Brain Purge

What’s your chocolate?

Ain’t it funny what triggers your creativity. What makes you write. What makes you ache to express what’s stuck inside. What makes you write about what’s stuck inside to let it go when you don’t even know you need to let it go.

Today Gene Wilder passed away at 83 years old. As a kid (and until this day) my favourite movie was Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the one that was made in 1971. Everyone I told as a kid would give me that look of ‘really, that’s your favourite movie?’ but now it all makes sense. It was about dreams coming true, fantasy, the unknown and escaping reality all while showcasing the quirkiness in people with warmth. Little did I know that these things would fuel my ride in life. Young Charlie was a regular boy who poured his heart into the little things in life, like getting that golden ticket. It was just a piece of paper but as a boy that grew up with family love as his biggest abundance, to experience a world that was only seen through a tiny, fuzzy TV screen was a dream come true. Little did he know that family love was a huge blessing. (He even took his Grandpa with him on the adventure). Charlie poured out passion, curiousity and vulnerability in every step he took. To me these are attributes that lead to success. That lead to conquering this so-called thing called life.

Oh, and I was totally Veruca Salt for two Halloweens in my Mom’s fur coat from the 70’s, british accent and all.

“If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. You can change the world there’s nothing to it.” -GW

Life can be hard. Find those things that let you escape for a moment or two. Regroup, tap into your true being and continue conquering what makes you tick. I’m going to be honest, I focused a lot on myself this past month. It’s a healthy type of selfish to give your mind and body some extra love.

“There is no life I know to compare to pure imagination. Living there you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.” -GW

It made me feel like those crazy dreams, hopes and wishes were within arms grasp. I mean, boating down a chocolate river? Dude, that’s dope.

Sometimes it’s just the simple things in life but they all add up. Be in the moment completely. Take a bite of your chocolate, that thing that makes you go Mmmm.. on the inside, to fuel your drive to where you want to get. -k

But Charlie, don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted… he lived happily ever after.

Please Excuse Me For a Moment.

Often I have the urge to write. It’s where I go when I don’t want to go anywhere else. Often I sit down just like I am now with no direction; mind racing in thirty-two directions, my thoughts crashing into imaginary walls as I watch from afar and judge their motives. Full moon tendencies are on a high tonight in my veins. I can see the full moon across the room through the window, six floors above the late night streets of downtown Toronto. Oh hey, werewolves. I just blanked. So I opened pinterest and the first quote I saw (no joke) was this… “To make the right choices in life you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.” Shh. I’m not afraid of that. I crave the challenge or the truth. What about you? And why did I see that right now…

Now what… dot dot dot…

You know what is refreshing? Reading the true tales of humans. The icky parts. The imperfect race through it all. Just lay it on the line. Because you feel so called ‘normal’. Being in the new age social media scene eats at me sometimes. (How’s that for true tales…) I adore it. I adore the sharing and creativity and artistry of it. I adore seeing the highs of fellow acquaintances and strangers. I enjoy cheering them on from my smartphone. I also adore being raw. Being real. Blurred lines. I enjoy truth.

And so I leave this raw, blurry note with not much direction or purpose but I leave on a high because I have an outlet to be real (with possible judgement) and I’m okay with that. Risk is an addiction. I hope you trust that you’re wonderful enough, no blurred lines, to do the same. -k

“Don’t let someone dim your light simply because it’s shining in their eyes.”

Full Moon Fuel.

I woke up with anxiety that made my heart feel like I was playing in the NBA finals. I blame the full moon. Watch out for werewolves. But honestly, I do believe that astrological effects are legit. So I went to yoga because it’s one of my go-to’s when it comes to calming the heck down.

And my teacher read this poem and everything made sense. That’s all I need to say. It’s so raw and real and wildly right. So I share it with you. Ache for something. Goodnight. -k

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

‘Fear can keep us up all night but faith makes one fine pillow.’

Something ’bout Simplicity.

“It’s the little things, but they all add up.”

I sprinkle that mesh of words into scenarios frequently. Because I am a big believer and lover of simplicity. Sure, I absolutely adore the big brimmed hat the shy girl on the corner of Yonge Street is sporting but it’s the way the hat tips and her coat sits and where her purse hits that makes for stronger pictures. Stronger feelings. Everything is art.

I like messy beds and over worn pyjamas. I like the wild silence on the subway in a car full of fifty strangers. I like uneven footprints in the snow and melting flakes on eyelashes that make your mascara run. I like aged cracks in the pavement and a paper bag caught in the gutter from someone’s lunch. I like worn out edges of over read novels and fingerprints on the car window. I like holes in t-shirts and the sound of coffee brewing at 8am. I like imperfect smiles, frown lines and scars with stories. I like how you look at me. I like empty wine glasses on the counter from the night before and newspapers on the train seat next to you that have been touched by numerous hands. I like water stains on the bathroom mirror and cloudy airplane trails in the sky. I like how you make me feel. I like the souls sense of serendipity and the touch of a first dance. I like blueberry stains on my fingers and the morning after nose scrunch of a too-many-drinks text. I like the lipstick stains on coffee cups and the sound of a key in the lock after a long day. I like you.

Everything is art. -k

‘The simple things are the most extraordinary things and only the wise can see them.’

Frozen Movements.

What do you do when you feel you’re due for a little bit of too good to be true? Does it push you forward or push you away? Does it fuck with your freedom?

I had a couple of comfort convos today about just that. Finding the freedom and hidden fabulous of tough times. There’s a glow of greatness in absolutely everything that falls at your feet or in front of your face. I do believe that. Even when it shakes up your sensitive soul. I also believe that it takes the continuation of life’s great dance to make believing it a habit as oppose to just head filled hopes. Time is a blessing. And the transitions that two-step there way into your life are a blessing.

I’ve really rambled about life alot lately. Sometimes I don’t even know if my rants make sense but they make sense to me. Four years ago I felt one of those transitions. At the time I had been frozen for years. Life offered me it’s hand and said dance with me a new way. I didn’t expect to continue experiencing the transitions as much as I have but I almost get high off of them. Maybe I look for them and that’s why I notice them. I can’t wait for them, even when they’re challenging, because they’ve only brought me freedom. And I full out love a good challenge. Even if it took a minute or a day or months for the transition to mold me and make me realize why it spun me to the right. Because it was right. And I was left to be better. I challenge you to accept them in all forms. -k

‘Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere and sometimes in the middle of nowhere you find yourself.’

Life Observations from the Peanut Gallery.

Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

Mama asked me today if I was happy. I said yes. And I wish that for everyone and I don’t want to lose it. And it’s taken me some time to find the place where the madness and the mellow meet. Where they mold into magical type moments with the people who love like you do. Stay away from people who make you feel like you’re hard to love. Don’t say maybe if you want to say no. Balance hard work and wild nights wisely. They’re both equally necessary for guided growth and gratitude. Stop the analytical archery and listen to your intuitive heart; it always knows what’s best for your next steps and say somethings. Be the same person privately, publically and personally. The mesh of the meetings brought me happiness. I don’t make new years resolutions. The new year just reminds me to work on the ‘what I want to do’s’ that rumble through my head until I silence them with success. Baby steps beat the ‘but I wish I had’s’. Put the good energy that touches you to good use, it’s hard to find. Enjoy the damn good deep dark dreary dense delicate delicious daring doable dreamy damn good ride. I wish that for you. Here’s to new year good things, darlings/dudes. -k

‘In the end there doesn’t have to be someone who understands you… there just has to be someone who wants to.’ – Robert Brault

Therapy and Tea.

Creative expression is an addiction of mine. I crave waking up on a Sunday morning, making a cup of tea and endlessly scrolling through pinterest boards full of photos and quotes that fill your soul up to the top. And then writing the crap out of my reaction to a photo or quote. Thinking about it now, it’s a therapeutic thing. When the soul has been emptied of a little confidence or belief, I believe in finding something to repair it. I’ve heard this before –> There are poems inside of you that paper can’t handle. How beautiful and true. When words are locked up in my insides I always find it easier to express them through photography. It’s definitely a favourite creative outlet of mine. I’ve been stopped in my tracks on my daily commute a lot this month due to the city shifting into winter mode. The puddled streets and snowflakes and sun hanging on to the buildings because it doesn’t get to play as long at this time of year has made me pause. And as I sit here now at a loss for words, I’ll drop a photo I took this week to explain the rest. Happy Sunday. -k

Please excuse me if I don’t talk too much, it’s loud enough in my head.

‘Have no fear you will find your way. It’s in your bones. It’s in your soul.’ – Mark Z. Danielewski

The Path of Unpredictability.

Quotes or wise words that my eyes touch and my mind swallows or spits out through the day often lead to brain purges on this page.

It’s a mucky Monday. As I tucked my phone in my pocket to protect it from the rain, the following word song repeated in my head. I had just read it.

I admire people who choose to shine even through all the storms they’ve been through.

And then I looked up.

And what I saw was a physical formation of those words; the tower representing a person and that it still stood tall and unaffected by the hits it had taken through rain and thunder and snow and sleet. Through hurtful words, losses, road blocks and unpredictability. It was still notable. It was still shining.

Last night I got kicked in the gut by the unpredictable. And I can say that this is the first time that I didn’t wither by it’s blow. The path of unpredictability is equally frightening and exciting in my eyes. But this has come to be my outlook after many meetings with the harsh realities of unpredictability. And surviving those meetings. In fact, triumphing from them. (Even if it took a day or week or months to realize this.) I always believed in the saying, ‘If you think it, it will come.’ Positive thinking. It has finally become not just a thought but a tattoo. I live it. And knowing what is next is no fun. Saying you fought the war and won? That’s a high.

It’s a mucky Monday but I’m okay with it. -k

And there it was, everything she ever wanted. She could see heaven, it was real.
But it was only a second later that she realized she would have to walk through hell to get there. – j.s. uili

My New Year.

My sweet summer is gone. It doesn’t feel like summer is signed, sealed and sent away on Toronto streets due to some last minute heat from the sun but this is the time of year where shifts happen. More Raptors news on my social feeds and planning for upcoming events means the countdown to my new year is on. I’m so ready to dig in.

But I’m so happy thinking about the summer that was. Snapshots of summer have been slapping me in the face all day. I saw a lot. A lot of things I’ve never seen. And I am so thankful for the days on opposite coasts. Someone said to me on a Sunday morning in a city that wasn’t mine (when we were absorbing wordy memories of yesteryears while staring at a new day warming up in front of us over java) to store these moments in your mind for yourself and the people you are with instead of capturing them to share on social platforms like the ways of the world. The two of us, we had changed since our last meeting, but what hadn’t changed was me cringing at the fact that my camera was still sleeping at home. But then I just let it be. (It was NOT easy, trust me, I crave my creative outlets and the excitement of creative visions.) To be places and see the seconds in moments that no one will absorb but you is kind of awesome. Especially when you’ve got someone to talk about it to down the road. And pictures just never live up to the moment that was. It has stuck with me, for me (and you) to see.

And now? With grace and guts I’m tackling new endeavours. That’s the only way to do it. You know that saying, ‘act like duck; keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like hell underwater’? Uh huh, honey. I’ll be quacking all month until some of these visions that keep slapping me in the face become reality.

And when the nights are darker than most because my thoughts cloud the moon,
the thought of your face, two breaths between us, makes me sleep;
the blurred dream of a someday soon.

But the pics I did grab? Uh huh, honey. Next trip? Vancouver for Raptors training camp. Back to the west coast which will always have a piece of my heart. -k

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul. No moral compass pointing due north.
No fixed personality. Just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. – Lana Del Rey

The ‘G’ word.

Growth. I’m looking at it from an entire life aspect right now. It’s way past midnight and I’m sipping on wine and there is no one to tell me that it’s time to go to bed because I’ve grown in years. I’ve aged on the calendar. But when do we stop growing in life aside from the physical? There is always a little bit of a childlike demeanour in our bones. I think it’s incredible that we don’t stop growing. With growth comes untouched opportunities and new territory. And most of the time it is fuel towards happier days. This makes me want to get out of bed in the morning.

I started crossfit and it has been about three weeks. I feel like I’m in recovery mode everyday. It feels like the muscles in my muscles are sore if that is even possible. I’ve been walking like a T Rex from sore legs all week but I’ve grown both in my physical capacity and in the ‘I can do this’ belief zone. Growth is addictive if you put effort into it because the result is matter-of-factly pretty awesome.

During one of the crossfit workouts this week where we had to run laps around the track, rotating between running forwards and backwards in the same direction, I started thinking about growth. (And the guy on my tail giving me some friendly competitive motivation.) As a self employed artist, where hustle comes with the territory and there is no 9-5 schedule to get you out of bed, you need to push a little harder. Those runners on your tail are good for you. I think this applies to taking the next step in any ‘job’. But I’ve had multiple conversations this week about the thought of going backwards before going forwards in career. It’s scary. Sometimes you need to risk that, trusting that a little slide in status, workload or paycheque will soon catapult you to bigger and better. And my run on the track that day was the perfect metaphor. It actually calmed the anxiety of some choices I need to make. Because even though I was running backwards which was so much harder, I was still running forwards around the track. Once I hit a certain point I was able to turn back around and run forwards and pick up speed.

Running has been in my life for a lot of reasons, both physical and mental, and now it’s teaching me life lessons too. Leap, soar, jump. Who would have thunk. -k

Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still. -Chinese Proverb

kat stefankiewicz