August Splendor

Today is August. Charming, warm, lustful July seeps into August's hospitality. A grandiose month, my month. The peak of summertime. Everything is more. There is also too much wonder about what's next. A challenge is to remain swathed in the summer's glorious bounty and not dwell on the future - just embrace the present loveliness. There is generosity in the flourishing thoughts that develop in August; adventure can be luxuriant, but pensiveness prevails.

Leaning

Against trees, there is comfort
Wavy indent from the bark
Crease
Skin embedding skins between
tree and incliner.

Against people, there is opinion
Wavering divide from the brow
Inspiration
Mind infiltrating mind between
Cause and effect.

Find my newer (not newest) drawings (3 so far) here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48600079099@N01/?savedsettings=85205#photo85205

De-boraing

It's a crafty scenario.

Daughter and mother chat. Mother speaks. Daughter listens. Polite interchange. Conversation ends.

What volumes were not said. Another year to wait for the next quasi-conversation? Are all imagined evils white and motorized? Are all failures someone's fault? I can't imagine that any occurrence of monetary interchange can be all good or all bad. I can't believe all giving is for naught. I can't believe all resistance is formidable.

Selective memory is an astoundingly powerful tool to rearrange the past for one's self-preservation, supposedly. Privately, I have ascertained that weakness can be the dismissal of all familial ties, rearrangement of the facts to prevent the possibility of remembering the love, feeling the love.

This operation is a puzzle cube that only the angels can solve. The 'run-away bunny' hops, but will not be caught. Just found. Silent night and day, again and stored in the book of best forgotten moments. Life is too short to forget. I cannot pat the bunny, but I can keep the phone connected.

Woe

Unbelievably, eventually, all problems have a solution.

However, while one waits for the good stuff to happen, life happens. It is a strain and a pain. Forbearance is a trial. Remaining calm, a quality required required to endure the waiting time makes one's self-confidence susceptible to question.

Is the wait realistic? Compared to what? It has been my experience that if needs are waiting to be addressed, every possible opportunity for adversity or provocation, opposition, confusion and delay will manifest to prevent expediency.

I shudder at the thought of waiting another month for remuneration expected 5 months ago. Explaining the delay, expecting others to honour commitments when your ability to meet agreements, when means are not forthcoming, again, is frustrating and exhausting. If the complaints begin, nothing will change. Steadfastness may seem ridiculous. Nothing changes if opposition prevails. Communication must contain promises, again.

Bearing the reality of waiting a month, 2 months, is an incredulous scenario. But its true. Dilemmas are not hastily resolved when changes are expected and not ensured. At least, not within a predetermined timeline.

Willingness to comply doesn't always work. I need money now!

An adjunct to Twinkle...

I need to remember. Every day, a living memory must remain. No telling when memory will fail. If I don't tell, my memories will vanish. They are mine to remember.

Memories are a wonder, zealous and a confounding phenomena. I like mine. I remember when others don't. Others remember, but my memories are mine. I cherish my memories.

There was a time, summer time, perhaps July, around 11, after the sun had reverted to a sky of miraculous colour cascading between magenta, orange and cerulean oscillations, the depth of the frog bleating subsided to allow the stars to divert my concentration. I snuggled up to the grass on the south facing lawn. Facing skyward, I could barely see sky for stars. I would always seek out the 'Big Dipper', "Little Dipper'. I began to stare at the throbbing dazzle. The enchantment of the heavens was overpowering. No streetlight in this country garden. Just vistas of the other worlds' diamonds twinkling in my eyes.

I remember the length of the grass, stark growth between my fingers, the blades stroking my toes, dewed and delicate. I needed the deep, weighted heat of the earth beneath my skirt, the scent of the nicotine from the sequestered flowerbed, white fragrance stirring the night's sensations to calm grounding, sensations preventing my heart from exploding with confusion. I knew nothing of astronomy. I don't understand completely why that wasn't important. I needed to look, to absorb the vision before me, not analyse it.

The evening star shone for me.

Twinkle

When he said the word, I remembered the nursery rhyme.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky."
~ Jane Taylor

There are many more verses, which escape my memory, but not my imagination. I remember my recitation, verse after verse, not as memorable as this verse, tucked somewhere in the middle. Odd.

Today, someone said my eyes still twinkle (after 30+ years!).

Do I scintillate? Do I sparkle? Do I emit dancing fun with my glittering, bashful glance? Do I flutter sympathetic brilliance? Most people do not see me at all. Invisibility has been a dominant force in my social domain. This poetic description of my eyes has made me brighten.

Dichotomy

I live in disparate worlds.

The working tangent entails thinking, functioning, operating in an organized, precise world, structuring other lives while attended to by physicians. I organize patients' and doctor's documents. I am the swinging door where private concerns get maximum follow-up through referrals and lab tests. I temporarily enter an office where I must adapt immediately to the office culture and function methodically, directly and efficiently. Stress makes mess. When the order exists, calm prevails. When the doctors' expectations are not explicit, disaster ensues. I seldom know where or when I work next. I like the opportunity to meet new challenges. I miss the continuity of my own organization. I don't need to stay in one place. I think I would be too bored, fast.

My creative world, currently on hiatus, is a gaping vortex of time waiting to be bridged. Still and quiet, my attention towards creation of sculpture, although not waning, is not waxing. As the space between action and inaction widens, I will eventually fall into the act of creating or be drowned by my own inattentiveness.

Creating demands content. Content demands new experiences. My work world brings me to the diversity of lives without emotional participation in their intricacies. I love the opportunity of being involved yet separate, solemnizing and respecting, while segregating my psyche from these other lives.

Am I able to completely divide myself? Can I disassociate myself from the immediacy of pain and suffering of these people? Can I create while I disunite myself from these healing rituals? Will propitious omens soon wake me into understanding how these world will draw me into art creation. I am still wondering where the sculpture is.

BIFURCATION; I am divided. I am being divided.

Backyard Hour

This evening, having no real place to hang out outside (living in a balcony-less apartment), I ventured into the next door neighbours' backyard where the rooming house landlord, also owner of my building, had cemented a patio recently, complete with wobbly plastic lawn chairs. Three were grouped invitingly around a chipped, circular white plastic table. A green and white striped umbrella, secured in place with a cinder block and braced against the grey-green of the wall shingles completed this inviting spot for a read. Book in hand, I wedged myself against the building, a forest green plastic chair for a seat, and the surface of the unpopulated table served to support my novel.

This is an odd little place. Facing morning sun and shaded in the late afternoon, created adjacent to a rare urban vegetable garden flanked by cobalt blue fencing, a collection of 10 patio chairs lean against the wooden boarder wait for occupants. Often the rooming house residents will eat outside at this enclave, usually after six. I was able to have an hour of relative solace in this communal patio before any intruders decided to join me.

The eastern rear of this house is a gravel driveway. The corner of the drive, between the garden and a walkway on the north side of the house is the nexus of this spare space. People do walk through, entering or exiting the residence, or just to conveniently access the alley beyond. A few such meanderers did pass by, nodding hello. I was grateful the usual week-end 'garage sale' was not taking place today. The drive serves as a stall space for neighbours to sell used wares most weekends. The lack of merchandise was strange, but welcome.

The alley is well travelled. Garbage and recycling containers inhabit the edge of a 10 meter laurel hedge on the south boarder of the yard, which allows easy access for the souls that make a few cents per bottle, when rummaging through the debris. No bottle seekers came today while I was reading. Quiet for an hour.

The cedar across the alley, rusty above its top third, was the loud harbinger of the sun's relentlessness of the past weeks. This observation was a slight diversion of thought as I momentarily looked up from my book. No wind blew. The inner city chatter on the streets was a peaceful din.

A treasured hour.

People

People I know and like, and like me generally can be considered my family.

These people are not necessarily blood relatives, although some of my relations are very close to me. Friends, if they stick around, eventually become related. Few stick.

Acquaintances can be more annoying than strangers. Sometimes strangers will interact with me more honestly than acquaintances. Those people that think I am their friend because I think and do things they admire or wish they could do are deceiving themselves because if I acknowledge their persistent attention with cordiality; they mistake this for friendship.

I choose friends with great discretion. I will hold back a relationship for years, waiting for the hole from which the blood will flow. You have to be tough on yourself to be my friend. You have to have undivided concern and care, enough to share. You have to be willing to take risks, defy conventionality, and be interested in the unknown, a kind of explorer.

And you have to be able to laugh; cosmic laughter, belly laughs at themselves, their inanity, at the beauty of existence, at the misdirection of life's well planned impossibilities. They must love well. They must believe in dreams and live their own, integral to a creative, intelligent life and precious newness - this especially warms my heart .

Some people I like fit this criteria, but think that being with me is too much work. They don't know how happy I am that their perception is revealed. Their resistance is the beginning of the blood flow.

I see it spilling like spilt water from an overturned glass. And I am relieved. I am not that thirsty.

Heartburn

Stuck in my throat, the gastric juices force their way into my upper palate. Tepid tap water from a heavy crystal goblet seems to taste better than just tap water. The mediocre temperature will swish down the troublesome hydrochloric acid until I start thinking again. The surge is unpredictable.

How can one control the thought process? One recalcitrant consideration, a simple idea veering towards my emotional self, and the esophageal burn forces itself upward. The body betrays my privacy.

There is no lock that can contain my feelings. They erupt outward, protruding out of my skin, and now they drive digestion into a confused process. I digest food and ideas in the same organ. I simplify the break down of transcendental concepts into a metabolic regurgitation. How absurd.

Yet, my heart burns.

NO PHONE

Ringing. None.

No interruptions. No missed calls. No connection. Trundle to the payphone? With a broken leg, I cannot roll down the stairs. I would if I could.

It takes much thought, planning to make a call. And there are quarters, dimes and nickles to be had to proceed. And the sticky mouthpiece must be kept at bay. Answering machines eat money.

Messages cannot be returned; only more calls can be made. Mind cannot be changed as there are no means to rearrange schedules. Make an appointment. Keep it. Hope that the other party will honour the time.

'They' may not be near their phone, or their cell phones are turned off. Or they just don't want to talk.

Sometimes phones are excuses to create barriers. Sometimes phones are turned off. Often people screen calls. 'They' listen to the caller and decide if they want to talk to the call maker. Call waiting give the speaker the sense that their call is less important than the next one waiting to be heard when the recipient says, can you please hold a sec. Holding for any reason is estrangement.

Time to call is time spent waiting on hold when communication is pending.

Sometimes people won't call. Sometimes people wait for calls that will never be made. Sometimes calling is not appropriate. Sometimes people call too much. Sometimes some don't call enough, or at the appropriate times, the needed times. Some like to be called everyday. Some ask too much.

People don't understand 'no phone'. People think there is something wrong with your world. Many people world-wide are phoneless. 'They' use 'phone boxes. Or neighbour's phones. Few have cell phones. More are getting those technology gluttons. Other people use phones only when necessary. They meet, instead of calling. Or write. Sometimes, home phones can take years to obtain. Sometimes never. Sometimes people don't want phones. Any phone is an extravagance. Any phone is an imposition.

I had a cell phone. I was constantly answering. I couldn't walk or drive or do the dishes without the phone ringing. My tones. I discontinued the cell. Yet, emergency situations make me pine for my cell. And night sojourns. Sometimes, more now since payphones are being removed, a cell is handy.

These past 3 days without a phone ringing have been odd. Have I eschewed telephoning? Reconnection is imminent.

Tomorrow the phone will ring.

Some birds

Summer's a vengeful time, ravaging the landscape and its inhabitants with sun. The force of this brilliance is tolerable in the early morning.

Out of the assorted urban trees a meadowlark awakens me. Every day I remember the meadowlark that sang in a large oak at dawn during my youth. There are some songs that will endure. I love to respectfully listen to this morning glory.

There are some birds "(Ceryle alcyon syn. Megaceryle alcyon) that is slate blue above and white below with a slate blue breast band and an additional chestnut-colored band in the female - and the any of numerous small shorebirds (family Scolopacidae) distinguished from the related plovers chiefly by the longer and soft-tipped bill" (Merrium Webster) that I remember jostling for prey on the clay river bend of my shore of the Icelandic River. I would sit in the sun, mesmerized by the agile swoops of the belted kingfishers, cobalt triangulations, glistening feathers spread devastatingly sharp against the stark blueness of the mid-day sky. Sandpipers trotting in the muck, bills diving into the watery edges to plunge into water saturated, clay-borne bait foolish enough to harbour themselves within the depth of the bird's elongated reach. The flying birds dove for fish at the water's ebb, and were no competition to the sandpipers. Yet they seemed to reel, weave around the sky, fighting off their imagined competitors, squawking, antagonizing the silence of the sand driven travellers. They were probably fighting for fish amongst themselves, but the sandpipers did not seem to realize this. I would be mesmerized for hours in this contradiction of species.

Now, I can occasionally glimpse the stoic stance of a blue heron on my English Bay shore. Gulls meander the horizon, and fuss, I miss the intrinsic antics of my river birds.

New Horizon

Dry is the river where secrets tread
Dark is the limb where fears are led
Bristle when the words are spared

Know well the impression...

Know what?
I don't know
How I know what I know

I know without telling
I know without sound

Sometimes the eyes crease and colour the news
Sometimes the skin will reveal the deed
Sometimes the message just lingers like scent
I know the message and dread the clues.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Crypticness has never been my strength.
I am not mysterious or secretive.
I have difficulty lying.
I appreciate private conversations, if I am privy to the information.

I like defined shadows, if I create the distinct forms that deliver the interception of light. I like to play with the visibility, the light on material... creation of sensations that arise from the juxtaposition of different light on surface and form.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yank the sky forward... Oh how I miss the expanse of a prairie sky... Full, unobstructed vision. I am always looking around corners to see the light.

Minatures are not me...

Wearily, I put away the plastic clay.

Deliberating over the form I produced in a few minutes, I came to the conclusion, which is a conclusion that I have had previously, but was reconsidering, that I must work large. I need to define space, not model. I need to confront space, conflict with it, restructure the environment, redress the landscape. This will be the way I will work and can work without producing trite and formal nick-knacks. I must sustain my patience, believe that I will again utilize material to sculpt the ideas that are waiting to manifest.

Meanwhile, I blog.

Working world

The Addiction office was a week of sleepless nights, the images of 20 something girls, trying not to look stoned, waiting for their methadone 'scripts... Somehow, they chose drugs over living through their nemesis. Heart wrenching. One week of being especially cheerful and accommodating is over.

I must find another way to make a living.

New prospects next week. Friendlier and more diverse. I am still stunned, wondering how those near and dear will skirt that frightful, intoxication of the drug induced euphoria, remaining true to their enchanting selves.

Here are some drawings:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/embellish4art/sets/72157605667281192/

Twist my arm

I saw an 'employment facilitator' today. Now, people are hired to ease one into an employable state, including resume review, interview technique critique, assessment of dress etc. According to Greg, my facilitator, my resume did not reveal my nature.

Somehow, I doubt that my employability in my chosen niche would be possible if I was truly honest about my strengths. I am attempting to be a chameleon. Obviously, my persona does not match my resume. The job counselor repeatedly asked me what I wanted. He urged me to ask for what I want, to divulge my wants; my successes must be revealed in my resume. This 'sales pitch' is supposed to reap an interview, cultivate a match between employer and me. I have doubts.

I am supposed to type. I can type, except when I have carpal tension. I type what others say; perhaps this is the reason for my growing resistance to this 'skill'. This is indeed a dilemma.


For some reason, I am becoming nostalgic.

I remember writing on top of my parents roof. I would climb the television tower erected to the east side of the house. The country village where I grew up was not within the appropriate range for a signal to allow multiple channels without this construction. I remember the excitement of climbing the metal ladder up the tower level to the middle of the roof peak. I held my notebook and pen in my mouth as I endured vertigo. I had to swing to the roof leaving one foot on the ladder, reach to the gritty shingles, and push off from the ascent with the tip of my toes of my left foot while reaching the edge of the precipice with my left, corduroyed knee. A forced roll into the hot ,sticky surface, scrunching my 'scribbler' completed this deft acrobatic technique. I loved writing from this perch, which gave me an expansive view of our acres.

I also have a vivid memory of writing on the river's edge I 'discovered' a short walk from our home.

Our street was a gravel road. Walking east to the far end near the bridge to Main Street, I veered to the dirt trail that took me to the railway crossing that transversed the Icelandic River. The village had dumped huge slabs of concrete, discarded sidewalk broken into chunks to fortify the river's edge. Beautifying the waterfront entailed ripping out all the willows that had secured the flow of the river. As a make-shift solution, these masses lined the area that held the trestles supporting the railway. I would sit in this secluded spot, dismayed at the corruption, the dissemination of the beauty that once enlivened the water's edge. Here, I wrote poetry.

Now I write using a word processor. Yet, poetry is best when writing by hand.

Procrastination

Delay. Do something else to intentionally hinder the action from taking place. Yes. I am finding a way to prevent the voluntary commitment to searching (and finding) a job.

The phone rings. The dreaded interview is booked. I am completely surprised by this response to my half-hearted fax the week before. Agencies do read resumes. Who would have believed it? I feel weakened by this event. Will my resolve to continue to defer my job search be thwarted? Money is a powerful enticement. Hope for monetary gain is a temptress to be acknowledged. Yet I fear the job; I am repulsed by my base lure to financial contentment through work.

I am not a lazy person. I wish fulfillment. I am guarded in my presumption to endeavor to become a filer of documents, responder of phone queries, the administrator of physicians' orders. What am I doing?! Procrastination seems much more eventful. I am worried.

Art seems so far away.

The spell of morning light

Somehow, I was remembering a bowl of oranges that were placed on a wholly wooden table, a table bought at the Salvation Army store, an expandable, rectangular, scarred, yellowing table. The oranges were large, and the morning light bathed those oranges, suffused them with a pale intensity, marking the beginning or an end or a transition.

Even now, 30 years later, I am not sure what to call that mark. The initiation into adulthood seems an appropriate designation of this distinguished realization. The window was never able to emit more than a glimpse of morning, and light never shone in except at early mid-day. The table was handsome in this caress of sunshine, made comforting by the roundness and purity of the hue of that copious pile of fruit.

I had walked into the frail apartment, alone. The scratched, phalo-green tiles surrounding the electric grill of the dormant fire-place to my left was a reminder of the attempt at remodelling that had taken place in this home.

We had conducted an alteration of our spirit, of sensation, of cognition - awareness and judgement of ourselves that had passed now to another phase in our lives. We had created independent pathways to our existence.

What was most startling in my new sensible awareness was the absence of presence; the gift of interaction was gone. The impelling forces we experienced, the moral poise, the emissions of fundamental physical forces between our bodies had affected us, made us part of each other's existent whole. There was seldom tranquility between us. I experience freedom from turmoil, of discomposure that morning.

The fruit had been a gift. Giving someone fruit, a product of growth, the maturing of a consequence of nature's productivity seems portentous now. Then, I just wondered, "Why oranges?". I remember asking myself the question as I stared at the present. I was confused by the beauty of the enchanted daylight.

My oranges compelled me to peel.

Sultry Vancouver

Here in Vancouver, any temperature above 20 degrees C seems to cause its residents a sweltering discomfort. We are perturbed by the elevated temperatures. We are disquieted, by the disorder the heat creates.

Drive, and you encounter profanity, rage, and speeding annoyances railing about their discomfiture; these course, brash, insolent people are peevish, affecting my hope for august tranquility. Perhaps I attempt this stability prematurely.

Brash as the public heat-sufferers become, this is no match for the intensity of turmoil that my actuating forces endure. Platitudes of misunderstandings dominate my intellect; emotions are vanquished, being consumed by the consequence of a choice where my best interests were not considered... by me.

Evening is lovely. Renewed vigor seems as close as the fan blowing at my calves.

Leave it to me...!?!

Somehow, I have been delegated 'the one' who can...

I seem to be 'the one' who oversees conundrums. I can find out information that eludes others. I can create 'win-win' scenarios where confusion once reined. What do you need? I can find ways to make positive events evolve effectively , rectify misunderstandings.

I have challenged financial institutions to remedy their greedy practices, influenced the change in laws to be inclusive... Somehow, I can. I have the fortitude to forge changes to alleviate pain and enable calm and productivity. However... There is a wide gulf between my active mentoring and financial recompense. Why?! This remains to be a mystery I need to solve... And change.

I never resent the recipients of my work. Yet, I do need to support myself, especially if I am going to continue to assist those that need my help. Charging doesn't work. Kind, cosmos... I need direction! What do I need to do to effect a financial positioning that generates enough money to meet my needs?! Yikes!

What I want

'They' say, "Ask to receive", "If you don't ask, you won't 'get'. "Be careful of what you wish for... You might get it!".

The premise is - if you don't articulate your wishes, needs, desires, if the cosmos doesn't hear your soul's preferences, you won't allow the delivery/experience of your most cherished wishes to occur. Speak to be heard. Seems simple.

Here's what I want: (my prayer begins here...)

1. I want to write for money, earning enough to make my travel and all my dreams and family's dreams come true; I want this to endure for at least 3 decades.

a. I want to write for people that appreciate my gifts without having to submit a resume.

b. I want to travel and write. I want to write and travel. I want to write about what I discover on my travels.

DETAILS: I want to meet people and tell their stories. I want to get paid for this privilege. I want compensation that will perpetuate this cycle, without financial hardship, with financial comfort, with enough money to support my family's/loved ones' needs and my dreams. (I have restated these dreams to make sure that this is heard, and that nothing of the complete wish is omitted.)

Also, and importantly integral to the above 'wish list'...

A. I want to be healthy, with all the energy, drive and integrity and more to spare to make all my dreams happen, and continue for decades.

B. I want a home to come back to after traveling; I want to share this home with my loved one, as we have discussed - dual studios on the ocean, surrounded by nature, to perpetuate our need for discovery of his science, technology and my art.

C. I want to always continue my education, perpetuate my art practice, and live without fear of poverty, infidelity, inadequacies and ignorance.

D. I want my loved ones to be healthy, happy, and be fulfilled, utilizing their gifts; I want to continue to be active in their lives.

E. I want to continue to laugh, be happy in my activities and pursuits, enjoy my loved ones, friends and family with humility, dignity and joy.

Chapter Two

The clock was not striking. It slid silently between three and four in the afternoon.

The western window's heat began waking her from the medicated nap she took to suffer the pain. A back sprain drove the slumber, and dreams. She saw herself in a mirror, pigtailed, as in her youth, wearing a zipper on her mouth, eyes shut, hands bound by barbed twine. Too many 'B' movies, undoubtedly.

Giotto was displaying his colours in the background. Azure and gold, the shimmer drove the mood of the vision, which became a painting? a sculpture? To be made... future travels.

The door opened and shut. And opened and slammed closed. She strove to rise from the black corduroy, pressing her wrists deep into the foam of the chesterfield (couch, for those unacquainted with Canadianisms). Marooned on the worn object, the door of her perceived beginnings became locked in the presence of muscle analgesia.

The early 14th C. paintings loomed before her; salivating, she tasted the ingenuity of non-representation. And the archways! What a solution to the conundrum. Get rid of the doors, and everything will be accessible!

Chapter One

The door was locked from the inside.

Her door did not require a key to open it from the interior of her space. All she had to do was to want to turn the locking device counter clock-wise, and the door would open to her.

Would she find a reason to go out?

Wednesday is wily

Sun wakes
The sleeper
decisive
Making a call
change direction
Reading thoughts
simplicity
Making a way - away
loving
Positive change
Awake.

Sleepy people

Shutting my eyes at 2am and 2pm... Inbetween there are daydreams and nightmares... Finding a rhythm is a puzzle not found. The rut-tut-snoze of daily living is festering my equilibrium.

Doc's offices are not for me. Can do. Will do... Shall I forever be booking referrals, billing, cleaning speculums, ushering the patients, asking personal questions that is not my business to ask...? and an interview on Friday for a 'real job', not just practical slave labour... How shall I convince myself I am the best for the world I do not want to participate in... Begin with the end in mind, so says the self-help books. I am not a self-help aficionado, but I do occasionally flip those self-motivating pages in a browse of mega stores... This line comes from Covey himself, guru of the 7 steps to effectiveness in one's life. So far, his steps have not lead me to the best possible scenario of my dream life. Maybe I need to write the book that addresses my own needs.

So many people to thank...

My dear 'graces' are so patient. My friends and networking contacts have accessed worlds beyond my ability to do so. (I am still trying to understand why and how I fit into these milieus.) My grenouille, a pet.

Still, my groggyness prohibits liveliness and this I must disect. When I know, I can act...

Drill

Somebody once said that the way to your heart is through your mind. There is another thought... It is through your stomach? That I could never condone. Somehow, when I heard a true story tonight of loss of a life, the stomach pitched and the mind cornered itself into my heartbeat rhythm.

The story has been told in various ways...

He was on his way to work

It was 5 am

It was a '53 Ausin with a 'death trap' door

He worked as a meat packer or he worked on the railroad

He was a medical student

He had just passed his exams

He was alone

He was with friends

The friends were on the water tower

It was a snow storm

The train was coming

He saw the train and drove into it

He saw the train and jumped out of the car

He saw the train and rolled under it

The train decapitated him

He had a wife

His wife was buying a dress for a party

He was going to celebrate

They had just finished celebrating

His wife had to see the body

His ring was scored with scratches

He had a baby

His baby was 7 months old

He was 32

He was celebrating

He passed his medical exams

It was March 5

He was drunk

He was hangover

He was late

He was dead

He died in the morning

He died on the way to the to work

He died after the party

He died and the world changed

Love is everything?

Love won't cork the bottle

Love won't keep me from not knowing



Heart and mind need to stay together.

Whence

Goodness. So many eons since I blogged. And as it was a day of serendipity, it seems appropriate to blog it out...

Leave it to me to stumble upon the past with such clarity that I forgot how to keep searching for the present tense. The net of the succinct numbers were the key. 1530. How could one have guessed the trump. And yet it was the magic number. Perhaps not magic, just a thrust in a future direction that circumvents the past... the circular universal transition where the arcs pass but don't touch. It was a surprise to see the distant future pass before my eyes; it smacked of oddness. No newness, just wonder. Could this be a direction? - I am doubting my direction, as always. I am a curious as the proverbial lioness. I love to explore.

The 3 muses are circling my imagination these days. They are the gifts of a dream where I was bestowed with life and gratitude. The harmonies they offer their worlds are remarkable to me. East, more East and farther East they live. Still, they circle my heart, tho the silence is often a tumult of vibration in my soul. I steady myself with lovingness at their accomplished lives. So much done, and will be done by them. Da la de. The trick is to desire nothing. All stays calm.

And so will the valiant charger hold the staff of the snake?! The province may think so, but will the nation?! And will the taming of the serpent be enough to fortify the melancholy boredom? Metal plates in hand these days, and torches to melt them doesn't seem the likely means to forging a medical practice. Stranger things have happened, I know, but telling it like it is will be and is unbelievable to most. It make me laugh. I am happy to be the witness to such contradiction. I enjoy the disbelief. People are so set on the norm. How bored they must be to need normality.

I seem to have fallen into my need for contrariness also. The practical. The expected necessity. The bizarre inability to be placed by society. I do not fit. I don't appear to not be able to fit. The reality is much different. Lakes fit into large dips in the earth. The oceans fit between continents. The sky does not fall. Mountains erode rather than move. I am definitely more like lava, spilling all over new terrain without the sea to cool me into place; the air will make me solid one day, but not before I have redefined the space I move through. And money is never to be found. Only those that discover the power of the fresh, the potential for re-development or evolved territory can cash in. I am a mystery to myself.

Delete

Whence comes the lies?
Memory gets fuddled; incisive
Deleting goes far...
Recoverable to a point; trenchant
Deleted and found
Disturbing.

Whistle while you .... WORK

Witt and wiles
Wrestle spitefully
Wiggling away to the
Cape of restitution


La de da.

Sunday envelopes the numbness.
The distance holds a journey?
The present is "not found".
Find the ordinary to create a path.
Mundane organization is the ultimate mantra.
Do and keep doing or die.

Moronic Monday

A PRAYER FOR A TORTURED SOUL

Twisting a yarn, a willy ditty -
Answering anonymity
with precise dictums...
The seeker seeks and sights the nasty.
Nervous, she sloppily speaks.

Waking to a mirror of indecision -
Leading to the slaughtered dreams
with precise doldrums...
Fostering lives; she know so little.
Wounded, she recklessly hides.

Grant that the nocturnal wrestler -
Fandango is thwarted and found
with precise justice...
Friendly cavorting saves her make up
Leaving the pain to memory.

August Webs

Without being told, I know that the month of August is present when the spiders' silk fills the open eastern window. I watch the fine filament tracing the outline of the aperture asymmetrically, creating the mystery of a web. Traversing the space with steadfast strands of precision, the creature and many like it begin a place to lay their offspring every August. The August webs are more striking, whiter, more luminescent. They glitter with dew in the early dawn, and glimmer through the daylight hours, radiate with the moonlight. I look out the kitchen window, admiring the spider spin and I know August has begun.

At one time I thought that the webs caught the spirit of midsummer, hovering and distinct from each other in their design, a splendid metaphor for catching the bounty of summer's thoughts, the web of fulfillment, the intricacies of life's peculiarities ordered into a useful mode of expression. Now I just envy the spider's relentless power to know what and when to produce - its life's oeuvre. Driven to make what is required to fulfill its destiny, the web is profound sanctity, the embodiment of spiders' purpose in nature. Doing is knowing.

Oh, for a web to weave.
Not to practice to deceive
Place me in the azure sky
Let me know what to defy
this lifetime.

Here's acknowledging Sir Walter Scott (Marmion, 1808)
"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive."

Rendezvous

West coast summers tend to produce confusion due to our fierce resistance to heat, which challenges our ability to think. Those migrants to the ocean side forgo all caution to sun induced melanoma, allowing bronzing of bodies to seduce the bathers into unconscious pheromone production, thus greatly reducing their use of common sense.

Those of us that must work during the day endure un-air conditioned workplaces, unless the workplace is fortified by foreign thinking owners and landlords that install the cooling systems appropriate to their original heat producing climates. I know some people that enter and remain in malls just for the pleasure of walking in the artificially cooled facility. Shopping is optional.

Whether it is the leisurely beach site or to the work-a-world, driving to and from a destination is a test of any nemesis' retribution. We speed and weave to reach a light, hovering at intersections with elevated pulses, brows dripping while we bake from direct exposure. No matter how fast we navigate to the next red, it takes the same time as our speedy counterparts. We catch up with them in a block or so, or advance while the rear becomes annoyingly close to our bumpers. While we survey the start of the light race, windows circulate fume infused air, saturated with the perspiration from the adjacent car's occupants. We whisk on the the next light, deftly avoiding the stunned and delirious drivers that can alter our lifestyle between point A & B with an altercation produced by smidgen of road rage. Honking away the stupidity will not reduce the heat induced anger. No matter how cleverly polite or gracious our driving, no matter how disturbed our road mates, or how feverish the air we all breath, we always share the same dilemma. It takes as long as it takes to get where we are going. Summer or not, the distances will not alter. We cannot control the weather. We can cool down our freakish need to speed between those pesky lights. Let the rendezvous take place!

Woa! BE GONE ye of little IMAGINATION!!!

Yep.

"The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things.
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. And tho the sea be boiling hot and ..."

I wish I could remember the entire Lewis Carol poem, but the spirit this line evokes is so power producing. Speaking up, letting go of fortunes' follies. Challenge the known and make the unlikely possible. Rivers of surging ideas. Must learn to wait. All previous presumptions to be abandoned. 'let's go 'xploring', as my daughters' said as children when looking for adventure.

I do miss the girls, now firmly embedded in life's mysterious curiosities, their own paths established. I miss the wonder of their first discoveries and the joy of their embrace of newness I was privy to during their youth. Now they have meandered from me, throwing back occasional shouts of 'eureka!' so I can vicariously warm myself with their lovely fulfillment. One remains silent and I continue to wait.

I think about the girls' youth and my mind immediately becomes riddled with ditties of play songs. 'Skidamringkydink', 'Baby Beluga in the deep blue Sea', 'Buckle Shoes, Bow Shoes, Pretty Pointed Toes, Like Some, So would I!', Zoon zoon, cuddle and croon, over the wrinkling sea', ... oh so many. And I dream, lusting for the past closeness, but understanding that without that past knittedness, their bold journeys would not have been possible. Hooray!

Birth of a Girl

She was a blue light, nay a haze
Hovering above a Toronto cross-section
Before she was conceived.

There were tendrils of her need to be in this world
Saturating the space between
Wisps of knowingness
Urging the collaborators to parent her body.

At birth she was observant of her lust for survival,
A spirited gusto for life.
Guzzle and sleep, she saw all, listened well and
Stored the memories for future burgeoning.

Frighteningly early she spoke her name.
She could enjoy the mirth of the ages,
Laughing well, she exploded with the joy of the small,
Largely a wondrous gift to behold.

Walking was a necessity, not an interesting activity.
Her pleasure was the poetry of the Rhyme Time,
Colours and the taste.
Music concentrated her concentric mind.

Within a year of life, she insisted
On sitting on laps...
To see sewing,
To hear reading,
To feel sounds of talking.

And now, in the second decade of her life,
The opera continues,
Moving herself to the foray of sensational places
Where sights, sounds and sensations are plentiful
Where new memories are possible
And pink is passion transitionalized,
Azure sublimates carefulness,
Emerald secures the growth and
Nary is there a day
When the buds do not bloom
Into a canopy of wonder.

Rain

A downpour is the exhilarating means to renew the passive, sun drenched earth. I love the euphoria of the concentrated force the rain spills from the sky. Trees' dust form rivulets below. The clouds disperse and a ionized air modifies our spirit.

Wash.

Leave it till Monday

Nearness
and dearness
is a dive
into the brink
change.

Wandering
the minstrel
sings low
traffic drowning
sorrows.

Echos
enchanted foraging
rescues the craft.
Oblivion.

Not until
sunrise
will a new day
deliver.
Restitution.

Sunday Fissure

Weak week. Weal, waddle, wane. Sun slips into a crafted abyss and tickles memories wished to be dissipated. Dreams of past moments to be rekindled into nightmares. Sifting quietly into nuances of structure. Form still unknown.

WHAT DO I WANT? A question harder than granite. Soapstone ideals rest reluctantly on posed problem solving soliloquies.

Waves of known possibilities safely guarded by the passing moments, but time is a trickster. Acting, involving oneself in new ventures is the only way to live.

Living is limestone, buttery soft to the point; it acknowledges gently, revealing great and universal truths. What act will spin into adventure, resolving, solving and solidifying the stagnation into amoebic life, eventually evolving into satisfaction of living?

Spin a bottle, flip a coin, pick a card - there is no easy way to know what is best, especially when the beginning is vague. Get a job, take a course, find a new horizon. Platitudes of grace.

Begin with a colour. Orange is action and speed. Green is contemplation. Gold, organization. Blue feels and holds empathy, often strangling strategy. I need to resurrect my Orange tendencies as Blue is a hindrance to change.

I like action, but speed is not my forte. I like to think and incise, but dislike the organization that inevitably is associated with the outcome of research. I don't want to wallow in the piteous self-riotousness which restrains action.

This is nowhere and somewhere. Where is the event that will develop a path? ... A stone's through away... and where is the stone?

La DE Da

Once, upon a time...

Remembrances of new moon... They say in Turkmenistan that if you show money to the new moon it will mean that you will have money in the month to come ( at least). My friend took out her last $13 American dollars and flashed it at the crescent moon last night in twilight, the last of the money she had earned to come to Canada, in anticipation of this prophecy.

The Chef was cooking sauces last night. A cream tarragon and red wine sauce for the miniature bar-b-ques. Caramel with Grande Marnier and the secret Chocolate sauces ( orgasmic) for the strawberry and cookie dipping. A feast with panache. Starters were a double cream Brie baked with roasted walnuts and a vine ripened tomato salad with fresh basil, olive oil, lemon, balsamic vinaigrette, topped with shaved red onion. Fresh baguette, cold butter and straight up Stoly. Kosher pickles to nibble with the Vodka. (Russian tradition)

The smoke alarm only resounded once. The plastic bag was adjusted to prevent the fire brigade's entrance, and tongs were readied to braise the smorgasbord of morsels of meat. Beef heart, veal, pork tenderloin, chicken marinated in tarragon. Freshly ground pepper sanctified every course. Sauces were readied for immersion. Red wine and conversation about the comparisons of Turkmen/Russian/French and Canadian culture fortified the evening. The dessert was consumed intermittently throughout the meal.

Yum. A new Canada Day tradition was forged.

Wednesday Morning

Somehow, I have written this before.

Coffee and a view out the window to the neighbourhood is a ritual. News reports revolve around a 15 minute schedule and are never what I want to hear.

Yesterday's conversations repeat in my memory like a newscast. Resolves for the day, week, lifetime occur with healiners to remember, and disolve to clouded dreams.

People to call, appointments to make, employment to secure. All of the new ventures of contact enable a fresh perspective into what I want to do. I am awakening and the sun is not likely to shine today.

Publishing

Seeing my words in print on the web is humbling. Craving acuity, I meander in my word bank with a hungry anticipation, and traffic noise is all that come to mind. A wisp of cold morning air from between trees enters a slight aperture to the towering cedars outside the window and caressess my cheek, lingering with the presumption that a day will be lived with some smiles.

I think of the piano lesson I will teach this afternoon to the cellist of 'THE WINKS'. A furtive act of obtaining a studio in the Academy will compel the student and myself to relish the hour or so of musical collaberation. Timing, titilations and brash key crashing will forge a new level of understanding of the instruments' requirements, and redress the need for parental and filial bonding. Memories are bound to infiltrate, reminding us of the kinder experiences we share. The meeting can be a trial of frustrated technique and yet there has always been a yearning for new discovery. I look forward to this event.

Breathing in the background was a subject of a story sequence I once wrote: While He Was Sleeping. The bound leather booklet has been hiding from me. The stored volume was dispersed with other books from my library, and this book was not found. I know it exists. Perhaps there will be a need for its return when I have it again in hand. I miss this place of description.

June 7th

Good Morning, World.

This post originates from the west coast of Canada. This place is a conundrum to me, and I am marooned here for the time being. As I have something to say, usually, I want to share these thoughts with you.

Today is a sunny scorcher. Hot numbness, as today is the anniversary of my mother's death. I awoke with the memories of the last look, the pale blueness, inarticulate acknowledgement of camaraderie dwelling in a shocked awakening, knowing that I am still hearing what couldn't be said those years ago. I am driven to remember the sweat and stillness of a life fulfilled by loving. A rare gift.

Today is a waxy wane. Facing myself, the nub of my search to rekindle the art in me has brought me to this public revelation. And this act is much more frightening than solo travelling in a country far away, or exhibiting work to the cloister of the art aficionados. Organs are pressed into upright alignment, poised for the keyboard to flow. I walk away (mentally) as I would from a work in progress on the bench, tool in hand, and expecting to know how to proceed.

There is a 'leap of faith' that occurs with the greatest of joy when the muse guides and all is proceeding. Yet writing has been a latent development.

Poetry was the first love, and a discarded love. Prose revived itself from necessity. Art critic became a title, and a means of propelling myself into the nebulous intricacies of other's creative forces. This was mode endured an abrupt conclusion. Recently, writing for others has been the form of need. I want to rekindle the gentle art of self expression.