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I’ve just created a Tumblr blog called caitlinvee, that I plan to update much more often than this one. You can check it out here.

Guest Travel Blogging

I’ve been invited to do some guest blogging for travel blog Swift Ink:

Glasgow: City of Culture

Insider: A Music Festival in the Scottish Highlands

What I’ve Been Up To

Hi everyone,

As you might have noticed, I’ve not posted any new stories or articles for quite some time now. This is in part because I received some expert advice suggesting that it would be better for me and for my writing if I didn’t show absolutely everything to the world.

Having said that, I might post some new work soon. In the meantime, I’ve attended two week-long residential writing courses and begun an MSc in International Tourism. I’ve also been working on some freelance projects.

I promise to return eventually.

Thanks for reading,

Caitlin

Read aloud: In/out(sider)

Hi everyone,

I’ve been wanting to record myself reading something aloud for some time now, and I finally gave it a go.

Please forgive the exceptionally bad camera quality (built-in webcam from my 5-year-old laptop) as well as the exceptionally bad film editing skills.

I hope you enjoy my first-ever online reading of my own writing!

In/out(sider) 2

A wise man once said, “I don’t care if The Rolling Stones are playing, the ghost of Elvis and the ghost of John Lennon. Hell, even throw in Yoko Ono. No festival is worth missing the big grad.”

“Don’t commit yourself too much to just one thing just yet.”

* * * *

This year, a certain special music festival in the Scottish Highlands was scheduled for the weekend of June 17 2011. I was scheduled to graduate from the University of Toronto on June 16.

Most transatlantic flights that go from west to east operate on a “red-eye” routine. This means that you leave your North American destination in the evening and arrive at your European destination the next morning. Well, it’s supposed be the next morning but it still feels like the middle of the night. If you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, it feels like a parallel universe where time is meaningless and you eat and eat and never sleep. Then you’re expected to go through customs and, in some cases, onward to your connecting flight. I’m sure people get used to this, but I haven’t yet.

My point is that on a red-eye flight, you leave on one particular day and arrive the next calendar day. This makes it more or less impossible to be at two different events on two different sides of the Atlantic Ocean on the same day. However, it does allow you to be at two events on two different continents on two different consecutive days.

But just barely.

Because even if you walk directly from your graduation ceremony to a parking garage that contains your mother’s car, you will inevitably encounter the worst rush hour traffic the city of Toronto has ever seen (or so it will seem). This same rush hour traffic will make your flight’s cabin crew late getting to the airport, which will in turn cause your flight to depart an hour and a half late. This will, in turn, make you panic about missing your connecting flight because you haven’t allowed very much leeway for your stopover. Your connecting flight will, of course, also be delayed, which will make it difficult to quickly disembark, grab a taxi from the airport back to your flat, shower, and then immediately jump in a tour van that’s headed up north for a weekend of festival-ing and rainy camping, all in under an hour.

I tell you, there were some major forces at work that did not want me to leave Toronto on that particular afternoon in June. Traffic jams aside, these include: family members who support me unwaveringly, friends who understand me at my very core, and my desire to flourish within my comfort zone.

I know why I want to stay in Canada, I don’t know why I want to be in Scotland.

Half a year ago, I wrote In/out(sider) part one. It was about a music festival, which for me, in June 2010, embodied the crux of my experience both in and outside of a certain Scottish music scene.

This year, the same festival weekend symbolized my experience both in and outside of something else.

* * * *

One year later, I am standing in a crowd of people in a field near Aviemore. I’m wearing a pair of my mom’s wellies and they are the newest boots I own. I was standing, and now I am dancing, mobilized by a very specific sort of adrenaline that comes from combining jetlagged delirium with Thistly Cross cider.

At the end of their set, Washington Irving come back on stage to begin their encore: their cover of Dick Gaughan’s Tom Paine’s Bones.

The same revolutionary I studied in an advanced literature seminar months ago while I waited for this moment.

I tell my friends next to me, “This is really going to be something.”

For the first few lines, I fight unexpected tears. What if this is the last time I ever see them play? What if I leave again and don’t come back? Will I miss this?

Less than a minute later, and I am dancing a jig with Rory’s parents. Less than a minute after that, and I am headed for the stage. This was Jenny’s idea and we must have acted quickly. At the last second, Rory’s mum declines or comes to her senses. I’m dancing and singing between Rory and Kieran (who just laughs) except for a brief moment of panic when I think I’m the only stage-crasher.

An hour later, I’m sitting on the ground, in a strangely-secluded lime green spotlight behind the stage. In one of three directions, electronic bagpipes are playing. In another, a DJ plays Jump Around by House of Pain. I wipe my face with my tear-stained skirt.

“Why can’t this be easier?” as we collapse into the grass and surrender to the cosmic flow.

A few hours later, while the sun rises, we’ll sit in someone else’s tent and enjoy ham sandwiches.

Two days later and we’ll have this conversation again.

Photos via Cheryl McIntyre.

In/out(sider) 1

This is the story of me being both an insider and an outsider in the Scottish music scene.

I got off a plane, exhausted, and went home with this boy. To see where he lived. We went to see this band, Sparrow and the Workshop, and they were brill-ee-yent (Canadians can’t pronounce that word with two syllables).

I met his friends for the first time, and his family. I was wearing the wrong clothes. At home in Toronto, TNA parkas were trendy. So were Hunter boots. The same brand as the Queen wears. The Queen. I don’t think that anybody in Scotland wears wellies unless they’re in the country. I didn’t know that nobody wore parkas even in minus ten weather plus the damp-chill. (Does damp-chill exist? It should. It gets in your bones). In urban Scotland everyone wants to look attractive and un-utilitarian, which conflicts with my commonsensical Canadian approach. (That is probably the first time I ever felt commonsensical before in my life, ever).

The next day I went on tour with his band. It was a whirlwind, and it was all these people I was meeting for the first time. They all spent all of their time together, and they were best friends. From an outsider’s perspective, if I thought about it later (which I did and have a million times), I felt excluded and not a part of this secret magic world that creates brilliant art.

I said to all of them, while we were in the tour van, “If it were my friends, we’d be listening to, and singing along to rap music, not indie rock…”

And I shared a bedroom with most of his friends on that first night. Not even that strange, I just changed under the bedsheets.

I had no choice but to feel connected to all of them. The connection was thrust upon me. It’s that same sort of connection I feel when I see inexplicably amazing live music performed. It transcends any conception I have of “good art”. I don’t feel like a passive, or even an active audience member.

I feel like a part of something bigger.

Please go listen to live music while you can. Played by people that you know. Try to travel with them. Nothing will be like that experience.

There is a part of me that wants to be a practical person. This practical person would earn perfect marks in university. She would probably attend graduate school. She probably wouldn’t spend all of her money flying back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean with no clear goals for the future.

But I am certain that if I pay too much heed to my practical head, I will wake up one morning a very long time from now, and be very, very unhappy.

In 2005, Steve Jobs gave a speech at a graduation ceremony at Stanford University entitled “How to Live Before You Die”. At the end of the speech, he offers some very simple, but rarely-followed advice:

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

I hope that at some point you have a chance to live the way an artist does. Because if you don’t, you’ll never get to sit around a campfire in the brilliant bluey-green sunlight in the Scottish wilderness, surrounded by other artists and a love of something intangible. You won’t travel up north through a country you don’t even know in a 1960’s Beetle that might not last the journey.

You won’t snuggle in a sleeping bag with the one you love, weathering out the freezing temperatures.

You won’t crave a shower, after 3 days as a dirty (drunk) hippie. You won’t jump into an ice cold, freezing cold, colder than anything that YOU have ever jumped into river. You won’t bathe in it, and be numb for an hour afterward, because you could have caught frostbite.

You won’t sit out in the wilderness, with fires burning, midgies biting, doesn’t-even-matter what you’re wearing or what-you’re drinking, cheap Tesco red wine, brilliant music playing and surrounded by brilliant people that you love.

You won’t dance the world’s craziest jig with a group of all the other crazy jig-dancers, legs kicking and arms flailing, bodies hopping every which way. Until you are grabbed by a group of friends and strangers, who hurl you around the stage with them in a tight circle. Faster and faster until you are powered not by your own limbs, but by the pulsating energy of the people by your sides. When you can’t possibly have any energy left, like a marathon runner, you just keep going. Lungs bursting and visions blurry, hearts pounding together at the same rate, in one great force of coronary circulation.

Coronary encircle-lation. Hearts that come together, form a circle and surround.

You won’t be stuck in between brilliance and fear and isolation and a deep deep connection to the people that surround. Those lost souls that strive for nothing more than to create and to experience.

I guarantee that you won’t feel like you belong as much as you will at a small music festival across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s called Insider. It’s a festival of outsiders.

The people, those artists, who don’t have so much of a ready-carved-out-niche in ordinary society all band together. They form bands and they take pictures and they write words.

And even if I feel like a bitterly-segregated, don’t-know-how-to-talk-to-anyone, don’t-know-if-anyone-cares-a-bit-that-I’m-Canadian-and-all-lonesome-far-from-home, like I’ll-never-have-a-real-and-true-good-close-sisterly-friend-again, like I’ll be his dutiful wife for the rest of my days because there’s no more interesting prospect for me across that vast ocean or tiny pond, so segregated, separated, lonely even-though-I’m-in-love…

I love it when I’m an insider and I love Scotland. I’m making words about it, and if you make music about it then I

probably

love

you.

Both photos are by Ingrid Mur.

Home Sweet Hound

The Greyhound bus doesn’t have the greatest reputation. Although it’s probably the cheapest way to get from A to B in North America (save for hitch-hiking), the Hound is not your average twentysomething traveler’s vehicle of choice. It’s uncomfortable, it’s dirty and it’s dangerous. In July 2008, a 22-year-old Canadian man was stabbed, beheaded and cannibalized somewhere in Manitoba while riding a Greyhound bus along the Trans Canada Highway.

The average twentysomething traveler would prefer to conquer North America by car, blasting the likes of Springsteen, CCR and The Band. But, having grown up in Toronto, I pride myself on being a city slicker and a public transit connoisseur. By age 21 I didn’t have a full driver’s license (I still don’t today but that’s not the point). I guess I missed the boat on that adolescent rite of passage. And so, when my boyfriend, Rory and I decided to do a road trip through the Great American South, we opted to go by Greyhound. Instead of belting out “Born to Run” as we raced down those American highways, we took along bus-friendly ipods. I’ll never forget listening to Paul Simon’s Graceland as we approached Memphis, Tennessee, sitting in contemplative silence, eyes shining as we reveled in the days of miracles and wonder.

(Ok so we basically just traded one cliché for another)

Financially, the bus worked out well. We got Greyhound Discovery Passes ($400 for one month or $500 for two), which allow you to take as many bus trips as you want in North America in a fixed period of time. There was no car to rent, no insurance to buy and no need to budget for gas money as we went along. With someone else doing the driving for us, there was no map to navigate. We could just sit back and relax.

Though I may be painting an idealized picture, the Greyhound is not for the high-maintenance. While the buses themselves were much safer than I had previously thought, the bus stations can get pretty seedy. I used many (and I mean many) of the most disgusting toilets on earth. I also learned that you have to line up for the bus early, or you’ll be stuck sitting next to a less-than-ideal stranger for a ten hour overnight journey. And on your ten hour overnight journey, you’ll have no control over whether the person sitting in front of you will recline their seat back to the point where their chair is more or less kissing your nose.

But it’s on those overnight journeys that the bus really starts to feel like home. Rory and I brought blankets and travel pillows and took turns sleeping on each other’s laps. All around us, people cuddled up to their windows, while parents hushed their kids to sleep. We would all rest under a star-filled sky as the hound pressed on, carrying us through some vast stretch of American desert. At four in the morning the bus driver would pull over at a 24 hour Burger King in the middle of nowhere. We would file out in a sleep-induced haze, and line up like a bunch of zombies for a late-night Coke or a side of fries. There is a great sense of community on the Greyhound that you will never experience by traveling in your own car. And so, though the Greyhound wasn’t perfect, I would recommend it and I would definitely do it again.

Once we got to know the ropes, we created our own routine. Upon disembarking the bus, Rory would grab our bags from the luggage hold while I would run ahead to secure us a place in the line for our next destination. We got used to sleeping sitting up, packing bus-friendly picnics and brushing our teeth in repulsive bathrooms. We guarded our place in line religiously and filled our flasks with a second helping of fountain soda when nobody was looking.

For several weeks last summer, we made the hound our home.

Why Long-Distance Relationships Don’t “Just Don’t Work”

Probably one of the first times I heard that long-distance relationships (or “LDRs” as they are called by those in the know) “just don’t work” was a couple of years ago. An acquaintance was trying to console me over a recent breakup. The breakup was supposed to be a sort of doomed-long-distance-relationship prevention mechanism. Rather than trying to make impending distance work, we put ourselves out of our misery before it even started. And so, this acquaintance was trying to make me feel better by telling me that it wouldn’t have worked out anyway, because long-distance relationships “just don’t.”

Call me a hopeless romantic, but even back then I didn’t buy it. If you really like (or even love) a person, wouldn’t you want to try? To quote the old Wayne Gretzsky-ism, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” By refusing to enter into a long-distance relationship, you are, of course, preventing the relationship’s potential failure. But you are also preventing its possible success.

Let me tell you why, if you are ever faced with such a dilemma, you should try to make it work.

First of all, there’s the fact that long-distance relationships do actually work. In my third year of university I lived with a girl from Switzerland. She was spending a year in Toronto doing her Master’s degree in something insanely impressive, like stem-cell research. She lived there for exactly a year, and remained in a long-distance relationship the entire time. She and her boyfriend in Switzerland didn’t break up when she moved. They stayed together. They talked on Skype constantly, sent each other packages, and did what they needed to do to make it work. She didn’t go home for Christmas, so they didn’t see each other for six whole months until he came to visit in February. In LDRs, those moments when you are reunited make the all time and the distance worthwhile. When her boyfriend arrived in Toronto for his month-long visit, I had never seen her so happy.

So, based on my housemate’s example, when my boyfriend went back to Glasgow after spending a year in Toronto, I was more than prepared to make it work. We had been together for nearly a year, and spent a month of the summer holidays backpacking together through America. He ignited in me a strong desire to travel, and I couldn’t wait to see the world together once we were both finished our undergraduate degrees. I could also use our LDR as an excuse to visit Scotland, a country I had never been to before.

Like hell I was going to give up all that because it “might not work”.

To be honest, long-distance relationships can be depressing, lonely and brutally hard. There is no room for jealousy or paranoia because both emotions will not hesitate to eat you alive. You will have to make monetary sacrifices and spend birthdays and anniversaries chatting online. But if you have the strength and the will to make it work, it will all be worthwhile. Your LDR will give you the freedom to focus on school, work, and other activities, with the added benefit of knowing you have someone to support you when you’re feeling down. You’ll have more time to spend with your friends and an excellent excuse to travel. You’ll probably also get some awesome birthday presents in the mail. And, while LDRs can be scary and stressful, you have the excitement of planning your lives together when the distance is over.

And finally, you’ll have those brilliant moments when your significant other flies across the ocean to surprise you, and you don’t answer the door because you’re sitting in front of your laptop, waiting angrily for them to come online.

Maybe your long-distance relationship won’t work, but maybe it will. According to a quote by Roger de Rabutin I found online- “Absence is to love as wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small and kindles the great.”

May you find the strength to take great risks, and the will to kindle your great loves.

Divining

“How far could anyone see into the river? Not far. Near shore, in the shallows, the water was clear… Only slightly further out, the water deepened and kept its life from sight.”

(The Diviners, Margaret Laurence, pg. 477)

* * * *

It’s the week before Mother’s Day. Her mother comes to pick her up from her father’s house, before driving to the airport. Some of her things are packed into a red suitcase in the front hall. The rest of her belongings are packed into her old bedroom upstairs, a room that is stuffed with books and photographs and a sculpture of a six-foot long swordfish called Sally. In a few minutes, she will begin a journey into the great unknown as she leaves the city where she was raised for the longest period of time thus far.

“All set, kiddo?”

“Yep… Wait, there’s something I want to give to you.”

It’s a Mother’s Day card. On the front of the envelope it says ‘To Morag, Love Pique,’ except that those aren’t their real names. Her mother looks at it for a moment.

“That’s exactly what I thought.” And then, “Do you have a lock for your bag?”

“Oh, yeah, I do, just need to put it on.”

“There you go. You’re all set. Do you feel ready?”

“I’ve been on trips before, Mom.”

“I know. But this one feels different somehow.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It just does… I have something for you too.” She holds out a keychain, with a brown leather strap. “When I was your age, I gave this to your Grandpa for his birthday. He kept all his keys on it for the rest of his life.” She attaches it to the suitcase. “I thought it would be nice to put it on your bag. That way you’ll have your Grandpa with you.”

“As a sort of good luck charm?”

“Something like that.”

* * * *

Two weeks later and she is sitting in the basement cafe of an art museum, having lunch with her aunt. The last time she was in Paris was seven years ago, and now she is 22. The last time she was in Paris, all she wanted to do was sight see and shop. This time she is full of questions.

“I don’t really remember it, I mean, I guess I was alive. But I’m really curious about what it was like when you were first met Uncle Gui. Not that I’m necessarily going to marry Finn. I’m just curious about your experience.”

“Hmm… Well, what about it?”

“Anything.”

The waiter brings a platter of fresh bread. They each take a piece, have a bite, and then set it down on the table beside their plate.

“Well, for example,” her aunt laughs, “The first time he came to dinner at Granny’s house, he didn’t realize there was a special plate for the bread, and just put it on the table like this. The way French people do.”

“I was surprised when I first saw someone do that. It’s funny how in North American culture we always want to use a plate. What difference does it make?”

“I guess we think the table might be dirty. There are so many small differences you don’t notice right away.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to notice a lot of differences between Canada and Scotland.”

“The more time you spend in a new place, the more you notice. They creep up on you. It’s a lot more tiring than you think. I’ve been here twenty years and some people still think I’m a tourist. You need to be a strong person to survive living in a different country.”

* * * *

Days later, she lies in bed, overwhelmed by the fears swirling inside her mind.

Everyone stares at her, because she looks so different, so foreign and bizarre.

The memories of her dying grandfather haunt her dreams.

They are memories of him in his most defenseless state.

* * * *

Neither her mother, nor Morag, is very religious in the way that most people understand religion. But there are moments when you release your child into the abyss, accompanied only by the quiet memory of your father, and you need to believe in some greater authority, twisting and weaving fate in a deliberate way.

“Go with God, Pique.”