Lucky Ones

“Nothing gives easy. Easy gives nothing.”

On September 23rd she released Little Machines, her third studio album, not including the acoustic records she has put out following each.

LIGHTS…CAMERA…ACTION!

Last week I wrote about three inspiring women, at least for me and my life,

Here.

And Lights is one of them. When I first heard her newest single, Up We Go, I immediately felt the energy I had been lacking. It was at the beginning of September, school was starting again for many, and summer was unofficially over.

Up We Go was an up-tempo little song that caught my attention and wouldn’t let go, but letting go of the past seems to be the point of the song.

I waited weeks for the official music video to be released, and in it she is apparently in a hotel elevator. The only signs of this for me are the soft music and the ding of the elevator door, but that elevator music that is so easy to distinguish is such a beautiful contrast to the fast-paced forward movement of the song itself.

Lights has been one of my favourite Canadian performers, for the last five years, since I saw her play live. Many of her songs, and indeed her herself, often seem other-worldly, with an alien element somewhere in there. The first song on this album, Portal, is the perfect example of this feeling you must hear her to fully understand.

Her style is all her own. Each one of her songs infectious and her brand of fast-moving electro-pop is a mood booster for me every damn time.

Her lyrics are a lot more abstract and philosophical than other music I have recently been listening to, but this allows for much room for one’s own interpretation.

***

Lucky Ones, Lyrics.

Who knows. Doesn’t matter anyway.

Let’s go. You and I will be okay.

Cause after all this time, still don’t know where we’re going. but look how far we’ve come.

And as long as you’re just as lost as I am

I’ll hold you in the mornings, like we’re the lucky ones.

***

I recommend checking this album out. I find these lyrics and the entire thing wonderfully upbeat and uplifting. I can’t tell you how comforting the above lines were to me, from this bonus track, the moment I heard her sing them.

I have been listening to a lot of music lately, to help me through times of transition and of uncertainty.

Little Machines and Lights have been just the thing to keep me moving forward and motivated, in those moments where I am in most need of the assistance with both.

***

As a proud Canadian woman I want to highlight the talents of those Canadian female artists who are making a name for themselves in the big wide world of music.
Tegan and Sara are another example, along with Lights, of this amazing female Canadian artistry. If you enjoy one you will probably enjoy the other.

I Was A Fool

Goodbye Goodbye

Up We Go

The other day I wrote a post, an interview actually, with a feminist blogger from TheFBomb.org. This name is like a word you’re not supposed to utter, like something shameful or bad. Really it is a place for women to say what they want, or in some cases, need to say.

She’s The Bomb!

This week has been quite an awesome one for some pretty great women in media: Lights, Emma Watson, and Lena Dunham.

It has been a great week, full of the things that I love and which bring me true happiness: music, female empowerment, and books. Here are just three strong females who have made something or done something I wanted to highlight here, to bring to attention and bookmark, in a way, on this place that is my own.

Up We Go.

The above video is from her latest album, Little Machines, which came out last Tuesday, September 23rd.

Lights is the sort of indie electro-synth pop music that I love. She is breathy and a breath of fresh air. The first time I heard her single Up We Go I instantly felt better and more energetic about my own life. That’s what good music does for me.

He For She.

I don’t know if you’ve heard Emma Watson’s now famous UN speech yet, but it has been shared around the world for its truth, power, and hope.

The campaign is called “He For She” and it aims to bring both the sexes together to fight all forms of the inequality problem: from the imbalance in wages to the stereotypically assigned roles of each gender. It’s a move attempting to try for a de-stigmatizing of the terms we use, that the word “feminist” doesn’t automatically equal man hater.

Ask Lena.

Above is a short video, made by Girls writer, director, and star) Lena Dunham as a promotion for her memoir, which came out today and of which I am, as we speak, sailing through.

I chose the above video out of the twelve she made, all advice to people who wrote in, because it is one she gives to an insecure, young, female writer. I relate and imagine I am that young writer, even though I am two years older than her. I imagine that we are just two friends, out to lunch and discussing writing because I wish I had someone like that in my life.

These videos, up on YouTube, are smart and snappy and the perfect lead-up to today’s release of Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”.

For the next three weeks I will be posting a feature on one of these three amazing women. I will write one review or article a week on these kick-ass females. They are just what motivates me to believe I too could make something just as beautiful, just as powerful, or just as real. I just wanted to round them up here because they all came together over the last week with the best message for any woman: that anything is possible.

Awareness

On this Labour Day it is the start of a new month and a new week. I have two subjects I want to address on this first day of the new month because they are both extremely important in my own life.

September is Pain Awareness Month and I could write forever on this issue. This is all based mostly in the US. Often times these things do not all fall on the same month, week, or days in other countries around the world, including Canada. I know there are months for every condition and having a blog and experience with so many of them gives me an endless stream of posting ideas, but I will take any chance to speak up and not remain silent anymore.

I have been dealing with different and widely varied forms of chronic pain for half my life. There hasn’t been a time where some part of my body hasn’t hurt, causing me great distress and misery.

So many nights I have spent up, mind racing, doing anything I could to distract myself out of my physical discomfort. I say discomfort, using a common word doctors throw out there on examination. I am doing this to highlight the solitary suffering that only the one experiencing the pain can truly know. All these buzz words to describe that suffering are just that, words; however, the best tools I have are words. I don’t know how to bring others into the loneliness I have felt over the past several years without using them.

I hope to post more on this important cause in the weeks and months to come.

You can learn more about what Canada is doing when, where, and how:

here

and

here.

Also, check out an amazing advocate’s Facebook page with a catchy title for a tricky and unwanted intruder in so many people’s lives.

STOP THE STIGMA.

***

Through my blog searches I came across a woman’s blog and a project she has been launching. I immediately wanted to take part.

Her name is Rose B. Fischer and she has started crucial discussions on topics of people with disabilities and characters with disabilities being better represented in story and in media.

I sometimes think we are doing well with all this, but as someone who has been blind all my life I don’t know if that’s really true. It mostly depends on the kind of day I’m having when I think about it.

I didn’t want to make this blog strictly about any disability, but I can’t sit back and say nothing.

Here is my first answer to the questions Rose has posed and I will be answering as many as I can for as many Mondays as I possibly can, to hopefully do my part and spread the word that we can do better to help make this world a more inclusive place.

Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge: Week One, Part A

Q: What is your experience with disability? do you have disabilities?

A: My experience with disability has been going on my whole life. I live it and breathe it every single day, but work to make the most of life in spite of it. I sometimes long to dismantle the term “disability”, but then I realize that I can’t fight some things and try to work with what I’ve got and to just go with it.

I was born blind and so was my brother. I was born three years before he was, so my parents eventually had the two of us on their hands, not to mention their two sighted older children.

For many years my diagnosis was something called Leber’s Congenital Amaurosis and my vision really didn’t change. I grew up and lived a pretty normal life with my family. I had a great mother and father from the start, which I think makes all the difference in the world.

I went to my neighbourhood schools with my sighted peers and that, although not without its challenges, made all the difference as well.

Once I hit twelve-years-old I had other health conditions come into the picture and the total diagnosis was changed, or expanded to include a rare set of conditions, grouped together and called

Senior-Loken Syndrome,

involving both the eyes and the kidneys.

Over the years I have lost more vision and I do not enjoy the amount of sight I once had. I have lost the ability to read large print and to see colours. This hasn’t been easy and I fear I will lose the little remaining sight I currently have.

More on my eye condition can be found:

Here.

But my experiences haven’t always been bad. I am lucky and I know it, to be a person with a disability or two, living in Canada because, no matter what, things could always be worse.

You can find more information on Rose’s challenge:

Here.

And stay tuned for next Monday’s answer (Part B) to the question:

Do you have loved ones with disabilities? Do you work with people who have disabilities?

This will be answered by my amazingly strong and brave parents.