the comedy of distance

Tonight I went to bed earlier than usual due to a sudden splitting headache that made it hard to stand. I waited a few extra minutes until mom and Adam got home from the airport with our dear old friends the Badleys, and then I collapsed into my tiny little bed which is slowly accumulating so many pillows that accommodating my body has become a low priority. Once in bed, I tried to blur the sounds of my mom, Ken, and Jo talking in the kitchen below my room, but out of the fog in my mind a few sentences came through. It wasn't the words that got to me, so it must have been the sound of the voices; I was struck by a beautiful wave of familiarity.

I then found myself in one of my increasingly-less-rare weeping spells. The ones that creep up on you before you know what's even happening in your heart. The ones that feel like hormonal tears, but aren't. 

As the air caught in my chest and the mucous gathered flatteringly in my nostrils, I realized that there is something about my life right now that is completely new: I can no longer run to my people.  I don't mean this in a metaphorical way whatsoever.  I mean I cannot wake in a panic in the middle of the night and run to Maddie or Mary or Lauryn anymore. At some point in my life, I have been within walking distance of the people who remind me of what I am. I have even lived with them and slept beside them. When I feel myself drifting away into the world at the back of my head that is mine alone, I cannot reach out to them to stop it. I cannot take a walk that has any kind of promising destination, just an arrival at my own front door. 

I have been separated from these girls in one way or another for a good many years now, but there is a permanence to it at this stage that is unfamiliar to me. Lauryn isn't coming home for summers anymore, but is actually living in Montreal. Mary is making a name and a home for herself in Ontario. Maddie is getting married, and if she comes back here when she plans to, I may not be here. I am entering what could well be the turning point of my life, and my heart as I know it is nowhere to be seen. It is hard to accept the permanence of this lack of familiarity in my own country, and as much as these incredible women remind me of why I am choosing to try for a new life in Los Angeles, my love for them is making it hard for me to imagine anything in my future other than a happy reunion with my people. 

"Why must love play games with geography?"

I guess it's all just training for the real journey.

at the weekend

The August long weekend was devoted to my lifelong best friend's bridal shower, but despite that fact we managed to mostly avoid talk of weddings and marriage and even fleeting singleness. Seven girls including myself fled the city and took refuge at Lisa's cabin outside the town of Sundre. We were all excited to relax and drink and tan and swim in the river without worrying about the male gaze. Some of our number became quickly comfortable and relapsed into a state of partial nudity without a backward glance. Others, myself included, were spiritually willing but fleshfully reticent to join the trend.

I spent a lot of time analysing my reticence, even after I finally gave in. I was not surrounded by perfectly groomed, manicured, and polished supermodels, but normal girls with whom I shared laughter and interests. For the whole weekend we saw no trace of male humans, so I couldn't attribute my discomfort to them, either. I couldn't shake the sense that I was being judged, appraised, categorized. And I couldn't stop acknowledging that I have always attributed that sense, however indirectly, to the male gaze. My situation forced me to reconsider.

I have come to the conclusion that I was frightened for these women to understand my secret. Not some hidden mole or skin condition or hairy growth or third nipple. I mean the reason behind my failures, the one thing I've never been able to grasp myself. I thought, however fleetingly, that they would be able to see why I have managed to remain unloved, and that the answer would be written on their faces. 

I can't decide whether I'm relieved or aggravated that no such answer was written anywhere by the time we drove away Monday afternoon.

the other girl

Most days, I'm able to walk through the world without thinking of the grand scheme of things. I don't mean the meaning of life or God and the universe or anything lofty. I mean the whole picture of my life and all the people in it. I mean the over-arching thesis statement that becomes me. 

Yesterday did not belong to the category of most days.

I was at the folk festival on Prince's Island, a lovely and familiar place filled with excited energy and friends and foliage and awesome musical grooves. I could not have asked for a more lovely evening: truth. But all the while little thoughts came a nag nag nagging at the back of my brain, and by the time it was dark and I slid into the throngs of yammering people leaving the enclosure I was struck dumb by the power of time. I remembered being at the same festival, the same park, with the same sense of expectation. I remembered the things I had wanted at that time. I remembered my dreams, my newly-hatched schemes. I remembered my sadnesses that overwhelmed after a while every reason I had to be joyful. I wish I could say that remembering a sadder time in comparison with the present time made me grateful. But I felt weighted down and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the unknown. I felt laterally connected to that self, that girl filled with disappointment and impenetrable loneliness who wandered away from a happiness she had anticipated to sit alone by the water and think of her every unfulfilled desire. 

There are times when I feel separated from that girl. Prosperous. Powerful. But on days like yesterday I come to realize that time and chemicals do not have the power to eradicate her from my self. She is part of the grand scheme. Part of the inner universe. A planet that I have to visit from time to time to get where I want to go. When I am in Calgary, she is my Red Deer. When I'm in Regina, she is my Davidson. 

last time

what did you do to make me grow tired of you?
so swift and unexpected
so wearisome
it ended like a disorienting dream of carnivals gone cloudy
I'm startled from my revelry and find an empty carcass where you ought to be.
yours was the first time-
an instant of feeling in a frozen landscape-
but yours was the last time
and we're still here, stuck to the ground
where our footprints should be.
if our bodies never move from here, will our hearts remain as static?
will our souls stay tied to earthly forms that we so late detested
stay bound unto these arms and legs that never moved us forward
forever retreating into caves of safety, stability, stagnation, 
and fear of things unknown and unfelt.
who are we now
if not un-tethered in the unfamiliar?
no world to conquer
no lessons to learn 
just embedded in the earth like concrete rosebushes
harnessed memories of things once beautiful
never blooming until that day when the soil is washed away
and we float on
on
on into the deep blue foreignness beyond.

to live by

This is an excerpt from one of my favourite poems of all time. These are the sentiments that urge me forward, the words that I keep at the back of my head. 

[...]

One day I'll come swimming 

beside your ship or someone will

and if you hear the siren

listen to it. For if you close your ears

only nothing happens. You will never change.

I don't care if you risk

your life to angry goalies

creatures with webbed feet.

You can enter their caves and castles

their glass laboratories. Just

don't be fooled by anyone but yourself.

[...]

One afternoon I stepped

into your room. You were sitting

at the desk where I now write this.

Forsythia outside the window

the sun spilled over you

like a thick yellow miracle

as if another planet

was coaxing you out of the house

--all those possible worlds!--

and you, meanwhile, busy with mathematics.

I cannot look at forsythia now 

without loss, or joy for you.

You step delicately

into the wild world

and your real prize will be 

the frantic search.

Want everything. If you break

break going out not in.

How you live your life I don't care

but I'll sell my arms for you,

hold your secrets forever.

If I speak of death

which you fear now, greatly,

it is without answers.

Except that each

one we know is 

in our blood.

Don't recall graves.

Memory is permanent.

Remember the afternoon's

yellow suburban annunciation.

Your goalie

in his frightening mask

dreams perhaps

of gentleness.

-from To a Sad Daughter by Michael Ondaatje

into the wild world

Self-evident fact: I've started to blog. 

I've started because I can no longer ignore all the momentous things occurring in my mind, my heart, and my surroundings. My life is changing; I can see the changes occurring at every moment, and I don't want to wait to write them in a memoir once time has smoothed all the edges to make my experiences coherent and thematically unified. I want to capture the closest thing to the present while I have the chance. However, I consider it undeniable that memories of the past shape the present, so I present this also as a venue for remembrance. 

Welcome.