No more Toxic Village

2008-07-25T19:37:00.001-07:00

I haven't even thought about this in years. Seriously. Years. I can't believe it even still exists. I find it a little sad that I've forgotten, that I am that fair weather. It was nice here for awhile. It was. It could be. If I can rediscover what I came here for and why I left. It can't be because I've run out of things to write about. If that ever happens, I will be a completely different me that you should really forget. Eek. Cringe. No, there had to have been something else. Some *event*? I hardly remember. It's a bit sad to think that if you don't write down the days it's so easy to misplace them. I've misplaced them, but I know I have them here somewhere just underneath, underneath my bed perhaps. I haven't looked under there in ages. Maybe if I promise to remember...maybe if I promise to remember what? What should I remember, why? Isn't this all just a fight against the temporary? Yes, perhaps. The Temporary. But here, see, still, this exists among the hundreds thousands millions (?) of others. This still exists and so do I.

2007-06-01T13:59:00.001-07:00

"i'm not talking about a year no not three or four i don't want that kind of forever in my life anymore"

-ben harper "forever"

waiting for the (love) boat

2007-06-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

2007-05-21T07:47:00.001-07:00

2007-05-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

i wait until things get really messed up before i clean them. really crazy all clothes out of the closet sheets ripped off the bed no clean dishes anywhere dust bunnies reproducing as i sit and watch. i wait until it is so much there is so much that it is overwhelming that to sweep is nothing when there is an inch of dust on the telephone, the TV so that i can't even see. i wait cause i want to cause i want to forget about it that in waiting i will win and it/they will go far far away.

childhood

2007-05-11T09:53:00.001-07:00

http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/MALVINA/mr101.htm

2007-05-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

i need to create things, feel new in my hands from my hands something different from what was string into a sweater seeds into a flower paper into faces looking back at me. i need to breathe into things life spirit movement light that reflects back onto the mirror of me "love is something if you give it away you end up having more" child song in my head.

2007-04-25T05:58:00.001-07:00

exorcisms

2007-04-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

yesterday, home early from work and needing to be quiet and relax and turn off my brain for awhile i turned on the tv to find dr phil talking to an exorcist while a barrage of possessed people flickered in the background. and the rev/dr/psychoanalyst talked candidly about the devil, evil spirits, demons and how you can spot them looking back and you out of the eyes of their victims, windows to the soul all dirty. and he talked about how his work, ridding people of the evil within them with loud words and a bible is a companion to mental health workers, to medicine, to therapy. and i wonder how can any of us do without him then, how can any of us stand before him completely pure, completely clean, windows smudge free? and how can any of us determine what are spirits, whether or not "negative energy" is in fact spirits revenging spirits, the bad one taking hold?

the bad one implies that there is a good one, a good one that is stronger but still so susceptible to these dark things, these rain clouds that can take over, that can cover and hide and wound so deeply so neatly that only the eyes can see.

2007-04-19T10:52:00.000-07:00

i have a purpose and it is not to sit unmoving it is not to stand unspeaking it is not to breathe unthinking about the when the how the why

i have a purpose and it is not to count steps and lines and words and pennies it is not to wait for rain wait for sun wait for meetings wait for 5pm to come

i have a purpose and it is not to forget where i came from it is not to remember the time when i when you when things were all ripped and torn it is not blank pages

i have a purpose and it is not to empty or fill a room it is not all bright all dark no inbetween it is not cutting my hair and suddenly its new its not about everything being shiny

i have a purpose and it is not to moan in the laughing it is not to break apart at the seams of double-stitching

2007-04-14T16:10:00.000-07:00

There are things, she said, that can't be straightened out. They have to be pulled and wrenched and torn. And maybe just stay muddled up. Or pushed out of sight and left where they are. You can't tidy up people they way you can tidy up a room, she said. They're too narrow or too big. And even rooms, she said, don't take long to get untidy again.

-Sheila Watson The Double Hook, p. 74

2007-03-29T12:37:00.000-07:00

2007-03-29T07:38:00.000-07:00

it's been years since
we sat in the sunny kitchen
of our apartment on Main Street
above the bar
and i lined the window sills
with spider plants
and ivy
the yellow curtains from my mother
the old ones from the house in nfld
made the light the sunlight
that much brighter in the room
we'd sit in our camping chairs
covered in a sheet to hide the canvas
and from there see the hallway
where i painted
bald-headed men and women
with big eyes and skinny necks
that you thought were cancer patients
i always said
"you don't have the vision
to see the art in them"
it's been years since

2007-03-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

your name is in the bible and i am libel to fish for the letters wearing my fathers sweater out of my alphabet soup the recoup period is two weeks and i'll come quiet and meek to your door but you don't live there anymore so i'll stand and i'll call to no one at all

2007-03-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

the beautiful stories are rising above the disappointing ones, the ones that leave the sentence hanging that leave the suspending feeling behind the aftermath breath

the story

2007-03-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

the stories i want to have them at my fingertips on the tip of my tongue beside me inside me to spill out and for that spill to paint a picture in its mess paint a picture of me in the mess that it makes and for the same words over and over but in a different order to mean a whole new thing.

i am quiet because my computer at home is slow and i ran out of ink for my printer. yes it is the technology to blame the technology if it wasn't i'd have to blame the rain/ the cat/ the phone/ my eyes can't read the screen without my glasses.

the stories. everyday is a story but some i don't want to repeat cause maybe i'm the minor character, the screw up, filling in the blanks for someone else's glory story glory that's mine but i don't feel a part of - the formula character clown/ maid/ queen/ thug/ virgin

pictures tell stories and stories create pictures on the camera and in my mind behind my eyes. this is a picture and a story and a feeling and a moment stuck caught repeated.

at the podium

2007-03-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

2007-03-19T06:49:00.000-07:00

we will get him all figured out and polished and ready the apple on the teacher's desk and then there will be me and all my attention and focus and nit-pick will be on me no one else to iron me and then what will i do i will miss it the wisdom i have for him isn't the same wisdom i have for me the sentiment is the same but the words no the words they have to be modified mar-ified so that i can hear them so that i can listen to them understand them fully in my heart in my belly it has to come from inside out i've got to feel it not just rhyme and dance

when its my turn to figure me out me up at the podium talking about me i have no idea what i am going to say

2007-03-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

it will not come until i call it practice my words with my hand over my mouth feel the vibrations of my lips against my palms my warm breath words sounds it will not come until i know what it looks like until i can reach out with my eyes closed and touch it and know that i have arrived it will not come until there is space enough for it not just standing room but a bed and a quilt and a pillow and a cat in the centre to keep it warm it will not come until i know i can forget and it will still find me come up behind and find me in the day in the dark in the camouflage

2007-03-05T10:09:00.000-08:00

so sensitive even the light burns

the mondays and the jekyll and hyde of the sun and the gloom the fog and the clear the snow and the wind against the still and the silent

there are things to be done but they are just mountains not words not clay malleable in my hands

i will be happy when the sounds are in my mouth
i will be happy when the grass is green
i will be happy when he is with me beside
i will be happy when this is an aside, the footnote to a much longer piece

there is no such thing as happy when

this is what we need

2007-02-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

2007-02-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

the smoke

it rises and fades

but doesn't go away

even if you can't see it

2007-02-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

no more toxic village no more chemicals in my system flow in my blood in the water no more toxic village no more negative heavy dark cloud furrowed brow rain pouring down like confetti newsprint confetti that leaves a mark no more toxic village no more sharp words jab no more toxic village no more

2007-02-22T13:43:00.001-08:00

snow flowers

2007-02-22T13:38:00.000-08:00

in the morning the snow was fluffy white fluffy white kittens the down from the underbelly the sheep in the sky being sheared on my eyelashes the white melts

and everything is so quieted by it, the dampening of the wet heavy wet the blanket over everything the silent over everything pulled up the covers and gone back to sleep

the wind whispers in the still and is warm like the heat coming up from the ground that will waken the tulips

heart day

2007-02-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

happy love day

2007-02-14T06:36:00.000-08:00

yes it's the day of love and the cold winter snow blowing snow outside can't cool the warm inside the warm heart inside beating thinking of you and how it would be if we were together on this love day the made up day to sell more cards to sell more chocolate to sell more plush animals clutching hearts in their hands but still i want to celebrate not with any of those things but with the rememberence of the beauty of love of the power of love of the cliche of love and the warm so warm against the storm

just to see you and feel you feel inside the warm shiver the warm spread from my heart outward my cheeks all flushed with the movement of you the sight of you the smell of you close and just because love day should be everyday that we should always love our neighbor our family our friends even our enemies (oh but there should be no enemies if love was as progressive as weapons and words to stir us up in difference) but we forget cause there is so much going on outside that we can forget to reflect and feel not do not go not follow but feel.

2007-02-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

sometimes when you get to the heart of things you find a hole

today is my grandmother's birthday, not the one who gave me my name and my dad but my mom's mom who gave me that gold necklace with the butterfly and the recipe for those date things that i make every christmas. today was her day to share with the groundhogs.

she would have been 87 if she hadn't been in that car crash, off the road on the icy mountain and its so hard to remember that she's not here anymore, not not here but never here will never be here but in my mind in my heart in her recipes that i follow. i miss her even though there was so much inbetween us we were never really touching minds/thoughts/ideas. she was always on the other side of the table but she would be proud of me, always proud of me even when i wasn't a big deal even if it was just child fingers uneasy on piano keys.

i miss her as a puzzle piece, the space she filled, the way i would always take for granted that there would be birthday cards in the mail or random notes on feminine stationary and the perfume samples she would get from the lady at the drug store and always pass on to me. how she would always bring cookies or cabbage rolls whenever they'd visit but i never liked them, too old, too stale, not enough butter/eggs/sugar/flour. the relief after they'd leave, the den back for us to lounge in again.

but still i miss her, still i would love to find her birthday cards in the mail, her voice on the phone, telling everyone that i speak french/graduated from high school/university/university again. she'd be proud of me today.

2007-01-25T08:11:00.000-08:00

i've been sitting here waiting for it to start but i've got the stop/start watch and everyone is looking at me to press the red button press it begin

i've been sitting here no movement no action inside bubbling outside simmering settling for what is in front you know there is trouble when its too much trouble to turn around/right/left

the bad things aren't bad things if you let them out and share them they are bad left alone in the dark of the inside

inside outside in out me them there here

2007-01-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

apart
the string cut
tied to my wrist
lets me float
swim water on land
and there it is
the weightlessness
and the eye glaze
with feeling nothing
the gravity can be so heavy

this is it

2007-01-22T13:09:00.000-08:00

this is it the lit up screen eyes and windows cold on the outside cold on the inside the heat steam tea in my hands warming them up steams my glasses up like the outside the inside of the glass painted with white fingers steamy fingers

greasy fingerprints all over the clear

and it looks like its going to rain even in the cold rain icy rain all over the snow make marks in it with its teeth

this is it hot tea cold fingers me waiting for it

2007-01-10T14:16:00.000-08:00

2007-01-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

and i wish for snow in the north of me
cause if we go it's
you and me together
against the foreign
and that is so damn romantic.

in the park

2006-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

in the park
there are pink balloons
tied to the naked bush
twig arms so skinny
balloons hold them up
with their helium
in the park
the homeless
the alcoholics
feed pigeons
that coo over leftovers
of stale bread
in the park
they tie pink balloons
of welcome

2006-12-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

2006-12-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

the big people come through those doors big doors for big people

and they keep saying we're important we're important we are big and bigger and biggest

but no one knows why

other than the big people

but they are too big to use little words

and explain

we are supposed to know they are big because they are big

forever looped

2006-12-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

2006-12-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

he has been here forever, not forever, a week, two weeks all blend into the day and the night time the home and the away the sleep and the awake he close beside

he will go and i will stay and be diligent and practical and all things that grown ups do when they forget who they are forget the name without the title salary benefits top floor hierarchy assistants around the corner to make my coffee

i will stay and he will go and be diligent and practical and all things studious and good and wise and wisdom will come out of his fingers and his words will radiate with all good things halos and sunshine and he will have come upon something new and fresh and inspirational and all will be in awe of him his name his words the titles to his words

i have been here forever but not long enough to have the dent dented in

2006-11-30T08:20:00.000-08:00

2006-11-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

the day is gloomy but i can make my own sunshine if i want to "i hope you create the sunshine i see in you" he says lines like that when he's tired and i'm tired and i smile in my sleep

today will be the day that i stop feeling inadequate next to tall buildings and taxi cabs, short skirts and long hair. today is the day that i'll forget my umbrella ande get wet. on purpose. get wet wash makeup away.

i'm not here forever. i don't have to be here forever. i change with the hour/minute, i change with the waves. i don't have to know all the answers, i don't have to do it all on my own, i don't have to be inarticulate i don't have to feel like a little girl again again again again again little miss sunshine

the back and forth a dance

2006-11-21T11:30:00.001-08:00

energy comes in and out like breathing lungs the up and down bellies need to take it in but i can't too tight shirt reminding me of my weakness and my solice and my need to remember and forget all at the same time she's a part of me but one that i don't like but she won't go away without a fight and this is fighting and this is waiting for her to come and take me over close my eyes and take me over she will come when i'm not looking and take this and replace that until i don't recognize myself anymore

there are always strangers here and repeats but still strangers cause i don't know their names/ stories/ ages/ birth/ social security number but i know their faces and their voices and their too loud perfume overwhelming as i sink lower into the cushion chair lowers as you sit upon it, rises when you leave so like royality

i seek boredom in the fury i seek the chaos in the still there is nothing left for me to do but go

2006-11-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

the past can never escape the past the world not big enough to take people apart from each other apart from what has been is engrained in the earth beneath my feet, my feet apart of the earth, my feet as fast as they can go is never fast enough

2006-09-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

2006-09-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

in the art
where is the love

in the messages on the trees

2006-09-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

no more rain
it's up to me
to fall or not to fall
stay up and
gather momentum

come down hard
on the tin rooftop
when i'm safe
and warm inside

no more rain
warm inside
no more rain
calm inside
no more rain
lightening comes with
no more rain

2006-09-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

poetry comes when no one is looking
when all are fascinated
by the flashing lights
and the sirens

it comes in the garbage
that' s left on the sidewalk
what was old was new
again the cycle begins

it comes in the sunlight
off construction sites
and men with hammers in their pockets
in the mud the machines make

it comes in the tired eyes closing
subway sleep through the
announcements of what's next to come
jolting awake

it comes in in the morning
when thougths aren't fully formed
in the absence of shape
it comes
like water.

2006-09-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

hunger comes from boredom
today there is so much
to fill us up
still stomach growling

grumbling
under the florescent light
will this change with the seasons
will this change with musical chairs

hunger in the monotony
hunger in the concrete
hunger in the too tight

they come and go without speaking
without speaking they come
and go without speaking
go now without speaking
without rumbling

2006-09-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

my fingers are cold and my toes
i'm holding onto summer
even though i love the fall

the leaves cracking
veins are dried and brittle
breaking apart in the wind

under the gray is the sun
but she is nervous and so
stays hidden

there are people here
the colour of earth
but it doesn't make them
closer to it
they litter just like everyone

outside the drinkers
don't feel the cold
even through cotton t-shirts
unravelling

2006-09-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

his pants are ripped so
they are no longer pants
rags with pockets and belt loops

he doesn't ask me if i can spare some change

outside the sidewalk is painted concrete
all neon lines and words
i can't make out
the code is there but is
unbreakable

i have coffee and it spills
on my hand
brown river mark drop
startles me awake

Sun Bright Pretty Morning

2006-08-30T05:05:00.000-07:00

2006-08-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

since

2006-08-29T07:36:00.000-07:00

it is too long since i've had the need to be still and silent
even in sleep my fingers dance as though on the keys
the keyboard under my sleep fingers
sending messages that i can't read

it's too long since i've had the need to sit and wait
if i wait it is only for me
and i am standing standing standing
walking pouncing
tearing up the carpet under my feet
as i walk in circles

it's too long since i've had the need to be alone
alone with only these breaths and this swallowing
only this here me
if i close my eyes there is nothing to look at

it's too long since
it's been too long since
i've walked without a map
i've talked without a map

2006-07-27T06:29:00.000-07:00

The hard-to-pleasers are asking your advice again
And wondering if they are thinking correctly about
The ways of the world
And if you have something to enlighten them with
Turn on the light and leave the door open.

The workaholics are at it again
The computer screen eyes in the dark of the room
Back and forth the hands move across keys
In an attempt to remember all the steps
That they learned at all those dance classes
Free at the museum Saturday afternoons.

The lonely women are moaning again
Looking for men in all the wrong places
They are not hiding under the desks
And those that are here are the workaholics
And they aren't interested in women's bodies
Women's brains, women's legs

The lost ones have wondered here again
Thinking that maybe
one of the books that live here
will have the map.

2006-07-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

pretty code

Unique Identifiers

2006-07-23T20:57:00.000-07:00

I've been encoding EAD (encoded archival description- isn't that fancy?) and putting numbers to letters to letters to words and speaking like a computer screen how will it look on the computer screen and now I need to look up MARC headings and all that stuff and then more numbers and letters to words.

ah metaphors
double metaphors
a metaphor for a metaphor
that is what math is

all the mathematicians are going to give me dirty looks

and it is all about unique identifiers, a symbol/number/string of letters and numbers/code to link something to something else. giving something a nickname, a sketch of them and the uniqueness of them, a fingerprint

what is my identifier? my face/my name/ my eyes/my hair/my voice a combination of physicality and personality when you strip away the layers what you have left, the layers themselves the lack of layers?

a metaphor for metaphor's sake is still valid

2006-07-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

texas watermelon

Hot Hot Hot tin roof

2006-07-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

early wake up Sunday and the sun was waiting for me to get up and out in it so it can leave it's mark on me, on my skin all red and ready

i cut up some watermelon from texas and Luke and I ate with our hands from the bowl all juicy

and now we are going to walk in the heat as far as we can i want to donate some clothes to the needy but it isn't a selfless act cause I am keeping all my special clothes, the ones that I love, it is only really giving if you want it for yourself. giving away the outdated is not a gift. well maybe a self induced gift of a more organized closet

philly is out racing in the streets with all the other hormone men in their racing outfits and helmets and vendor printing all up the sides

I am not dreading monday even though there are loads of laundry before then

Home. I remember climbing onto the roof from the upstairs bathroom window in the summer, annie suntanning up there in pretty underwear, me out there telling myself it isn't too high up and my feet are not going to burn themselves going to melt into the shingles

2006-06-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

these are Luke flowers

comfort/comfortable/rut

2006-06-17T11:52:00.001-07:00

where do i get my inspiration? from someone else's pictures of being out and about and taking images to remember that they were there and then share them with others/strangers so that they and their motivation are envied cause i'm sitting here-peach juice- sweating in the 30C.

and there are no excuses thank you Oprah and her disabled enabled guest home early from work to experience it so what do i have to complain about but vacuuming and no apples in the fridge? yet i have a vacuum and apples aren't far away cause i've got money in my pocket. and i've got love inside phones away buses away. love inside. that's what i need to focus on. love it.

and comfort zones are just that comfortable but so are the ruts that you wear in the ground in the sofa cause then you don't have to work too hard to get into the groove. the groove, the hip, the indentations.

jane and i are going to explore the world aren't we and luke and i are going to try to tackle this city and the map and streets that criss cross over it and under it take new buses/new pictures/new signs/new sights/new people walking neighborhoods. and i'm gonna paint cause yesterday i bought a painting from the church yard sale (yellow flowers) and its pretty but maybe i could do prettier? paint under my nails feels good and clean.

past me

2006-06-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

New

2006-06-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

new job new clothes new pretty girlie sandles on my feet

tomorrow there will be
new hair new face new smile new outlook?

yesterday
new cabinet new bond new sweat new organization?

scrub away the old skin for the baby new

2006-05-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

The Maestro says it's Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you're waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

ah Leonard Cohen knows it all, ah Leonard your sex is in the vowels.

The Seconds

2006-05-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

taking pictures

2006-05-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

i wanna go back to the ghetto and take pictures of all the rusted metal and garbage bags overflowing on the lawn, all the broken glass and furniture thrown, landed on the front step. i wanna take pictures of the gravel pit and the factory making whatever spews black smoke all the time. i wanna take pictures of all the signs faded and painted over new names, the empty windows of the hardware store, the imported ladies clothing all dark and dusty inside. i wanna take pictures of the desperate outside the coffee shop with dirty pants and hands and eyes wanting to see something beautiful instead of the garbage, the mud, the dust that flies in the air and lands on their shirt sleeves making them sneeze. i wanna take pictures of the train that passes by with cars full of rock no people. i wanna take pictures of the tulips coming up between the cracks all yellow and full in the sun, the way grass grows in between the concrete sidewalk.

May

2006-05-06T09:38:00.001-07:00

May reminds me of my grandfather cause he was born May 2 but his birth certificate said May 3 for some reason and so he had two birthdays.

It is really easy for me to picture his face and I keep painting it without realizing it. He is looking at me from the big unfinished piece behind my door, eyes closed.

The sun is shining, I have no food in the fridge save a couple of apples and all I want to do is sleep. I want to feel the sun on my face and my muscles working but not enough, sleep is so strong there must be a spirit that wills it.

home view

2006-04-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

the view

2006-04-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

it's back i'm back here again and there is no view but the wall at my computer but the sun is over my shoulder on my geraniums bending towards the window all green and pink and red flowers and the city this little part goes on outside but it is calm somehow cause the trees and the gardens mellow it all out and i am not getting on the subway to go back again for awhile cause i'll break everything and i feel all broken up without my green and yellow and orange and pink pillowcases and without the sun to shine on me when i wake up this sun not that one that shines over there over the runs in my pantyhose and the shattered glasses

there young women walk with no teeth and cigarettes

stop light

2006-04-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

and she's waiting at the stop light the intersection white van doing a u-turn dirty water all up the sides can hear the men laughing in the morning hung over morning with their black coffee milk and cream and sugar and fake sugar the fat shiny on the top it's always coffee time in these neighborhoods cause they stay open late and its okay to bring your own mug and sit on the benches in the front with a smoke and a dream of meeting her at the stop light wearing those black leather pants, not leather but tight and shiny her hair all in her face and her lips really red and pouty cause you'd want them to leave a mark leave a mark on you so they'd ask what gives? who's the lady who's the broad who's the bitch who's the whore that stops here and marks you all up probably even scratches you with her nails when the moon's out and the open sign all lit up in the night so you can see her face even in the dark she's got a face even in the dark

and this is sweetpea overlooking the city

2006-04-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

Revolution

2006-04-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

is what comes out of the sun shining and keeping you awake and that is when things happen, when you happen and take over. take over the laundry, the dishes, the toothpaste spit in the sink and transform it into dresses that fit again.

i'm like this

2006-04-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

i just finished eating yogourt and trying to finish one of the last papers but it is hard to make words come when your fingers and your head are somewhere else.

just thinking about how saturday i wasn't alone and now i am with spring in the air and my sick plants all better and ready to bloom cause the sun comes in so bright through my windows. just thinking how this is all going to change and end and start again somewhere else or just continue in some haphazard fashion that will make sense only when i retrace my footsteps. i want this to be over to have handed in this paper and taught that class and be all evaluated but then i have no idea what will come next and if the monotony isn't in what is now but in what will come.

i'm tired and i want to sleep and not have to set my alarm but allow myself to wake up naturally when i have to pee or when mona wants to wash my face but it is not to be cause there is this paper that right now makes no sense but must by 9am.

Aunt Doris' Petunias

2006-03-26T10:31:00.000-08:00

The earth, The water, The roots

2006-03-26T10:22:00.000-08:00

Last night Anna Banana, Lukey and I all went to a journal launch called "Origins" and it was amazingly wonderful with spoken word and singing, samosas and chai and a really wonderful feeling of other people exploring where they came from and who they are and what has shaped them. And of course it made me think about me and my roots all over the place.

My cousin Gary did some research on my dad's side of the family ancestory and of course there are holes in it and branches that end and then branch out again. Just knowing the names, let alone the stories behind them make me feel all mosaic.

And of course Lukey is here, and so I am thinking about all the things that make him up and the little town where he's from and how different being an American can be. And what kind of a mixture, a colour he and I make.

But really this whole thing, this whole experience and the sun shining and me all in black listening to Luke breathing makes me want to sing/shout/yell/prophesize/play/remember who I am and who I will become and who will be born out of me and my leaves.

2006-03-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

errrgggg

2006-03-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

it's quiet and i'm trying not to cough and wake up philly cause his head hurts and tomorrow, now, yes just, is monday and that means work and alarm clocks.

i'm doing my laundry cause i can and that means one less thing to do tomorrow. they are revamping the laundry room for a week so soon i'll have to wash things in the sink and hang them up to dry. my throat is all tickly and i've gotta wait until i've folded all my clean clothes before i take any cold medicine cause it's gonna make me sleepy. i shouldn't be sleepy as i slept the day away hoping that when i'd wake up my head and throat and mind would be clear.

i see annie in a few days and then lukey will be here. it is so wonderful to have company but that means people to clean for and be awake for and be healthy for. i wonder if it really is mind over matter if i can make myself all better by just wishing it so. or is it that i really have to trick myself into thinking, no, knowing that i'm fine and then i will be. kinda like how smiling when your sad makes you forget.

blooming

2006-03-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

the clouds and gray come in and block the sun when you are not looking.

come in

you only notice when its gone - the light- and only remember when it's bright again.

the voice that brings me here is my own and hers that is so much like mine.
when i'm alone and lonely it is that that brings me back to the light
that i can turn on with a switch
if i want to.

i forget and i remember so easily it comes sometimes, so easily that it is effortless and the other times it is too hard my fingers don't work or my hand made up of them.

but it is time. time for me to get dressed and do my hair get it out of my face put on my jacket and walk out into the rain and the wind to the subway, to people that are awake in their own thoughts, awake to what they are feeling and to them i am a stanger whose face they can read only if i look them in the eye.

2006-03-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

i will be a writer
and you will take my words
and drink in them me
spread them on your toast
with jam and open your mouth
bite chew swallow.

but i am like the fleeting leaf
fleeting flurry fighting with the wind
for value for weight
the right to be on the ground
and tread upon.

in leaves are veins
in me too they flow
with bloody water
and i want to see them
see them working
know how they make it move
the water all through me
all steady
no waves.

i will be a writer
when this is read.

2006-03-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

I want to work like this cause that's what saturdays are for.

Happy Birthday

2006-03-04T08:58:00.001-08:00

It's Jenny's birthday and so I thought I would dedicate this post to her because she reads it and thinks that it is enjoyable because she knows me and my thought processes and how I am forgettful so I want to make sure she knows that I remembered her day and that I remember her.

oh the run-on sentences to drive an English teacher mad

but that is how/who I am.

Jenny is my friend, my wonderful friend who made my years away at university memorable. She was the girl with the best clothes in her closet, the best tunes on her computer, the best hair dying techniques, the best hair washing techniques, the best drinking at Ducky's, the best rememberer of how I like my coffee and the best cookie baker ever. She still is the girl that I would love to get dressed up and go out with and laugh at myself with. I miss her because the city is so big and the girls that I have here are so wonderful and I love them but she is the best moments of my past.

and I said to myself and aloud that this space wasn't for the step-by-step protrayal of my day and the hierarchy of my thoughts and so it won't be. I won't write here about the papers I have to write critiquing international metadata standards and how to serve multilingual multicultural youth in a public library environment. I won't write about the vacuuming and the laundry and how I firmly believe this is a day that I won't get out of my pajamas until well after the sun goes down.

Happy Birthday Jenny, cause you know my day-to-day and love me anyway.

Wake Up

2006-02-27T08:56:00.000-08:00

out of the stupor of vacation

i had nothing to do but sleep and love and eat the breakfast/lunch/dinner made for me by my love of all loves and do my hair if i felt like it and read bits about a midwife named Martha that lived over 100 years ago. nothing to do but be

awake and i barely did that.

and now i am back to the clean room, the clean bathroom, the dirty kitchen sink dishes overflowing and i have to get dressed to go to work, just got out of the shower, sitting here in my underwear with blow dried hair trying to decide what to wear for the cold outside, so cold so says the radio.

but there are things to do that i forgot, never remembered to look at the syllabi that rule my life still, assignments due this week that i didn't know were due cause it is so easy for me to forget that i'm still a student that needs class to learn, i learn so much on my own just sitting here.

i need to put my papers in order so that i know what is going on and fill in my calendar with dates that will worry me.

i am home the sun is shining through the cold wind barely blowing. the dishes will have to wait until i get home from the night class that will get me on the bus after dark.

i am home.

if i was a lily

2006-02-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

out

2006-02-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

i'm out of clean underwear
i'm out of milk
i'm out of patience, of shampoo, of gin, of long distance phone cards
i'm out of town
out of the hospital
out of love
out the door
out side up side in side out

i'm out i 'm gone i'm out of here

tomorrow

i go and leave and shut the door behind me, my little borrowed suitcase full of the important stuff but not too full, no work with me save a couple of papers and Middlemarch but that is hardly work, my plants all watered enough hopefully to last, Mona meowing cause she's going to miss licking my forehead as i sleep, no food in the fridge to go bad, the freezer full, my mind full, my heart full.

in love
in side

heart dance

2006-02-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

this is how it works

it is night

2006-02-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

and the music comes out of my brother's room in waves lapping then crashing then lapping again...the light over my head is in mimicry of the sun and somewhere i want to believe there is a bird calling dawn. but it is not so. it is night and i am not maria wanting the sun to set but the opposite, wanting it to maybe start all over again or at least be the next - no more waiting.

this is what night class does to me, brings me down and then brings me up when i'm home i'm on uppers cause it should be the afternoon or dinner time not sleep time as i'm not ready, my brain isn't ready to stop running now that it has just begun. and the music. it is the beat of my thoughts, the pulse in my neck after out of breath running.

and it is not that i dislike it here. it is bright despite the night and there are pillows and blankets and socks to keep my feet warm. there are words i can dive into and paint i can put on like makeup if i want to be creative. i can write here until the words go to sleep. and i agree with whomever said that everything has a beat - a heartbeat even if inanimate. i can feel it, in my fingers and in my toes and i am waiting for it to dance all over me - the running pulse.

perceiving the sacred

2006-02-13T18:52:00.000-08:00

"It is hard for us to understand how as a society we cannot just look at something, recognize the beauty of it and say we will leave it as it is. "

-Franklin Paibomsai
Whitefish River Chief

Here fishy fishy

2006-02-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

The Fish that Got Away from Aquarius

2006-02-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

It's February. A few days ago when the groundhog saw his shadow it was my grandma's birthday on my mom's side. she died in 2000. i miss her and was thinking about her all day that day but didn't get around to writing it down cause of chores and the barrier between my thoughts and the paper. so now it is all different changed by the days.

i wanted this to be a memorial. not a morbid one like the cenotaph at home with the lone solider surrounded by wreathes that come in november and stay in some sort of disarray until they blow away. this isn't a eulogy or a column in the newspaper when you write down life in 100 words or less. this isn't a biography or true hollywood story or any of that crap. this was for me to tell her and the world that reads this that i miss her and she hasn't disappeared.

her name was bernice and she thought that that she looked like the queen cause they had the same hair.

(this was all different before. i wrote this under the title Aquarius and then deleted it out of impatience thinking that i button i was pushing would make it all go faster but it erased and now i am trying to piece it all back together but it won't go, the button is too big for the button hole and so now i am just disappointed thinking that i 've lost my words of brillance forever.

but they weren't really brillant words. no. just selfish ones where i talk about me and those that make me up and the novel that i'm trying to write but can't get past how huge the topic and there is so much more i need to know and those who know it best are gone. it was a selfish piece that you will never read and i will never read again and i guess that fate made me forget for a reason but it is still here in my head but the words are all backward and i can't put them here again. it was more eloquent than this and that is what i am always chasing, eloquence and now i am hating this because before i looked insightful and now... i don't like things disappearing when i haven't said goodbye.

this was supposed to be about her but i was about me, the other one, the fish that got away. but it ended up about me anyway.

it's over. now i have to get all pretty and go out and celebrate my birthday. my aquariusness. and what is this but swimming. )

Sunday Sunday

2006-01-29T13:13:00.000-08:00

na na nana na

but it's not. it lied. it is gross and rainy and windy and cold and gray and i don't want to go outside even though I need to get milk. but how badly do i need milk? it is really a need or is it a want?

berg.who cares. the carton is empty. in the livingroom the Matrix soundtrack is playing, the people upstairs are taking a shower (their floor my ceiling), at least their little girl isn't playing Christmas songs on the piano cause that would totally be confusing with the matrix playing and all.

went out with the girls last night and had Ethiopian food which is great cause it's mild yet spicy and you eat in a circle from a circular platter with your hands. it totally feels like home (even though i don't eat much with my hands at home...hmm except a sandwich sometimes, never soup) and is really neat cause there is incense and bright colours. something i would never get to enjoy in Nova Scotia.

i'm missing my bunny and my jenny and home but that is nothing new. i want to crawl into my bed where it is warm cause in dreams i am home and there are not readings for me to do or classes and work to go to tomorrow. i'm not hungry or thirsty or alone. dishes don't need to be done, all my clothes are clean, the plants don't need watering, Mona isn't meowing for attention, i can have a bath and not worry about the ring my bubbles leave behind.

putting myself down on paper

2006-01-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

Putting myself down...

on paper.

Hmmmmm. Resumes, applications, references, proper format, education, experience, professional affiliations. It is so damn limiting to introduce people to me this way. I am three-dimensional. Yes, I am. Sigh.

But I have the afternoon, I should not be complaining. I bought myself a pretty plant with bright pink flowers at the supermarket along with wraps and soy and red peppers. I think it will cheer up my room as the plants I have in here now are here in hospitalization. I don't know if they'll make it.

And I woke up before my alarm today, 6:24am and there was no light from outside even though I keep my curtains open so I can wake up to the sun in my eyes. And outside was slippery and windy and I slid and fell on the sidewalk on the way to the subway this morning in front of an old lady going painfully slow in her fuzzy ankled zipper snow boots. Now I"ve got a bruise on my elbow and one on my hip for all to see.

I have no idea what is required of me for class in the morning. I need to hang up my coat and my scarf and my sweater that I threw off when I came again inside. And I want to go to sleep but I don't think Mona will let me cause she's sleeping on the bed, right in the middle.

backyard kitten

2006-01-23T09:58:00.000-08:00

i will marry a man

2006-01-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

i will marry a man
with long leather curls
all shiny and stiff
stubborn and keeping their place.

i will marry a man
in a blue checkered suit
that fits in all the right places
but with pants too long
to see his gliding feet.

i will marry a man
that knows the language of love
is very similar to the language of money
when it's still trees
because he listens carefully.

i will marry a man
with long nimble fingers
that can reach down and around fences
and undo the knots
i make in my hair.

i will marry a man
with eyeliner eyes
that always look surprised
that in the morning
i'm still there.

Drinking Tea

2006-01-22T21:17:00.000-08:00

My sister and I when I was home for the holiday made stupid silly videos on her cell phone (it doesn't make any sense to me how they can do that) about drinking tea and tacky houses and their Christmas lights. I'm reminded of her as I am up drinking tea and being silly procrastinator yet again, disillusioned, forgetful of where I am and what my role is and what I should be doing at this moment (sleeping instead of working on an assignment due when the sun rises?)

I haven't felt like writing in a long time. It is a horrible feeling, that one in the pit of my stomach telling me I have nothing original to think about, that it has all been done and there is a void where my imagination used to be. The winter does that to a person, the cold puts part of you in hibernation.

But I feel loved today, the part of me that isn't sleeping away the winter in a cave waiting for the grass to peek out under the snow all green and ready. Yes, I feel loved and there is nothing better than that and of course words escape me because there aren't words good enough.

This isn't poetic, this isn't beautiful but I am keeping it anyway. I am not going to select all, make it blue and then make it all go away. This isn't a contest, putting all the good stuff to the top (the cream in the milk) and hiding the rest away under a wig and make up painted on blush and blue/green/pink/ eyelids. This is me sitting here wearing the ring that my boobaluke won for me at an arcade thinking that it is the most beautiful thing because it is from him and it makes me feel less lonely. This is me sitting here drinking tea and thinking thoughts that aren't worthy of repeating, but worthy enough to stand their ground and be. This is me sitting her drinking tea remembering my sister's newfound love of it and smelling it on the night breath of my momma as I put a blanket over her before I go up to sleep.

I think it's always funny how plain old orange pekoe tea reminds me of home - the taste and the smell - and always makes me smile. The caffeine isn't bad either.

in a light bulb...

2005-12-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

i know we are we are the lucky ones

2005-12-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

bif says this. bif naked. she's from here i think. she's all tattooed and pretty and in-your-face and has a sweet sounding voice nevertheless in between the gutteral sounds...

she speaks to me in this though and i love her for that.

and i do feel lucky today, more so when i hear that others have been unlucky- they are heartbroken and lonely and sick. and it is horrible that through that i feel that i am healthy and loved and able to get through this. am i a lucky one? or am i an ignorant one?

my friend still lays in the hospital bed waiting for his body to catch up and i am here worried about deadlines and snow boots and bad hair days. luck is tricky, Luke luck. he is my overseer, the one that makes sure that nothing bad happens or if it does that beauty comes out of it.

mom says that i live a charmed life. today i believe it.

Going Home

2005-12-10T20:39:00.000-08:00

soon soon. i'll be gone from here, the city, the noise, the people, the subway, work, school, classes, back to the simple, back to the room i had when i was little. but the monsters are gone, and i'm not scared of the dark.

fire lily

2005-12-07T06:36:00.000-08:00

Fire and Hope

2005-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

i met a man today who had no face
claimed by fire
his lips, his ears, his nose
his eyes could see me
in them I.
and he reached out his hand
for me to take it
but i am afraid to take it
in case i hurt him
in case i hurt me
i am afraid
it looks so dead, waxen
unattached and
would it feel like putty pulled over bone?

i am lucky
but i have seen the unlucky ones
on the bus, in the lines, on the corner
and i know they are unlucky
when their eyes don't shine
and their lips don't move with the music
of the city
their feet scuff the sidewalk
and i call
but they won't answer.

The Marthas

2005-12-04T07:23:00.000-08:00

Cleansing the Space

2005-12-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

yes. it is a necessity to clear out, clean up, move, shift, dust, dance, lift, carry away all the things that linger, the things that you don't want, the thoughts that plague you long after the crisis. that's what i did. i cleaned the space and i cleaned myself inside and out.

and here i am. ready to take on what i need to. ready to devour other people's words and make them my own. ready to make creative the stagnant, make beautiful the ugly smudges of coffee on the pages. there is coffee beside me getting cold.

i feel young, 5 year old young. i found a picture to remember what i looked like and in it i see the thoughts that i had, so worried and so uncertain of the people around me, of what i was supposed to do, who i was supposed to be, why i was so much taller than everyone else, that much closer to heaven and yet completely unaware of this gift. it made me angry, this being different. i wanted to be a jessica, a vanessa, a jennifer, an allison, a lisa, a jackie, even a mary but not me. i wasn't ready to be me, a young girl with an old woman's name. it's something i needed to grow into. and now i love it, the other marthas and i have a link, we have a secret, you can see it in our eyes, we are the lucky ones to have had to grow into our names, to have something, a force make us grow. we are the morning glory vines, we grow so much and so fast that we have to wrap around each other before space can catch up.

me and my geraniums

2005-12-03T07:08:00.000-08:00