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Dark and Light

April 2, 2017

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”— Carl Jung

This is true.

Knowing your own darkness also makes it easier to see your light.

I am not one to waste or kill time, or to wish it away it’s much too precious a thing…but as I sit on the precipice of a double, in the cold, damp rain…I wish Sunday would hurry up and get here. (this was also true, on Thursday)

It’s Sunday, we finally made it.

I’ve been awake for 1 hour and 13 minutes.

When I woke up at 8:12am it felt like the whole town I live in was still asleep.

I took my cue from the birds and stayed awake, they are so happy today, as am I.

It’s a glorious day, the sun is shining, I shall not squander this.
I was thinking it hadn’t been this warm since February, but my version of ‘not squandering’ meant I sat on my porch, coffee in hand and scrolled relentlessly through Facebook and Instagram for about an hour and 12 minutes and Facebook told me it was 18 degrees 10 days ago.

I remember that day.

I could’ve gone back to bed. I wanted to. I worked last night and had vowed to not get overly drunk, and well… I kinda sobered up by the time I came home. Still had the shakes and a foggy head as a war raged between what my body wanted to do and what my brain said was best.

My brain won. Body has decided this is okay.

Summer is coming. In fits and starts, but it’s coming.

I sat outside of my day job last week as it snowed and rained simultaneously, with that cold, damp feeling that had set into my bones and I wondered if I would ever be warm again. I could not bring to mind what the parking lot looked like in the summer, in the sunshine even though I tried.

Today is better. Yesterday I wanted to shut the gray curtains against the grey skies because I was tired of looking at it, so when the sun snuck through my window this morning and landed on my face it felt like a kiss from a long lost lover.

I love that my window faces east.

I’m wondering if I would have such an appreciation for the brief yet glorious summer I experience as a Canadian girl.

Maybe if I had lived somewhere more equatorial as a kid I wouldn’t. But I just lived through my 42^nd Canadian winter, I am good now. I have enough muscle memory stored of days the air hurt my face, the never ending search for the answer to the age old question ‘how many hoodies is too many hoodies?’ slush in boots etc.

The last 3 years I’ve gotten to escape to Florida with its perpetual sunshine and the ocean for 3 of the worst weeks here. I know this is a blessing and I try not to squander that either.

I think that might be the secret of life. ‘Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must.’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe —

We all know how enduring I am, and ever since I learned to find the joy in the little things it has been abundant.

Especially lately.

I think when you see miracles in everyday things, the universe wants to show you more.

God just wants to be loved (The Color Purple)

Part of being loved is being seen and appreciated, in all your glory or all your mess. Someone looking at you when you are down without judgement, knowing this too shall pass and the sun will come back out eventually.

I fall down and falter, but I also rise and shine.

Cruz and were talking in the car the other day, he said something about never being in a relationship with anyone that doesn’t treat you like your best friends do.

Well, ain’t that the truth.

They love me, sometimes it’s tough love but it’s always unconditional.

This is new to me.

Now I wonder, would I have such and appreciation for the way things are now if I hadn’t lived through the winters of my discontent?

Unlikely.

I’m grateful for every grey minute of my past, makes this sunshine feel so much warmer and brighter by comparison.

men

Just call me Angel of the Morning

September 21, 2016

Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
~Juice Newton

I just looked that song up and it is way more depressing than I remembered. It is absolutely about a one-sided one night stand. Nope nuh-uh. That is not what I want at all. I think my child’s mind mixed that one up with My baby takes the morning train (Sheena Easton)…I can get behind that sentiment, because he came home and she was waiting for him.

My child’s mind, constantly misunderstanding lyrics. Early memories of music and early mornings.

My alarm went off at the same time as the church bells. Chimed 6 times, and I was out from under the covers by the last bell.
It’s still dark. Wrapped myself in a blanket and sat on the porch sipping coffee, smoking and musing about my day. I had a letter to write, and a book idea that presented itself yesterday. Of course on a day where I slept in and I couldn’t do a damned thing about it, although for the first time since I started this new job I was tempted to call in sick.

I’ve had my alarm set for 6 for a while now and I don’t often get up. Preferring instead to stay in bed, force REM sleep and enjoy the strange dreams that occur in between 6 and 7:15.

(I was in prison, you came and I handed you a tiny precious snake to look after, you said you would)

Also, I have been getting into the wine and staying up later than I mean to.

There is something magical to me about being up in the darkness, just a little glow from one or two incandescent bulbs. The radio turned on low, hiss of the coffee maker, sleepy eyed and wrapped in blankets.
It meant something different when I was little. It was a break from our normal routine. It meant an event was occurring, like a trip to London, field trip at school. Excitement, different than trying to scarf down my cereal before it got soggy and the trek to the bus stop.

If I was exceptionally lucky two things would happen. I would get to watch cartoons until the bus came and even more important, I would get to see my dad. Standing in the glow of the stove light, sipping his coffee and I could hug him before he left for work. My dad worked a lot and those tiny extra moments were precious.

When I lived on the farm I used to catapult myself out of bed at 5 or 6. Not because I had chores to do, I had finely tuned my critters not to expect me till 8 or 9am. But for the stolen moments of peace. I don’t need both my hands to count the hours I was actually in that house alone over the course of 6 years, so I started carving out my own alone time. Occasionally jumping in my Jeep to catch the sunrise over the causeway.

Freedom is just chaos with better lighting. (Alan Dean Foster)

Another 5 year relationship, he was up at 5am and gone by 6. He’d let the dogs into the bedroom and I’d snuggle them for 20 minutes before I got up, again, just enjoy my alone time before getting myself off to work. Sadly, that man couldn’t be alone, so by default I wasn’t ‘allowed’.

Now that this second book idea has made itself known, 5:30 with a snooze it is. The muses have spoken.

I have to make time.

Life isn’t something I have. It’s not something that happens to me. It’s something I participate in, wander around with childlike wonderment at the beauty of, and something I create with my thoughts and actions. I want to be awake to enjoy it. My night dreams are mystical magical things that are fun to interpret. But my day dreams are infinitely better. I sat awake this morning in the dark and let my mind wander to a time and place that haven’t happened, yet.

It’s been over 3 decades since those frosty fall mornings as a child, waking up early just so I could have a few extra minutes with my dad.

I am 42 years old now. I don’t have to steal moments or feign sleep to get alone time. My life is my own and so is my time. And I cannot think of a better way to spend it than waking up before the sun, to the hiss of the coffee maker, wrapped in a blanket just to be awake enough to spend a few extra moments with a man of my choosing.

regular lust

My Bookhouse

September 17, 2016

I got tattooed in Arizona at a place called the The Bookhouse. By a man named Alex Empty. He runs a place called Copper State Tattoo now, I highly recommend looking him up.

It was my first sisterhood tattoo. T’is a crown, because we met in Ontario and she loved that we have crowns on our licence plates, and for fun and to commemorate our secret language, we put a bird on it*.

She is neither here nor there. I miss her, but sometimes we just have to miss people.

Different paths.

I remember sitting in the waiting room, seeing the name of the place and being filled with this uncontrollable mirth and bubbling joy.

I asked Alex in a hushed tone (just in case I was wrong) “is this place named after Twin Peaks?”

It was, and my happy cup runneth over.

I love those little moments of camaraderie shared with strangers, that light that goes on in their eyes, reflected in your own at the recognition of something relatively obscure. Like a tiny secret.

I loved Arizona for that. Everywhere I went, there were my people. But I couldn’t stay, and Sedona was on fire.

My boys are the bookhouse boys. There is evil out there and they stand against it and just do what needs to be done. Chivalry is paramount.

The card for that tattoo shop sits next to my desk on my bookshelf just to the far left of my peripheral vision. Nestled in with jars full of sage and rocks and a ceramic flower, with a bird on it.

3 shelves up lives my collection of old/vintage/antique books. 3 collections of fairy tales in varying states of decay. My prized first illustrated edition of The Water Babies. Not old but precious, a book that was given to me at age 13 by a slightly mad woman who has since passed away. A bible, The Handbook for Attendants of the Criminally Insane Copyright 1912, The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis, a pocket sized Iliad and my mother’s Bookhouse Books. A dozen of them, bound in navy and gold.

I wrote a long time ago in an article called “Not at all like the Movies” that I had heard certain phrases, song lyrics, passages from books and never knew why they pleased me so much until later in life.

A-ha moments.

It’s happening again, so sayeth the giant from Twin Peaks.

My Bookhouse.

Write the book, buy the house.

I christened my current apartment Equilibrium. It is where I decided I would try to stop swinging so far from one side to the other, and I have. I found a cozy little nook and instead of massive fluctuations full tilt to the far sides of content and discontent I gently sway from side to side.

Getting closer.

Hot Neighbor and I share a philosophy in that sometimes we hear things are read things or just have a thought and we immediately recognize this thing/thought/idea is THE truth. Not that it’s true, but that it is the truth. And how we have deciphered this certain phenomenon is that we are not learning something, we are remembering it.

I am remembering.

I want my bookhouse.

My psychiatrist is always asking me what I want. She recognizes what I have and had, knows I was in a state of discontent and tries to pry me open and revel the truth in there.

He asked me too. What do you want me to do to you?

It had been so long since someone asked me that, I didn’t know how to respond. Then slowly with great trust and effort I began naming things, remembering little pockets of bliss. Remembering what my body and psyche are capable of in a state of love and trust.

I wanted an answer too. I had to start somewhere, so I looked at what made me happiest of all.

I had a taste of happy healthy butterfly belly feels in the spring.

Then the exterminators came and left poison in my guts.

But in the way that nature goes and grows, taking back what is hers…the garden is once again full of butterflies. All blue and gold.

I have had many adventures, tried the red pill, the blue pill, both sides of the mushroom, tiny vials named drink me and cookies labeled eat me. Slept on the ground and in the most opulent of feather beds. Walked miles barefoot and leagues in stilettos and what makes me happiest of all is that sense of home I have felt from time to time. I love being home.

In all of my gypsy wanderings the happiest I have felt is being around those who accept me as is. No guards, no masks, no work needed on my part to be lovable. I am love. I love, it is just what the fuck I do.

I love sex. I realized the other night as his hands were wandering over my skin how starved I was for human contact. I made a game out of ‘can I kiss you here?’, “how about here?” and the answer was always yes. My lips are still bruised and I couldn’t be happier.

I love writing. Those books of my mothers have very little in the way of illustrations and I still read them ravenously as a child. Words have always been magic to me. I love creating visions out of nothing, I love exploring places I have made up in my head, when my muse sits on my shoulder and babbles faster than I can type.

I finally have an answer for them both.

I want a place I helped buy and build with the words I wrote, that I share with the one who always answers yes when I ask if I can kiss him here or there. I want to write books and do good work. Cook dinner, stack wood, rescue dogs, grow roses and just be happy and laugh with my people.

I want to come home and stay there.

(*Portlandia reference)

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Coming Home

August 25, 2016

My boss pulled me in the office the other day and asked me what I wanted to do at this new company.

“Do you want to come in and casually help out or do you want to take over and run things?”

Told me to think about it for a couple of days.

I knew there was no wrong answer and I thought about it pretty hard. But I already knew the answer.

I am going to run it.

He wants to build a tiny empire and I want to help him.

My strong suits are his weak points and vice versa.

Every job I’ve had in the past lends itself to this one. I got this.

I had the job when I walked in the door, I just had to say yes.

And I did.

I knew it would change things.

Like being up at 5:30am to write. But I like being up when the world is still asleep.

I haven’t had a straight job in 4 years and that ended as badly as anything could. I was to have a 5 year contract, paid over the table, a chance to save my money and build a life. It ended fast and furious a few months in and I was forced to regroup. I did a pretty good job of it and I love my life now. That place literally burned to the ground after I left.

I’ve been getting by on the grace of god and a bit of my own wits. Mostly god, and my comfort in being naked amongst strangers.

I just moved in with my Sunshine and it’s not perfect, but it’s really good. I love our little nest, I love her. I want to stay for a while. I really don’t want to move again until I buy something.

I want to finish this book and start another. I want the book to do well enough to keep me comfortable for a long while. And it very well could. I finally cracked the thing open after a month of avoiding it and damn, it’s good.

I always figured if I won the lottery I would probably keep working, I don’t sit still well.

JK Rowling got knocked off the billionaire list because she gives so much money to charity. I will be that way. What do I need a billion dollars for? My sisters need houses, people need food, dogs need rescuing and I wouldn’t have a clue as what to do with that much money other than making sure me and mine are comfortable.

Comfort to me isn’t about yachts and limos. It’s a cabin in the woods by a lake I can swim in. With a garden and roses.

It is possible to be an optimist and a realist when you realize anything you can imagine is real.

My dreams are my own and the only thing needed to make my life better is to dream bigger and work work work work work.

I am poised on the precipice of finally knowing what I want and having that be a good thing for once. Bliss.

I still say to my son “it’s a one in a million chance that you will become famous or a rock star, or an athlete or win the lottery of have some stroke of genius or luck in your life that leaves a big mark. But never ever think for a minute that it won’t happen. It does, every day. People win at life, amazing things happen. Why not you?” It is within the realm of possibilities. Everything is.

I have my Eeyore moments, everyone does. Mine are usually regarding men and relationships because let’s face it, they haven’t gone well. If they had I wouldn’t be here talking to you good people about how to tuck and roll when shit starts to burn.

There was a back and forth on this meme.

I have a +2 credit or I’m at 7, if the 3 good ones subtract from the bad, and they do. My girl said it was never going to happen for her and I wish I could gently reach through the ether and tell her that isn’t the truth. People win at love all the time.

It came along right as Rob Breszney posted this

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/20160825.html

And my horoscope.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)
I invite you to dream about your true home . . . your sweet, energizing, love-strong home . . . the home where you can be high and deep, robust and tender, flexible and rigorous . . . the home where you are the person that you promised yourself you could be. To stimulate and enhance your brainstorms about your true home, experiment with the following activities: Feed your roots . . . do maintenance work on your power spot . . . cherish and foster your sources . . . and refine the magic that makes you feel free. Can you handle one more set of tasks designed to enhance your domestic bliss? Tend to your web of close allies . . . take care of what takes care of you . . . and adore the intimate connections that serve as your foundation.

Of course I cried. I really want to go home.

My soul let out a triumphant bellow and a cathartic sigh.

I am so close I can taste it.

Of all these people, places, jobs and relationships I have tried to call home…they just didn’t fit. The bed was too soft, the porridge too hot something was always off and I would get rereleased into the unknown like a dandelion fluff on the wind. I would settle in hostile territory and grow anyway, just to wither and die and send my wishes back out into the world looking for somewhere to call home.

I am getting close to touching down, I can feel it. Somewhere where the ground is fertile and the sun shines and the rain falls, somewhere I can put down roots and grow that isn’t the cracks of a sidewalk or an abandoned lot.

Somewhere like a cabin in the woods, near a lake so I can swim. With a garden and roses.