I don't know how to and I don't know how not to

The concept of leaving a parent is so complex and painful, it is hard to put to words what I am feeling.  It feels terrifying to leave and it feels terrifying to stay.  Either way, it is heart wrenching.  I am just beginning to understand and accept why the relationship cannot continue, and still I am trapped in a state of intermittent fear, panic, guilt and worry.  I have felt for my whole life that I am responsible for her.  I didn't speak to her of childhood emotional abuse until I had a child myself.  I was worried she couldn't handle accountability.  I have worried my whole life she would kill herself.  When I left home, I really left.  I split away from her.  I wrote in more journals than I could count.  I allowed myself peace, travel, love, self acceptance.  I relished in the safety of living away from her.  I loved that nobody ever woke me up yelling and slamming things around.  Nobody ever shamed me for who I was in my own home.  Nobody made me feel like I was not enough.  She still called, but she didn't ever come over and I rarely went there.  We had some rough times despite the distance, but compared to living under her roof, I felt free.  Over the years, I do remember some terrible conversations.  I remember begging her on the phone to let me live my life.  To support me rather than tear me down and criticize me.  I begged for her acceptance.  Those times were consistent enough to keep my guard up high enough to keep a healthy distance.  Our relationship remained fairly superficial for years.  She knew as little as I could possibly share about my life.  Interestingly, I don't think she ever realized that, and that was probably why it worked.  In my late twenties and early thirties, I felt a change.  I felt almost accepted.  Not completely, but almost.  She had always been proud of me, but that pride was always rivalled by some very big disappointment in all the ways I was not who she wanted me to be.  But suddenly those disappointments seemed to fall away and what was left was a proud mother. She liked how I looked all grown up and no longer 'embarrassed' her by looking like a hippie, she liked that I was experiencing success in my career.   I was able to do things that I had always wanted to do for her.  She loved me extra.  I met my husband and began a relationship with someone who fit her approval.  She was thrilled.  I still was careful what I told her, but bit by bit, I began to let her in.  I began to look to her for support - something I really had never done for as long as I have a memory.

What happened to change all of that is like a perfect storm.  The first thing that happened to disrupt our brief lapse from the destruction was that my grandmother passed away.  That loss coupled with my mom retiring left her in a bad place.  I did my best to be supportive, but the loss was so huge for her that there was nothing I could really do.  She was like a deep, deep, dark hole.  Nothing I did could ever hope to fill it.  Months and months after my grandma's passing, nothing improved.  She would call and tell me she was sleeping all day.  If I couldn't give her what she wanted, if I couldn't give her something in my life to keep her busy, she would tell me that she would just go back to sleep.  She would just take another pill.  If I couldn't give her a job to do at my house or have her over, or go somewhere with her, she made me feel guilty.  I am sure she was not aware that she was doing it, but it felt clear to me -  her grief was mine to fix.  I had no idea how to fix it.  I asked her to get some help.  I encouraged her to get a part time job, volunteer, focus on a hobby.  She did not want any of that.  I was her hobby.

Next, my brother betrayed my husband and I.  Without getting into all the details, I will just say that it had been coming for years, there was a lot of resentment behind it and I don't believe it will ever be fixed.  My mom could not accept that my brother and I were no longer speaking.  I tried tirelessly to explain how important it was for her to let us feel what we were all feeling.  To stop pushing because betrayals like that take a long time to heal, and even longer with no apology from my brother, and no sign of him wanting anything to do with us, or his niece I was pregnant with.  She pushed and pushed and pushed.  Back came the shame.  The 'how dare you be angry after all he's done for you'.  The denial that what I was feeling was valid.  Despite acknowledging how wrong it was, she still somehow made it at least partly my fault.  She maintains to this day that I am somehow responsible.  He would love to be in our lives, but we won't allow him.  He has never, ever, reached out to me to make an attempt to see us.  We have been very clear that we would be able to move past it if he wanted to repair things with us, but he has made no attempt.  And my mom firmly believes that I am at fault for that.

The final thing that changed this was that I was pregnant with her first and only grandchild.  I had no idea how powerful of a change this would cause.  The hard part was that both things were going on at the same time.  We discovered my brothers indiscretion while I was pregnant and it catapulted a very very negative time between her and I.  I was beginning to feel the protectiveness of my child and the sinking realization that if my mom would subject me to pain and destruction, even with a child growing inside of me, there was plenty in store in the years ahead.  She kept cranking it up.  When she wasn't getting what she wanted from me, she began reminding me more and more often that she had tried killing herself twice and ended up in the psych ward before they adopted my brother and I.  In one fight, she told me that she was molested by my uncle as a child. This was an uncle she had left me with when her and my dad went on a trip when I was 3 or 4 years old.  She later tried to back peddle that, I still don't know how to process it, or what the truth is.  She would tell me that my grandpa burned her with cigarettes.  She took a photo of my grandma and went to her room crying that she should just go 'be with grandma'.  I was pregnant and absolutely destroyed by these fights.  I feel guilty to this day for what my daughter heard and felt while in my belly between my mom and I.

Since that time, there has been more and more destruction and fighting.  We're coming up on 4 years of it.  Things will be fine for a few months, and then something else happens.  Now our issues revolve around my daughter.  She is at the centre of all of it.  We didn't speak for months because I wanted my aunt to watch Ivy instead of her.  She was welcome to be there, but I wanted to give instructions to my aunt and have her be the person we would deal with about her care because I couldn't handle how many of my concerns my mom would disregard and how flippant she was about the things that mattered to me as a new mother.  She would refuse to remove pins from the bottoms of her curtains, which were pinned to be hemmed and were in the room Ivy was always in.  She just said no.  "We'll watch her.  We would never let her get hurt".  Until I refused to bring Ivy there, she would not remove the pins.  When in an effort to stop all of the tension, stress and fights that this stuff would cause, we asked my aunt to watch her, my mom lost it.  Completely lost it.  She let loose on me and wouldn't let up.  When one round of shame and guilt wouldn't work, she would take it to the next level and then the next level and then yet another level.  She sent an email pretending to be my dad telling me that I was causing him more pain that he had felt since his mother died.  I called to talk to my dad the next morning and he said, "what email?".  She told me my late grandmother was disappointed.  Her friends were disappointed, nobody could believe what I was "doing to her".  It went on for weeks that way until I shut down every form of communication with her.  I had my husband let her know that they could make arrangements to visit Ivy by having my aunt call.  I wouldn't speak to my mom.  She refused to see Ivy under those terms (she had already been refusing to see her if she had to go to my aunts to see her) and she allowed people to believe I was withholding Ivy from her.  When I blocked all forms of communication with her, she began to call my husband and pass along messages through him.  I eventually asked him not to relay any more.  My aunt continued to help us with Ivy, but my mom punished her for it too much and she finally called and said that she couldn't help us anymore.

Next, my mom ended up in the hospital.  She had cellulitis on her forehead and it was a very serious case of it.  I of course felt completely responsible.  Despite the very disapproving looks from those closest to me who knew what I had been through, I let my mom back in.  I told her she needed to be seeing a therapist, which after refusing for many years, she had finally taken that step as a result of my pulling out of her life.  Things began to improve, but never for long.  Every few months, it would all come back.  She would go back to the issue of my brother, or somehow find something new to not accept about me and try to shame me into different choices.  At one point, being desperate for a daycare solution when i needed to remove Ivy from a bad centre, she agreed to watch her 2 days a week.  Looking back, I know that was a big mistake and don't understand why I didn't see that more clearly.  Ivy loved being there so much, it was taking a lot of pressure off of us and it seemed to be really improving my mom's state of mind.  Even as I type this, I have the sick realization of what I was creating.  Ivy was now in charge of keeping her happy.  As long as she had Ivy to take care of and plan activities for and take photos and videos of, those two days seemed to keep her pretty happy the rest of the time too.  She had what she most wanted.  I had no idea how dangerous that was.

Over the time that she had Ivy for those days, I kept seeing pills being left within her reach.  I addressed it over and over.  I kept saying, you can't leave this stuff out and getting her to move them, and didn't even question that she would not put them back in reach as it seemed so obvious.  After asking her over and over, I could see that she was rolling her eyes and acting very put out any time I asked her to move the medications, and tended to move them somewhere that was still in reach, like in a drawer instead of on the dresser at the lake.  One day, I came into the kitchen when picking Ivy up, saw two containers out on the counter, in full reach of Ivy.  She said, they are only out because they are being refilled today.  I pointed right next to them to the little container with the days of the week on them with flip top lids filled with a weeks worth of pills for her and my dad.  Enough medication to kill several children.  I was furious. I had addressed the issue of that specific pill box again and again and I couldn't believe she was leaving it out still.  I opened the cupboard and saw all of their prescription meds (they both take quite a few pills - my dad takes heart medications, my mom takes sleeping pills at night, antidepressants and/or anxiety meds, etc), all of these major heavy duty meds (that they fill the days of the week container with) were all on the bottom shelf of the cupboard. Ivy goes into our cupboards at home all the time and reaches the bottom two shelves with ease.  She just pulls a chair over, stands and takes stuff out.  I told her that if that stuff was not moved to a place Ivy could not reach, even with the help of a chair, I would no longer bring her there.  The next time I brought Ivy there, it was all still there.  Bathroom medicine cabinet also full of meds.  Cold medicines  and gravol in pill pockets, a large container of Tylenol with the lid off, a baggy with little yellow pills, you name it.  I put it all on the table and said that this is all the medication that you have been leaving in her reach.  She will never be here without me again.  She told me that Ivy is 'not a climber', that they 'watch her' and would never let her get hurt, that they are not a day care, that I have to 'remember that this is their home', they were just trying to do me a favour but if we don't like how they do it, we are more than welcome to put her into daycare.  She said, I guess I've been doing it wrong for 40 years, with an eye roll.  I couldn't believe it.  I was so angry, disappointed, flabbergasted.  I moved all of the medications out of reach and let them keep her that day because Ivy could see that we were fighting (also makes me feel sick that there were times Ivy witnessed our discord with one another) and she didn't understand why she had to leave.  I picked her up and never took her back.  Immediately, the situation that caused it was edited to be a few empty and near empty pill bottles with 'childproof' lids that were on the counter only because they were going to get them refilled.  The story she told made me seem like a lunatic helicopter parent who needed to just chill out.  Over the last few months, the story has evolved.  Now she takes full responsibility for the fact that she and my dad didn't think that a few pill bottles in childproof containers on a second shelf of a cupboard was a big deal and that they should have moved them when I asked.

When I stopped bringing Ivy there, it all started up again.  How I was breaking their hearts.  How could I do this to her.  Maybe she should just 'disappear' and everyone would be better off without her.  She did apologize over and over.  I'm sorry I ruined your life.  I'm sorry I'm such a horrible person.  Sandwiched between cutting remarks about how it really is all my fault and "I have apologized over and over, what more do you want?!".  She refused to see Ivy for weeks, so then my dad and aunt also did not see her for that time.  My aunt has only seen her once (on Ivy's birthday) since this all happened and it has been two or three months.  She used to see her every week. She still will only see her if invited by my mom so as not to upset my mom by having a relationship with us independent of her.  I am learning that this is very common with people who have issues like my mom, but it has been hard to accept.  I do finally accept it now, but it hurts.  Accepting it has been one of the things that has brought me to a place where I feel that I am getting more and more ready to go no contact.  I have already lost everyone I would lose by doing it.

This last round was the end for me.  I can't let her back in again.  I have allowed the destruction of that relationship to affect Ivy already too much in her short 3 years.  I can't do it anymore.  I tried pulling back and just not responding to anything negative that she would send or say.  It made it worse. She ramped it up. I don't sleep when she ramps it up.  I am not present for Ivy the way I would like.  I am coming unraveled.  I miss work, miss time with my family, go long stretches without proper sleep.  Chris had to take holiday time so that I could just go away for a few days to be able to try to work through my emotions about it all away from Ivy.  He has taken so much time off of work to support me through the hard times with my mom.  It has to stop.  He is such an amazing man, but I know that I need to take care of my marriage.  There are only so many years that I can expect him to keep picking up the pieces when my mom's presence in our lives causes so much chaos and yet I continue to allow it by giving her access.

It's so hard in this day and age.  Technology has made it so hard to have healthy boundaries with someone who doesn't do well with respecting boundaries.  There are so many different ways she can get to me.  It doesn't matter where I am, she always has access.  At the park with Ivy, she can send an absolutely rotten text and take me out.  Out for breakfast with my family, she can call and call over and over (literally - call, no answer, hang up , call no answer, hangup, call no answer hang up) and dampen the mood with the stress I feel when I feel hunted down like that.  At work, I can refresh my email and have my whole day change.  When I shut down all forms of communication with her and blocked her from contact for a short time two years ago, I felt immediately safe.  I slept so well the  night I did it.  I had expected to be up all night feeling guilty, but I wasn't.  I just felt this immediate sense of safety.  I knew she couldn't get to me.  I didn't have to brace myself when checking my emails.  I could post on Facebook a photo of my husband and I on a date and not get grilled about who watched Ivy.  Every time my phone rang, I knew it couldn't be her.  I really truly felt home-free.  I knew it couldn't be forever at the time.  Now, I don't know.  Now, I think I need that safety or I will continue to expose my daughter to something that can only damage her.  I need to get myself healthy.   For my husband, for my daughter and for myself.

No Place Else to Go

I don't miss being young.  I miss feeling invincible.  I miss thinking nothing could take me down.  I miss feeling free to live without worrying about what every move will mean.  That's how I felt when I first began travelling out on my own.  Now, I feel like I am back in that prison I grew up in.  Now, I feel like I have to brace myself for what is coming around each and every bend again.

I am trying to walk away from the most destructive relationship I have ever experienced.  When that title is owned by the relationship with a parent, walking away is heavier than anyone's imagination could bare.  It seems almost impossible to actually do it.  It is bogged down in guilt.  In all that I owe her.  In all that went wrong for her.  In all that made her life too hard to be able to love unconditionally.  In all the good times, which translates to guilt.  "Didn't you have fun when we took you to Edmonton?" "Your brother doesn't have any complaints" "It couldn't have been all bad".  No, it wasn't.  But when it has been bad, it has been awful. And it was and still is awful a lot.  It has never truly ended.  I am about to turn 38.  I have a 3 year old.  I am now the mother.  I can't let the cycle continue.  The dysfunction.  The madness.  It has been so much madness.  I can't go through one more fight.  I can't defend my right to one more feeling or decision.  I can't see my daughter feel less safe and secure every time the energy in our home turns to one of survival and badly disguised emotional trauma.  I can't take worrying that if I draw a line and stick to it that she will take her life.  I need to walk away.  And this is sure to be the hardest thing I have ever done.   

the end of a year, and the beginning of....

2013 is coming to it's end.  it has been amazing and it has been stressful, it has been painful and it has been healing.  i am finding my way through motherhood.  i am leaning against my husband more than i am being a wife.  i have to change this.  i am learning that i must let go of some things i didn't know i needed to let go of.  i am feeling so sad, broken and hopeful all at once.  life is heartbreaking.  and a child makes it so worth it.

i wanted to start the new year with a clean house.  it didn't happen, but it got at least sort of clean.  the main floor is 'husband clean' (as my husband puts it).  our bathroom is wife clean.  floors and baseboard clean.  outside of the toilet bowl clean.  that makes me happy.  i'll take it.

if i could re-cap the year, i would say that i learned that sometimes we lose things that we weren't expecting and gain things we never knew could exist.  my body will never be the same after having Ivy.  i don't mean the stretch marks and the loose skin.  i mean prolapse, i mean scar tissue, i mean never being able to lift or be as independent as i am used to again.  the year has been marked with this fact and learning to live with it and trying to change it despite what google says.  and in grieving my previous tyndall hauling, piano moving, snow shovelling, house renovating self, i am learning to accept.  accept that we don't get to leave this earth with all that we entered with and grace is learning to live the the fullest despite that.  learning how to model a strong woman to Ivy even if I can't be the one who carries her on my shoulders and swings her around.  even if i have to say, 'mommy can't do that' each and every time she wants me to do the body jungle gym stuff that daddy does.  i want her to see me as strong even if i can't do it all.

more importantly, what stands out for me is the amazing gift of watching my daughter grow.  when the year began, she was still so close to newborn.  she amazed me just as much at that stage, but i just can't believe how much she has grown and changed.  she is becoming a little girl.  if we say 'no biggie', she shrugs her shoulders like it's really no big deal.  when i say goodnight, she kisses me goodnight.  when she hugs me, she pats my back.  the love i have for her could light the whole world.  i feel so lucky to be her mother.  and i love every little bit of my pelvic prolapsed, stretch mark ridden, paunchy bellied body for having brought her to me.  i felt sometimes over the past year that my body let me down, but i was wrong.  it provided a home and a place to grow for my daughter, got her here safely, and pushed her out into the world.  i am eternally grateful.

hello 2014 :)

Ivy

                                       

 So, now I am a mother. I have been a mother for some time. Since sometime in February of last year when my body began to house a little girl who would turn out to be Ivy. And more traditionally for six months and five days, I have been a mother. I tried to start other blogs. I tried to write it all down on paper. I always end up missing my old blog. I always come back.

 Because she is six months old, it's hard to know where to start. From the start of her life on the outside, she has made the world quiet down around me. Those first few weeks, my body was so broken from birthing her and I couldn't do much, but I could hold her and stare at her and be amazed. My favourite times were in the middle of the night when it felt like the whole world was asleep except Ivy and I. I would sit in the yellow chair in the living room with music playing quietly and nurse her. The peace of her existence was so intense to me. The extent to which everything had just changed felt like a relief somehow. Maybe life had been getting too busy and ebbing away at my perspective. I joked that motherhood was the new traveling. I felt the kind of clarity I had only ever experienced traveling, except it ran even deeper. I never knew that motherhood would feel so freeing. I had always feared it would steal freedom. Not once we were pregnant, but for years in the not so distant past. Instead, it opened me up. I began to look so forward to each new day. I wake up to this beautiful smiling little face and I am excited to be graced with the gift of her light and her laughter and getting to help her learn the world. Every day there is something new. Every day that light in her eyes brightens my whole world. I am so lucky to be her mother.

in my heart there was a child.

sometimes i can't tell if i'm young or old. if i'm wise or foolish. if i am right or wrong.

am i supposed to be less decided? should i let more happen the way it does and want less to change outcomes, even when they are unhealthy? there is a zen buddhist in me, lifetimes away who says yes. i'm just not there yet. i am working on it though, with many failures under my belt. i say that gently because i know that we fail in life and it doesn't mean we'll never succeed. i just have a tough time to put aside some hard feelings to move past certain things. i have a hard time forgiving situations that perpetuate. that much i can see. it makes me go back to the first line of this post.

i want a nice little space that is like a fire crackling away in the fireplace in a room that is warm in thought and in light and heat. i want to find more artistic elements in my days. i want to retain freedom even in the things that steal it. i want to lend my freedom to some beautiful little people who will teach me humility and test how irish i am and show me what it is to be alive. i want to not let it all ebb away at my love for all that i love. i want to walk down the aisle. i want all that i have. i am afraid but not of what i have, more of what i have to lose. that is no way to live, but i can't help but grasp sometimes. i have so much..

grace

the other day i found an old suitcase in the basement. it was filled with memories of a younger self, a different time. a necklace that represented love, match books i used to light cigarettes with, a notebook with addresses to write home to, a photograph of an old friend and i in our youth, a poem, a train ticket, the sleeve from a mixed tape listing the songs meant to keep me company on the road, vials of essential oils with smells that bring me back. the suitcase itself smells of comfort and memory inside. i'm not sure how it got such a delicate and welcoming smell, all closed up for so long. i'm glad it does.

the mirror built in to the lid of the suitcase is broken and even that is comforting, just knowing that the years of bad luck that might have ensued have long passed. like everything else in the suitcase, any burden it carried has long since subsided. a good reminder in itself.

the memories are sweet. i was alone a lot back then. i kept company with strangers more than friends. strangers became my friends. i played guitar more. i sang more. i wrote more. i timed my days around dusk, rain, meteorites, falling leaves. i was a regular in coffee shops, i was less confident and more wise. i was not afraid and for that, i love that suitcase the most.

and so, the last few days have been to remind me. of letting myself be guided, of finding beauty in the small things, of how beautiful of a life i have been graced to be a part of.

which brings me here, to a new space in my home where i hope to be able to take some of what lives inside my mind and heart and let it have a place outside of me. it is simple and clean and beautiful. it is a blank canvas, minus the intimidation ;)

the wisdom to know the difference

i feel like i break things trying sometimes.

all of this coming together and coming apart

it's peaceful with him. as we prepare to marry, i am so grateful for the love we have found. i feel at peace when i cook him a meal. he feels at peace when he carries for me what i used to carry alone.

with my parents, it is peaceful. my mom sees our love and knows our family will grow. my dad sees our love and i know he loves chris for loving me with the same grace and patience as he does. they both love him for taking care of me.

it is peaceful with friends. the friends who celebrate him with me feel like a part of our extended family and i am so grateful for them.

it is peaceful in business. we have gained great neighbors and friends and to find those things in a business partnership is serendipitous.

it is peaceful with extended family. when i least expect it, certain people reach out in small ways and i appreciate it.

and then there is the coming apart. maybe they would have come apart anyway. or maybe my value with them was that i was alone. maybe there was some kind of brotherhood in being single. except that i never valued being alone as a brotherhood. i valued it for the things i learned through solitude. i relished in it after relationships that were a struggle. i loved it for what it was. but i never hung my hat on it. somehow, in finding love, i have let some people down. it's hard to know whether to look at it as an ending. i guess for now, i hold judgement and wait.

some of the coming apart is in ways i could not have imagined. it is disheartening to know that my presence in his life seems to be threat to some and a cold draft comes at me instead of love. i never saw it coming.

and then there is that single rose whose thorns have been more evident than its petals. i am finally at peace with letting go.

i miss my blog

i keep trying to start new blogs. they're all over. typepad, blogger, but none of them feel like home. i just miss my old blog. why is it any different i wonder.. strange that a computer page can be so comforting, drenched with all your old thoughts..

so, i'll come back here, to these vacant halls of my familiar old blog...

* * *

i read today that in order to go through certain doors, to cross thresholds, we must put down what we carry, open the door and then take only what we need to bring inside. we cannot hold onto things and enter. i'm having a hard time putting things down to enter. i just don't know how to.

so, he did take care of me, look out for me, protect me. the moment i realized that he had already been doing it, i tried to make sure he did not see that i was crying because it would look silly for me to be crying out of nowhere like that.

it seems like time for this blog to end.. it is filled with old love and things that represent a different time in my life. i think it is time for a new space to write in. i miss writing with a pen. i may bring back the pen. where you can't backspace and all of your mind changing is evident.

sometimes i just want him to defend my honor. i admit it. i am not a damsel in distress. i am not incapable of holding my own. i just want him to see that i am not faring well, and take me out of there. not because i asked. i want him to do it because he does not want to see me feeling that way. his chivalry in every other way is amazing, and rare, so i don't mean to ask for more. it just makes me feel so alone to be on my own with it..

i am finding out that i am happy. i am trying to let go of all the things i never really know i'm holding onto. i am feeling loneliness leave my body. it's being replaced with love. not only from chris. from the people who couldn't permeate me quite as well when i kept up such a high guard. from my parents. from friends who are becoming like family. from people who are almost strangers.

it's what i wanted for so long. family. i was looking for it in the wrong places. i was feeling let down. i was building walls and alliances with solitude. i believed it was what i was most cut out for.

it's what some people loved in me. i am not sure if they will still love me as i move away from that solitary life, time will tell. my days feel richer with the love family brings. not monthly or weekly visits, but a daily presence. i want children. i still find my time alone vital and enjoyable, but i want to spend it in the garden or in our home. i love creating a space for us to raise children in, gather with friends and family in, grow old in..

it seems like life is reminding me these days about how a heart can break. like a river thawing in the spring, sometimes it breaks with small cracks that you can hear before see and sometimes with such thunder that it's hard to believe we can withstand it.

we're petty. we're generally petty. when our hearts break enough, we sometimes listen. i want to listen even when my hearts not breaking.

our house is becoming a home. trucker went away and i gained perspective and nothing changed. i still look over at him and love the authority of his brow. i still am amazed at how much he knows. he still keeps me in check and knows where my bookmark is when i am reading on the couch and need to put my book down. 'under your left thigh' he says and i can't do anything but feel lucky and mark my page..

cold snap

i love winter as it settles in like a dog circling his bed before curling up. dusk throws blue light over fresh snow, the air is fresh and the world feels clean.

my love of winter ends at -20, and my distain for it kicks in at -25. the ruts in the roads, the bitter cold, the way exhaust hangs in the air, it all feels unkind. the nights don't seem to find purple skies and our bodies get in the habit of tensing up.

amazingly it ends every year, but we're still a ways away from hearing the loud, beautiful thunder of rivers unthawing. i look forward to more gentle air..

i didn't even realize the heaviness. it followed me like it loved something about me. i didn't love it back, but it stuck around until i figured out another way. there was a dullness for a couple of years. it was hard to notice sometimes, it didn't steal enough to always see. it showed itself more by the contrast of its absence when it disappeared. it went away like dark things that don't matter anymore. it feels like forgiveness.


a train is coming through again.

now has become the new now

an actual present tense, without living for something in the future or holding on to something in the past. i wake up in the morning and look forward to my day. i leave the house, pick up a coffee and begin building. setting up shop is almost complete, and now we go to marketing. it is like getting to exercise muscles that have been dying to be used.

it is great to feel alive again. to feel proud of what i am doing again. and in love! we have passed a threshold. it is a relief to not want to keep him at bay or keep things from getting serious. it is my pattern to do so. to keep myself alone. i am used to getting uncomfortable when someone starts to grow feelings for me. and for awhile i was wincing, waiting for it to happen, for the usual sadness and disappointment i feel to finally admit to myself that it is not working, for the heaviness of having hurt someone else. for the relief to be on my own. but it didn't come. what has come instead is a steadiness. a warm love. a smile to myself during my day when i think about him.

last night i couldn't sleep because a neighbor of my parents is harassing them and upsetting my mom quite a lot. i don't want anyone hurting my parents, affecting their sleep or their sense of well-being in any way. this sense of anger that someone was stealing restful nights from my mom was keeping me from resting as well. and then i thought of him. he is on the road, and while he was not beside me to put his hand on my back, i realized that he is beside me always now. it amazes me how much his love was able to make me feel better. it felt like when i was younger and couldn't sleep and my mom would make the couch up with sheets and a blanket and pillow, make me tea and rub my back until i fell asleep (i still sleep on the couch when i'm feeling uncertain...). it feels like.. relief. to have that feeling back, of feeling like someone's love for you is enough to keep the bad things away. to carry you through the things that are hard. to accept you for all that you are. to celebrate with you the good things.

i meant to write about other things, but i'll save those for another day..

moving on

tomorrow i start a new chapter. i become a business owner. i leave behind the old, it has become a burden so much so that i have lost most of the sadness of leaving. when my guard is down, i still see it. i see myself over-react at things and know i am still hurt.

so it's there, but i am moving on. maybe i carry a little sadness with me. certainly the disappointment. always hard to learn how to let go of those things.

looking forward, i am content and grateful at the opportunities i am now creating for myself. i am happy to break away from those who were offering them before. they came at a cost that i still can't really understand.

tomorrow i wake up and begin to build a company.

i am in love.. i guess i have said it, but it deserves being said twice. it deserves being said over and over.. it is amazing.

our house. our house.. last night we ran to the window to watch the three deer in our yard. we went to the bedroom to watch the one who stuck around as it walked to the south of the yard. in our darkened room so that we could see outside, we watched this beautiful buck with a missing antler graze in our yard. earlier i had gone out back and stood only feet away from a beautiful girl deer who looked at me and wagged her tail. we looked at each other for a bit and then she started to walk away. she looked back at me and i waved at her and told her i'd see her next time.

he is so good to me, Trucker.. the last couple of days have been rough for me. trouble with a friend and with my mom. the stress of starting a new business, leaving behind the old. the challenge of hearing what is being said. it is a time of transition. i take comfort in his love.

it happened so quickly, i know now what grandmothers mean when they say they knew..

it feels amazing to be in love. for years i have been in patient anticipation and i am so grateful to have found him. and to have been found.

two days ago we bought our first house together. i have to write about it so that something is recorded so that i never forget a detail. i had seen the house already while he was out of town and i had loved it. when we walked in together, Trucker began pointing out things excitedly. he loved it. i had worried that he would be turned off by how much work it will need or by the pink toilet, sink and tub in the bathroom or the radiator heat. but he just held my hand as we walked through and smiled and grew excitement for it. he loved the original sixties basement with speakers built into the wall, the inset lighting, the old wet bar. he even loved the grungy storage area in the basement. it was like watching a kid open a gift they love on Christmas morning. the night before i could barely sleep feeling that same kind of anticipation. it is a rare thing as an adult that you are so excited about an event that you can't sleep. it was great to see his excitement join with mine. when we had a moment to ourselves in the basement he took my hand and said, 'you did good, baby'. i smiled up at him and fell in love a little bit more.

after walking around the yard and looking at the garage (garage!), we stood on the driveway and i looked at him and said 'so, yes?' and without hesitation he confirmed, 'yes'. we walked around the truck parked in the driveway and i told Sasha, the owner's son (who was handling the sale) that the big boss says yes. we went inside and did up the paperwork. i sat at the old dining table in the dining room, Trucker stood beside me. after we had both signed, i stood up and walked back into the living room as Sasha and Trucker talked about the house a little. i looked around our living room and down the hall at where one day our children's rooms will be. i stood in our future and fought back tears. i felt the life where i was on my own come to an official end. when Trucker joined me in the living room i slipped my arm around him and he pulled me in beside him. this is our house. and it's already filled with love and happiness.

i'm busy and i'm happy and my mind works overtime when i do. i think a lot these days about change. i think about moving to the lake. i think about leaving real estate. i think about starting a different kind of business. and then i stay where i am and continue doing what i am doing. and find myself oddly happy for both. it perplexes me. how happy i can be doing the thing that drives me to want change.

it's sort of like, sometimes i want a child. not a right now child, but a one day in the not entirely distant future child. and then sometimes i realize how happy i am in my life of total freedom. and i wonder if i would miss my freedom too much. i wonder if i would realize too late that i am not cut out for it. that i should have stayed doing what i was doing. like management. i know management and babies are different, but when i realized that management was not for me, i was able to go back to what i used to do. how can i know if i would be happy still?

i work. it's what i do. and i'm happy when i'm doing it. okay, sometimes it drives me crazy.

when i'm not working, i love the leisure of cooking and working around the house or yard. being at the lake. i guess with babies, i could draw more of my satisfaction from those things.. but would i miss it?

i would need to find a way to earn a living. not that Trucker would not provide for me, because i know he would, and knowing that is a peaceful feeling. i would need my own income not out of necessity but so as not to lose any more freedom than i would lose in bearing children in the first place. maybe it's why i seek change. maybe i need to start finding my way towards a way to earn my own money outside of selling real estate. while remaining self-employed. no, while becoming a business owner.

so that is what i want. to find my way to a form of income that is feasible should that Trucker and i so decide on babies.

i miss writing. i keep stopping, i shouldn't. i should write and write, really.

i am getting back to feeling at home in my life. management was wrong for me. it was a job and it made me feel unlike myself. i'm glad to be back to freedom.

and so with this freedom, i am finding myself comfortable again. i am more productive. i am happier. i have Trucker.. he's lovely. i couldn't see exactly how lovely at first and he just stayed near until i did. he seemed to know. he had a confidence that i belonged with him. as many times as i told him it would not work out, told him not to fall for me, he would tell me that he was not going let me push him away. i remember when he started to win me. it was summer and we were having dinner on the patio of the keg on moray and he looked at me and said, you know what you are? you're my june carter. i can almost climb back into that moment, where i tilted my head and looked at him the way you might look at someone who just made you question something you always thought you knew. i smiled and he held my gaze while the future began to take hold. he had the look of someone who knew. like he'd been to the future and just knew.

everything makes me sad today. everything makes my heart ache. the unknown. a photo of my cousin standing. track 11. my dad getting older.

and at the same time i feel calm. of all the times i have loved being on my own, i am so glad to not be on my own now.

i feel like something is coming. something sad. there are all sorts of small endings inching it closer. i just want to stop time here. slow things down. enjoy life with everyone i love.

when i was in italy last year, i sat alone at a table at an outdoor restaurant in rome, near vatican city. an excerpt from my journal; when i look beside me, i see green and wrought iron and lanterns and old buildings with shutters and vines that creep arched openings that spill out with plants and flowers. the top of what might be a church. blue sky. one red flower. the wind is light and it feels like roberto's kisses. i want to stay right here, in this moment. i am overwhelmed with how badly i just want life to pause right here. tears come from nowhere. from forgetting to be kissed. from happiness. from gratitude. from relief that i finally remembered to stop. from knowing that if i could really pause here, i would always have my parents, i would always be young, i would know that later today a beautiful man would look at me and kiss me. and so this becomes a moment where life stops. a moment where life begins again.

that moment was like a precursor. a gift. a reminder to give thanks. to enjoy what you have while you have it. i cried so hard on that patio in rome, without knowing where it was coming from. the poor waiter didn't know what to do. i was the only one there and he just let me be. i left light as air.

looking at the date of that entry, it was almost exactly a year ago today. it has been on my mind lately.. no matter where you are, there fall is.

no big differences these days, just the same old walkaway

one person always seems to be holding more cards than the other. it feels wrong to hold the heavier hand and worse still to lose them all..

i wish i knew myself better.. so often i think i do, but then i find out how little i know when love comes near.. i see it up ahead, coming towards me and i start complaining about everything. i start picking apart all the reasons it could not work. i start pushing him. not sure if i want him to push back to set my mind at ease that he won’t let me push too hard or if i want to just push him away.

what i want is for him to reach over and take away some of my cards. without being unkind or unfair. just to take them from me. and to know that i am still safe with him without them.

but instead, he is kind and fair and good and lets me keep any cards i choose. i turn against him and then wonder what is wrong with me.


* * *

and now i see that i struggle through my days. i am turning harder and harder. forgetting more. leaving behind consciousness. living inside a false consciousness. the question why begs an answer. i know when it began. i considered myself trapped, and ultimately was, considering the consequence of breaking commitment. i began to allow my days to involve too many things i am not about. i did it all behind a heavy door and some bad feelings. now as i anticipate the opening of that door, i have considered my only option turning to two and they have become as heavy as the initial burden, sparked with excitement at the possibility of light.

only now do i see that i have to consider that neither of those options may be right for me. only now do i see how important it really is that i not choose but rather listen. it is time to take some risks again. it's time to quiet down and listen..

i still like you, regardless

it's familiar and new all at once. it's a bird in a cage in my mind and in the trees by the lake in real life.

it's so graceful the way he talks to them. he's beautiful and interesting through the blades of grass. he picks me a dandelion and we decide that the light refracting through faraway raindrops is for us. a reward. we buy a lottery ticket.

we drink whiskey by the fire. there is some kind of truth to whiskey drinking, so we keep on. his eyes are alive the way they were the night i met him.. that night his eyes were shining with light and warmth. i wanted to make him a meal. i wanted to touch his hand. i wanted to know everything about him, all in a moment. not to have him. just to remember how warm a hand on my back can feel. just to put my armor down for a time.

he looked like relief. with an underlying sadness that relief often sits on. i know that relief. i was there too. he began to tell me that there are things that are not the same as this moment, but the others started to come back into the cottage and he switched tracks, effortlessly. he threw logs into the fire and joked with no abandon and i laughed so hard i never wanted to leave. when i did leave, he looked at me like it was not possible. i agreed secretly and left anyway.

and now the question is, will i keep leaving? and i try to guard against it and keep him at bay. he writes me at note while we play chess. he places it in his bishop and i sacrifice mine to get it; i still like you, regardless.

i have mixed feelings these days i admit.. it's a struggle i admit. some stuff i thought i left behind creeps up and then oddly, more things i left behind follow. even our ghosts follow each other.

but amongst the stress and the uncertainty, i find myself finally taking a moment without avoiding. without tuning everything out. and i find that i love to be at home in my house with my dogs and good music and the warm light and air. that at least while i am here, i do not need to avoid.

i guess i forget to breath and take everything too seriously. i guess i lose track.

i went through recent photo's tonight and i am filled with gratitude. i forget sometimes. i get lost in all the details of what is not going the way i would like and i lose track of what is important. we're always losing things. every day we lose another day. some days we lose bigger things. some days we lose our best friend. some days we lose opportunity. some day we'll lose what we can't imagine losing. some days we wake up and realize what we lost over all the days we were not aware enough to realize we were losing.

and so i need to practice some patience..

we start out rusty. all the small talk in the world cannot unfold us. and then the familiar sound of skype ringing. i can't hear him but he can hear me. i type anyway. can't help but to laugh sometimes and it unfolds him.

it's how we started last time on skype. only i could hear him, he could not hear me. he was less shy and spoke as i typed back to him. i loved it. i will try to be less shy next time..

i think he wants to tell me something.

return of the jedi

so as my plane departed, john wrote some words and i could not receive them properly from away. but i am back and now it is time to back off from any defenses and consider it because it is love. love deserves consideration..

i have been trying to write to him but it is hard to write to him. i need to try to sort it out. it's hard because i am a mess compared to then. it's hard because i worked too much. because i want what he can give me but i'm also afraid of it. he requires so much of me and i don't feel strong. i feel hard. i never meant to be this hard. i never meant to be this tough.. i want to be softer. i think he can give me that. a place to be softer. stronger.

so here are the plus'.

no, let's end with the plus'. here are the negatives..

i worry that his lifestyle is too strict for me. i worry that he will find me to be too messy for him. in every way. i worry that he will privately hope, worse, believe that i will become buddhist. that in his heart, he will go in not actually accepting me but just believing i will come around. having faith that it will happen. i want to be able to not always be strong because i am not always strong. some of his beliefs are difficult for me. i have to stop because i recognize that the rest of it is different ways of saying the same things.

the plus'..


i was happier with him than i am now. i was happier with him than i was ever. or at least as happy as my happiest. i was open. i was softer.

today in the car on the way back from the lake, charlie tried so hard to get to ride on my lap. he doesn't love the car but puts up with it really well considering. he needs to glue himself to whatever is near him, but the only thing that really calms him is if it is a beating heart he leans into. he just wants a beating heart nearby. and this morning as i read my book in the morning at the lake and my mom turned on cjob and started the coffee brewing, just her footsteps near and the sound of her moving about calmed me. it was before his email, but i recognized twice before coming home the value of a beating heart nearby.

and the value of order. the order in johns life scares me. and yet, it is also what i want, in proper measure. i feel better around my parents as they keep everything in order and do things right. i don't like being in disorder..

i'll only post this briefly and then erase it i think.. i'm laughing because i am fairly certain only one person really reads this thing.

excerpts from europa - part 1

september 9, 2008

i am sitting on a plane in Chicago. in eight hours i will be in germany. i'll finally cross that ocean. and what will find me over there, i have no idea. already it is different as they make the welcome announcements in german. the english version is charming. the pilot is expecting a very... uh.. on time flight. we will arrive early because of strong tail winds the entire flight. i like to think of a strong wind pushing me there.

it is a relief to be going and a relief to not know where i am going once i am there. i look forward to the strangers and the food and the way things will smell different and i'll come back and it will hurt a little when something reminds me.

it is the beginning and it has been a long time. i won't mention anything from home in this book. in this book i am in europe.

6/9/08 11:50 PM

work became too much. just enough to make me need to leave. so in the dark i drive out to the lake.

on my way out i am destined to run out of gas so i call doug at 10:15 pm as i take the east selkirk turnoff last minute in the dark. i ask him how to get to the nearest gas station that is still open. he can hear i am tired. i ask if he was in bed and he says no. i ask him again and this time i hear his car door open and he says he’s in his truck. he’s coming to meet me. by the time my tank is full doug is there in his weekend clothes. he asks if i’m all done and i say yes. he says ‘come on, i’ll take you back’ and leads me back to the highway. it is the best part of my day. i call to tell him so. i am crying but he doesn’t know.

i carry on to end my day at the lake. and it does not let me down. the sound of the water against the beach, the solar lights along the path, the woodstove and some good music. the night sky is gorgeous turning the trees to velvet. it is all so dark and i will awaken to green. for the first time, i will see this place alive with young green upon the trees. the grass is plush i can tell even in the dark. getting wood with the flashlight, i know it was right to come out. i stand and listen to the water and the quiet and it all falls away. i go inside where the music and the fire are alive and i dance.

this is where i am happiest. paint brushes await me tomorrow. i will hide away and paint and sing. i will wake up here..

i meant to get more done but the house feels warm regardless. i know that i am on my own and there are moments of such comfort in that. sometimes you wonder about more. and it wears you out a little. and so when you realize that there is nothing there, it feels like relief to be on your own.

it's strange how much in my car alone or walking down a sidewalk where sun comes through trees and weave the way with sun and shade, i feel such romance in life. and yet with humans it's so rare. it's everywhere and it's there so often, but seems to disappear in the presence of those who look for it. not to say he looked for it. but i think he at least wanted to. i think at minimum, he was disappointed that he didn't want to come closer.

and it's not that i didn't want to see it. i just don't want to have to look for it. i want to not be able to look away. i want to steal every glance i can. i want to feel anticipation from across a table. i want to want.

it's so strange how you can have such ease with some and such little ease with others..

it's been a productive day, but that's not what i want to say.

there's so much left to do.

still not what i want to say..

i wish i could create music like the stuff i listen to as i write. if i could, that is what i would be doing now.

getting closer..

i'd never leave, i'd never stop leaving, i would find open windows everywhere..

but i'm sitting here and the windows are closed. the inside door is open and that's a start.

getting colder..

i feel let down. i know that's my own responsibility.

everytime i let it go, i have to let it go again. one day i want it to let go instead.

that's all, that's not all.

my favourite music to listen to right now starts like leaving. and then smiling. and then hurting. but peacefully without attachment. the horns come in and my mind stops thinking. everything is right.

i've got it on repeat for this post. if you could hear it your mind would stop thinking i'm pretty sure.

the day was one of my favourites in awhile. i was happy for the snow, though i know spring is coming. i awoke still bothered by someones negativity from the day before, though i wish i could say i wasn't. i got in the car and when the music started i left it behind, relieved. i couldn't stop my smile.

i drove through the park with the snow falling just like it did another favourite day. i stopped at the conservatory and just like the horns, my mind stopped thinking. by this time each winter, i need to visit the conservatory to be reminded of humid green beautiful. there is a lot of care in that place. i miss ruby begonia's..

i napped in my car outside the cafe i wanted to eat at waiting for them to open. when i woke up it was still closed so i went to see the post secret exhibit at the art gallery. i can't believe i forget about these things. i returned to the cafe and wrote. it's where i always used to go. i am becoming a regular again.

i bought some watercolours. it's been too long. i cleaned the house. i set up the easle. i am going to listen to these horns and paint.

it was the best day in awhile. the other days have been good. this one was exceptional.

coming back..

something is coming back. like a texture to my days. something to savour. a world i know about..

i think the first time i had a taste of it was when i dated erik t in grade 12. we used to sit by the river. i remember eating dinner with my family and smiling to myself because there was a world i knew about.

i found it travelling. the train held that texture. the walls of different stations, the hands of strangers, the words and glances. the landscape sweeping past. sometimes it was so beautiful it hurt. sometimes tears came and i kept a hood up and watched ontario roll by.

john and i found it. he said, 'My minds eye is pleased with a taste of your winter snow. When you lend me your eye like that and you break through to the foot of my chair with your finer words - I am happy.' we fell in love. i was at home at the foot of his chair.

and these days, i find it again. on my own, though i like to think that i'll be at the foot of someone's chair again sometime. but the texture is back. my mind is fertile and lush. it is a relief. it is quiet and calm. it is clean.

so alot has been going on and i guess i should write more.. but i don't like writing about what happens.

so i'll just say that i feel life pulling apart from something that was before. certain people have been becoming so comforting, reassuring. it's a relief to be around them. because certain others it seems are uncomfortable and it is making me uncomfortable. it doesn't make sense to me and probably never will, and i am coming to terms with that. i can't change it. i can't make them comfortable.

so as the year comes to a close, i look forward to the new year. it is exciting and terrifying and if nothing else, i feel very alive. i will take on some new challenges and i'm grateful for the opportunity. before i could even know what was happening, i asked for something and got it long before i expected. i'm pretty sure i still don't understand fully, but i'm glad it's that way.

i'm listening to music that is new to me but reminds me of a spring gone by nonetheless.. it's her voice i guess. i'll have to patch together what i can. it's a process i love. it involves the antique sideboard and the lake and thoughts that get to be spoken quietly over a sunset. it also involves a newly renovated building full of business and problems and solutions and resposibilities. i will drive back and forth between the lake and the responsibilities.

it's amazing what a photograph can bring back. the shifting back and forth of the train. the exact warmth and weight of a mans hand in your own. the way his top lip would push slightly upward as he exhaled, and the relief that was being conveyed when that would happen. the feeling of getting out. the feeling of knowing we had something that was the same.

his hand, his hand.. the trains movement, how free we were. how the others saw it. how hard i cried in the toronto station. how the guy who took my ticket looked at me like, "oh!..." and lit my cigarette, back when i still smoked cigarettes. the coffee, the kitchen, the late train and long delay that i loved for the time we had with the train to ourselves as it slept in the station.. the old man named coleman. the time we saw him on the bench and he knew..

everytime i'm in toronto, i make an effort to touch the walls of that station.

i am behind on keeping the pen in motion, i really must become more diligent. it is good to keep a record. especially when the moments are so amazing. how many have i forgotten? today i walked by a woman with her child in time to hear her repeat what he had just said, "you're beautiful?" she echoed it back to him in question form (though i'm sure she agreed) followed by "okay" and i was ecstatic to have witnessed it.

i am on the horizon of something new. i keep feeling it coming through. unmistakeable. anticipation..

it is time for a change. i am already in it. the change is already in motion, it is just time for me to follow suit. it is time to not sit still and when i do sit still, to actually be still.

it is important every now and again to take inventory. what do you have. what have you lost. what do you hope to gain. who is present with you.

the last question is a tough one at these days. and i guess a refreshing one if i look at it in the right light at the right moment. it is a hard one because i am alone. and it is a refreshing one because i don't like stale air.

and yet i have been allowing stale air all around me. i have allowed my house to not be a home. i have allowed friends to speak ill of me or me ill of them. i have allowed my body to be at rest too much. i have allowed my life to be easy.

i have also allowed myself some successes. i have given my mother a smile i can't ever forget and have made my father proud. i have surpassed my own expectations in my career. i have decided to consider a challenge i recently did not believe i was capable of. i have cleaned out the kitchen cupboards.

i have also found myself recently having a change of heart. i'm not sure if i normally have this change of heart. maybe it's about the leaves and the prettiness of the trees. maybe it is the cottage and the woodstove. maybe it is the trails in the forest. but it feels like something different this time. of course, it is absolutely all of those things. but i think every season may bring those things this year. soon it will be the pretty white sign that spells noel in cursive with stars that hang from it sitting on the sideboard with tealights lit all around. it will be the way the sky gets purple on a mild evening and the way the moon is low in the sky just when you had forgotten to look for it. it will be the way the heat smells the first time you turn it on. it will be walking in snow shoes on the lake and the relief when the cottage finally gets warm. my heart would break. and then it will be the river breaking and the wind getting soft. it will be the first day the sun actually warms your back and you smile automatically. it would be bittersweet. and then of course, it would be the windows open, the water, the midnight summer storm through the windows of the cottage.. it would bring a deep longing..

i no longer want to be alone. i have wanted to be alone for so long. even when i didn't want to be alone, i wanted to be alone. and i wonder whether to trust the feeling, as i always seem to return to solitude. but it is just where i am most comfortable. it is where nobody grasps at me. it is where i am not saddened by how little i am understood and how little my partner actually feels like a partner. i have only truly experienced the difference once. and perhaps that is why i stand here, wanting sincerely someone near. not for a moment or a day. but for every day, in silence and in conversation and in happiness and sadness. i am perhaps finally getting over him. i am perhaps finally ready for what he taught me can exist.

i never used to have a pretty white sign that spelled noel in cursive letters with stars hanging from it. i was in the little store near the cottage yesterday and i saw it and just picked it up and bought it. and then i realized that i was nesting. i was creating a warm home for a man. i have this yearning to clear a space at the foot of my bed for his boots. to cook for him a warm meal.. i want to live in a way that would make him proud. it's been awhile since i've wanted to do that.

and so i have been making room. it's work but if ever i have the chance again to love the way i loved and to feel love the way i felt love, i want to be fertile ground for it.

oh, and i think i may travel. if my career takes a turn that it has possibility of taking, i would like to first travel. for at least a month. europe maybe. central america possibly. i think it's europe. it is no longer australia. for the first time in a few years now, it is not australia.

i'm spending my days remembering. sometimes the light and heat are just right in the house and i walk through and the music floats out the windows into air that's neither heavy nor light. the floors feel solid, the dogs lye stretched out, satisfied from the day.

i'm satisfied as well. i've come across these things of late: some antique furniture, home-made raspberry jam, a new spice, pickling cucumbers, some photographs.

things changed and then i smelled the dill in the garden and everything went back to how it always was.

these pages echoe like a vacant room, but i like the sound, so i write..

tonight i painted over the walls in my bedroom. it was surprisingly cathartic to see the old walls disappear. i cleared a space. i ended a fight. i smiled where i may have cried. i can almost feel the old things end and some new things begin. life is this way when we allow it. it may be years since some of those tears but it still feels a relief to see those walls dissapear..

i am overwhelmed sometimes with all i have been given. and now a new room where there is room again..

it is hard to describe where the sadness comes from, but it comes. and it's a peaceful moment. it comes when you realize you are on your own, even amidst those who love you. and that seperation reminds you that you are fine. being fine alone is what is sad. and that sadness is peaceful because that peace is what makes you fine.

sadness is appropriate. it is not depressed or flattened. it is full of texture. it is like a beautiful fabric that only you can touch. it remains a photograph to appreciate to anyone else.

it's just hard because we're so used to satiating ourselves and sadness leaves us with our hands tied. it comes when we have a moment to feel it. when everything else stops. when we have no choice but to sit it out.

there's more, but that's all for now.

i got home and my house smelled the way our old house smelled when we'd been away at the cabin. outside it smells sweet and warm and colleen said it would storm. there was just a bit of thunder and i turned on a lamp.

i've been forgetting again and while forgetting is hard and painful, remembering is as sweet as the air outside at midnite before a storm. the weight of it all lifts off and i try to remind myself to remember. are we meant to forget just so that the remembering is sweeter?

life gets complicated and sometimes the reminders are of the hard things. of the times that still to this day you can't attach beauty to because you both forgot too much and you forgot to keep remembering. and just when you can't stomach to go through it again, a kinder word is spoken. and then friends gather between storms to watch a movie on a projector and the large screen is filled with love and it's more real than you would expect off a screen and everyone remembers their own things..

life is full of people as strange and wonderful as ourselves and there are no expectations when we have no expectations. there is only love amidst all the other stuff.

the weekend as i had looked ahead appeared to be ordinary and then i remembered to find a dinner shared with friends and a projection screen and suddenly the air outside and in were unordinary again.

if spring won't come to us...

then we'll go to the trailer park boys

colleen and i went on a mission today. a mission that was nonsense really, driving around downtown winnipeg with a coffee looking for the trailer park boys because that's funny. we went to 92 citi fm and the A channel and the fairmont and the inn at the forks. we looked in the concourse. while walking through the concourse we saw our old boss and while the moment passed too quickly, we would have loved for him to stop and ask what we were doing down there. because the answer would be so exactly what he would expect from us. and we would have all laughed and he would have shaken his head and hopefully remembered that we used to all make some pretty good jokes at one time. . but the funniest thing would have been that we were really looking for them. they were going to a book signing at chapters in the afternoon, but that's too easy.

so we searched and found nothing but a stunning carefree day. we took a break so i could get some work done and met back up for the book signing. i won't bother with details other than to say that we ended up conquering our mission with a last minute dash to the airport where we said, sorry for showing up here, but.... and so ricky, bubbles, julian, colleen and i met at last. and i'd like to think we all enjoyed.



a good day in the world colleen and i sometimes live in. and the seasons only just beginning....

it's time...

for a new look. it's spring and the old blog is full of winter and while there are lovely things back there, the change of season is upon us and it feels just like a new page. green like all things young and new. undoubtably the trees will sprout young leaves and the river will break up. in the north the whole town will talk about it.

i feel on my own so much these days. in a way that i find appealing and appropriate. and while i'd love to have someone to watch the river break with me, it feels right to watch it alone for now. i think when i'm not on my own, i miss some of the qualities of each process. alone my days fill up with beauty and i somehow feel less alone.

today it was chivonne. bonnie can attest to this. chivonne is a young black girl of 4 or 5 years old. she radiated warmth and happy energy. she approached all of the children around her with her warm smile and touched both of her hands to their face with such love. she was more gracious than most adults i've met, and had a deeper spirit than most as well. she had a little jump in her step and to me, she glowed..

and so the days go. some people glow and some don't. sometime we ourselves glow or don't.

monday the weather will be warm and i will find a photo for this post.

the new things

i guess i never really formally introduced charlie murphy. he's the newest creature roaming around our home and he's lovely. named after himself and eddie murphy's brother, he lives up to his reputation as a funny black guy.

the other new thing maybe i'll premiere in a couple of weeks.

i guess i have more to say than i have time for right now, but i'm really excited about life. i keep doing wrong things, but i see that. and i think it will only get easier to do right things. the wrong things keep giving me the right messages and i'm learning how pointless certain negative processes are. i keep trying to eliminate negativity from my life and while it comes and goes, it gets harder and harder to accept it and as time goes on the belief that it is wrong gets deeper. moreso, the belief that positive thought, action, etc., bring about positive results becomes stronger. negativity is starting to feel like a splinter each time. the body knows there's something in there that doesn't belong and pushes it out. even where people around me say it's justified, even when i think it's justified, i know deep down that even if justified, it's destructive and unneccesary. and i know that it's a choice, regardless of how much it often does not feel like one.

i've seen how much a healthy mindset without boundaries has helped me in certain area's of my life and i would like to now extend that into other area's. certain negative thought patterns i have held onto for a long time because i think i felt i needed them for some reason. seems sad and unfitting to say that but it's true. i wasn't choosing enough of the right things so i had to keep some negativity around to make myself feel better. there is also the need to speak when i know something to be wrong around me, but i am seeing that speaking of it is essentially making me part of something wrong. complaint is a very tough one to get rid of but i know that will get easier and easier as it gets harder and harder to accept from myself. i am truly coming to believe that it is wrong. not intellectually, but further than that. it is like quitting smoking. i knew it was not what i wanted for years and tried over and over to quit and it wasn't until i believed myself stronger than it that i was able to give it up and then suddenly i put out a cigarette and said it was my last and it was a simple as that. our negative patterns feel like our friends in some ways and therefore we think we need them. i believe i am strong enough to give up complaint.

well...

i guess i'll start slow. it's my birthday. a year went by.

colleen still came over to my parents for dinner. she was charming and funny. we relished in our own jokes just like last year.

last year my parents bought me all those beautiful plants. colleen put together a photo album of the two of us. after i drove her home i went home and felt calm and nervous all at once. and then i went to the airport and picked him up.

and i still can't write it all, but a year went by.

and i'm still happy.

Heather's awake!!

i just went to see her and while she still has tubes for breathing and therefore can't talk, she is awake and responsive. she kept squeezing my hand and i felt such warmth and life coming from her. i joked about her dad and my mom trying to set each of us up with young doctors in the hospital and she reacted in heather fashion and i felt so lucky to get to make a joke with her.

it has been a stressful week and a half but also an illuminating one. life is precious and we are so fortunate for all that it is. it seems we all lose track of that sometimes and focus on small things that went wrong in our day. sometimes we even think they are big things, like having our car broken into or getting rear ended or getting a bill we can't afford to pay in the mail. but if at the end of each day we still have all the abilities we had when we woke that morning and our friends and family are all intact, we should celebrate that our biggest problems are so minor.

thanks Lloyd and Bonnie for keeping her in your prayers, it means alot to me.

This is a picture of my cousin Heather and I with with our little cousin Donovan at Cory and Skie's wedding dinner about a month ago. This was the family dinner I recently mentioned where I felt alone. Heather was one of the only parts of my evening that did not feel so much that way and that is always the effect she has on me. Though I am blacksheep, with Heather, I am not.

Heather was in a very bad car accident a couple of days ago and is in critical condition at health science centre. they don't know if she will live and if she lives, there is brain damage (they cannot say yet to what extent as they are keeping her heavily sedated to try to minimize the swelling of the brain) and she has broken vertibrae and it is possible there could be a spinal cord injury, but again, they can't tell yet. i have no eloquant words to say today, it's so jarring. it is terrifying and i notice that my mind does not allow the reality that it has even happened to sink in 90% of the time. the moments where i really take it in, i feel scared and sad and i want so badly for her to be okay. she's a really really fun girl, full of life and she makes you happy to be around her. i really want her to recover in body mind and spirit and i just wanted to ask if you guys would think of her in your prayers because i feel like she needs as much prayer as this world can muster and i feel like she is meant to make it through this.

somebody asked for some old writing..

hmm.. seems like a lot when i scroll down, but that's what happens when you start looking through old notebooks i guess. old writing is plentiful and strange to look back on. even stranger to post like this. anyways....




i will stand
reeling with patience
armed with a sky behind
that is the color of tranquil
water
in dreams
when you dive through it
and sunlight filters
like smoke signals
in the evening
at the bonfire
we all fell
and did we appreciate
the thrill of it all
or did we just
land and stand up

(where are you now
and do you think of it?)



*****



i'm turning your face
into rain
and a smile
filters through the gloom
of this house
four walls surround me
a window
a door
which leads to more walls
more windows
more doors
eventually they lead to you




*****




travelling backwards
(is forwards a motion?)
leaving metal pieces
in time with cotton
sliding on wet wood
you cringe more
than you smile these days
is it something i did
i wonder because that
is what you wonder
at times like these
wondering how to get you
to speak to me again
to smile into me
again
it turns.
i fail to see which way
search memory
i must have passed a sign
the moons height and direction
must mean something
on this night
i roam away from you
you always warn me
about the beast
always tell me
don't get hurt
when did that stop
worrying you?
flesh is not always
the only sign of pain
flesh and pleasure
are not always
a sure sign
of love.



*****




i am leaving now. not this party. not this street. not your house. i am leaving. you ask me why. i must have answered you in my head, you stood there waiting long after the question. i answer, because i have already left. of course i am still here. you see me and i could still feel your hand if i would touch it. but i have begun a departure. back to where i left off and forward from where i am. direction is of no matter.
but of course my silence is all you can hear, you have not yet crawled into my unspoken words. they remain only my own when you don't answer.
these days are your own.
why does there have to be the time between. the time between our words. the time between when you and i leave and when our bodies part. what should we do with this time? should we make love while we can. or should we scream at the walls from seperate houses. then we would never hear how much we could hurt each other.




*****



layers of paint
upon your bedroom walls
your life has changed
since striped wall paper
i want to scrape it all away
layer by layer
and find out
every memory
long since painted over
the day
anger
(yours or theirs?)
punched a hole in the door
you never told me
what shape the shadows took
at nite
or what under water games you played
when the color was blue
or about the frogs you killed
by mistake
and then surveyed
the bucket
of grey, matted death
in the backyard


*****




sitting idle
the engine's running
just waiting for the windshield
to clear
we're very good at making silence
awkward
and you're very clever
at avoiding guilt
with your kind smile
and lighthearted humour
right before you speed away
in your car,
leaving me in a cloud
of exhaust,
laughing at me
laughing at you
we are so alike.




*****





we have already decieved each other
through thoughts of strangers
driving with us in our cars
laughing and falling
into snow
and feelings
deeper than these
we stick to the main roads
freshly plowed
evidence of who has been here
becomes shrouded
search harder
the details are hard to see
try to track down
the owner of each footprint
you will never know more
than their shoe size
and where they were walking
between snow falls



*****



there is a hole
in your jeans
on the left thigh
and i don't know you
so i imagine
a piece of your history
i imagine the cigarette
that fell
from your unsteady hand
at a party
two years ago
where you knew everyone
by name
and the music was too loud
but you could care less
your last beer
is too warm
for your liking
you've got candle wax
dripping from your fingers
(red)
llke blood
and you didn't even feel it burn
through your intoxication
although it remained
beneath your fingernails
for days
and you smiled
when you realized
the hole
left by that cigarette
it adds character
you said
now they are your favourite pair



*****




fall will tell me
every year
what you meant to me
i will slide closer to you
or take one step back
through an imaginary door
to be alone
to be free
to be alive
to be with another
to be still
to shiver alone
and sigh with relief
to take inventory
of my past
and move on.
i never hated you
and i didn't mean
to be so cold

in some ways
i can imagine
that your jealousy
would not exist
and that you would fall with me
every september
with every leaf

it's the winter that challenges my imagination
as i fell everything die
as our freefall ends
in a dull thump
seperated
(i'm not sure if you land
or the wind picks you up
and takes you into a new life.)



*****




i am going to find you
everyone i lost
everything i regretted
i am going to come to terms
you will come around
i have the means to make you see
and i will learn to use it
i will teach you plenty
even you who is so stubborn
you will learn from me
as i have learned from you

i know this
because fall came
right on time again
because the rain began today
and i saw every drop
on the pavement
and no matter who my mother is
i can see this
and the leaves will always be
this beautiful
when summer goes to sleep

(so quickly she slips away
and steals the warmth
from our section of the earth
and allows us reason
to find warmth in each other)

life is not always easy and we don't always get to have what we want when we want it. it is hard learning that and even harder living it. on your own, it is hard enough, but when another person is involved it is all that much more difficult. there has been a rise and fall in the last year that has left my heart wanting to learn more. wanting to do the right things. wanting not to take lightly matters that have a strong (or minor for that matter) cause and effect. it's important to listen to your own instincts. not to push them away. at least that is what i believe and it's all i've got to go on. it's all i know and it is what i gave up a soul mate for. it's so hard to convey to someone why it's so important to you. how much you would hurt yourself by pushing past your instincts. he doesn't know you that well, but you almost believe you wouldn't recover..

and so i will attempt to practise patience and allow life to take whatever course it is meant for. i trust that more than anything else and i truly feel it is all i have.

my other newest friend

this week has been filled with nice things. the piano came and i began lessons and practicing everyday. work has begun to pick up. and i made a new friend. and it's so nice. there is something very enjoyable about the companionship of someone new. you're not used to their words and it is nice falling in step with someone. it's nice to check the weather forecast at 5:30 in the morning to plan a day to go to the dogpark together. it's nice to drive back from a family dinner which you attend solo (all the while feeling solo though you don't normally) to sit on the porch with your new friend. to sit on the piano bench with your new friend and be at ease the way you couldn't be with some of your old friends, though you know he is talented. and to laugh in delight at the sound of the doogie howser theme song coming from the piano in an informal lesson.

maybe i will erase this post but i just wanted to say that it's nice. i don't mean i want to date him.

i just want him to be my date for everything maybe.

but it is late.. i should sleep.

my newest friend..

i have recently welcomed a piano into my life and i am filled with excitement and slight trepidation at the task of learning it. i look forward to having something to practice daily. it may sound strange, but i need to practice practicing. so that i might learn to practice other things that are more subtle than an instrument but just as lovely.

i will enjoy today, looking at the beautiful beast in my home as a world of possibilities. tomorrow my lessons begin and the world of possibilities will crash down around me as i struggle to learn the most simple of things. thus the beginning of the frustration that normally stops me because my mind is grasping at the possibilities in my head that my hands cannot produce. this time i won't stop. i've written down now.

today the piano is beautiful to me. tomorrow it will be uncomfortable to me. and the more time i spend uncomfortable with it, the closer i will be to the possibilities in my mind. for the first time in a long time, i look forward to feeling uncomfortable. the piano came to me at a perfect time. thank you amy.

today summer fell away and the air got cold again. it was nice wearing socks and putting the heat on in the car after the dog park. a box in my basement revealed itself to me, in honour of the change of seasons, a photograph i thought i'd lost.

it was a photograph of john taken when i first met him six years ago. it has been in the precious things i've lost category for years. it was taken from afar and in my mind he was croutched down cooking us dinner over a fire. my mind froze that frame on its own. the photograph is of him croutched down petting one of sonya's dogs. we were beside the yukon river and one of the dogs had pups. i can still remember how to get there through the campground and then the forest and along that path. i can remember how one of the dogs got away once and we did not recognise it so free until it followed us home and we made dinner over the fire. i can remember missing him when he went away.


i can't write very much more about it for now. it's hard seeing that picture. no one has ever had such a profound effect on me and it's hard to see an image of him when it first started. before he chose a path. when we still could have walked it together. but we didn't and now we'll never go back because we can't.

and as much as it hurts, i don't even want the hurt to go away. it hurts when i can feel myself learning from him and i don't want that to stop. he took time everyday to teach me and he came to my city to live beside me for a bit. if it stops hurting i'm afraid i will forget to keep learning from him..

i have been realising lately i fear the dissapearance of poetry in my life. i somehow thought that it has to go away one day, like peter pan. it just occurred to me that it doesn't have to. you just have to work hard to keep it. you have to never stop going places you've never been, never stop doing things you've never done, never stop inviting great people into your life whether for a day or a lifetime. you have to not let your career or your partner or your "roles" in life define you away from yourself. you have to bring all of those people/things into who you are rather than evolving away from yourself. do things a different way than you think you're expected to if you have to. everyone will survive.

and it is a relief to realise it. by acknowledging that it is possible to keep that alive, it gives weight to its existance in the first place. someone suggested to me once that i "need" this stuff in my life with a slight negative undertone, the way you would say someone needs drama in their life. and i have thought about it on and off for awhile now, pondering the possibility that they are right and that i am setting myself up for dissapointment when "real life" takes over. but i have come to the conclusion that i do "need" this stuff in my life because it is real life. life can be whatever we make it. i hope to always choose poetry.

the challenge lies in not losing sight. forgetting. getting caught up in day to day and not even knowing that you are starting to believe a new definition of life or of yourself that is really just a coping mechanism. i realised on orcas that i had begun to do it to an extent and though it is frightening that we can do this and not know it, it is also comforting to know again that we can do whatever we want to do if we don't let others set our parameters. it's just not always easy, but that's the difference between never growing up and growing up without ever losing the child in you.