 9:00pm dinner of papas, peach juice, and tostadas with refried beans, I told him about how it was strange for me to be back in this place— this hostel. How it felt like returning to the set of a movie after the movie was over (and with that, I’m 3 for 3 on my blog post to movie metaphor ratio).

*—*

I had had a beautiful 6 weeks in Guadalajara. Met beautiful people. Had beautiful conversations. Saw beautiful places… And it all started when I agreed to get my make-up done by a group of girls on the street, ending up lost, alone, and tired, three and a half hours later, looking like a drag queen.

DAY 1

To be fair, Ana Paola wasn’t trying to make me look like a drag queen, and there’s nothing bad about being a drag queen. I think it just has something to do with my body type and facial features that can easily be manipulated (sometimes accidently) to become sexually ambiguous. Fun fact about me.

But let’s start from the beginning beginning how bouts it.

I arrived at the Vilasanta around 6:30am, after a night without sleep. After being told specifically by ITTO (the school I was to attend for the next month that also had set up my taxi ride and housing) not to pay the taxi driver anything (as it had been payed for), I payed my taxi driver something— Tomás… and double what he asked, because I didn’t know how to explain in Spanish that I knew it was already paid for, or how to ask for change… it wasn’t my greatest moment. Fuck you Tomás for taking advantage of my foreignness. Fuck you and fuck my Canadian-ness for being okay with it… Actually, it’s okay, I don’t mind, don’t fuck yourself. Hope you had a nice Christmas.

Upon arrival at the Vilasanta, I met Nano, an 18 year old chap like myself (except a chap), who’s family had run this hostel for many a year. It was Nano that informed me that the private room I had reserved wasn’t available until 4 or 5 days later, and so I would have to sneak, in the early morning, into the fourth and last free bed of a dorm room while three other people I didn’t know were sleeping. So I did. And passed out pretty hard for about 4 hours.

When I woke up it was around noon, and it was one of those wake-ups when you forget where you are exactly and get confused, but then all your memories of the previous day come back to you at once and you’re like “well shit, I’m not at home in my comfortable, warm bed with a fridge full of food and nothing to do today“, except this time I wasn’t out in the middle of the woods, hungover and covered in forest shit, in the back of my parents frosty-ass car with 4 other people, one of whom (male) wearing only a tube top and a mini-skirt is hence shaking like a wet chihuahua and stealing all my blankets… Shout-out to high school bush parties in rural BC.

Aaanywaay,

Waking up, I realized I was alone, and in more than just the dorm room, but in life… Yeah.

I’m not gonna say that culture shock was really hard on me, but I’m also not gonna say that the first two days I spent in Mexico were easy for me. I’ve talked about it before, but I had never before been on my own like this, or in a non-English speaking, not modernised country (as well I was there without much of a long-term plan). What I will say about the first two days is that there was a hard, steep, humbling, and fast learning curve that I overcame in my way of thinking. A general overview of it would be:

“Fake it til you make it.”

And we’ll maybe get more into that another time… Continuing,

After a few moments of silent contemplation and slow, heavy breathing with my faced pressed against the back of the door to my room as I hovered my fingers over the handle, I gathered the courage to open it and step out. This is when I met Daphne, an inside-and-out beautiful woman who works the front counter during the week, and also speaks English. Daphne gave me the low-down on how the hostel worked, and where I could find the nearest markets, so I could start being able to cook my own food; it was on this journey(to find food)— my first journey into the city — that I found myself in the beautifully awkward aforementioned circumstance… I wish I’d taken a picture.

Long story short, I was lost to start with, trying to find the Soriana. Three girls attending a local beauty college were looking out on the street for a volunteer to model for them for 3 hours that afternoon, and approached me. This marked the first time I agreed to something in Spanish that I didn’t necessarily mean to agree to; I was tired af, hungry, in dire need of a bathe, and I was agreeing to follow three strangers to an unknown place— who knows how far away?—, in a city that I’m virtually completely unfamiliar with, and then sit unmoving, in a chair, awake, for the rest of the afternoon. God. To add to that, if you can remember, I didn’t have enough Spanish to make it through a 20 minute taxi ride. This was 3.5 hours…

…so 3.5 hours of almost falling asleep in the makeup chair, misunderstood small talk and awkward silences, various coloured lipliners, extensive eyebrow glueing, heavy concealer/bronzer application, sky-high black eyeshadow, and a multitude of face glitters and eyelash extensions later, it was over… and LOL it was just not me. I’m not sure what or who it was, but it was not me. I wasn’t ready for Guadalajara to see me like I was; I was ready for Vegas. And I wasn’t ready to be ready for Vegas. I was ready to emotional-eat some guacamole toast and call it a day.

Maybe you’re thinking I was being too judgemental of the makeup job, and unfortunately, since I don’t have a picture, I can’t show you. But I can tell you that I was not the only one at the beauty school who noticed that it was just not working on my face. Half-hearted smiles were a major thing when Ana Paola presented the finished product… So after I thoroughly crushed Ana Paola’s spirit by attempting, in broken Spanish, to ask if there was a bathroom so I could take off the drag makeup (I felt like an asshole jsyk), I wandered out on to the street and proceeded to realize that I had no idea where I was. I wandered aimlessly for a couple minutes, trying to look like I knew where I was going, until I finally caught a distant glimpse of my guardian angel, this place—

IMG_3237

Templo Expiatorio.

Possessing a heaven-scraping right tower, adorned on its peak with a blue neon cross that can be seen from blocks away day and night, this magnificent church-thedral became my home base on many occasions (also for the fact that it is located very close to my hostel).

IMG_3255

IMG_3254

Inside vertical panorama, and the view from outside.

I’m not sure I ever made it to the supermarket that first day. After I returned to my hostel, I met my room-mates; two girls who were just finishing their TEFL certification here at ITTO, and a cool dood named Thomas who I would get to know the month following, in our TEFL course together. I then proceeded to shower, siesta, and head back out to find some food. Daphne had given me directions to one other place, very near to the hostel:

IMG_3524.JPG

A cute af mercadito that I found came with a cute af market boy. This was my place to go for good avocados, cute market boy convos, and Canada Dry ginger ale when I was needing a little canuck in my life…

So yeah, that was the day.

*—*

I learned a lot in my first few days in Guad. I learned that, in Mexico, you should pretty much address everyone informally (tu) unless they’re really, really old or you’re in some formal business situation (usted). I learned to pay attention to where I was going when walking in an unfamiliar city. And I learned that it’s important to generally be a “yes” person— or perhaps a “sí” person, as it were— even when you don’t really feel like it (a “yes” person, being a person who says “yes” to new experiences)…

It’s easy for me, or someone like myself— with a history of being anxiety-prone— to be a “no thanks” person. The problem with being a “no thanks” person is that you really aren’t living real life. If you live like a “no thanks”er, you’re living in a little personal bubble, avoiding change, and that ain’t what life is, bruh.

“No thanks” people say “no thanks” because they fear something about life, and they prefer the familiarity they feel in their habitual pattern over that which they feel when taking risks or trying new things that have unknown consequences. The thing is, I think, that the moment you stop taking risks in life, leaving your comfort zone every once in a while, or trying new things, is the moment you truly start dying. I don’t think the point of living is to just get by on a minimum amount of effort, ruled by fear of the unknown, and never strive for self-improvement. Taking risks is always rewarding in one way or another. Though the situation I found myself on the first day for being a “si” person was more or less difficult and I didn’t entirely enjoy it, I don’t regret saying yes to it in any way. Because it was funny, and I learned from it… I became self-aware of my guttural reaction to please people, and of my sexually ambiguous capabilities.

So if you are also someone who can have trouble with being a “no thanks”er, just remember that realistically, you probably aren’t going to die from taking risks in life, and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger (and/or sometimes makes for a decent story). Also don’t forget that there are so many beautiful things in life that you can only discover if you actively try… and you only got one life… #YOGOL.

*—*

Hope you enjoyed. I found it a little hard to write like this, in the way of actually documenting events of a day (like a travel blog usually is). I don’t know. I’m still tryin to find my style here. We’ll see how/where it goes.

I’ll leave you with a little taste of the 90’s in Mexico:

Cafe Tacvba – Esa Noche 

Live compassionately, love generously, be a “yes” person, #yogol… Hasta next time,

Anika

Guadalajara

Posted on by vaganika

Guadalajara

Fade in:

INT: GDL ARRIVALS GATE 5:55AM

A some 100 people surround the exit gate, waiting with anticipation. A line of arriving passengers begins to flood out into the waiting area.

Cut to:

The face of a young girl as she enters under the sign marked “Llegadas”.

VAGANIKA Tall, olive-skinned, Canadian youngster. Excited yet apprehensive, and approaching the 48th hour of her day, she enters the waiting area in a state of fatigue, and quick disorientation.

FUTURE NARRATOR VAGANIKA can be heard, narrating  from some unknown time or situation in the future, as VAGANIKA ambles through the waiting area.

FUTURE NARRATOR VAGANIKA

My silent mind I could feel floating around me, as my rhythmic steps became my only focus. Under the guidance of my feet, my body travelled calmly forward. My heart was quiet and my thoughts were few, despite fear and uncertainty. I was moving, perhaps for the first time, without a plan. As a heavy thinker (sometimes obsessive), this was majorly uncharted waters for me; I had to let go of worry. I had to work out each step of the plan at the time I executed it. Sometimes these kinds of moments—  when your body takes control— are full of adrenaline, and other times, I think, they are just a tranquil feeling—a feeling of acceptance. That is, acceptance with the world and situation you find yourself in. You are able to (perhaps out of necessity) drop your thoughts and emotions clean from your mind. Let go. And your body takes the wheel.

VAGANIKA

Dang.

******

Movies are amazing. I used to think that life in the movies was perfect, and ever since I was a little girl—really, since I can remember—, I’ve wanted my life to be like a movie. The difference between me then and me now is that I no longer expect it to be…

…Or maybe that’s not true.

Maybe just eventually, over that time, I was able to realize that movies themselves aren’t even perfect, and thus any aspirations or hopes for perfection in life are unattainable; for if I have no proof of perfection existing, I have no reason to believe it’s possible… so consequently I perhaps did start believing my life could be like the movies, for the reason that movies are not actually that amazing (in relative terms, here).

…Are you following me? If you are, it’s possible you’re now thinking a couple of things, the first being “WeLL aNIkA, i dISagReE. MoVieS aRE tHe shIT.” And the second, “Well that’s moderately depressing.” If you’re not following me, keep trying, I might reach a point eventually…

So okay, to hopefully kill three birds with one stone—movies are the shit. They’re great. They’re a remarkable, huge, beautiful spectacle of the human spirit, and of human innovation. But my thought here— and stay with me on this one— is that perhaps so, and just as much, is everything else in life…?…Preguntas?… Let me follow this through.

When I was about 14, after years of body/self image issues, weight gain/loss, disordered eating, social anxiety, and what I would later recognize as seasonally affective depression (when your emotional well-being changes with the seasons), I had what I would call a major depressive episode. It was in this time that I came to believe that life, at least for me, was not and could never be like it was in the movies—at least in the way that I imagined them at the time, which was more or less “perfection” or “true happiness”. Since then, with some time, effort, MISTAKES, therapy, counseling, vitamins, exercise, meditation, and experience came a different point of view for me that continues to change and grow to this day.

Nowadays I would deviate to say that movies are just a part of life like anything else. They make us feel happy, angry, scared, sad, peaceful, confused, turned on, surprised, excited, or any array of emotions, just like so many other things in life. They just deliver those sensations to us quick and easy, and give us that “problem-solved“, “all-is-well” satisfaction that we crave. I feel like we worship movies in a similar way we do social media, and celebrity culture. We use all of these things daily, to push aside our own perceived life problems for however long we can…

And that’s what depressing to me.

Because when we lose touch with the less desirable parts of our lives, I believe that without noticing, we stop being able to see a lot of the good stuff.  I think if we can utilise these things— movies, social media, and other forms of entertainment— as life-enriching—like a nice complimenting spice blend to the meal of our lives— rather than as a life laxative to rid us of all substance— good and bad—that life has to offer, we could all breathe just a little more peacefully. And take more pleasurable shits.

*badum-tsh.*

Boooo.

When we are not avoiding facing our everyday lives with media—when we use it in moderation and turn our focus inward—, we have more time, and are able to see the true nature of our own lives and problems. It often takes time to dig beneath the difficult emotions we have buried or purposely not acknowledged, but it is worth it. As we touch moments of peace, we are able to see wonders and beauty in places we never would have before looked. With mindful awareness of the world, what we do, and where we are, we can bring an “all-is-well” peace to our lives, in every day, and perhaps every moment…

…For me, when I am able to look deeply with mindfulness, I can see my life appear more like the movies (that is, I have more “movie moments”) and vice versa, when I watch a movie with mindfulness, I see it appear more like “real life” (that is, imperfect and “real”).

So let’s start again. This time, the real story.

It was 5:55am in Guadalajara. I disembarked the plane with my carry-on, continued to the luggage carousel to pick up my backpack, and eventually made my way to customs. I was here on my own, a little in shock, and had just spent the entire night jumping from plane to plane on about 45 minutes sleep, so I more or less withdrew mentally.

Walking out of the departures gate with my taxi voucher in hand, I was surrounded by Mexican families awaiting their loved ones’ returns. For the first time of the many to come, I could feel neighbouring eyes following me, attracted to my foreign scent like flies to fresh caca. I was too tired to give a caca about it, but I nonetheless took mental notice— I wasn’t going to blend in here.

I exited the airport to the taxi station where I slugged, with my heavy-ass backpack, towards the type of taxis I knew I was to take (as there was a picture of one on the voucher), and followed a man who gestured towards me to get into his.

My driver was a chipper middle-aged Mexican man named Tomás. He didn’t speak any English, and at the time, I spoke very little Spanish, so our small talk was muy small-ito, no matter how many times Tomás tried to save it. We were about 20 minutes short of topics into a 22 minute drive.

As I sat there in silence while seatbelt-unbuckled Tomás with a full-sized city map sprawled across the wheel and part of the wind shield, drove us through the winding avenues and one-ways of Guadalajara, I felt completely calm.

It still appeared dark like it were almost night outside, but the day was surely just beginning in the city; outside my window I could see people coming out of their houses, taking out the garbage, smoking, driving their cars, talking, and getting on their motorcycles with their families or going to work—homeless people and street dogs still fast asleep. Eventually the sun followed suit, arriving quietly in the east, bringing a subtle, kind glow to the assortment of pastel-coloured, brick-built houses, and a cool lagoon-azul tint to the sky.

The people, the buildings, the streets, the dogs, the cars, the trash, the sunrise, crazy Tomás—everything about that time engulfed me. I imagine if I had actually slept the previous night, my eyes would have been wide as plates the whole time I was in that taxi. I was experiencing something so beautifully alien to me, yet so normal and perhaps mundane as far as the city was concerned… and it felt like something important was happening.

Despite, or perhaps partially because of knowing all the daunting facts—I was young, alone, in an unfamiliar culture with an unfamiliar language, and without much of a plan as to what my next year was going to look like—I was experiencing an honest, authentic, real world. Seeing things in this way and accepting the world for what it was in that moment made me begin to think about the differences— about where I was (Spanish-speaking, unmodernised, warm climate Mexico) and where I was coming from (Canada.)…

[At the risk of sounding really meta and cheesy, I’m going to throw a quick prefacing note in here before I finish… because travelling can make you deep (or a babbling idiot…?).]

In viewing the world with mindfulness, I believe you can realize the true miracle of existence. Witnessing all the aspects of life that come together around you every day is nothing out of the ordinary, for you do it every second of every day, with your own eyes. Nonetheless these things are wonderful and beautiful and amazing if that’s how you decide to see it.

And I don’t think you’re crazy if you think to see it that way.

In fact I think you’d be very wise, for the fact that that’s what I believe to be a very true and positive version of reality…

…In the moment, it was amazing the fact that right then, and for all those years, those people and that place had been breathing the same air from the same atmosphere as me/ feeling the push and pull of the same environment/ sharing a landmass/ sharing oceans/ sharing ancestors/ ideas/ news/ friends/ and sharing everything to do with this world with me. Any interesting story that ever played out in my life, was a completely different story for someone else here, told and understood in another language. These people and this land had known different lives, different struggles, and different perspectives… but still remained to appear so similar in their ways to those that I knew. We were all there, together right then, creating the scene for the movie of each other’s lives. And I was just that one taxi passing in the background.

*****

So it was like I was touching every moment of my life—past, present and future. My past being what brought me to that point—what I was made of— and the present moment at the time being a moment I knew I would look back on in the future, as well as a “clear-cut definitive life turn” type of moment, that would serve as a symbol or marker for a period of time that I would identify to have lead me in the direction of wherever I was to go in life. It felt like the beginning of an adventure movie… And maybe it was.

*****

So thanks for reading, once again. I feel like thanks is always in order for anyone that takes the time to do that.

I’ve got a few more post ideas on the way, including one that actually talks about what I’ve been up to/doing in Mexico. Lol. I’ll get to it eventually. Sometimes it’s just more fun to write this way. Hope you enjoy it…

And just to quickly touch on the third and final content promise of my URL, a fave Canadian group of mine just came out with some new music that you can find on soundcloud (and now itunes):

Tennyson

I would describe what they’ve got as jazzy electronic mood music… ❤ fucking love it. Check them out. Check out the new and old stuff. Some faves of mine are Smother and With You, but I love all dem songs, honestly. Honestly.

Okay so adios, enjoy your day!/Merry Christmas!/Happy New Year! I’m currently home for the holidays and enjoying every moment.

Live compassionately and love generously,

Anika

Intro

Posted on by vaganika

Welcome one and all. “Bienvenditos” as my dad would try to say.

is that spanish

It’s más o menos Spanish, dad. But it’s the effort that counts.

And I truly believe that, because mistakes are the best. They’re proof that you’re really trying, and anyone who tries is a winner in my book. Gold stars.

I mean really—the more mistakes the better. I’m talking like every day… every time you go outside… every time you do basic real-life tasks… Daily, if you walk through a doorway more times than you fuck up, then you’re not trying hard enough—

Or you’re living in a culture that you’re familiar with…

(Probably that.)

…Transition…

So let us imagine an ongoing tally that began counting the day I arrived in Mexico from Canada. Now if I had a peso for every time I:

  • Mistakenly agreed to something in Spanish that I didn’t mean to agree to and then just went with it
  • Hardcore stumbled in public because I trusted the sidewalk to be flat
  • Mispronounced someone’s Spanish name two-four times in a row
  • Overused the word “Gracias” and then made someone feel uncomfortable or offended
  • Royally butchered the classic handshake into cheek touch/kiss greeting

Or

  • Fell knee-deep into a hole in the sidewalk,

I’d have enough for at least a few cheap street tacos that are rumoured to be made of dog meat (if it’s cheaper than 10 pesos, it’s made of perros). Or was it horses? I can’t remember, and it really doesn’t matter too much to me anyway, being that I’m vegan and of the belief that all animals— despite species—(and the earth) should be utmost respected; I don’t eat meat of any sort, and I also don’t buy street tacos. I digress.

Mistakes are a beautiful, beautiful thing—a natural part of living in this world—, and in my opinion, they should be more highly valued in society. If I could, I’d like to suggest to the world (maybe more specifically, the people at Microsoft and Apple that design the word processors) that we start putting a little section on our resume templates allotted for fuck-ups. If we want, we can make it so the fuck-up is the headline, and then the paragraph below is about what you were trying to do and what fucking it up taught you about life. Maybe like this:

Stepped into a foot-sized hole in a city sidewalk (knee-deep)

  October 2015- Guadalajara, Mexico
I was attempting to walk back to my hostel from the ITTO office in Guadalajara, whilst choosing a good late-afternoon walking song to accompany me on my phone. From this mistake I have come to bring more value to my life and health, for at any moment, everything I take for granted could be taken from me by the will of god. In the shortest of seconds, the confidence-boosting Earth, Wind and Fire classic, “Shining Star”, went from the anthem of success and self-assurance in my life, to my current memory trigger back to a sliver in time when I lost my grip on reality as the literal world beneath me I thought I could trust, ceased to exist, leaving me caught in a perilous limbo between the here and the underworld… Really, I could’ve broken my leg or something.

…I’d hire me probably.

—-

So okay—welcome. Bienvenditos to my blog. It starts here and ends somewhere in the future— I couldn’t say when. I’m still not too sure what I’ll be talking about in it from day to day yet (not meaning that it will be updated daily), but I’ve been able to nab the wordpress domain “music travel peace” so you can be prepared for some of those topics, and probably a lot of the shit that you just read to get to this point. I promise I’ll try to keep it interesting—and honest. My goal isn’t for people to look at my life here and just see a run-down of my day with pictures of the most exciting parts of it so it looks like that’s all my life is. I feel like sometimes we make a distinction between our own lives and others; there’s a good saying that sums it up quite well, and it’s

“Don’t compare your behind-the-scenes with other people’s highlight reels.”

This is something that really resonates with me; we all have behind-the-scenes, and we all have highlight reels. It’s just not often that people put their behind-the-scenes on their main menus, they’re usually found in the special features, which is sometimes on a complete other disk… And then highlight reels are always right there playing over and over next to the main menu options on a 30 second loop with exciting music… What would the actual movie be in this metaphor? Is life the disk or the tv?… Who’s holding the remote? Let me know in the comments lol. And once again I digress.

So I want to share the experiences and opinions I have that I think are interesting or funny and can matter to others (along with pictures/stories of some of the highlight reel) in order to hopefully bring us closer together or even start discussions. I want everyone to understand that I’m just figuring things out in life as I go, just as much as anyone else is, because that’s the truth. So sometimes I’ll feel like writing like a silly idiot, and sometimes I won’t (and I’ll still write), but no matter what, I’ll do my best to stay honest.

—-

So this is the end of my first post. Until next time, my friends. I just wanted to give the best I could of a short introduction to my blog, and I’ll later start updating you with some real details about what I’ve been getting up to. I expect it to be a few posts to be able to catch you up to my current situation, and like I said, I’ll try my best to keep it interesting… but it is also my blog, so it’ll sometimes be stuff that maybe only I think is interesting 🙂 and I am super open to answering questions and writing about suggested topics. 🙂 🙂

Live compassionately and love generously,

Anika