A Three Year Incubation Of My Soul

I just moved to Hamilton after three years spent (mostly) in Calgary, or "the heart of the new west!". It was a very boring and alienating time for me, but a lot of good came out of it as well.

I spent the first year reflecting on my father's recent passing. I ran that entire year, and I ran with a lot of passion, and I ran damn fast actually, and I'm proud of that. Now when I write something good, even one of Canada's greatest athletes Sam Effah sometimes gives me feedback, and I am reminded of how I am part of a special tribe of people, as my father was, who care extremely deeply about inspiring others. And I can think back on Terry Fox, and Emilie Mondor, and Steve Prefontaine, and remember why this sense of urgency I feel matters so much. The race doesn't stop because I'll never run another 52.2 400m (like I did for Gloucester, so our relay team could make provincials in '99, my father's best high school time, a paltry 52.5*).

I always felt I could make my father more proud of me just through simple honest efforts, then by getting a phd, making a zillion dollars, or becoming Prime Minister. I'll always remember when I was an 8yr old boy, him standing in front of me with a hand grip, sweating, showing me how to use it with his undying gusto. I said: "wow that's good Dad, how many should I do?" He become cross with me, and he told me it doesn't matter how many, and stormed out of the room. I understand fully what he meant only now.

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Year two and three were mainly spent working on the web, and the result of this is a thriving online media project called Zouch Magazine. My creative partner Jeff Campagna and I exchanged over 4000 emails before we ever spoke one on one, before we ever saw each other in the flesh. So many battles fought, so many concepts refined, so much design, so many feelings, all through the very internet my father warned me was going to mess things up for writers. Nothing is messed up, nothing is ever messed up.

Spiralling deeper and deeper down the rabid whole of the digital media space has helped me find my voice as an artist, and it has taught me that as artists and writers we're working to be in tune with many voices, and decide collective vision through both arcane and direct messages.

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*something interesting is that his best time in the 800m was 2:03.9 he told me once when I was a kid, and I only ever ran 2:04.0. One tenth of a second, over a half mile. One tenth of a second that I must run for the rest of my life to make up.
* Gloucester Gator's Tristan Hannington, Jason Stebbings, Nick Burton and I had the fastest 4X400m relay time in Ottawa that year with a 3:33, set at Terry Fox Stadium at Mooney's Bay.