Vivian Maier

It's a late Sunday night, the only light shining in my eyes is a reflection of the snowy city sight. While the rest of the world sleeps, I slam doors with poetry. Hidden underground, far away from streetcar sounds, we drink wine, talking louder all the time. After midnight, we stumble outside. It's like we're the only people alive under these snow covered skies. We talk poetry and street photography. How Vivian Maier could be Amelie. Stories of years kept in boxes for the finder to reveal. Art safely tucked away in a nanny's brain.

How being weird justifies all your strange. People don't linger around the strange, they keep their curiosity for things they can taste. Like all different ways to eat PB and J. If they would only have stayed in your strange haze, eaten a spoonful of your strange taste. Then art would have had an audience. Then you would not have been the odd one out. You would have been the artist. Be called the artist. You would drink your coffee cold and wear fancy glasses. Take pictures of garbage bins. Of angry women, children crying, snapping everything in sight. Do all these things you did that made you the weird woman. But this time, people wouldn't call it strange, art would just be a matter of taste.

Image: Uncle Google

Talking to strangers

How to write a travel blog when you look at your life and realise you're a settled down woman? I'm a happy Torontonian, for now. This might change in a couple of months or weeks, but at the moment I'm enjoying all the good things this city has to offer. Adventures of the everyday! When life just floats you in the right direction and surprises wait behind closed doors. All you've got to do is get out and open the door, sit yourself down at the bar and order a glass of wine.

So that's exactly what I did last week while hiding from a snowy cold Sunday afternoon in a smoky bluesbar. Two conversations with strangers later I sold my book and got offered a writing job. The power of taking yourself out on a date and talking to the person randomly sitting next to you at the bar! Listen, I love my me-dates, but I love talking more than anything. So when you find yourself hanging out at the same bar as me, you know what time it is.

After five hours of blues and New Orleans jazz I danced home in the dark, the powder covered pavements as my endless outdoor ballroom. Buzzing with energy, sleeping was the last thing on my mind. I wrote and baked oh hell I even did the dishes! At unearthly hours of the night creative energy reaches peaks and there is no way around it. You have to surrender to it, let it flow through you and when you wake up the next day, you may find your room covered in poems, a burnt cake in the oven and a spotless kitchen. 

Last night was another one of those. A poetry slam in an underground venue did crazy things to me. I was laughing, crying my eyes out, cheering and singing along and as soon as it was all over, I ran home as fast as I could. My feet weren't even touching the ground anymore, I swear! Repeating words in my head one of the poets yelled out, followed by cheers, screams, applause. "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us come in every day. We get to work." 

He talked about bohemian nights, live music and creating every single day. Everyone's perspective is different, but for me it was yet another slap in the face. Don't wait around for inspiration to touch your brewing brain with golden ideas. Get to work. I'm not talking about your daily job you do to pay bills. I'm talking about your passion, your creative mind that wants to break free and spend every single hour of the day and night writing, painting, dancing, sculpting, designing, creating. 

So let's get to work! Do what you've got to do. What makes you happy, what feels good. What puts a smile on your face and makes others smile with you. Forget about fear and go back to play. Experiment! Explore! And if you don't know where to start, go out and talk to a stranger.