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.