I've got seven days to live my life.

It's a cold evening. Winter is approaching, and with it, the end of another year - a year that seems to have passed within a matter of hours, not days or months. They say that the older you get, the faster the clock seems to tick. Here we are in the eleventh hour of this day called 2014, and yet it doesn't seem so long ago that I kissed midnight a frosty hello.

The year... my life, in fact, has flickered by like an elusive dream, where moments meld into one another almost nonsensically to form a memory that only fleetingly tells the truth.

As I sit contemplating the year and all that has happened, the plans that never materialized into actions, and the unplanned events that took on a life of their own, I feel the room growing colder. Frost appears on the windows, and the cats huddle together for warmth on the cushion.

I check the thermostat, but oddly, the temperature reads a balmy 22 degrees Celsius (that's nearly 72 Fahrenheit for anyone who swings that way). The room just keeps getting colder and I dive onto the couch and wrap myself up in the fleece blanket. What I wouldn't give for a fireplace right now! If it gets any colder, I may have to burn something.

As if on cue, a fireball appears above me, hovering in the air between the walls of my living room. I let out a high pitched shriek, and the cats are not having any of this nonsense, so they scamper frantically up the stairs. I'd consider making a run for it myself, if I wasn't sort of a deer caught in the headlights.

The fireball melts the frost on the windows and I realize that I'm no longer cold, so I shed the blanket. Burning cyclically through a rainbow of hues in their established order, and pulsating rhythmically, throwing a beam of light around the room like a lighthouse,  the pulsar in my living room seems to be trying to manifest into some other kind of form. The fireball goes supernova, and in the process I begin to feel myself being pulled toward it, its gravity nearly ripping me apart as it draws me up and in...

I land bluntly on the floor with a thud. I glare up in the fireball's direction to find that it has transformed into what I can only describe as an angel. I don't believe in angels, so this is a bit mind-blowing. But hovering before me is an ethereal, androgynous, human-like figure displaying enormous glowing wings. As far as I know, there is nothing else that fits the description, so angel it must be.

The angel speaks. It's voice (yes, I'm calling him or her an "it") is like nothing I've ever heard before, like a cacophony of musical instruments all playing at once, an orchestra of random notes in bizarre repetition. And yet somehow, through this noise, I am able to understand the angel's "words" perfectly.

The angel tells me that I'm being given the opportunity to go back to seven key decision points in my life and make a different choice - go in the other direction to see what might have been. After I've seen the alternative outcome of all seven decisions, I will be able to choose which of those seven lives I want to stay in permanently, and live out the rest of my life as though I had always made that decision.

This seems to me like a power that shouldn't be placed in the hands of a fool such as myself, but I decide that I would be an even bigger fool not to take the angel up on this tantalizing, once in a lifetime offer. It is once in a lifetime, isn't it? I don't suppose I can sleep on it and let it know in the morning? No, it bellows with a dissonant clatter. I didn't think so.

Alright then, let's do this.

My heart dislodges from its preferred location and begins to travel at near light-speed throughout my body as I hurtle back in time with the angel to Thursday, December 4, 1975, approximately 11:40 PM. This is the moment of my birth. Holy fucking shit. I feel like a character from a Dickens novel. I am present in the hospital room as my mother gives birth to me.

I turn to the angel and tell it I shouldn't be here. This is one of those things I shouldn't have the privilege of seeing. I can't watch. In that instant, the angel and I are hurtling through time and space, and I'm watching my life unfold before my eyes, from infancy to toddlerhood through kindergarten and beyond, all in a matter of seconds until we stop again. I am 14 years old. I'm watching myself tease my bangs sky high in my bedroom mirror, dousing my head with too much hair spray. I'm wearing my burgundy and grey plaid St. Mary's uniform. I have no idea how to apply makeup, and my iridescent green eye shadow screams it loud and clear. This is the first of my key decision points.

Not whether to tease my bangs or wear amateurishly applied eye shadow. Those are small things. And while certainly each decision causes our lives to split off into a new direction, I'm hardly concerned with the outcomes of other hair and makeup decisions. No, I know where this is going.At nearly 39 years old, I'm still terrified of getting on that school bus.

I always thought my decision to leave St. Mary's was a good one. Yes, I ran away from my tormentors, but I found a better, happier life in the public high school among people who more like me. What's wrong with that?

Clearly the angel has other ideas. What if, instead of running away to another school, I stayed and faced the music. Owned up to and apologized for the deed that got me shit-listed. Stood up for myself instead of hiding in the bathroom. Took charge of the problem instead of letting myself become a victim. What would have happened then?

As it turns out, as I watch myself right the wrong and try to make amends, things actually do get better. Not immediately, and it's certainly not the end of my bad times. The bullies and I never become friends, and that is as it should be. But eventually, the fear and the hate dissipate. I buckle down academically and my grades improve. I don't graduate valedictorian or anything, but I graduate with a greater sense of self esteem and far less anxiety about who likes or hates me.

Well isn't that something.

But I don't get to admire the green grass for long. We are on the move again laterally through space this time, and we wind up in my final year of high school - in the timeline I actually lived. Like I said, once I escaped the misery of life at St. Mary's, the remainder of my high school career went rather nicely.  I made good friends, got good grades, participated in the theatre department, and enjoyed school more or less.

Then at the very end of my graduating year, I went and wrote that stupid story for the city newspaper about how my school looked like a cheese factory, and my reputation tanked. It was supposed to be comical homage; instead, a student rebuttal in the school newspaper made me a social pariah. All of my favourite teachers turned on me. And instead of taking the opportunity to respond the way a real journalist would, what did I do? Nothing.

Angel, you have given me a gift.

I watch excitedly as 18-year-old me drafts a carefully worded response, clarifying my original intention and pointing out all of the flaws in logic presented in the student's rebuttal. I regain my status as a well-liked student just before graduation, and my editor at the city newspaper is so impressed with my poise and gumption that he offers me an ongoing feature gig while I'm at university and then eventually a full time journalist role upon graduation.

As promised, the angel takes me to other key decision points in my life...

...instead of studying English at Laurentian, getting my Bachelor of Fine Arts at Brock, leading me into a career as a graphic designer.

...instead of moving out while my boyfriend was away on a family trip, waiting until he returned to face him and tell him the truth, leaving him with grace instead of cowardice, enabling us both to heal faster and stronger.

...instead of leaving my job at the library after one year to go backpacking, keeping my job and working my way up to a librarian position, enabling me to take an even bigger and better overseas adventure a few years later.

...instead of spending all my money on a plane ticket to Australia, catching the train from Brussels to Berlin and finishing my European backpacking adventure.

...instead of holding out for my current job, accepting the first one that was offered to me at that teensy-weensy software startup.

Finally, the angel and I fly through space and time to arrive back at the current moment, here in my living room, mid-November, 2014. I have had the spectacularly unique and singular chance to see how my life would change had I made other decisions. Now I have one more key decision to make: which of those decisions would I like to activate? Which of those versions of my life would I like to be living right now?

This is perhaps the most difficult decision I've ever been asked to make. I've had so many callings in life... artist, journalist, librarian. I've left some wonderful loves behind. I have an incurable travel compulsion. And I've made my own bed, on more than one occasion.

I wish I had time to live them all. I still want to be an artist, a journalist, and a librarian when I grow up. I still want to finish my European backpacking adventure. I want to erase the damage I've done to good hearts. I want to stand up for myself and show everyone I'm not a victim. I want forgive those who have hurt me, giving me the strength to move beyond that pain.

Having the chance now to live out one of those lives, I, ever the fool, tell the angel that I think I will just stay where I am. I have lived the life I was always supposed to live. I am who I am because of my mistakes, because of my choices, because of my turn-on-a-dime adventures. I can't say I've no regrets, but my regrets make me thankful for the blessings.

And besides, I'm a vindictive bitch. Suck it, mean girls from St. Mary's.

*****

Can I just say that I'm really not a vindictive bitch? I think the only  act of retributive justice I ever committed was when I was 8 years old and my bratty little cousin, whose family we were sharing a house with at the time,  went into my room and  ransacked my toy closet, so I used my brand new birthday gift of painty markers to deface her toys. I permanently lost my rights to those painty markers, but it was so worth it. Every stroke I painted on her stuff filled me with an evil joy I've never experienced since. I subsequently learned to control such impulses.

'Hours...' is not my all-time favourite Bowie album. It's pretty alright. It has a few very good songs on it. As a whole, its listenability improves dramatically if I skip Thursday's Child. I'm so bummed about that song. Being an actual Thursday's child, I had high hopes for it. With a different approach, it could have been so good, but as it is, I think it's just terrible. Vocally, it sounds like it was recorded after a long bad day of being caught in the rain and then exhibiting the early symptoms of a vicious cold. And the nails-on-a-chalkboard backing vocals make me want to stab myself in the ears. I think this may be my absolute most despised Bowie song. Well, there was always going to be one, I suppose.

The album seems to have done what it was supposed to do though... it took me on a voyage through my life; it certainly sounds like that's what Bowie is doing himself. Don't we all look back and pinpoint moments we wish we could change, make a different choice, do over? I certainly have my share, as demonstrated in the above story, which is based on true events and true dreams.

Nowhere. Shampoo. TV. Combat. Boyzone. Slim tie. Showdown. Can't stop.

I'm sitting in a packed theatre. The show is already in progress, and I have no idea what it is that I'm seeing on the stage. Just one man, two empty chairs, and a microphone. Around me, the audience is laughing and clapping, telling me the mood is light. So he's a stand-up comedian, perhaps?

 

Then suddenly, a spotlight is blinding me, shining right down on me, and the man on stage is calling me up.  I'm reluctant to obey, having no knowledge of what was said in the minutes and seconds before I was transported to this seat. I'm quite certain I didn't volunteer for anything.

He calls me again though, and informs us all that my seat number matches the number he's just drawn from his coat pocket. The large monitor behind him shows the seat number 649 on a piece of paper in his hand. I barely have time to check my seat number to make sure it's not some mistake before he sends beckons someone from backstage to come and get me. In my pocket, feel a piece of paper that turns out to be a ticket stub, with the seat number 649 printed on it.

I am guided to the stage by the man's assistant, clutching my arm firmly in case I should decide to flee; I would if I could.

As I climb the stairs to the stage, the man with my seat number in his hand points to one of the two chairs which sit facing each other. I think I have a feeling where this may be going, and I'm not one bit pleased. Perhaps I don't know enough about hypnosis to make an informed judgment about it, and certainly if someone claims to have been helped by it, then I'm happy for them. But for entertainment purposes, I don't believe for a second that I'm capable of going under. I won't give up the wheel without a fight - it's just my nature.

So I suppose I have nothing to worry about, and I relax as I take my seat. The man with my number introduces me as The Person in Seat Number 649, everybody! and the rest of the audience applauds my luck... or theirs. Finally, he asks me my name and I tell him, which he relates to masses.

Now Shelley, have you ever been under hypnosis before? He asks. I simply say no, deciding not to tell him about that time when an amateur practicing friend tried once and failed to crack my resistance. He informs me that it'll be quick and painless, that soon I'll be under, and he promises not to cause me to do anything that might injure me physically. He says nothing about how I might come out of this socially, however. Do I have his consent?

Sure, I tell him, obstinate in my belief that he will not be successful. Not that I wish to embarrass him or anything, I simply am too in control of my mind to...

Nowhere. Shampoo. TV. Combat. Boyzone. Slim tie. Showdown. Can't stop.

I'm sitting on the stage in a chair facing a hypnotist who has just managed to lull me into a trance. I'm here, but I'm not really here. I can't really describe it. I'm a passenger inside my own mind, here for the ride, but not driving. I thought I'd feel violated, angry. But I'm surprisingly okay with it.

The hypnotist tells the audience that he's going to scramble my thoughts and my words - that what I'm saying will make perfect sense to me, but will sound absurd to everyone else. He asks me to tell him a story - something from my life, a recent event.

I begin to tell him about the time I was dancing on a slippery floor at a friend's Hallowe'en party, me in my Special Agent Dana Scully costume, and I slipped in such a way that my feet slid in opposite directions and I did the splits involuntarily, tearing the ligaments in my knee in the process, and then going home with borrowed crutches. I hear the words coming out of my mouth and they sound just as I've described it to you. But all the audience hears is:

"Stinky weather, fat shaky hands, dopey morning doc, grumpy gnomes.  Big screen dolls, tits and explosions, sleepytime, bashful but nude. Intergalactic, see me to be you. It's all in the tablets, sneezy Bhutan. Mars happy nation, sit on my karma, Dame meditation, take me away".

The audience laughs and applauds, and I think to myself "Yeah, I really hurt my knee, but I guess it was pretty funny the way it happened".

The hypnotist hushes the crowd and tells me that he is unscrambling my words. He asks me to tell the story again and I do. This time, the right words come out and in the right order. I'd be amazed if I wasn't, you know, incapable of amazement with him steering my thoughts.

Next, the hypnotist says that he's going to ask me to enter the place in my mind where my memories stretch back to a previous life, or lives, however far back I can go. He tells me to search that place and describe a memory - anything that comes to me, whatever stands out.

I tell him about my life as a Tibetan peasant in the mid 1940's. I want to be better than what I am, but my faith is shaky. I want to believe, but I don't. I try, but I fail, repeatedly, at forcing myself to feel something other than my corporeal self bumbling through the world. I cast off my possessions, only to regret it and acquire new ones. The battle within me rages for the full extent of my life on earth.

What the hypnotist doesn't know is that I made it all up. I didn't really mean to. I told him the story of my past life in earnest, because it felt true, all while the memories seemed to come from some other place, not from inside my brain, but from outside, like some unseen entity feeding them to me. I have no actual recollection of any of the events I have just described.

The hypnotist is content to believe my story. Actually he seems quite pleased with himself. But I can't tell him it's all lies, because he hasn't asked me. And even if he did, he's got control, so I would only be able to tell him what he wants to hear.

The hypnotist knows how to structure his show. With my past life regression out of the way, he decides to lighten the mood. He implores me to do perform a medley of dances: first, a waltz. He may be sitting in the chair, but he's taking the lead, and I follow dutifully, though I've never actually waltzed in my life. Next, I'm doing a foxtrot, then a tango, all at the hypnotists command. For my final number, he calls out the moves to a bizarre line dance, that he calls the Dead Man's Walk. Without any kind of guidance on what the moves should look like, I complete each "step" with a fluid grace:

Gone, gone, gone spinning slack through reality
Dance my way, falling up through the years
Until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly
Losing breath underwater well I'm gone, gone, gone
Spinning slack through reality
Dance my way, falling up through the years
Until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly
Losing breath underwater when I'm gone, gone, gone
Spinning slack through reality

The audience loves it. I sit back down and await further instructions. The hypnotist addresses the audience and tells them that soon he will wake me. When he does, I will be unable to recall anything that has happened here tonight. I will lose the events of this evening to the part of my brain that holds forgotten dreams.

But before he brings me back to consciousness, he has one more stunt for me. He asks me my nationality, and I tell him I'm Canadian. He asks me if Canada has always been my home and I tell him yes. Then he asks me if I like Americans, and I tell him I do. He replies "Not anymore. You're afraid of them".

And suddenly, just like he said, I'm afraid of Americans. This room contains hundreds of people, and any one of them could be American. My heart starts beating like it's going to burst from my chest, and I feel cold. I have to get out of here. What will they do to me if I stay?

With abject terror, I leap down the stairs from the stage and sprint as fast as I can to the door. The hypnotist calls out for the ushers to keep me contained, but it's too late, I'm already through the door and out in the lobby, running faster and faster as I realize that anyone around me could be American. I stop at the door that leads to the street with the realization that it's not safe for me out there. I tremble with fear and search the lobby for a quiet corner.

The hypnotist bursts through the theatre doors and finds me cowering in the corner. As he approaches I tell him to stay back. How do I know he's not American?!

With the word "stop", I become still. He tells me that on the count of five I will wake from my trance and remember nothing that has happened since my seat number was called. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1.

And here I am, back in the realm of the conscious, wondering what on earth I'm doing sitting on the floor in the corner of the lobby. The hypnotist turns and walks away from me without a word. Confused, I leave the building.

As I make my way to the subway to go home, I find I have the sudden urge to dance. Not just an urge, but a compulsion. I descend the stairs to the subway platform. I'm the only one there... so I dance my way, falling up through the years, until I swivel back round then I fly, fly, fly, losing breath underwater and I'm gone, gone, gone, spinning slack through reality.

*****

Earthling is a super fun album and a much-needed pick-me-up from the disturbed darkness that was Outside. I didn't find it particularly profound, just a really cool fusion of several different kinds of music, cleanly stitched together with Bowie's own unique thread.

I'm totally obsessed with Looking for Satellites. It actually does put me in kind of a hypnotic state; I get totally lost in it, and when it's over I'm sad. The repetition of the words Nowhere...  Shampoo... TV... Combat... Boyzone... Slim tie... Showdown... Can't stop... do something weird and wonderful to my brain, like I'm getting an intra-cranial massage or something.

And Seven Years in Tibet... come on. Way to bring the glam back in such an unexpected way. And Dead Man Walking, with its otherwordly "line dance" called out underneath the main chorus lines. This album has given me a few new favourites for sure.

Upon the first listen, I actually realized I've heard this album before - I'm Afraid of Americans on the radio, for one. But I also remember hearing several of songs from Earthling in the dorm at my university. It was nice to sort of have a wee little tingle of familiarity with it. I'm just glad that now I'm able to appreciate it.