news at noon

Here's what the news at noon just told me:

A man approached three eleven-year-old girls at a playground in Edmonton. He sexually assaulted one of them, while the others ran away. There was a witness. The witness, rather than rushing to the aid of the little girl, video-taped everything and called the police once he/she had gotten the incriminating footage.

I don't think that's what I would have chosen to do.

song

Song

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy

--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the centerof the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

Allen Ginsberg

little pieces

"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain & remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself."

-- storypeople.com

In animal totemry, butterflies represent courage. As tradition goes, when you are visited by a butterfly, it's to bring you the courage and heart to do something important. Last Thursday, the day before I was to pack up my things and my horse and head out to the first horse show in three years (the first attempt at living the way we used to before she passed away), I butterfly fluttered in front of my face in the car on the drive to work. It landed on my dash and sat blinking its pure white wings at me. Saying, "be brave!" from behind the steering wheel.

I was pretty brave, I thought. I wore butterfly socks underneath my riding boots for extra courage, and I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I did okay.

So now I know that it's possible to have a little piece of what we used to have back again. It's not the same, of course. It's drastically different, but it's a little piece of what she encouraged us to be, and I'll take whatever I can get.

"bridal shower"

there was that day in autumn – three years ago,
blue sky, yellow leaves and the country road.
i sat next to you all afternoon; you opened gifts
(muffin tray after muffin tray after muffin tray)
and thanked everyone for coming.
it's a photograph, now. it’s barely a memory.
it's you and me on that couch on that autumn day
smiling like nothing could ever go wrong
while everything blurs at a million miles per hour in the background.

where these dreams go

and you wonder where these dreams go
cause the world got in your way

I feel derailed, sometimes. And sometimes "sometimes" approaches "all the time," and that's when I just want to curl up under the covers and quit everything in my life. Just close my eyes and forget about responsibility. Forget about the part of myself that went missing one early summer's day and never came back. Fill that dark, shadowy part of myself with years and years of calm, peaceful sleep.

We had so many plans. We are so different from the people we were becoming, back then, before she passed away and everything changed. If she were still here, I'd be eventing pre-training by now. I'd look forward to riding and growing. LB would be showing at recognized dressage shows. LU would be the confident, aggressive rider that she was when Tanya was there to encourage her. Dani would still be riding. These aren't guesses or extrapolations; these were our goals. These were the tracks we were on -- the tracks we decided together to be on, and then we crashed and got scattered in a million different directions.

I spend every day torn between feeling like I could never be the person I was on the way to being, and feeling an intense desire not to disappoint her by being lacklustre and scared to live my life. Where does that leave me? I think about that long drive through the prairies, talking about the future. Picking out show names. Discussing how fun it will be when all of our horses are going, when we could all show together. Feeling glad to be part of a team. Feeling proud of ourselves and excited for the future.

I am scared to do the event next weekend. I've been trying to be excited about it, but I am nervous and scared, because sometimes when I drive home from the barn after a lesson with someone else, I wonder if I can even do it without her. I wonder if I'm just too different now. And then I immediately become scared of disappointing her, so I fill in the forms and mail off the entry. And I want to go light the mailbox on fire to destroy the form.

Why can't we go back to the people we were becoming? I was so happy to be going down that track. Now I'm somewhere so far away.