Viewing

Tonight we went to The Place for The Viewing. There was much to see. Old friends, not so old friends. Familiar faces made thin and wrinkled by time. Remember? Yes? No. Oh yes! Greeted at the door. Jackets go here, there's photos, a Guest Book, She's over there, Wine, Coffee, Tea, pressing the experience on me. So much. So much to see.

Photos: of Marc and Penelope, so young. So daringly gazing out at us from the shadows of light on paper. Immortal then as we believe ourselves to be now. Or more likely, as we are slowly learning we are not. Not at all.

So beautiful: the connection of the two of them over time. Seeing them grow up, old together through these relics of the past. These photos. What’s left over. And I looked at my beautiful, daring, bold friends with their hands provocatively resting on hips, bellies. Toques pulled down over shaggy hair...

I just looked into their eyes: my friends, the strangers. Over and over. Looking into people’s eyes. Barely registering the smallness of the talk. Just looking at the light of being shining shining shining lighting the irises, expanding the pupil, contracting, glinting, shifting almost faster than I could see. All the light and shadows that make blue, hazel, grey, green... Sorry, what did you say?

So thankful for the hands of my friends. Held. The humour. Laughs. Irreverent singing. Boxes of Kleenex placed discretely everywhere. The strong pin-striped shoulders of friends, teachers, pieces of me. Because John Lee said it best: they gave me Me. And I am so humbled by that. By that power. By that gift. By that generosity. I am overcome. Because I cannot imagine being anyone else — no, that’s not true. I can. I have been someone else. This is who I want to be.

And we can say: it's so sad. I even said: it’s so sad. I’m so sad. But it’s not until being here. Alone. That I am actually sad. That the tears come. But you see, I’m not alone. I’m writing to you. Without this writing, there would be no tears. Without this writing...

There was a Guest Book for us to write our thoughts. I was avoiding it. Thinking. Composing my Thoughts. Hoping this would take long enough that I would miss my chance. "Go and write," Maiko said. "Go." So I went. I slipped to the front of the line. In front of John, who stepped outside to cough. "She's sensitive to it," he said, handing me the pen. I started with my well-composed Thought, my clever idea, my "expression." And then the words took over. The idea took over. The feeling. And I kept writing. The tears holding on tightly to my ribcage. (I will not. I will—) I signed my name. "This is me. This is what you've meant to me. This is the very least that I can say. This is me." I handed the pen to John. And I walked away, back to my friends, to Gary. And I hugged him. And I sobbed into his unrecognizable suit jacket. I held on to the solidity of him. And he held me. And I tried not to cry, but there was no stopping. And Maiko saw it, and she spoke it, that it was the writing that did it. The writing...

This is the key to me. The expression. The moment of speech. And it is this that they gave me, those two, the courage to speak. The voice is mine, but the channel, the pathway, that I cleared with their help, their wisdom, their guidance. Persistance to help me find my way.

Do you see? Everyday — every day I remember something. I learn something anew. That is the profound effect of teachers. Shadow and light.

Even tonight.
Tonight.
Tomorrow we go to The Place again. This time to Remember.

We Look. We Talk. We Rest. We Reflect. We Return. We Remember. We Continue...

OH! I forgot my card! That quote, of Marc's, written on the card. I want to tell you... It will have to be tomorrow... tomorrow... tomorrow.......
Goodnight, Marc. Goodnight, Penelope. I am thinking of you.

neurotic regret

now is not the time to be thinking about this. only three hours of sleep last night. lots of work to be done and zero motivation to do it.

the thought: power. the invisible lines between people. how do we give? how do we take? not wanting to hurt feelings, just wanting to protect my own. argh. a whirlwind in my head. just when i was feeling settled, like the winter had socked in, or a heat wave or something. now the storm season... is it back? or is this an anomalous event? a blip in the radar not indicative of anything? anything. nothing.

nevermind.

i need to take a nap.

-----post-nap-----

this ain't so bad. it just doesn't pay off. and i don't have the leisure time to worry these old bones.

the fog

We're socked in. Deep. The fog rolled in on Saturday and has enveloped the whole city ever since. Except Burnaby Mountain, where it is clear and sunny. From SFU the vantage is crisp: mountain tops rising out of a grey soup.

I appreciate not being able to see very far, not being able to get to far ahead of myself. The fog demands attention to the here and now. To the cars stopping (or not) at the cross-walks. To the dark side streets I pedal through.

Last night Maiko and I were downtown at the corner of Robson and Granville where the power was out for two blocks. It looked like the street just dropped off into a velvety nothingness.

Me: Do you want to walk down there?
Maiko: No!
Me: Come on! When are we going to get a chance to do this again?

So we did. We walked the block. Kitto had candles on every table and in the kitchen. The flickering light guiding the cooks and diners. The retail stores were dark, the mannequins shadows in the windows. And the floorstaff shining flashlights on each other, dancing in make-believe discos. And people walked, quickly, down the street. Seeking out the light at the end of the block.

One block was enough for us, and when we came out of Chapters twenty minutes later the lights were back on. The magic was over.

But it was still foggy.

thinking too much?

I've been thinking about death. About birth. About my sense of total ineptitude. About my wish that there were a guidebook on how to handle a variety of social situations, especially those fraught with emotion and pain and loss. I realize there is a guide book. That is rests within the rib case. My heart guides me. Or it could, were it not for my coward's stomach, nervous and twitchy, my stomach's cautions are heeded and result in inaction / apathy / nothingness.

But sometimes my heart wins out. Probably more often than I think. Sometimes the courage blossoms from my chest and spews out my mouth or my feet or my hands. Sometimes, despite my terror, I have the courage to shout "stop!" To step up and make the simplest of choices: to speak. To act. That tiniest of decisions that can domino out in ways impossible to predict. For better or worse, this life is not a play. There is no predetermined ending. No writer to ensure I have a journey and my lessons, to me the right thing to say. I am — each of us are — entirely on my own; making decisions, saying words, taking action, doing my very best.

It just feels so woefully inadequate when faced with the mysterious monoliths of loss and life.

I worry about the kind of person I am. I have for a long time. Since Marc told me he worried about the kind of person I am. Am I good enough? Is my heart true? Do I have integrity? Am I too stubborn, obstinate? Am I mean? Do I treat people with honour and respect? Can I make it through this life without hurting any more people? Is that even possible? Am I good enough?

And what is it that I need to be good enough for?

This is a heavy weight, these high standards.

Re: [SOCIAL SQUARE DANCING] 11/14/2005 11:08:15 PM

Thank you. So much. You know I love you. Your vision and your ability to articulate these things. I look to you as much for your wisdom as for your laughter, imagination and heart. But aren't these all facets of the same thing, anyway...

There are times when I feel like it would be easier to be someone else. But when have I ever gone for “ease”?

Have you ever slipped? I did it a couple times this weekend. Once as I was contemplating climbing down the rocks to be closer to the sea. And then again when we were packing the car. Each time I got a rush of energy that started at the very soles of my feet. Electric. I used to interpret this feeling as a sigh of relief from my feet. Or a grasping, at a cellular level, a clamping down to the ground. The feeling of the effort of not falling. But now I’m beginning to recognize that the electricity of slippery feet, that this feeling is a thrill. And that to be thrilled is attractive to me. Not all the time, it’s true.

When I feel most low, it's because I imagine my life is over. That there is nothing left to do. Nothing new to experience. That the choices I've made are indelible and demand inevitability in their outcome. In the space I am right now, which is not a low one, I can see the faultiness of that logic. There is no "over" and there is no "forever" there is only the best we can do from moment to moment. And there is always beauty somewhere — one must only look to the delicate uplift of the tree boughs to see it. And I always have the choice of walking out my door, leaving everything behind and doing something other than this.

Would I even crave the unsettledness at all were it not for the strength and security of the ties that bind me? Those ties that inevitably set me free. The bonds between family — chosen and not — and faith that my feet will be intelligent on the floor. That perhaps while I may be sunshine pouring into your eyes, I am also a cat landing on my feet, driven by curiosity with all my instincts intact.

I feel like I've spent the better part of two years (and probably more, but who wants to follow that trail backwards?) questioning myself. Wondering if I'm doing it right. If there's a better way. Looking to others for the best way. And perhaps now I've finally convinced myself, through trial and error the harshest of nun-like teachers, that there is only the right way for me.

I'm laughing at myself right now. You know me, my delight in analysis. In thinking. Hard. "But how do you feeeeeeel?!" I imagine you saying.

I feel alright. Tonight, I feel alright. I feel like I'm at a buffet, a smorgasbord of possibility. This is what I like the most. To feel like the gate is open, the gangplank is lowered. I may never step off the boat, but I like having the option. That I can eat whatever I like, but my plate is only so big.

And we haven't even discussed the possibility of having seconds...

I was thinking of starting another blog, this one inspired by Professor Bartleboom's mahogany box full of letters. Letters written to his one and only love as he waits and studies the end of all things natural. I would start a blog in which I would write love letters to the lover I long for, who I miss, who I want to have beside me. The lover I have yet to meet. Then I got to the end of the book. You know the part, when Bartleboom solemnely proffers his chest of letters with the earnest words, "I've been waiting a long time for you." No, not the first time. No, not the second time. Yes! When he finally gives them to the servant. When he laughs for a week. When he sees the ridiculousness of waiting for perfection. The grand cosmic joke that there is no storybook ending, there are no limits. That we continue and continue and continue. That the three act structure was invented to make sense of our chaotic experience of life. Daily life.

So no new blog. Nothing as tight as a unifying theme. This messy sprawling document will have to be good enough.

Oh dear. I seem to be experiencing some sort of third wind or something. How will I ever get to sleep tonight, I wonder.

un souris, un souris, j'ai vue un souris!

A mouse nibbled this hole in my shirt during my recent stay on Saltspring Island. It seemed he (she?) would run across my path whenever possible. S/he made a dash for it while I was changing out of my pyjamas, scaring the pants back onto me. That mouse sure had it out for me.

But not as much as I had it out for Mel. That mouse took a trip up Mel's pants as high as the knee. On the inside. And then back down again. Maybe that mouse really liked pants.

In which case, why did he chew up my shirt?

pre-x-mas

Tonight feels like christmas eve. I'm packing my clothes for the weekend. wrapping presents for m and s's shared birthday celebration. drinking. Gin is such a comfortable companion.

(Clearly I have something to prove with all this overly enthusiastic posting after what seems like a drought. Needing to make a point, I was, and now, clearly, I'm hooked. Clearl: my new favourite word.)

The words are all a mish mash inside my head. I have thoughts swimming around, but i'm having a hard time nailing anything down - translating the immutable forms into language. Did i use that word right?

I'm thinking about the men who have shared my bed, who have touched me. If there's anything that makes me feel the passing of the years its the growing list of "past lovers." This expanding group still doesn't affect me the same way as seeing a child whose gestation I have witnessed to, but still... it is an accumulation. Like plaque.

Now, now, now... not so bad.

I recognize my impulsiveness, what some might call recklessness - or even thoughtlessness. But what of that final moment on the death bed? Do I really want to lie there thinking, "if only I had touched so-and-so, kissed this-one, accepted the proposition of that-one?" Hardly.

And so it's all Actions and Consequence. This is why I am robust. Because I must be.
But am I strong ("You can drink. You can sleep.") or am I tough?
Or am I both?

Maiko said a long time ago (OK, not that long) that she refused to start any sentences with "I'm the kind of person who..." because she wanted to allow for the fact that a person is indefinable. And me, I feel like I've spent so much time trying to figure out who the hell I am - where the hell I come from - what *kind* of person I am. Is this the legacy of growing up hovering between ethnicities? Is this the product of hybridity? My uncertainty. My "neurosis." The sense of always being on shifting ground?

(I'm remembering the haziest part of the conversation in Regina post-Simon, when M and I argued about who had it worse, or something like that. God, I wish I hadn't been so drunk for that fucking conversation.)

No. I can't believe that. In the end, there is nothing special about me. Nothing more special about me than there is special about every single human who is un/lucky enough to inhabit this planet - if only for the shortest while. We all struggle. We all seek solid ground. And nothing is solid. We try to build solidity, or at least a matrix or map that we can refer to when lost. We do our best. That's what we do. We find solace and joy and comfort when we can. We connect when we connect. We make mistakes. Sometimes the same mistakes again and again. And we live. Raucously. Wildly. To the fullest extent of our reach. What else can we possibly do? How else can I make sense of this taste, this predilection, I have for indulgence?

I must sleep. Because tomorrow we leave for the island and it will be WAY earlier than I would like.

I love you.

pieces of you

.
.
.
i
fall
to
pieces

o
o
o

each
time
i
see
you
again
.
.
.

ocean sea

Do you know Allesandro Barrico? Elisewin? Professor Bartleboom. Adams? Do you know fear? Courage? The sea? Imagination? How we get there?

...how fine it would be if, for each sea that awaits us, there were a river, for us. And someone - a father, a lover, someone - capable of taking us by the hand and finding that river - imagining it, inventing it - and placing us on its flow with the buoyancy of a single word, adieu. This, really, would be marvelous. Life would be sweet, any life. And things woud not do harm but, borne on the current, they would come closer; first one could get very close to them and then touch them and only at the end let oneself be touched by them. Let oneself be hurt by them, even. Die of them. It does not matter. But everything would be, finally, human. All that is needed is someone's imagination - a father, a lover, someone. He would be able to invent a way, here, in the midst of this silence, in this land that will not speak. A clement way, and a beautiful one. A way from here to the sea.

neurosis?

My neighbour buzzed me, "do you have a minute?"

He came upstairs and asked if I could watch his car. The alarm isn't working.

Then he said, "You know what I realized about you?"

Me: What?

Him: You're way more neurotic than you let on.

Me: (laughing) Really? And how do you know?

Him: I just figured it out. It took me a long time, but finally all the pieces came together and it all made sense.

Me: (still laughing, but less comfortably) What was the last piece of the puzzle?

Him: Those shoes. I was wondering, "why didn't she buy those shoes? They were perfect." And then I realized, that was it. They were perfect. For me, when someone is perfect I freak out, I can't take it. And then I had it: dating = shoes. Something stopped you from getting those perfect shoes.

Me: I don't know.

Him: No, but I do.

------

Ode to Joy

I remember...
Running in the cold after rabbits.
"Do you think they're leading us somewhere?" "Let's find out..."
Holding hands on the corner. No thinking, just doing.
Cold, but not feeling it.
The trees reaching up so high to the clear sky.
No blanket of clouds to keep us warm.
Lips chapped.
"One last thing before going home," says me. "The playground," says you.
Climbing as best I can with Grover-hands.
Lying under the mini-house, staring up until one moment of contact.
Here.
Lips chapped.
Last thing's first.
And you hold me all night long.

how do people walk around like this?

Perspective is everything. I'm soaked in memories. Thinking about joy and moments stranded in time. Events that occur in solitude to be called back in memory, but never built upon in action. Thinking about the gifts that we give each other. And the meaning of a gift. And not expecting a return. The joy of offering oneself completely and fully, if only for a moment. How much easier it is to do that for only a moment than for moments and moments and moments that link together, creating a month, a decade, a life.


photos by kris nelson

the next morning

this morning is a little clearer. i don't have a driving excitement about today, but i'm interested in moving forward.

i look at how long my nails have grown and think about how long it's been since i've played guitar.
it's so good to be home.

home again home again

fuck.

thank god i'm home. i appreciate all the thigns that surround me. the "stuff" that ami says I have too much of. Perhaps, perhaps he is right (no, he is, i know it).

i'm drunk and i feel like staying this way for a long time. the philosophical side of me is long asleep. making sense of things is past. why why why? there are many things that i am good at, why must i be good at everything? relationships with men = no good. from here on in i must remember that. remember.

i give up. for a while now I will give up. I have given up. that's just the way it is. i will rally, i'm sure. but for now: forget it. i'm tired.

one last thing

spotted: another gray (grey?) hair.

I'm telling you: it's over for me. no more playing 16-year-olds.

Thank gawd.

my god

This is the view from the wheelchair toilet in the women's washroom at the Coppercreek Kitchen (or something like that). Really. I mean it.

what a fucking day. (we all speak French here, right?)

Here is a selection of notes made during / after performances:

- keep your hand down

- i felt so much boredom. the ideas are so much more interesting than the execution -- is this really the right medium / forum to explore them? Is my boredom a symptom of the work's failure to engage me, or my failure to understand this mode of communication?

- "Will I have to learn to behave in a way that's different than the way I normally behave."

- What are you trying to tell me?!!? Again, I don't understand the language. Does that even matter to you?

- If you're gonna jump, jump until you can jump no more.

Reminds me of a musical Karin and I once started to invent with my old boyfriend Sean (oh Sean, he was a baker, made me a chocolate cheese cake for my birthday, walked out without saying a word when i broke up with him, inspired drunken confessions / demands, oh, adrienne... he still haunts me, there are some who will never be forgotten... o.) The theme we returned to: is it crap? / or is it art?

There's a tap number too, except the shoes make this sound: crappity crap crap crappity crap crap CRAP!

and drinking more will only make it better to a point...

(I am haunted still, though less by Sean than others... Maiko says: we are haunted by those who have made an impact on our lives... even if we don't understand why. I don't understand why. WHY?!? I think I am haunted by unfinished business, by the memories of those who I have done wrong and who, despite my best efforts, I continue to do wrong. Or perhaps -- i'm thinking this now -- i have done wrong to myself via them... somehow compromised my own integrity. And not the kind of integrity that can be defined to another through a moral or ethical discussion, but closer to the integrity that helps a building to remain standing. The slippery slope of trying to regain dignity. But really, once it's gone you might as well just go with it, because it ain't gonna get better. Trust me. Just throw in your hand, wash you face, brush your teeth and go to bed. In the morning you will have a whole new day.)

Bob's Lounge was a highlight. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion... a skul crushed... the bones caving in... the brain sqeezing out... flesh and fluid splashed on the dash like a jackson pollock painting. but 100% commitment. Jill leaned over and said, "that's all it takes to make a performer: fearlessness."

And now everyone's gone to bed with headaches and dejected looks and I am oh so wired. I've run a hot bath in the hopes it will help me to settle down. Tomorrow Maiko and I make our presentations.

(There was a moment when I feared we were in the wrong place. During one interminable event. I think I will take Naomi's advice and let it make me bolder. BOLDER!)

so many thoughts

it feels like i can't get here often enough to get to all the thoughts i've been having lately. so many thoughts floating around. too many? nah.

first off: doubt. ami says he teases me because no one else does. like so many things he says, i'm not sure if it's the truth or the opposite. and me, so earnest, i end up thinking about these statements rattled off and thrown like dice by a player assured of his winnings. but what i came to was this: i believe there are reasons certain ideas become themes in your life at certain times. while it doesn't feel healthy (ha ha ha) to be floundering (as I have been) with the rug pulled from under me -- I believe (I *have* to believe, or else... or else... god, don't even think about it) I believe I am stronger. Because I know where my feet are. What a relief! They're down there attached to my ankles. Reminds me of something a dance teacher once said as we were warming up our feet, massaging them, loosening them. The mantra was "feet intelligent on the floor." The body, when relaxed, will sway, fall and roll. The body will protect itself. And while doubt will not help save the body, in my case doubt has reminded me of the body, to trust the body, the gut, the feet, those are the things that will save me. As a person, as an artist, as a human.

second: The Syringa Tree. Watched it the other night with some members of a writers' group I'm facililtating. What a challenging piece of work for an actor, and the performer was virtuosic, beautiful. But the story... for me the story did not hold together. Set against apartheid-era South Africa I found myself wanting more politics! It was too soft, too cleaned up. And the white people (because the white actor was playing both men and women, white and black) were all good and just trying to help, and the black people were all good and trying to stand up for their country. But what of the darkness, the fear, the otherness. There were moments when I heard it in the writing, but I never saw it onstage. And I wanted more harshness, I wanted it to be less clean. I wanted to see the ugliness of individuals forced to make choices in order to survive.

third: regina. Maiko and I have arrived in Regina for the PCC conference. We left Vancouver at noon in a small plane that sat fifty people. Not so good for a gal who doesn't like flying -- our mby is such a one. As the plane took off I was reading her bits and pieces from the Globe and Mail and found myself reaching for her hand as the plane wobbled into the air. Disconcerting for one who believes herself to be brave and courageous like me. "it's kinda like your first time on a bike," I said...

We arrived in Regina to a woman holding a cardboard sign with our names scrawled on them, and then shared a limousine (yikes!) with two other guests to the Hotel Saskatchewan in downtown Reg. Half an hour to settle in our rooms then we headed downstairs for a massage (sigh) and rainforest soak (mmm) then out for dinner. The sweetest massage therapist (Adam) whose hands were warm and caring -- such a pleasant feeling to be touched. To me, a massage is proven effective when I fear I might be reduced to a snivelling mess, crying as the stored pains, anxieties, fears are released back into the bloodstream. I didn't feel sad, just overwhelmed with emotion.

four: the body. So as Adam was rubbing my erector spinae (which do exaclty what you might imagine from their name) I found myself thinking: if only we could see from the outside how complex our bodies are. The intersections of muscle, tissue, organ, vessel, fibre. Perhaps if we saw that complexity, the layers of systems, the seeming incomprehensibility, the dense mess of it all, perhaps then it would be easier for us (me) to accept the complexity of our spiritual and emotional bodies. Certainly the intangible organs which sustain these invisible but certainly tangible bodies are as complex as our physical ones. Surely there are interwoven tendons and sinews that make emotional limbs jerk and twist. I've certainly felt the sting as nerves are hit, the relief as a knot of tension is untangled.

five: work. Even during my massage I was working. Visualizing the traffic jams clearing, the warm gold liquid flowing, the hands unclasping. Breathing through it. An active participant, I thought. Unable to stop working. Unwilling to allow the world to flow and to float along like a boat on the current.

six: rivers. This takes a step backwards to the plane trip. We were flying over the prairies, one of the few times the clouds parted so we could see the landscape below. "Do you want to know something about rivers," I asked Maiko. I went on to explain how the twisting, curved river we saw below us was an old river. How the young rivers start straight and fast and as they wear away the banks their own movement serves to amplify each curve and bend until all there is are curves and bends. A slow wavy line moving across the landscape. Until one day, there is not enough water pressure to press through the curve. And the bends dry up. Leaving a series of crescent shaped lakes linked only by the spring run-off. "So the end of a river is a lake," she said. "Yes," I said, "but not any lake, a curved lake."

This thought begs and extension into metaphor and a resolution as an analogy to my (our) life.

I think I will leave that to you. Me, I will leave to the bed.

seven: love. I once claimed that I could fall in love with just about anyone. I no longer believe that. That was a rash statement made to shock and stir the pot. Now I know that's not true. I cannot fall in love with just anyone. I am picky. This is not a bad thing.

eight: sleep. I'm thinking of it right now. I'm going to act on this impulse.

so so

aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!

soaked through to the bone. taking care of myself. needed some friend time and took it.

realizing the effects of the smoking. after a week of not doing it i'm feeling like a very different person. still dealing with cravings, of course, but drank red wine with heather tonight -- her smoking and me not -- did ok. thank god for the popeye "candy sticks."

weird day of connections and interconnections. unsettling. yearning for anonymity. wishing for the perfect remedy. resigned to having to work to make things happen. fine.

i'm starting to think that i've compromised a bit too much... you know, in the long term....

thinking about those gals in my head, her of the glass feet and her of the glass heart. such chickens are we. and they, roosting in my brain, unwilling to spread themselves on the paper. me unwilling to force anything... as unrelentingly polite to the people in my head as i am to the people in my life... if someone wants to tell me something, they will... i refuse to ask. to pry. is that respect? or is it me who is the chicken?