I left my job in mid November after just less than four months. I hated it, it was boring, the supervisor was nasty and some of the coworkers were twits. I didn't care if I needed to survive. In those days Unemployment Enjoyment (unemployment insurance, or employment insurance) was very easy to get. I would be penalized for six weeks but I didn't care. My father, still feeling the guilt (if not the love) for his treatment of me gladly shoved out some money I could survive on while waiting for my claim to get processed.
I was determined to enjoy myself. The day I resigned I walked some three miles or so to English Bay and in the cold November wind I exulted in my new freedom. I felt like a child let out for summer holidays. But it wasn't summer. And I was no longer a child.
Even on my reduced income I was able to make ends meet. I still got up early, at around eight in the morning, began my day with a long walk and then breakfast. I listened to the radio station where my brother worked but never heard him on the air. The popular songs all penetrated me, especially by Phoebe Snow, Al Stewart, Maria Muldaur and Bonnie Rait. I became entranced with the music of Philip Glass. Outside I could hear the ranting and swearing of this sad fat miserable looking woman who would rail at her alleged husband like a rabid pig. They ran a bottle deposit and every single day she would let fly at him. I painted the small gothic shaped panes on the top half of my windows alternating hues of yellow and green. For a while I visited once or twice a week the Christian house but was asked to not come around any more. They disapproved of some of the people I associated with and some of the places I visited. I have since long been cured of this very toxic form of Christianity. I would take long walks across the city, stopping always in front of one house to pet a friendly cat then to continue on my way to Kitsilano. I would visit Big Bird or head straight to Willow's place where she stayed in a friend's apartment. Her roommates and friends were of various sexualities, one of them sold pot and they all fascinated me. I would stop in the Naam, before they expanded and before they were open twenty-four/seven and drink herbal tea while reading a book or meeting and making new friends at the communal table. From one person there I learned about Dostoevsky and following his example bought my own copy of the Brothers Karamazov, a particularly inspiring and influential book in my life that has marked me for years.
In February I joined a Food Co-op, made up of all kinds of lefty progressive folk, the kind of people I was aspiring to be. (I was also at that time a devout disciple of Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet For a Small Planet.) It considerably reduced my food costs and in exchange I worked there one Saturday a month for four hours. I would gladly walk from my old house a distance of three or four miles, cutting across pleasant parks and quiet neighbourhoods full of vintage houses on my weekly grocery trek. I would carry with me a large white canvas newspaper bag--I haven't a clue where I got it--that would carry my bounty home with me. I was a founding member of this co-op and helped work on the site to make it ready. It is still open at a different location on Commercial Drive.
I will conclude this post with a retelling of five distinct dreams I had when I was living inside the Magic Rooms: 1. It was a sudden and early springtime and I was walking on a hill on a road lined with flowering cherry and plum trees, 2. I opened a glass case full of green oranges, picked one and pealed it. The fruit inside was orange, juicy and sweet. 3. I was in my new apartment and I was shrinking to the size of a mouse. I think I was calling out for my mother. 4: I saw a white long hair cat and I was also looking at a selection of grapefruits. All had skin colour of ultramarine blue. 5: I was lying awake in bed with a friend and I suddenly heard someone knocking on my door. I knew that if I opened the door and let this person in something terrible would happen.
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