Danika Dinsmore

Author / Educator / Activist

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Weekend Writing Workout – Trashing the Precious

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I recently quit my 24/7 job so I could focus on my writing and create more balance in my life.

Today I am cleaning and packing, contemplating what to trash, recycle, give away… Baby and I are renovating the lower portion of our home and moving downstairs. We’ve been living upstairs with a friend for over a year in a house we all bought together.

Right now it is snowing and the power is out so baby doesn’t electrocute himself while untangling some wires downstairs. I’m cleaning the upstairs bathroom by candlelight.

I only want to take downstairs what we need and/or want to bring into our new sacred space. We are creating a home, a place for us to work and play. I told Baby it would be our Zen Den of Love.

In the theme of letting go of the old and creating space for the new, I am challenging myself this weekend to let go of something precious. Throw it out, recycle it, give it away. The more precious the better.

When I moved to Vancouver from Seattle I gave away my favourite statue. A bronze and gold Buddha from Thailand. I gave it to a young kid who bought all my vinyl albums at our garage sale, including Free to be You and Me, that old childhood staple of the 70’s. Within a matter of minutes, all my records were gone and this object-reminder of my trip to Asia.

There’s something about releasing objects I’ve been holding onto. In Pronoia, Rob Brezny talks of the high he felt after tossing one of his most beloved talismans into the speeding jaguar of a woman who had just pissed him off on the freeway. He’s one up on me… I gave the kid my statue cuz I liked him.

In any case, as I clean and pack, I will ditch something precious and write that experience in my journal for my weekend workout.

56 Flavours – Ch. 3

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Wilted

She arranged the red plastic flowers in the vase in front of the gravestone. She had been in a film once, as an extra. It was a wedding scene. She sat on the bride’s side of the isle and had scratched her arm on the plastic flowers attached to the end of the pew. “They gotta be plastic because the hot lights would wilt real ones,” said the brown-eyed grip she dated for three months afterwards. Her mother hadn’t liked him. Said he smelled like a shoe store. Costumes had given her a fake mink stole to wear over her own dress. The bride’s family was rich. She had sweated in the heat of the lamps leaving stains under her arms. Her mother hadn’t liked the dress either. Said it didn’t breathe properly.

Medicine Hat is the sunniest city in Alberta. Even so, to die of heatstroke in Canada seemed ironic and impossible. Her mother had been worried about her garden and whether she would have fresh flowers on the table for her book club, even though she hadn’t even finished Love in the Time of Cholera. She imagined her mother as a daisy, wilting in the sun.

in the realm of really cool

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Early this morning I awake to what sounds like wounded puppies. In my half-dream state I call out, “somebody’s hurting puppies!”

I stumble out of the bedroom and into the livingroom.  Baby is on the couch reading his virtual New York Times.

“Did you hear those puppies?” I ask.

“Those weren’t puppies… those were orcas,” he replies.

“Oh,” I stumble into the bathroom, “okay.”

Apparently, my husband had found the The Center for Biological Diversity‘s offering of FREE endangered species ringtones. High-quality, authentic sounds of some of the world’s most threatened animals. The idea is that the free ringtones will inspire conversation and visits to the center’s website, as well as invite you to participate in animal rights activism.

You can preview the ringtones HERE

It’s a bit sad and beautiful all at once. It certinainly makes me want to go out and save some animals, though.

One of my favourites: the Mexican Gray Wolf

More from Center for Biological Diversity at Myxer

56 Flavours – Ch. 2

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Unapologetic

The bus driver pulled to a sudden stop, everyone lurched forward and I fell into the lap of an elderly gentleman. I excused myself and his grin said all was right in his world. The doors opened and I exited, two stops early, but welcoming the walk on a mild October morning.

The bus didn’t move. An elderly Asian woman lie flat on her back in the street, her blue-gloved hands folded neatly over her chest, handbag by her side. The bus driver got out and asked if she was all right. “I’m fine,” she said, “just fine.” He then asked her what the hell she was doing in the middle of the street. “Waiting for an apology,” she said.

I cruised between the painted parallel lines marking the bridge to the other side. Half-way across, a car cut me off, just like that, speeding into a left turn, ignoring the bridge-crossers. When I hit the curb, I turned and lay down on the sidewalk, neatly tucking my backpack by my side. I clicked my toes together and watched two pigeons arguing on the ledge of a building. One of them took off in a huff. The other dropped to the ground and began pecking for crumbs around my head. “Nobody takes any responsibility any more,” I said. The pigeon thought for a moment, then lay down beside me, purring into the gathering sunlight.

56 Flavours – Ch. 1

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Horned Owl

She doesn’t understand how he can spend so much time on the back porch with his 101 Birds of North America book. “Ah, my little Yellow Warbler,” he says, “sunshine of my life.” And how can she argue with that? She doesn’t understand how she always gets stuck with the sensitive types, the dreamers, the gentle professors. She must have a birthmark on her forehead that reads fragile, handle with care. She ordered a sex-swing on line. He hung it outside and sits in it like a hammock, flipping through pages of Sherlock Holmes. He loves mystery novels. Says they’re exotic. “My little Bohemian Waxwing,” he flutters about her while she’s clipping fabric for her ongoing collages. If it weren’t for his gourmet cooking, his smooth chest, and his inheritance, she’d ditch him. His grandfather’s cabin is the perfect place for her to work. To piece her glass mobiles together in the sun while he scans the trees with his outdoorsman binoculars. “Aren’t the males flashier than the females,” she asks, “in the world of birds?” He struts around the porch with his pipe, which he never lights. She watches his arms swing as he talks and wishes he would light it, would light up, would take off.