This refusal of authority can, however, get to the point where, like the centipede who tripped over his feet when asked how he walked, I can no longer trust my own judgements, let alone share them with others. And as this is my chosen profession, in person and on the page, I need to re-establish some sense of validity, an honest personal C.V. that accounts for time (and money) spent and lessons learned, allowing me to move into the world with a sense that, yes, I do (occasionally) practice as I preach and, yes, I can track how that practice has changed me. I’m borrowing Rebecca Miller’s phrase "personal velocity," the title of her novel and lovely film adaptation that chart decisive slivers of three women’s lives, moments in which they see themselves for who they are and then see themselves changing, often out of sync with the world and people around them. There is a moment where their speeds and the speeds of something larger – destiny or the material world, call it what you will – coincide, and these fragments of themselves shine forth.

As December crash lands and I am confronted with students’ evaluations of my work and the need to write my own reports and methodologies, it seems like the perfect time to perform a personal audit. I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, as they seem to me a perfect way to disappoint oneself, but I am into getting some kind of resolution as the Old Year draws to a chilly close. So I pursue my favourite activity: the making of lists. And even better, the making of meta-lists, lists that draw on all the lists that I have made during the year, with their little checks and crosses, scrawls and scribbles. In the summer of 2003, I lost my 2002-03 school year dayplanner, which induced near-catatonia as it felt like I had lost the events and achievements of the year (to say nothing of phone numbers and addresses for friends on three continents). Such things cannot be Googled. Sure, I have an internal speedometer, but my sense of the road I had travelled was a vague blur.

Here, for the record, let me then declare the things that clicked my miles along this year: I should begin by stating that the period between January and April is a school-oriented dead zone with nothing to say for itself – apart, perhaps, from a brief flash of having a writing mentor, but the transience of that relationship makes it both more vivid and less real than anything else in those months. Once school was out for the summer, I became transient, going on tour with Girls Who Bite Back, spending a month travelling around England (I lived there until I was 22, and there are still vast swathes of the country that I haven’t seen), inviting myself to Iceland for a week and enjoying the almost obscene hospitality of the land and people. Toronto held me fast once I returned, and I travelled in my mind, writing three chapters of my thesis and several articles, as well as reading a library of books and articles. The miles I was covering inside appeared on my body as wings, a tattoo that I had dreamed and planned since December. In September, the city sprang back into cultural life, and I sprang into it – as much as I could, with the weight of my first real job on my shoulders.

I was determined that this term would not be a prison, locking me into a timetable of commuting, teaching, grading and so on. There is so much to be done in Toronto, travelling only by TTC (as I come to realise that air travel is a major contributor to fossil fuel dependence and global warming) and I wanted to make sure that I had coverage. One of everything: an opera; a new play; an old film; a dance performance; a small workshop; a public lecture; a Film Festival screening; an art exhibition; a live music show; a book launch or four; a small press fair (or maybe three small press fairs…); a library I’d never visited before (mad props to the Film Reference Library for bending over backwards and forwards to help me investigate Sally Potter); a restaurant I’d never eaten at before – oh, and spending time with friends, including new friends and people I’d previously only known superficially, as well as sustaining work for three magazines and a youth organisation. And still, so much remains undone, from planned creative work to films I missed to shows I never even heard about until they were gone.

This is a cusp moment, as I am pressed up against the end of my thesis and the moment of what comes next. I am revving but not really moving, or moving but at strange, warped speeds. As I try to look forwards, I realise that what I really need to do is look back and see what I’ve done so far to understand what I need to do next. Top of the list are small things: visiting Halifax; writing for NOW; going to Cherry Beach; showing Toronto to friends from away; walking one of the ravines; eating Persian food… So much to do, how am I supposed to have eyes for the bigger picture? This was my problem when I was learning to drive: there was so much to see out of the window, I found it hard to focus on where I was going. But I always seemed to get somewhere, if not always entirely in one piece. Because here I am – and I can tell you how I got here if you want to get here too.

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