(holga / expired NPH 400 220 film)

how do i find myself here then
instead of there
and where would i be if the shadows didn’t linger
quite as long as they
do
in the dead of winter’s shiver of a whisper
down my spine.

was it ever as simple as it is right now or as complicated as it is right now.  the longing and the ache that has lived with me for as long as i can remember can sometimes find me searching for ways to lose myself in the pain of not enoughness.  when i lived in that small town by that large lake under that big black blanket covered with the stars i couldn’t reach no matter how hard i tried to lick the light from my face, when i lived there, i would play this game of imagining how i was just this little girl living in this little town in this little country in this cold outreach part of the world where bears searched for garbage and wolves howled for answers and i skated down the length and breadth of the lines that covered her face.  i wanted to embrace the world and so i read every word i could find in the tiny libraries of my town, in the shelves of my parent’s living room, in the hidden corners of the corner store.  i wanted to gulp it all down like an icy cold glass bottle of cola that refreshed until it settled into a sickly hot sweetness of stomach aches.

and now.  i find myself in the dead of winter’s darkness.  and yes, the solstice brings hope and light but not enough, not enough when you live this far north and the dark crawls into your head and causes eyes to droop in tired relief as you stumble around in the dark looking for the morning toothbrush and the cold wind whistles that there is too much too do as you crawl into the cubicle that houses the pay that gets you to another bill checked off the list.

i am tired.  vulnerable.  laid bare like the branches.  and so the stimulation of social media crawls at me and pushes the world at me in a too fast, too much sort of way and i want less.  i want so much less than everyone is doing.  i want to save my pennies for a day when i won’t have to push other people’s papers around a desk that is at once too big and too small to contain me.  i don’t want to hear about all the ways everyone is dancing at the edges of themselves when i am struggling to open my eyes in the darkness of the morning glazed over smile of a dream already faded and wilted.  and so i stepped off the train of losing myself in the pain of not enoughness or what serves to provide me with that these days because i am more than enough.

i deactivated my facebook page.  i am avoiding twitter and instagram.  i am hunkering down into the light of myself for a while.  i am starting a new writing project, a new novel.  i am moving slowly spending weekends in the kitchen cooking, on the lake ponds skating, in the pool churning and taking long slow walks in search of the stars, the bright ones that push through the lights of the city bright.  i am here.  blogging.  for me.

(self portrait.  instagram)

i am learning myself.  learning my cycles.  my ways.  side step left and then go right.  i think it is about this time when i want to crawl into the dark slice of the moon and bury myself in the rubble of my own destruction.  i am tired and mystified by the beauty that sears my eyes every morning, every evening.  the light is so miraculous, long shadows of golden curves, a wink and a whisper and then she makes love to the dark shape of another whose darkness lingers longer and longer.

and this is when i become most sensitive.  tears spring up at the sight of a chalkboard message on the pavement of this city.  i start feeling unwanted, unloved as though the world doesn’t even notice that i am here, flesh and blood.  i feel invisible and insecure.  so insecure.  and then i remembered.  i felt this way last year as the trees started shaking their bony fingers at me.  i felt this way the year before as the dust that was fresh life six months ago begins to choke my lungs.  i felt this way 10 years ago as i drank way too much gin and tottered around on high heels with a toque pulled down low over my forehead.  i felt this way 20 years ago when i stopped going to class because the pull of the darkness seduced me into a long fearful hibernation.

and this is where i am most raw and alive.  the urge to dance in the cool air spirals me around and there is a part of me that feels as though i can do anything.  there is a nothing to lose attitude that comes with the breakdown.  i start feeling the molecules rearrange themselves into something new and i know with certainty that everything is changing.  every great romance i have had started in the autumn, october.   my sons were all conceived in october.  death.  life.   i am standing in the in between.  death and sleep on one side of me and the watchful passion of being fully awake on the other side of me.   i can walk in the fire, skin scorched and raw and i can hide away curled up into myself.  i am too intense.  too intense.  too intense.  and find it too easy to live in the mediocracy of myself.  i see the world through a complicated framework of too many questions, too many angles, too many conficting sides and i find it impossible to settle on any one position for longer than a moment.  and i have grown weary of the examination, the argument and so i fall backwards into the space between death and life and hover there in the grey until it hurts too much and i have to shift the perspective again.

i want to come here and give you pretty pictures and pretty poetic words but that would be a lie.  i want to come here and drip angst filled pain across a rusted out bathtub but that would be a lie.  my house is clean, bathroom scrubbed shiny with a brush and clothes and bits organized in shiny obedience until they are not.  i have a junk drawer that hasn’t been cleaned out in over five years.  my closet has been reorganized within an inch of its life.  i am ocd and i am a disorganized mess. all at the same time.  i am neatly lined up books, alphabetized in categories and i am a locker of piled up crumpled papers soggy from tuna sandwiches left for too many months.   i am at peace with my contradictions and i am miserable and wish i could just choose a way to live, to write, to work, to be.  what i really need to do is to get out of my head.

The weekend was long and busy and busy and long. Here it is a fine Spring Monday morning (read grey grey and more grey). Did I mention that it is very unspring-like and very grey grey grey. So, in the midst of all this grey, I am a flame atop my head. The dying has occured and from the grey brown of this earth emerges my red hair. Its very red and I very much like it though thankfully it has toned down a bit from the very berry cherry of the weekend.

It will be a strange week for me as I have quite forgotten what its like to be alone and have evenings of just me. Duke is off to Calgary tomorrow and Aiden is at his dad’s and so I am not sure what I am going to do with myself. While I will miss my sweet Duke, I think I may enjoy the time to myself as it has been a very long while since I’ve experienced being alone for more than a few hours here and there. Of course I took Friday off work so that Friday morning I can drive up to Calgary and stay with Duke at the lovely hotel situated downtown where I can roam about and take pictures, visit my brother, check out the Siberian Tigers at the zoo and spend some time at The Alberta Sessions (where Duke will be recording) listening to fine Albertan music. For those of you who don’t know, The Alberta Sessions, is a four day showcase of emerging Albertan talent.

Billowing bodies of brandied wine
sinking into satisfied minds
Caressing charcoal of dusty lines
soft as skin against your kind
Its just that sort of day …

Monday was super busy and crazy though I did manage to get out of my site visit early and headed down to CKUA and got to watch Duke and Lark and work on a most amazing project which you simply must hear … I will let you know when it airs, not until January though. I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview and hee hee watch my baby at work – he is simply amazing, truly!

So we went to pick up Aiden for Monday’s swim gym and had pulled away from the school and were waiting to turn off of the street while this pathfinder woman was in front of us. She was turning right, we were going to be turning left but at the moment we were stopped awaiting her departure. All of a sudden (she must have changed her mind) she started backing up. We were quite a ways behind her so were not that concerned but she kept backing up and then crashed right into us. What?!!? The crazy woman didn’t even look to see if anyone was in the street behind her. So, the consequence of her stupidity is that I have no headlight, my grill is pushed in, I can’t open my hood, and she tore my lovely bonnet bra leather thingy on the front of my jetta. I am distraught!! After going so long without a car and finally buying my cute little jetgrrrrl so that I could motor around in warmth and safety from the cold winds of this damn province, I am shoot down by a stoopid woman driving a stoopid pathfinder, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr … I am not happy about this and she will be paying for my baby to be fixed up.

Mostly this is not what I needed right now as I am stressed out with work and not wanting these major inconveniences in my life especially when it is so damn cold outside.

I get the the gym only to discover that I have forgotten my running shoes on a day when I truly needed to pound the muscles in my body. My sweet Dukenator came down and kept me company for the hours of Aiden’s swim gym and he bought a lovely greasy cheese and bacon burger which is what I should have done. But alas, I choose unwisely and went with the healthy veggie wrap which was mostly really soggy rice and could only manage to gulp down half of it, sigh!
Its a good thing Monday is over and one can only hope that the beginning of November is not going to be indicative of the the rest of the month. Gawd!
So, here it is tuesday and me with too much work to do and slacker girl is not going to have a chance to be slackerly this week which is going to make for crabbycakes me. May have to do some unscheduled shopping to lift my spirits … ah, thank goodness for money and the quick fix of chocolate and fashion!