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.