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.

zackarya

travolta and his truck

from the plane after leaving the island


i made it to orcas. there's not much i can say but to say it was nice. zack met me at the ferry at nite and he was wearing a cordoroy vest. there was a nap by the ocean and a small child put her hand in mine and then our hands in his and kissed both lightly. they do both enchant me and as suspected, going away made me sad.

so that is all i will say for now. my nicest memories of zack in his cordoroy and our nap at obstruction pass.

i left by a small 6 seater plane which is probably best. i sat shotgun and joked with the pilot and laughed to myself that i'd been there at all..

i needed to seperate a post that is only to continue on. but these get posted in reverse order so if there is a reader, the reader should start with the post below.

anyways, it was amazing. it still amazes me. it still hangs in the air above us. i won't say what other words were there. i allude to nothing because together they neutralize.

i can sort of see the lack of sleep in my words, but i dont' mind so i'll keep going. i almost need the freedom this kind of tired brings because my mind has been wearing on too many details lately.

so the day of work and leisure and the night of rain and john and files and late night errands.. i have enjoyed it all. a 3 am phone call. a running engine on the street.. a whole world goes on while we sleep.

it's quiet and i'm not sure of what to expect of my holiday. i dont' like that word at all, but i'll use it. i go with no expectation and enough time to explore a place i've never been on my own. i'll pick the place when i get there. i have forgotten to tell those i'm visiting that i am coming. mostly it will be a visit and i am happy for that. i miss my Dylan. i was there at his birth. he is my closest connection to some things. and his face is beautiful when he lights up and loves you.

and when the visit is done, i will let myself travel a little. even once back in gimli.

i should sleep but i want to write more some day about why i am torn. it is not in the obvious way or about the obvious thing. and i may not be torn at all, perhaps just curious and a little intimidated by direction.

good to have some time off.

john says..

well, i leave in several hours and won't list what i have done today in preparation nor what i have to do before my flight leaves in the morning. i will say that there is time for one or two hours of sleep in between and i couldn't ask for anything better.

it seems so appropriate to board a plane tired and worn out and ready to give in to the time off. i have enjoyed my day so much, long as it may be. again, to list details would maybe not be right. it was so much work and so much leisure all at once. a concerned being would have not stopped for leisure and been in bed by midnite but i am not concerned. it rained most of the night. i'm not sure when it started, sometime while i talked to the australian.


John says:
sometimes i feel old without you.
Susan says:
sometimes i feel lost without you.

John says:
it was good to be in love
Susan says:
it was amazing to be in love.


...

i don't know what to say other than it's getting colder out and the cool air and subtle change of season brought me away and home today.

i can say this here. i miss the australian. not all the time but sometimes. i miss him when i don't know something. because i know he knows. i miss him when he thinks about me because i can feel it.

we talked tonight and it was painful. such beautiful words.. i didn't expect it, but from out of nowhere it hit me. he spoke so gently and i just kept learning with tears running down my face.

sometimes sweetness drips down into your hand. sometimes your hand touches a face and it's just that there's a fire dying out in the fire pit and the lights are reflecting off of water and you've got that sweetness in your hand. and that's all it is is sweetness in your hand for just a moment.

and sometimes, though this is seperate, someone else tries to wash that sweetness off of your hands. for themselves. and they say that it is for you, but it is mostly for them. because it was only a sweet moment for you. one you wanted to enjoy. and you do your best to understand and so do they. but you wonder at these things. it's only human either way you look i suppose. just dangerous to get too precious about things.



and the contrast is suddenly stunning to you. one more thing settles and you let him sit with it. no need to defend or align yourself with him. you never did either of you any favours that way.

i drove by it all on my way home.