"letting it be," edited version

The night he phoned me from Vancouver was the same night I put a letter in the mail for him. It said, "I will be good to you," and I included a cutesy little photo of us that we did in a photo-booth at the mall. We are cheek-to-cheek in the little black-and-white square and our eyes seem like they belong to other people, now.

He phoned me from Vancouver and he sounded far away. Farther than the west coast; like he was calling Edmonton from China or New Zealand or the South Pole. I was just about to say,
"I've been thinking of you," when he blurted it out.

"There's someone else," he said, and coughed. There were several beats of silence while I thought about the letter -- in my mind it was already floating magically through the clouds across two provinces, knowing its destiny. It was following an imaginary line from the red mailbox down my street to the little cubby that has his last name on it, in the lobby of his apartment building (because that's how mail gets around, in my head, anyway). And I want to snatch the letter out of the air. Send a trained falcon after it, or a skydiver, or a seven-forty-seven jet airplane.

"Oh." This was all I could think of to say. I was seeing our black-and-white faces, now -- our cheek-to-cheek grins.

“It's been this way for a while," he said, and coughed again.

"Okay," I said, thinking about the way I'd signed my name with a heart next to it. Thinking about my saccharine little x-o-x-o.

"Be good," he said, turning the tone of his voice upwards, trying to sound amiable. I found this little sentence enormously ironic, and maybe if this had been happening to another couple, and if he and I were just standing together on the sidelines watching, I'd mention that fact to him and he'd laugh and say, "you're right; that is ironic," but as it stands I didn't think I should comment on it.

"I guess so," is what I eventually came up with, and he muttered a strangled-sounding "be seeing you" and I pressed the phone down into the receiver.

Outside, at the end of the street, I approached the red mailbox. I opened the little slot, peered inside, tried sticking my hand in. I tried jiggling the box to and fro, as if that would suddenly make my letter shoot out from inside and land safely in my hands. I thought about going back home and getting a screwdriver: maybe I could dismantle the entire mailbox, sort through the pile of birthday cards and bills-to-be-paid, locate my letter, and then put the whole thing back together. I thought about contacting Canada Post: maybe they would bring down some sort of Postal SWAT Unit, maybe they already have such a team in place for emergencies like this one. Maybe I could throw a lit match down the little slot. As a last resort, I kicked the mailbox and then jumped around in pain on one foot for a while. None of these ideas, while brilliant, would work.

So I went home. The roll of stamps was still on the kitchen table. There were no messages on the answering machine, no laughing voice saying, "Darling, I was only kidding! Got you good, didn't I? Anyway, I love you, and sweet dreams!" Just my dark apartment, and my enormous, empty bed.

"I will be good to you," I said aloud to the cat, who looked at me strangely and left the room. I let out a snort of laughter -- this whole thing reminded me of a sitcom -- and sat down on my bed. Maybe I could write another letter, to counteract the first. It could be all spiteful and mean, and I could include a photo of us together with his face all inked out with a Sharpie, and there would be no adorable x-o-x-o, and no heart next to my name -- no, I wouldn't even sign my name at all! The paper and stamps and envelopes were just in the next room. If I did it tonight, he'd get both letters at once.

Then I thought about his Someone Else. Someone Else is beautiful and serene, and she'd open the letters before he got home and then they'd look at them together and laugh and think about how glad they were that I was out of the picture, and the two counteracting letters would solidify their relationship. He would smile lovingly at Someone Else and know that he'd made the right decision.

If this were happening to another couple, and he and I were standing together on the sidelines, he'd grimace and say, "She should not have sent that second letter!" And I'd agree, and we'd watch the story unfold in all of its gory detail. He would think that sending a second, spiteful letter would be a bad idea. He'd say, "She should know to just let it be."

I curled up on my side of the enormous bed we’d bought together seven months ago. I stared across the white sheets where he used to lay on his stomach – he would put his face right into his pillow, and I never understood how he could possibly breathe, but miraculously, each morning he’d get up and make the coffee and turn the shower on for me to stumble into. His face would look all crinkled and pillow-indented.

So I tried pressing my face into my pillow, then. It felt cool and comforting, like drawing the curtains on a bright morning. I stayed like that for a long time, breathing in and out through the fabric of my pillowcase. Even when the cat jumped up onto the bed and walked across my back with its prodding little paws, I kept my face in my pillow and my arms at my sides. I was actively letting it be.

With my face in my pillow and the cat curling up at the base of my spine, I decided to cling to the faint hope that he’d feel guilty when he received the letter. He’d look across the kitchen table of his apartment at Someone Else, and wonder if he’d made the right decision. Instead of tossing the letter into the trash, he’d secretly keep it in his sock drawer. Someone Else would find it one day while packing for a romantic weekend trip and confront him. There would be an enormous fight, and Someone Else would leave him, and he would lie for hours with his face pressed into his pillow.

What I hated most about the whole thing was that, either way, there was nothing I could possibly do to change anything. I took my face out of the pillow. I turned my head sideways, and after looking at the emptiness of our fabulous bed, I shut my eyes against the reality of my impending loneliness.

less cold

I'm trying to write Trinity a letter, but I just feel like I could go on and on and on forever and never finish. I feel like there are billions of little things that I could say, and no one letter will ever in a bazillion years encompass all of who Tanya was and what she means to me.

I spent some quality time this morning with best friends. Okay, one best friend and two horses -- one of which is a best friend, most of the time! We rode out in a green field in the misty rain and she said, "we'll just pretend it's Ireland!" and that made it feel less cold.

head up

I sent Eric a lengthy email, listing my woes. I felt bad after I sent it. I don't mean to ruin his good time in England with my sad, Canadian life. But I missed him so much last night, while I cried about Tanya and the memorial and Christy's wedding, and my friends, and my poverty, and everything else that's been compounding over the past week.

"Head up, baby," he wrote back. That is such an Eric thing to say. And an Eric thing to do. Be brave and strong and put your chin up and live your life. That's what he would do.

That's what she would have done, too.

dilemma of epic proportions.

The anniversary of the day that she passed away is soon approaching. I don't want it to. I'd like it to be May forever and ever. I'd rather not have the calendar flip over to June 1st, because then... that's it. I can tick off another year in my head. Another year without her. Another year of feeling lost and sad and longing for something that I can never, ever have.

May 31st is the day that one of my oldest, dearest friends is getting married. This day is so important to her. It's important for me to see it happen. It's important for me to consciously take steps to maintaining our friendship, even though it's no longer so convenient to see each other. I'm supposed to sit at a table by the door and instruct all of her guests to sign ceramic platters so that she can get them glossed and kiln-fired and will remember forever who came to her special day every time she puts out appetizers or carves a turkey.

Now the memorial get-together for Tanya has been scheduled a day early; not on the June 1st that I'd booked my entire life off of, but on May 31st, when I'm supposed to be helping Christy get married to her high school sweetheart. And I'll be miserable, the whole time. As if her wedding being on the eve of the worst day of my life wasn't bad enough, I'll now be sitting at a table by the door fighting back tears for the memorial that I can't go to, for Tanya's family members that I won't see. For not being able to look out at the pasture with all of those special, loved people, and feel connected to her.

The literary juxtaposition of the whole dilemma is just too much. Celebration and mourning, all at once?

My stomach is in knots and I don't know what to do. The wedding starts at one o'clock; the get-together starts at two.

untitled fiction:

The night he phoned me from Vancouver was the same night I put a letter in the mail for him. It said, "I will be good to you," and I included a cutesy little photo of us that we did in a photo-booth at the mall. We are cheek-to-cheek in the little black-and-white square and our eyes seem like they belong to other people, now.

He phoned me from Vancouver and he sounded far away. Farther than the west coast; like he was calling from China or New Zealand or the South Pole. I was just about to say, "I've been thinking of you," when he blurted it out.

"There's someone else," he said, and coughed. There were several beats of silence while I thought about the letter -- in my mind it was already floating magically through the clouds across two provinces, knowing its destiny and following an imaginary line from the red mailbox down my street to the little cubby that has his last name on it, in the lobby of his apartment building (because that's how mail gets around, in my head, anyway). And I want to snatch the letter out of the air. Send a trained falcon after it, or a skydiver, or a seven-forty-seven jet airplane.

"Oh." This was all I could think of to say. I was seeing our black-and-white faces, now -- our cheek-to-cheek grins.

"It's been this way for a while," he said, and coughed again.

"Okay," I said, thinking about the way I'd signed my name with a heart next to it. Thinking about my saccharine little x-o-x-o.

"Be good," he said, turning the tone of your voice upwards, trying to sound amiable. I found this little sentence enormously ironic, and maybe if this had been happening to another couple, and if he and I were just standing together on the sidelines watching, I'd mention that fact to him and he'd laugh and say, "you're right; that is ironic," but as it stands I didn't think I should comment on it.

"I guess so," is what I eventually came up with, and he muttered a strangled-sounding "be seeing you" and I pressed the phone down into the receiver.

Outside, at the end of the street, I approached the red mailbox. I opened the little slot, peered inside, tried sticking my hand in. I tried jiggling the box to and fro, as if that would suddenly make my letter shoot out from inside and land safely in my hands. I thought about going back home and getting a screw driver: maybe I could dismantle the entire mailbox, sort through the pile of birthday cards and bills-to-be-paid, locate my letter, and then put the whole thing back together. I thought about contacting Canada Post: maybe they would bring down some sort of Postal SWAT Unit, maybe they already have such a team in place for emergencies like this one. Maybe I could throw a lit match down the little slot. As a last resort, I kicked the mailbox and then jumped around in pain on one foot for a while. None of these ideas, while brilliant, would work.

So I went home. The roll of stamps were still on the kitchen table. There were no messages on the answering machine, no laughing voice saying, "Darling, I was only kidding! Got you good, didn't I? Anyway, I love you, and sweet dreams!" Just my dark apartment, and my enormous, empty bed.

"I will be good to you," I said out loud to the cat, who looked at me strangely and left the room. I let out a snort of laughter -- this whole thing reminded me of a sitcom -- and sat down on my bed. Maybe I could write another letter, to counteract the first. It could be all spiteful and mean, and I could include a photo of us together with his face all inked out with a Sharpie, and there would be no adorable x-o-x-o, and no heart next to my name -- no, I wouldn't even sign my name at all! The paper and stamps and envelopes were just in the next room. If I did it tonight, he'd get both letters at once.

Then I thought about his Someone Else. Someone Else is beautiful and serene, and she'd open the letters before he got home and then they'd look at them together and laugh and think about how glad they were that I was out of the picture, and the two counteracting letters would solidify their relationship. He would smile lovingly at Someone Else and know that he'd made the right decision.

If this were happening to another couple, and he and I were standing together on the sidelines, he'd grimace and say, "She should not have sent that second letter!" And I'd agree, and we'd pop some popcorn and watch the story unfold in all of its gory detail. He would think that sending a second, spiteful letter would be a bad idea. He'd say, "She should know to just let it be."

"Let it be," I whispered into the dark bedroom, and curled up on my side of the bed, hoping he'd at least feel guilty when got the letter I wished I'd never sent.

as i please

Would I be happier if I moved back out to the ranch and got up early every day and did the dishes and operated ropes course activities and let the horses in and out of their pen to eat? Would I? Would I be happier if I lived in an 8x10 and ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with my co-workers, and watched movies at night with the volume almost off because the walls are paper-thin? Would I be happier if I had to shower and go to the washroom communally and clean up after other people in the bathroom and constantly have to turn down the thermostat that customers keep cranking up?

Sometimes I really think I would be. I look back on my time there with rose-coloured glasses. Maybe it's because I feel cooped up in this office, and because I'm not doing what I should be doing anyway, so I might as well do something fun in the interim.

And because I kind of don't want to go back to school in September; last year I took quite the academic beating and I don't know if I have it in me to pay a zillion dollars just to get it again.

I wish I were free to do as I please, I really do.

new day

I had this written on my mirror the summer that she passed away:

Today is a new day.

Remember that.

wednesday mornings.

Tonight, I'm going to go pick up my car and fork over every last penny to my name. I'm not even exaggerating. It's going to clean me out. I'm trying to be positive about it. There are worse things that could happen in my life than financial setbacks. There have been worse things.

Now my boss is having a meeting with the representative of the Canadian Wood Council from Ottawa in my office. It's kind of awkward. I'll just continue pretending to be entering data about mining corporations into our database. Business as usual, I guess.

It's wednesday morning, and it's the first time I've been in the office this week. I am going to be so broke.

I want a cookie.

disheartened.

I just had a heartbreaking conversation. Already disheartened about the sky-rocketing costs of owning my POS car, I called a friend to talk about replacing water pumps and timing belts and wound up talking about his two-year-old daughter crying out for her mom in the night and being inconsolable.

"She is deeply, inately sad," he told me. I started to cry. "She wants to know where her Mommy is, and she gets confused when we play with other kids and they all have mommies, and she asks for her at night, and I'm sitting right beside her and I just tell her that her mommy is in heaven and she'll see her in her dreams if she closes her eyes and goes to sleep."

And I had tears streaming down my face and I didn't care at all about how much fucking money it's going to cost me to replace a stupid water pump in my car, because those kinds of things, while irritating, are just snags in the road and don't even remotely compare to the kinds of heartache that life is capable of serving us.

And he asked me why no one had given him photos or videos to share with her, and I didn't know what to say because there's no answer that can justify denying a two-year-old girl as many little bits and pieces of her incredibly fantastic mother that we can provide.

Today is a very disheartening day, and I feel smaller than small.

goal.

Tonight I am going to stop being so lazy, and will set up trot poles on the circle, and poles in the corners and work on Sebastian's adjustability and maybe school a flying change or two.

There.

old strathcona

I am hungry hungry hungry and I keep thinking about the Strathcona Farmers' Market, and how I'd love to just leave work right now and go there. Buy some saskatoon berry syrup and some hand-made goods. Eat a hot dog with sauerkraut from Fat Franks, and stroll Whyte Ave like I used to do when I had more time. Buy used books from Wee Book Inn, a one-of-a-kind necklace from the Plaid Giraffe, and stationery from Le Papier. Try on $3.99 shirts at Army & Navy, look around Avenue Guitars, even though I can't afford to buy a new guitar (nor do I need one).

Today is a wonderful Farmers' Market day, and I'm missing it!

patios in jasper

This morning in particular, I groaned at the idea of going to work. It's not just one job, today, it's both jobs and I worry that I just don't have it in me to smile and be nice and serve lattes to gardeners until 9 o'clock tonight, after having been at my office job all day. I need to build up my stamina for this kind of thing. Or start drinking Red Bull, which is something I don't want to do.

I take the same highway to work that leads to the mountains. My exit to the office is the last one inside city limits before the highway stretches out towards the west. So often, this morning included, I have just wanted to say "screw it!" and keep on driving.

Today, I would like to sit in the sun on the patio of a coffeeshop in Jasper, write in my journal and drink a dark roast.

the last trip

Here is a poem that I wrote in the car on the way to Canmore:

The Last Trip

there was this time
when we drove right across Alberta
in one fell swoop

mountains
     foothills
         forests
             prairies

you like the mountains.
you said you felt finite
under their looming grey stares

but I like the prairies best
because they make me feel free
-- heart opening across expanses of gold and green.

that was the last trip we ever took
before the end.

large and in charge.

My horse is becoming more headstrong by the day. I attribute it to the fact that it's spring, and he's excited to be riding outside, and he's remembering what it's like to gallop around (and have me actually allow him to). I also attribute it to the fact that he is becoming more fit each day, and with fitness comes an enormous gelding who arches his neck all pretty and breaks into frenzied canters.

One thing I'm enjoying about Sebastian getting back into shape is how easy it is to do up his girth. Two weeks ago, after he had a month off, I almost couldn't even get it to the first hole. It took all of my hand strength to do up that little buckle. Last night, I did it up to the third hole in one easy move. I have high hopes that he'll get his sillies out and we'll be able to actually get to work. He's been really decent in the indoor arena, but as soon as we near the outdoor arena, he gets all swishy-tailed and strong.

Each week seems longer than the last. Ugh. I'm at work (as usual) and I haven't done anything remotely work-related for the past hour. And I'm not particularly looking forward to doing the two-job-marathon tomorrow.

intangibility

I don't have any tangible goals for riding, and I think that might be part of the problem. When I think about my goals for Sebastian and I, the only thing that comes to mind is "get better" or "get to where we used to be" or "get up to par." What do these things even mean?

Sometimes I feel like buying a whole different horse and starting over. But that's silly, of course.

I do feel good about the fact that I'm making more of an effort to get out and ride. I hope the whole summer is like this. I hope I feel motivated long enough to get a momentum going. And then in the fall, I'll try to find a lease for Sebastian, because I can't ride six days a week and go to school at the same time. I've tried it for the last two years, and it just isn't working out.

I'm at work right now, drinking the tail ends of cold office-coffee (the worst kind of coffee, short of church-coffee, in my opinion) and shivering under the unyeilding blasts of frigid air conditioning. Is it a rule that all offices must be sub-zero? I should move my whole desk out to the parking lot and do a little data entry under the sun.

on gift-wrapping:

My sisters are notoriously wonderful gift-wrappers. At Christmas, their presents are adorned with real ribbons and bows of every colour, all glossy or sparkly or elaborately tied. The wrapped edges of their gifts are perfect. The paper looks classy. If they use a gift bag, it is appropriate to the theme of the occasion, and comes with matching tissue paper and beautiful home-made cards that are created special for the recipient.

In my house, the glorious gift-wrap goes about as far as finding a gift bag -- any gift bag -- and something to cover up the object inside (preferably tissue paper, but I have gone so far as to use construction paper or Safeway bags in the past). On the table right now, all ready for Sherry to open are two gift bags. The one from me has horses all over it; someone once gave it to me because of my obvious love for the animals (regardless of the fact that I think a bag with them all over it is a wee tacky). The one from my mother is a ridiculously over-sized wedding gift bag. It has wedding bells and white roses all over it, and it is roughly four times larger than necessary for her gift. There the two bags sit, a little dysfunctional family of tacky wrapping.

And we both know that Sherry and Melanie will come over tonight for the birthday celebration with delightfully wrapped treasures. They will have taken the time to tie bows just right, pick out wrapping paper, fluff up tissue paper, and special-make the birthday cards. In contrast, my mom and I hastily tossed our gifts into inappropriate gift bags this morning, before sloshing coffee into our travel mugs and rushing out the door to get to our workplaces on time. I at least purchased a card; my mom didn't even go that far.

But we shine in other ways, I suppose.

miss you.

Knowing you is like opening my eyes in the middle of the night and remembering exactly who I am.

I miss you.

weekends, workdays and long-distance phone calls.

I spent the weekend in the mountains with my best friends -- hiking, shopping, sipping lattes, sipping long island iced teas, sipping a handful of shooters, meeting funny new people, doing crossword puzzles, eating excessively and telling each other secrets. It was delightful. I loved spending my birthday with close friends in such a beautiful setting. I didn't want to leave on Sunday; I felt like calling in sick and staying one more night. Just one more night!

The drive home was suitably hilarious. We laughed until tears came to our eyes and had to hold in our pee. These things happen when you put the Silliest People Ever together in cars for long trips. Besides fast food and Laura's flatulence, lots of heartfelt things are said. And lots of ridiculous things are said, to be followed by long stretches of laughter from everyone in the car.

I'm back in the office, now, bored to tears. I can't even force myself to do my job because it is so monotonous. If they didn't keep giving me raises, I'd quit and get an editing job. Or if I had the guts to do it (which I don't). I'm not looking forward to working at the greenhouse this weekend, either. I hate NEEDING jobs. Why can't I just find a large sack of money each month and live off that? Hmmm?

I am exceedingly tired, but I'm going to go to the greenhouse tonight and purchase a birthday gift for my sister, and then I'm going to go out and ride my horse (whom I can only imagine is even more of a scraggly dust-cloud than he was before I left for the weekend). I might even sponge down his legs and tail outside, if he's good and it's warm out.

Eric called me today. We kept getting cut off after fifty-six seconds and I felt sad and frustrated. Scotland is far away (not as far as where he's been before, but still) and I just wanted to hear about his day and how he is and what he plans to do next. He finally got the payphone to work, and we talked for about ten minutes until he had to go. He said that there are lambs all over the countryside and that he keeps thinking about me saying, "Awww, babies!" so he took a video and will send it to me. They'll be in Scotland for a few more days, and then they'll move on to England.

I am all alone in the office, which promotes an even worse work ethic than ever before. I just feel like locking up and going home.

japanese koi

Yesterday, I went to a pet store just to look. I do this sometimes. It makes me feel happy. I was hoping they'd have equine supplies or puppies and kitties, but they did not. I looked at the birds, and felt the need to purchase another budgie. I think the next one I get will be white. I picked one out, and even brainstormed some names. Snowbell, and others like it. He/she was clinging to the wall.

The guy who works there taught me all about Japanese koi. They can grow up to two feet, and live almost a hundred years. And they can survive a Canadian winter. When I looked down at the pond of baby koi, they all came eagerly to the surface, opening their mouths in little ohs. Slipping over each other, a moving swarm of orange and white. The older koi just swam by me nonchalantly, casually raising an eye to the surface, going about their business.

wednesday morning

Well, I finally broke the seal and rode my horse last night. Aside from being a little unfocused and not the most supple he's ever been, he wasn't bad. He was sane, which was nice. We'll see how he feels once he gets back into better shape. I might have to prepare myself for the crazies. In the meantime, no horse has needed a back and good mane-pull more than he does right now. Blech. He is so gross.

When I put him back in his pen, he completely ran me over. I was not pleased. I've been working with him since he was a gangly, bum-high, big-headed, small-necked three year old to have manners on the ground. He doesn't run people over. He respects people's space. He's just too big to be rude, and generally he's not. I don't know why he did it, but his big drafty head smacked me right in the face. I woke up with a pounding headache and a stiff neck this morning. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I'm thinking about working at the barn on Sundays to help pay off my huge chunk of owed board. I don't really want to, because I already work Monday through Saturday, but I am just so broke. Maybe I'll talk to Shalayne and work something out. Maybe I can just feed on the weekends, or something. Or maybe I'll just continue working my two jobs as usual and pay her with money, rather than work.

Eric left the country yesterday. I'm sad. I tried stringing a friend's guitar, but failed horribly. The thing is literally impossible to tune. It got to the point where the nuts wouldn't turn anymore, and it was still ridiculously out of tune. I would pick a note on the low E string, and listen while it dropped as many as four steps, all on its own. I finally got it to sound somewhat like an E, and moved on the the A string. When I came back to the E string, it was a full octave lower, and it was G#. I don't understand. I need Eric to come help me. He could fix it. He is better at these things than I am.

I feel a little stressed out.

measured my life in coffee spoons

I cleaned out my car today. Cleaned everything right out of it, and I mean everything. Garbage, clothes, books, shoes. Five scarves. Two toques. A pair of mittens. A set of coasters I bought at IKEA three months ago. The accumulation of all of the stressful aspects of my life.

I thought I'd feel better about my life if I did it; more in control. I don't. Instead I feel worry lines springing up on my forehead uninvited. I keep thinking about why my car overheats. Keep worrying about things like head gaskets and wondering if I'll ever have a completely worry-free day.

Eric is leaving for Europe tomorrow and I feel sad. We didn't celebrate my birthday before he left like we said we would. He didn't bring it up. In the midst of all of my hurt feelings, I asked him about it and he said he bought me a card but hasn't written in it yet, and that was all. Said something about how we'd celebrate it when he got home. It would have been nice to have been briefed of his plans -- or of his postponement, rather.

Tomorrow I'm going to begin the long stretch of full-time office-boredom, marked with short spurts of part-time greenhouse-coffee-shop-exhaustion. And the horse remains dreadfully unridden. The bills remain unpaid. Racked up.

Fourteen hundred and seventy dollars went towards the stupid moment of making a U-turn in deep snow.

I am feeling more like J. Alfred Prufrock than ever. Maybe I won't read the poem ever again until I'm forty-five, and then we'll see how I feel about it.

exit sign

Sometimes I try writing poetry.

exit sign

the words rolling around
on my tongue taste bitter
so i spit them out
at you while you inhale

smoke of your unspoken
words curls upwards
past my chandelier,
towards the ceiling
where it might pop
against the abbrasive surface

no less abbrasive than i am,
you'd say
no less harmful

we should get down
on our hands and knees, now
avoid the smoke before it
ruins our lungs

under the thick ambiguity
we'll crawl towards the exit sign.

this is fiction. fyi.

Inspired by an actual flyer.

Dress For Sale, Never Worn. Size 8, No Alterations Made. $350 $250 OBO.

It's usually in the closet, but I take it out to look at it sometimes. I picture myself wearing it, and we're drinking champagne with our arms interlocked like people in movies do. That's what I saw the first time I tried it on, when your mother said, "oh, honey..." and the sales girl told me I looked fantastic.

I never pictured replacing it with a drab black suit. Of stepping out of a resplendent, glowing, bright-white dream and into a heavy, suffocating cloak.

"Oh, honey..." your mother said to me when we stood next to black Crown Vics at the edge of the green expanse. I was staring out at the rows and rows of you. Other people that were like you. People who meant something to somebody like you did to me.

I took it out of the closet and lay it on my bed, and thought about the hundred-and-fifty phone calls that had to be made. The photographs that weren't taken, the cake that wasn't shared, the music that wasn't danced to, or even played at all.

I keep having dreams that I'm standing alone inside the reception hall. You promised to meet me there; you promised, so where are you? And I say your name out loud, and it echoes empty through the room.

When I'm awake, my thoughts echo empty in my mind.

When I came home from the funeral, I tore the drab black suit from my body, like I couldn't get out of it fast enough, like its heavy, unbreathable material was tightening
tightening
tightening.

And I fell down on my bed next to the dress, still lying where I'd been looking at it earlier this morning, and with pieces of silk and lace in my hands, I fell asleep.

This morning I made a flyer, and I asked a third of what I bought it for. Then in the car, on the way to post the flyer, I hastily crossed out the price and lowered it by $100.

I can't keep dreaming about the empty reception hall or my echoing voice or your mother saying, "oh, honey," to me while I slowly drift away.

one perfect joy.

It's spring, and I feel like writing poetry. So I wrote one. One tiny, tiny poem. Unoriginal as I am, I named it "spring."
I don't think I'm a poet, actually. But it's fun to try it anyway. I've been feeling like everything in my life could be a series of poetry. Maybe I'll publish a book one day.

I'd like to write a collection of stories from the barn, and from our lives, and publish them all together in one book. Once I am finished with school and can really focus on something that's for me (and not for grades), I think I'll start on it. So many important things happened. There is so much to tell. So much for the world to understand about our summers and winters and all of the things that happened to us because of that one, obvious, common thread that connects us all.

It's 11:30 PM. I have to go to work tomorrow, but I wish so bad it was a weeknight so that I could watch my favourite late-night television shows before falling asleep. I have fallen asleep during so many interviews on Late Night. I have forced myself to stay awake through those first, funny sketches.

I rode my horse today, for fifteen minutes until he was sweaty, and I was out of breath. We are so out of shape, the two of us. And I am always in a hurry. I just want to go outside and gallop around. Seriously, that's what I want to do with my hundreds of dollars per month: have unlimited access to galloping around in Albertan fields. I spend a winter full of debt for that one, perfect joy.

This is the beginning of a full week.

spring

the muck of the new year
is stuck to the open-toed shoes
i ressurrected from my basement

i count spring as the beginning

i am standing in the mud
outside your house
in the weak sunshine

it's the beginning of a do-over,
     at least.

riddles

Today I heard a song she loved.

It's silly. We used to make fun of her for her unashamed love of Kenny Rogers and Patrick Stewart and drinking Sourpuss out of wine glasses. Now that's all I want to do.

I want to be back in the back seat of her truck, and hear that silly song come on, and laugh while she turns it up and says, "Come on, it's GOOD! Sing along!" And I want to keep driving and driving and driving forever.

If we get out of the truck, it'll all go away. I didn't know that then. I do now.

I don't like these kinds of life-changing experiences. The kinds that make you different, in your heart, than the way you were before. It's not that I don't like change; I just don't like my life without her in it. And I can't stop thinking of all the different ways to live my life, and which one would she think is a good idea? What kinds of advice would she give me now, if I were sitting in her kitchen floor at midnight, the way I used to. The way we all would. Taking turns.

And we are different than we were before, in the most profound way. We didn't ask to be different, did we? I didn't ask to be forced to take giant steps forward, away from the way things were. It's heavy on my heart.

My wisest friend, who loved Kenny Rogers, got out of the truck.

Who's left to drive, now?




life ain't nothing but a funny, funny riddle. -- K.R.

and if we're lost

I keep hearing songs in my head that creep up on me. That I haven't heard in a while. They just begin. Like "the stars are strange and beautiful tonight."
And then I want to go outside and look at them and see if it's true.

I feel weird. I don't feel like I'm settled into something I could get used to.

what it's about.

Today I drove to work with my sunglasses on and my window rolled down and I thought about how nice it would be just to keep driving. I could have stayed on the same road and gone straight to jasper. I could have eaten ice cream in Jasper and gone for a hike and written in my journal at the base of a mountain.

But I turned onto 184th Street and went to work, because that's what my life is about. It's about going to school. It's about studying and doing homework. It's about data entry at a boring job. It's about confinement.

I want it to be about driving to the mountains on a moments' notice. About making decisions that just affect my day, and not the rest of my life.

without

I just read a book of poetry in twenty minutes at the library while compiling research for a project. The book completely absorbed me. Pulled me by my bones into the poet's state of mind. And I can't stop thinking about it.

It's called "Without" and it's by Donald Hall. It's a collection of poetry about the sickness and passing away of his wife, a fellow poet named Jane Kenyon. It was so close and sore. So beautiful and heartwrenching.

I cried under the brim of my hat at the table amidst students who were all concentrating on their work, heads bent, pencils scribbling. And I was turning pagest as fast as I could, letting a big tear drop slip down my cheek.

And I tried to go back to planning my research presentation, but I couldn't. I need to sit and think about Jane; I need to let her settle in my mind before I can move on. I need to let my own experiences with cancer and best friends settle down, return to the pit of my stomach where they usually sit. Let Jane and Tanya sit in the pit of my stomach and not interfere so much with my heart so that I can get some work done.

There is so much work to be done.

And so many things I haven't.

copied

My office smells like photocopies.
Like ink and hot paper and mechanisms.

I photocopied everything in the world, just now. I'm tired. It wasn't the photocopying that really took it out of me, it was many other things -- but I just don't like the smell.

less small

I've been thinking about how much she'd love the new barn. About riding through tall grass and looking behind me and seeing her bareback on her old horse, right there like she always was. And about feeling confident and valued. About friendship.

I would give anything to drive up the long, treed-in driveway and see her car parked next to the others, and feel relief for once in the past year-and-a-half. And I'd like to feel that the world doesn't have total power over me. I'd like to feel a little less small.

lights will guide you home

It's 12:38 AM, and I should be sleeping. I have to get up early tomorrow to go out to the barn and catch horses for the farrier. I'm not in a very sleepy mood right now. I'm in the mood to get an extra-large coffee and go for a long drive. Maybe listen to Coldplay.

Or I could try getting into my bed, lying down and closing my eyes.

meltdown!

There was a minor meltdown yesterday that involved a lot of crying screaming bad words at my computer. It was about a large project due today that I didn't really know about. It was about a broken printer in my hour of need.

But I made a cup of tea, I wrote down a list, I fixed the printer, and I moved on with my life.

It's okay, now.

free things:

I randomly applied for a job at Spruce Meadows. For some reason, against all logic, I really hope I get a phone call about it.

This is logic:
1. Spruce Meadows is in Calgary.
2. I do not live in Calgary. Or even near Calgary.
3. I can't afford to rent somewhere in Calgary by myself.
4. I have other plans and obligations here in Edmonton.
5. What about my horse?
6. This is not a parallel list. The grammar school within me can't believe I just threw a question into an otherwise non-interrogative list.

But the thing is, I secretly want to do something different than what I've been doing. Something that doesn't involve me settling for some lame, boring job the way I've always been doing. Something that involves change.

I keep daydreaming about driving down there with my car all loaded with all the aspects of my life I can't leave behind. So I guess my giant oaf of a horse would be sitting in the passenger seat, grooving along to Simon & Garfunkel, and all of my friends and my boyfriend would be in the back seat, playing my guitar, watching my TV, and trying on my clothes. And then we'd get there, and there would magically be a big house that we could all live in, and it would be fully furnished, and it would be free. And so would I.

to remember:

"Somewhere behind the rider you've become, the hours of practice you've put in, & the coaches that have pushed you, is the little girl who fell in love with the sport and never looked back. Ride for her."
-- Anonymous

Slovenia (Or How It Happened In Three Parts)

I am resisting the urge to exploit my personal life by writing postcard stories and sending them to various literary journals (such as Grain, Other Voices, et al.) for publication. Really, I have had so many glorious ideas for stories as a result of my own turmoil. Last night, while I lay in the fetal position on the floor in the shower, I was crafting sentences about how everything was slowly unravelling in a matter of three days. I even had a title. It was Slovenia (Or How It Happened In Three Parts). But I would maybe have to change the parentheses, because I stole that from a short story published three seasons ago in Grain. So maybe just Slovenia. Either way, it was brilliant. Either way I am sitting at a table with the incorrigable boyfriend, his parents, their business partners and a girl I thought was a boy watching old people polka their hearts away at the Slovenian Cultural Center. I was being the bigger person.

I was being the Biggest Person, because despite the fact that a night out with my friends the evening before was a complete disaster; despite the fact that there had been a huge fight in front of my friends; despite the fact that there was an icy cab ride home; despite the fact that the fetal-position-shower-thing happened there, too; despite the fact that one of us slept on the couch; despite the fact that he yelled at me; despite all of those things, I did my hair and put on a nice outfit and went to a weird Slovenian party in celebration of all of the big game they'd shot in 2007 and I rose above. I had a nice time. I made the best of the situation. I was the Biggest Person On The Face Of The Planet Earth, Including World Record Winners For Tallest Or Fattest Or Most Famous. However, there's a fight in the car on the way home and an hour-and-fifteen-minute shower where I lay on the floor and contemplate my life. Sketched stories. Crafted perfect first sentences.

I don't know how I could continue having relationships with people in my life if I exploit those relationships' misgivings with the written word. That is not my task, here. At least, I don't think it is.

So I'm not going to write Slovenia, despite its literary genius. And I'm not going to submit it. And I'm going to work on coming out of the hole I've created over the past two days, and I'm going to finally return the phone calls of my anxious and caring friends.

secrets

There are a lot of things that I am not willing to admit out loud. I mull over them in my head when I lie awake at night, or when I am on my constant commute to and from the west end. Things that I like to keep a secret from my own ears. Once they hit the air they'll be true, and I'd prefer if they weren't.

Things like the fact that it's not getting better. Missing her. Feeling physically sad about the lack of her presence in my life. It feels like there's a string tied to my heart that leads straight out the front of my chest, and she's holding the string, and she's so far away. So far away that my heart wants to press itself against my rib cage, come right out of my body, and fly away to be closer to her. Sometimes, when I'm doing trivial tasks, like tying my shoes, or washing my hair I suddenly think, "I can't believe she died. It doesn't make sense. She was there. She had permanence. And now, it's all gone."

Today I used company resources to make dozens of copies of the newsletter she used to put out at the barn. Reading through her honest, straightforward writing and reminiscing about how thoroughly and perfectly she did her job made the string on my heart tighten. Thinking about Beau and his recent death made the string tighten. Thinking about my own horse, unridden, makes the string tighten.

I feel guilty for not being more motivated. She was motivated. She motivated me. She helped me make plans and move forward and decide things. I'm not good at any of those three. I wish I could just feel motivated to ride and train and be the athlete that I was when she was there to encourage me.

And my constant longing for my wisest friend to be back in my life, or at least back on earth in someone else's life isn't even the only thing. I am feeling this winter in bones. Every day, I wish it would just stop. I think I'd be a lot happier if I wasn't worrying about plugging in my car and shoveling the driveway. I think I'd be a lot more motivated if going outside weren't such an ordeal. And I am feeling the strain and drag of long-term relationships. Of having the exact same arguments where we each say the exact same thing that we did all the other times, and coming up with no solution. Why?

And I am feeling the exhaustion of another semester at school. It feels like my life energy is being pulled down towards my feet and into the ground. It feels like I don't have the right words for the right assignments. I feel stressed out about it, but at the same time, I feel like calling it quits. Just for a little while. Just for a few months. Just to regroup. Just to rejuvenate. Just something. I am feeling trapped within the life that I've been chosing. This school-work-school-work-ride-school-work life that I've mapped out for myself for the next few years.

And so it's just a few little things that nag at me constantly that are beginning to wear me down. And I could really use a nice, long nap and a hot shower and an all-inclusive Costa Rican resort.

ivory lines lead

I feel like writing postcard stories lately. I feel like sitting outside in the sun, writing postcard stories. There are two problems with this scenario:

1. It is -20 degrees outside, and frankly, not very sunny.
2. I have writer's block.

I can feel creativity bubbling up inside me, but it has nowhere to go. I'm just thinking over one sentence that I'd like to use; chewing it up and spitting it out and trying again. This is the sentence (in one of its multiple variations):

Your words go down easy: they just leave your lips and slip into my own, and I can roll them around and really feel their weight before letting them in all the way.

I've been listening to a lot of folk music lately. I think I could be folksy, if I tried. I could run around quoting Simon and Garfunkel, learning simple songs with sweet melodies on my guitar, drinking herbal tea and trying to be bohemian. In addition to the folk music, I've been reading poetry written by musicians. Leonard Cohen, Billy Corgan, those kinds of people. The kind who write about longing and loneliness in the middle of the night. The kind who mark their time with cigarettes and ashtrays and empty bottles of what once was red wine, but is now the blood that travels through their veins.

Death Cab for Cutie wrote a song called Lightness that talks about the heart as a river and the brain as a dam:

Your heart is a river that flows from your chest
Through every organ
Your brain is the dam
And I am the fish who can't reach the core.

I guess that's all I have to say, right now.

ghosts like me

There was an ad in the volunteer section of the Classifieds in See Magazine the past couple of issues for a volunteer ghost writer to help a brain injured woman write the story of her life. I feel that volunteering for such a task could either be the most wonderful experience of my life, OR absolute hell.

I wish I could just make decisions. Do I want to do it? Do I not want to do it? Sometimes I feel like waiting for signs to do things, and then I remember that I am in charge of the decisions I make.

I guess I could just call and find out the details.

any secret:

"If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can. & there is nothing more to it than that."
-- Nothing More, storypeople.com

I love storypeople! Every day they send me something cool. Today was no exception.

let's

Let's commit some time to be happy. Let's commit some time in our lives to appreciate what we have to give to those who don't. Let's stop being so caught up in our own problems that perspective becomes an intangible object that we'll never get back.

I'm just saying. It's starting to wear me down.

better things

"I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts but they need constant attention & one day I decided I had better things to do."
-- Dark Garden, storypeople.com

I have better things to do.

that which is bigger than myself

Here are some things I believe:

I believe in the purposeful, intelligent creation of the universe, of all of the galaxies, of our own galaxy and solar system, and most importantly: the creation of every living thing on this planet. I think I am actually physically incapable of regarding nature and the way it interacts with itself – an enormous, worldwide system – and conceiving that it arrived at its current state by mistake. The human body is so purposefully precise and exactly what we need. We have minds. We have the ability to consider our own existence, while animals do not. How could we have descended from microscopic beings? We are pure potential. I’m not capable of believing that the earth is many billions of years old. We were created on purpose. Nelson Mandela says, “we were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us. It’s in everyone.” I agree.

Because I believe that we were created, I believe in God. I don’t believe in God in the lame, vague way that many people believe in God. I don’t think it’s appropriate to throw around testaments of faith when you’re only choosing aspects of God to believe in. Because I don’t think you should loosely believe that the most powerful, all-knowing and omnipresent presiding force exists. I think you should believe all of it.

I believe that most religions on earth are all worshipping the same God. God has many names, translated in many languages. Similarly, the Holy Spirit has many names as well. The entering of a powerful force into your heart is the act of the Holy Spirit. In Chinese, this experience is called chi. Just because they call it something else doesn’t make it a different being. However, there is one aspect that no religion besides Christianity will accept. It is the fact that the only way to truly get to God and to go to heaven when you die is through Jesus Christ. So many people are so afraid of being restricted that they reject this germane aspect of a relationship with God right away. I’ve never thought more that it is a genuine fear of being contained that makes human beings reject the idea of Jesus. Ironically, that is how we were created. We were created with huge potential to grow up and out and in every direction. We were created with free will to do as we please. People just don’t understand that accepting Jesus is literally accepting freedom. People don’t understand that we are free in Christ. I know it sounds really “religious” of me to say things like this, but I can’t help but believe it’s true.

I believe in God. I believe that the Bible is “God-breathed.” He inspired every word of it. If I believe these things, then I have to believe in the Jesus-is-the-only-path-to-God aspect. Jesus didn’t used to be the only way to God. It wasn’t until about two thousand years ago, when we crucified him, and he paid for our sins and made us perfect in the eyes of God that he became the only way. Heaven is perfect. There can be no imperfection there. We, as human beings, no matter how enlightened or transcendent we become, will never be perfect. Therefore, we must accept the gift of God: a way to make ourselves perfect and thus receive eternal life.

Being a good person and doing good things while you are on earth is important, I think. If you have the means and the desire to beneficial to a greater purpose than just living out your life as society expects and then dying equally predictably, then you should do it. God wants people to be happy. Since so many people don’t believe in Him, He can’t make them happy. That’s why He uses human beings to do good things. To help people. To help the environment that he created. To spread His love. Some people are spreading His love without even realizing it, or even considering that He exists. I find this beautiful. However, contrary to popular belief, I think that doing good things will not get you into heaven. You could live a fantastic life, but if you never accept God and his Way (Jesus), then how can you go live in His perfect place?

I think that we, as human beings, are genuinely good. We are born with the potential to do fantastic things. Because of the environment that we created with poor choices based on our free will, some very bad people are doing very bad things. But I have trouble believing that even as innocent infants, those people were bad. I think we’re all good to start out with, and the course of our lives based on our decisions and other people’s decisions determine the type of people we become.

I believe that there are some terribly ineffectual Christians in the world who feel that testimony is a crusade. I call these people “turn-or-burn”-Christians. Fire and brimstone, inflexible, closed little minds. These are the people that turn people off of believing in God, and sometimes I wish they would just shut the hell up. I mean, seriously. Shut up. You’re ruining it for everyone with your insanely religious mumbo-jumbo. Remember that other human beings have minds and feelings and free will, and you can’t control that.

I believe all of these things because I have to. I cannot even imagine living the life that I have lived feeling like there is no purpose in any of it. Feeling like I came to be out of a colossal crapshoot of life-formation. It’s the purposelessness of life without the belief in something bigger than myself that allows me to maintain faith, even in the darkest of times. And I have gone through some pretty dark times. It’s the wonder that stirs up inside of me every time I take a drive through the country and witness the perfect system of wilderness that exists in nature that brings me back to a little reverence for the being that created what was meant at first to be a utopian paradise. There are little pieces of paradise left that human beings haven’t trampled. I think we should look around once in a while and respect that.

Those things are not the only things I believe in. The list could go on. Here’s one last thing that Nelson Mandela said:

“As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others.”

But I’m still working on that.

auld lang syne

I felt sad during the second hour of 2008. I wasn't going to admit it because I thought it would put a curse or a jinx or something on the whole year, but I decided that it's important to note.

Eric was grouchy, for one thing. He lay sideways on my bed with his jacket still on, because he didn't want to stay for more than two minutes. His negative energy made me feel weird and sad. I think I was crying a little.

"I feel weird about us," he said with his eyes closed. He wonders if I love us or just the idea of him, or actually just him. He has never said this before.

Meanwhile, I could feel the joints in my spine seizing up. My hips sore and inflamed. I felt sad and in physical pain, at the same time. The pain subsided this morning and I wonder if the two -- the sadness and the pain -- are connected at all.

I go to school with a girl who is a journeyman welder-slash-stripper-slash-liscenced hypnotherapist. She says positive thinking and positive experiences effect physical ailments for the better. Here's something about her: she has ankylosing spondilitis too. She feels the same pain, inflammation, stiffness and achiness that I feel.

She thinks that the disease can be managed with drugs, but also with unconventional methods, like positive thinking and a well-balanced life. I sort of believe her.

But then again, Tanya was the most positive person I knew, and she passed away from her disease.

And that's a little chunk of negativity that follows me around like a shadow. It's hard to make it go away, and (as weird as it is) I almost don't want to. It's a sort of badge of honour that I can use to prove that I have been through something monumental. It's a reason I can give for being the way that I am. And it is simultaneously proof that I have not -- can not?-- overcome.

I would rather not have it at all. I would rather have my wisest, most positive friend be with me in life, telling me not to be negative and helping me make plans. I don't want a badge of honour that I can use to prove my experience with. I don't want a nagging shadow of negativity.

I want 2008 to be a year when I blossom into the world as my freest, most charismatic self. The year when I gain back my lost resilience. The year when I effect change, rather than just let life happen to me.

I have a friend who likes to ask if you are the driver in the car of your life, or if you are just a passenger. Some of us are passengers who give directions. In a way, we are all driving, whether we like it or not.

I don't know for sure who I want to be, which is the hardest part.

So I'm going to read books and drink coffee out of large, satisfying mugs. I'm going to ride horses and drive all over the province. I'm going to slog through another semester and come out more wise. I am going to stop sounding like a motivational speaker when I discuss my goals.

I liked my New Years Eve -- I like my friends, and greek food, and martinis and shots with girly-sounding names like Apple Pie. I like group hugs at midnight and ten million disposable camera pictures. It wasn't the night's fault that I was sad between 1:00 and 2:00 AM. I don't know whose fault it was, really. Just the accumulation of like experience and self-doubt, I guess.

But here's something cool that I read in "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a quote from her friend Bob, who is a neuroscientist and student of yoga:

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is a made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true."

Happy New Year.

melting food and falling needles

Friday night and the needles are falling off of the Christmas tree. The decorations seem so silly, now. The needles make little pin-dropping sounds as they fall one by one. There is dust on the gingerbread house I made in November when I barely had my face above the water of the semester that I like to call Too Much 2007. And I've been off for a couple of weeks and I never want to go back. I just want to run into 2008 like there's nothing looming there. But there's something looming there.

My mother went crazy tonight. If she weren't menopausal, I'd think she was getting her period. She was telling me to find a new place to live. Saying that if I thought this was such a horrible house to live in, that I should find a new place to live. I have no idea why she said these things to me; I didn't say anything about this being a horrible house to live in. She was on the brink of tears, saying that if I moved out I'd be selfish enough to decorate my own house, but not hers.

"Do you want me to decorate this house?" I asked.

"I don't know," she replied, seeming confused.

I don't know what she was talking about. She said she was going to the food court to eat, and dared us to come with her. My dad stood up and put on his coat. I respectfully declined.

I feel weird and lonely tonight. I'm not sure what it is. It could be that my family is currently eating a tense meal in the food court of the mall while I'm alone with nothing but the sounds that the dishwasher is making. It could be that I had a glorious dinner-and-a-movie date last night, and now I've come off the high. Of course, dinner was gross, and the movie was sub-par, but those are just subordinate details that have little to do with the gloriousness of the date itself. So I'm sitting in the lull of Friday evening, thinking that I wish the next twenty minutes would just fly by so that I can watch Jeopardy and yell out the answers to myself.

I'm hungry, but my sister turned off the breaker in the basement this morning to extract the light fixture from the bathroom. It didn't occur to either one of us that the laundry room, which houses the freezer, is attached to the same breaker. Now the entire freezer, raw meat and ancient bread goods combined, has thawed completely. I'm not sure I want to risk salmonella, so I'll just eat Christmas goodies for dinner instead.

My phone is buzzing on the table. It's Eric. It'll be nice to talk to someone rather than listen for the pin-drops of the dying Christmas tree across the room.

book of longing

they gave me a medal for dreaming of you.

I've been spending Christmas falling in and out of sleep. I wish I had a million huge books to read. I wish I had a million things to do, but I've got absolutely nothing. I'm just sitting, dozing, wondering about what I'll do next year. I had a dream when I fell asleep on the couch that an alien cut my hair. He didn't look like an alien, he looked like my hair dresser, but he must have been extra terrestrial because he had four arms and was an exceedingly talented hair stylist. He put one drop of colour on the very top of my head and it coloured my hair with all of the light and depth of the darkest, calmest pool. And then I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and someone turning on Star Trek downstairs.

I've been reading Leonard Cohen's "Book of Longing" and feeling inspired by poetry that I am unable to emulate.

if you knew how much we loved you
you'd cover up
you wouldn't fuck around
with the passion
that killed three hundred thousand people
at hiroshima
or scooped up rocks from the moon
and crushed them into dust
looking for you
looking for you lost encouragement.

I think that's about God. Or love. Or someone else altogether that we just can't find because of our finite nature -- our tight, unstretched minds.

After a while
You can't tell
If it's missing
A woman
Or needing
A cigarette
And later on
If it's night
Or day
Then suddenly
You know
The time
You get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married

And our lives could be so simple. We follow our hearts or our desires and then we'd know that life is actually pretty fair because we are here, and we have each other.

keeping all my blood to myself.

There are certain things about myself that I do not enjoy. First, I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. Second, sometimes I feel that I am struggling to be the best person I could be -- like I've just been trying and trying to be better, to be a role model, to be an upstanding citizen, and I'm just coming up ordinary and ineffectual. Third, I may or may not have a chronic inflammatory disease in my sacro-iliac joints called ankylosing spondilitis. I am in pain every day. I have been trying for months to get a referral to a specialist, but the doctor's office keeps forgetting to fax my request, or accidentally cancelling my request, or some other equally annoying thing, so I can't even find out for sure (beyond my non-specialist family doctor's amateur diagnosis) whether I actually have this disease.

Today, in an attempt to be a better person, or an upstanding citizen, or whatever, I went to donate blood. When asked if I'd taken any aspirin, I answered, "yes." Yesterday I took a muscle relaxant because I went shopping with my sister and my back was aching afterward. When asked why I took the muscle relaxant, I answered, "Because I might have a joint inflammation called ankylosing spondilitis." The nurse's face got all serious, and when she looked it up in her huge Book of Reasons Not to Let People Donate Blood, she nodded.

"Because ankylosing spondilitis is an autoimmune reaction, we aren't certain that it's contagious and therefore you are permanently deferred from donating."

Watch out, I might sneeze on you and your joints will become inflamed!

I felt really disappointed. It makes me sad to think that I can never help save lives the way I could have if I were allowed to donate. And what's even more ridiculous is the fact that I've donated before!

Why would God make me O-negative and simulatenously give me a disease that ensures I can never give blood? What's the point of being a "universal donor" if I can't donate to anyone? -- ever. Isn't it bad enough that I have to be in pain every day of my life, but now I can't even help others with their pain? The nurse told me that I was deferred indefinitely, or for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Given that I'll die roughly 940 years before that time, I think it's safe to say that I won't be permitted to donate, and therefore infect society with my arthritic blood again in my lifetime.

The nurse said it's too bad that it's been more than two months since I last donated, because it's too late for them to recall my blood. She said the people who received my blood (and lived! although, that's my opinion on the matter) would likely be monitered to see if they show any signs of having ankylosing spondilitis. She also told me that my spine was probably curving already, and that my joints were probably stiffening up to the point of disuse. "Aren't they?" She asked. "No. Actually, it's not in my spine, and there's no curvature. It's not scoliosis." I wanted to add that obviously my joints hadn't seized up, as she witnessed me walk right in there. Clearly they're still operational. They're just chronically inflamed and sore all the time. No big deal, right?

So as I drove home, I became increasingly annoyed that I haven't seen a specialist yet, even though my doctor supposedly referred me at the beginning of summer. I had called in October to ask when I could expect an appointment, and the receptionist told me that I had been referred, but that the request for appointment hadn't gone through. She told me she would send it again. I never heard anything about it.

While waiting for the light to turn green, I phoned the doctor's office to ask again about my appointment. The receptionist told me that on October 29th, the referral had been cancelled, and it had been declared that I didn't need to see a specialist.

"Why would Dr. Stansbury do that?" I asked.

"Well, she didn't. You called in and requested that it be cancelled."

WHAT?!?!?!

First of all, I so did nothing of the sort. I called to affirm an appointment. Second of all, don't blame me for your stupid mistake. You don't have to suffer for it. I do. After bitching and complaining, she agreed to send a note to Dr. Stansbury that would ask her to refer me again.

"When can I call and confirm that this has been done?" I asked.

"You don't need to call, I'll send it today."

"When can I call and confirm?"

"Umm... maybe the end of next week?"

I'm going to call on Friday. This is stupid. I'm sitting here waiting for my bones to potentially fuse together. I am deferred from donating my gloriously universal blood for the next 999 years. I am becoming less of an upstanding citizen the more I feel sorry for myself. The more I feel like I'm completely hopeless, the less better person I become.

I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. I am taking my inability to donate blood personally, which is completely ridiculous, and I am aware of that. Sometimes I feel like I am struggling to be a better person and failing. I have the ability to save lives with my particular blood type, but I can't. I may or may not have ankylosing spondilitis, but I guess I'll never know for sure, and I'll never be able to treat it, because someone at my doctor's office made repeated mistakes, pushing a potential consultation with a rhumetologist further and further away.

What a fantastically useless day.

four christmas things:

Today, I did four things to actively get more in the Christmas spirit.

1. I wrapped two Christmas presents. One for my sister, the other for my niece. I curled ribbon, I strategically placed bows, I chose paper that I thought was appropriate to the personality and age of the recipient -- it was quite the ordeal.

2. I went out to the barn and rode my horse. I know that I'd do this on any day of the year, but for some reason being out there made me feel Christmasy. Maybe it was the wading through snow to catch my horse, or when Laura and I went upstairs to plug in the Christmas lights. Either way, it somehow helped with my holiday mood.

3. I decorated our family's Christmas tree with my sister and my mom. The house smells like evergreen, and the living room is aglow with coloured lights. This is truly wonderful.

4. I watched a children's Christmas cartoon on CBC with my family. The story was magical, and about believing in Santa, and even though I've actually already seen it before, it was still a nice way to finish off my Christmasy day. All I needed was to hear an animated version of Tom Hanks hollering, "We're going to the North Pole, of course!"

And now, though it's still relatively early, I will go to bed -- while sugarplums dance in my head.

professionalism

This morning when I got to work I found an enormous stack of business cards that the new technical advisor had picked up at a trade show. It is my unfortunate duty to go through our excel database and enter those that are not already in the computer. They are all councillors, aldermen or mayors for small towns in Alberta.

I am so bored. For some reason, this task is exhausting.

Maybe it's because I just finished entering the councillor of Mayerthorpe's e-mail address from his business card into the excel spreadsheet: no1deerhunter2001.

Utmost standards of professionalism, yes?

snowlight

There are finally snowflakes to add to the love.

And the lyrics, "cold is the colour of crystal, the snowlight that falls from the heavenly skies" are running through my head and coming out in the fog of my breath in the car on early mornings.

paradigm shifts

When I think about being in high school, I think about being the most focused and unfocused I've ever been in my life. I was an under-achiever, an unimpressive student, a math-flunker and a non-joiner. I sailed through my years at that small, private school without really paying attention to what was going on around me. I would not have labelled myself as being foremost a student.

At that time, I was exponentially more focused as an equestrian athlete. I was in the best shape of my life, then. Instead of doing homework or thinking about high school, I was riding six days a week. I didn't study for exams, I stayed at the barn until late at night practicing dressage movements. Spent early autumn getting fences set as quickly as possible when the sun hung low in the sky to get in a few good jumping courses before dark. I went to horse shows. I braided manes and tails, I screwed studs into iron horseshoes for grip on the grass. I braved the cold in the wintertime, drove on icy country roads, picked iceballs out of my horse's feet, felt the annoyance of permanently numb toes and fingers. I rode on the hottest days of the year, had arena sand and my own sweat make a paste all over my body, let the sun heat the water in my bottle, felt my breeches cling to the skin on my legs.

When I think about being a teenager, I think about the familiar clinking sound of spurs on stirrup irons, and the way it feels to swing up into the saddle for the millionth time. I think about the steady feel of a horse's mouth through the reins in my hands. I think about sitting in lawn chairs outside the horses' stalls at shows, exhausted and happy and satisfied with our efforts. It was a time that I was committed to something real.

Now I think about my horse sitting around in a field, eating endless bales of hay, getting enormously fat, unfocused and unkempt. I think about my muscles falling from fitness, my sense of rhythm slipping away. How my focus is trained on schoolwork: writing essays, studying for finals, completing projects, assembling portfolios. I have a fear inside of me that I've become foremost a student.

How could I have so seemlessly made that shift without realizing it?

purple expectations

I'm writing an essay about literary fraud. Apparently, there have been a few poets who thought modernist poetry was completely ridiculous (which it is... no offense), so they fabricated fake poets and wrote random, silly poems and sent them in to magazines and book publishers. They got published, were acclaimed, grew to fame, until it came out as a hoax. Apparently the poets who invented Ern Malley (a fictitious modernist poet who fictitiously died of Grave's disease and relied on his fictitious sister to send his poems in to be published) just opened books and chose words and phrases at random to create their poems.

I started my essay with a ridiculous poem I wrote, and signed it with the name of a poet that I made up:

The water is large and fluffy
With all your purple expectations.
So fly away, great pelican,
To skies of herring and possibility.
-- Dark Salmon, by Regina Underover

I could be modernist! It seems so easy!

Or, I could sit at this desk and toil away on essay after essay after essay. Yes. Option number two, please.

tightening the purse-strings

I am feeling the familiar pull of financial stress at the corners of my life. Like I'm sitting in the middle of a blanket spread out on the ground, and all of my expenditures are gathering corners in their fists, taking up more and more ground. Letters from the place I get my car insurance that inform me there's been a non sufficient funds issue, and that when they try to take the money out again, it better be there. Text messages from my cell service provider, asking, "Did you remember to pay your bill?" for the second time. The invoice for my unpaid board at the barn sitting on the coffee table where I left it two weeks ago. A quarter tank of gas. And thirty dollars and change sitting ineffectually in my bank account.

Then, at dinner, my mother tries to give me an elementary school lesson on the balance of income and spending. I don't know if she means to be, but she's condescending. So I tell her that I understand that concept, as it is fairly simple. Then she says I should be paying board and room, and did I understand that?

No, I don't understand that. I didn't say anything.

important things

I unintentionally (or was it intentional? Am I to be held accountable for decisions I make in the bleary-eyed moments between 6:05 and 6:06 am?) slept in this morning. Didn't go to my Legal class. Not sure if it was important.

Despite my busyness, I feel a little bit useless in a slow, unwinding way. I am winding down from usefulness.

I'm ready to do important things, I think.

necessary things

I meant to do a million things today, like start on a project that's due Wednesday, or go ride my horse, or do one or seven loads of laundry. While I didn't do any of those things, I went for sushi with my mother and two of my sisters, and then drank mediocre coffee out of a paper cup at an art show in Woodbridge. I wish they'd had wine, but you can't ask much of the old ladies on the county's arts committee. And anyway, it's not like I can afford to actually purchase anything.

When I got home, I did half of the crossword puzzle, like I always do. I've never actually finished one myself. I used to tag-team them with a friend at our summer job. Today I just left it on the kitchen table, unfinished, and went downstairs to watch four consecutive episodes of Sex and the City.

I should be studying. Doing homework. Laundry. Necessary things.

f is for fiction

Disclaimer: this is fiction. It's for a class that I have in two hours. I wrote it this morning during a particularly boring stretch of an editing lecture.

***

I've been trying to join all my letters to make words. I've been pulling my words together, shuffling them around on a page, all night long, until something makes sense. I lit some vanilla-scented candles and opened a bottle of merlot, for inspiration.

I am the most tired I've ever been in my whole life. The tiredness is mounting on itself, night after sleepless night, a growing monster. I could curl up inside its yawning mouth.

You keep watching me from across the room. We need to get rid of this open-concept apartment. Why are we living in a bachelor pad when neither of us is a bachelor? My shuffling around and constant wakefulness make you sleep lighter than usual. When I force myself to lie down for a while, I always stir you from sleep. I can't slip into bed quietly enough.

So we both lie awake, and you don't really talk to me and exhausted as I am, I can't sleep. There is too much to think about in the middle of the night.

Dawn breaks after the sixth night, and I gather my papers -- my countless letters and words, all settled into a decided order -- into a binding and put myself on the bus. I think about you watching me in the middle of the night, not speaking. I think about your wordlessness.

I rely on my legs and feet to carry me to the office building, on my hands and fingers to press the right buttons in the elevator. I give the stack of papers to the receptionist, mumble the editor's name, fumble through my purse for a card. I must look like a complete disaster.

Once I'm back on the bus, I find its unsteady lurches are making my head swim. There's a baby crying somewhere behind me, but it sounds so far away, like it's behind a closed door down the hall. I am staring out the window at a homeless man pushing a shopping cart across cracked pavement. The bus pulls past him and he blurs into my peripheral. As we lurch forward, the rest of the world blurs into my peripheral as well, and then I don't see anything at all.

I miss my stop five times. Each time the bus lurches past my stop, the monster retreats a little. When I finally emerge, eyes open, I find myself pulling the little bell and getting off the bus. I am on the wrong side of town, but I feel better than I ever have before.

"What are you doing, are you busy?" I ask you from a pay phone. "Let's do something. Let's talk."

sleep deprived data entry

I'm at work right now, doing some fascinating data entry work, as usual. I have an interview at the Christian bookstore today at 5:30pm. I can't decide what wage I won't work for a penny less of, and on top of that, I'm a dumb-feeler, so it'll be awkward bringing it up. Today at noon, I'm going to call Klondyke Flowers to see if I can arrange an interview. I think I'd rather work there.

Eric called me today and said, "I miss you," when I picked up. He said it like he was surprised. These are the things that I enjoy about our relationship. He's going to come pick me up for an essay-writing-coffee-break tonight.

Speaking of essay writing, I wrote one rather half-assedly last night. I got home from a weekend trip to the mountains with the girls at around 11:30pm. My eyes were involuntarily closing as I made notes and fired up the laptop. I printed it off and stapled it together without proofreading it. Tonight will be much the same, I fear. And the next night. And Thursday night, as well.

My plan is to hold off on sleep until Wednesday, the 24th. And then I'll sleep until final exams.

jobs and weekend trips ensue.

I should have done laundry before stuffing what may or may not be clean clothes into a backpack and declaring myself "packed" for the weekend trip I'm taking with some friends. However, I am a disorganized, stressed out, insane person; I don't think ahead and do laundry regularly. In fact, when I recently ran out of underwear, I did a load of just underwear and towels. Why didn't I, I don't know, throw in a few shirts and a pair of jeans? Because, I am insane and disorganized and I don't think clearly during the day, when everyone else does.

I just finished an extremely inane assignment for an editing class. My dreams of becoming an editor are waning slightly. Each time I go to class, I feel bored to tears. Like I actually might cry, it's so boring. But I'll graduate in a million years and get some sort of job, and then maybe I'll feel better about my life choices.

Speaking of jobs-slash-life-choices, I applied for three very select jobs today. The first is at a Christian bookstore. I'm still considering how I feel about working there. One of the questions of the application form was "list three books (besides the Bible!) that you've read in the last year and how they impacted your life." I feel that everyone else who worked there named devotionals or one of those end-times-bestsellers. I was stumped. I didn't know how to tell Trish at the Christian bookstore that the books that impacted me in the last year were The Bell Jar (a book about a girl who slowly goes crazy and attempts suicide) and The Robber Bride (a book about a group of women who have been wronged by an evil seductress who slept with their husbands/boyfriends and stole their money, and eventually winds up falling out a window, high on crack). So I said the Poisonwood Bible, because it shows a secular view of missions, and Practising the Presence of People, which is a book I only read one chapter of in the summer, but it meant to be a sort of devotional. I ended up putting The Bell Jar, and I hope they either don't know what it is, or are familiar with good writing.

The second place I applied at is a scrapbooking store. I think it might involve a lot of standing on my feet behind a counter, but at least I'll be in the presence of pretty paper. They didn't necessarily say they were hiring, but they took my resume and told me that things often come up.

The third place is the one I hope I get. It's at a flower shop, and the duties include maintenance of pretty flowers, helping customers, arranging displays, and doing some occasional paperwork/answering the phones. The job sounded absolutely glorious. The sign on the window said "Looking for Mature Help," and the lady looked at me kind of skeptically when she saw that I wasn't fifty, but I was very friendly and professional. I'm going to call them on Tuesday to ask if the manager had had a look at my resume. And then I'll call them every day until they at least agree to interview me.

I'm still working the retardedly boring administrative assistant job. The other day my boss told me he had a new project for me, and that it would be really challenging and interesting. I thought he was serious. He wasn't. It's going through every single business entered into the database and assigning them a category. Thanks so much. I feel so useful.

Dear Work --Give me my life-force back, please! Stop draining it out of me! I have a perfectly functional brain! I am not a primate; I'm a writer; hire a chimp and give him a typewriter if you're just looking for another body with a heartbeat around the office -- those seem like the only qualifications necessary for this ridiculous job. Thanks for all the money. --
D.

Anyway, it's almost one o'clock in the morning and I still have much to do. I have to finish some more homework, and then re-vamp my crappy packing job. I don't even have any clean socks, so I'll have to remember to purchase some from the Giant Tiger at lunch.

foolish behaviour

I am not above foolish behaviour. There's something about me that's important. I like to think I'm above it, to an extent, but really when all is said and done, I'm right there alongside fellow revellers, behaving foolishly.

The weekend wasn't a complete waste, though. On Friday night, I saw a movie and ate calamari and sipped a martini with Eric. It's nice to go on dates. I like that I have someone who will take me out on dates. He wore his tailored jacket and looked handsome. I had my hair in two braids like a little girl. On Saturday, I went riding around in tall grasses with three of my best friends. Eric took pictures while the three of us gazed off into the distance or looked at each other, laughing, portraying carefree friendship on the Alberta plains. We galloped up the hill overlooking the barn and I felt that familiar, exhilerating happiness that I get when the wind is in my face and I feel completely free. Then I had Thanksgiving dinner with my family at my sister's house. Our family is expanding to include babies and toddlers and significant others. It feels good to sit around a big table, drinking wine and listening to the bustle of a ten-person conversation. Then, at night, said foolish behavior ensued.

I've spent all day today doing homework. I don't have any more academic-sounding words left in me. They're all spent on essays and case studies. I don't have any more room in my brain left for prioritizing assignments and thinking about mid-terms.

I'm going to go make some phone calls to the people in my life that I'm worried about, and when I've been assured that they are okay, I will go to bed.

on being sleep-encrusted:

Today is a day to wear a toque instead of showering, and to wear last night's eyeliner without care, and to put on an oversized hoodie from a summer camp you used to work at (which may or may not be clean, come to think of it), and to sleep in your car between classes at school, and to make your family members take you out for a pity-lunch because you feel broke and tired and unfamiliar.

That's what I said to myself this morning when I looked in the mirror. I looked like sleep. I still do. I don't care.

People are yelling in the library again, so writing two pieces of short fiction for an assignment is out of the question. Useless blogging is the only thing one can accomplish in a noisy library. It's easier because nothing is expected of me. I like having nothing expected of me; it's refreshing.

Tonight I will start to think about the enormous essay I have due on Tuesday. Until then, I will just wear ugly clothes, go for lunch with my mom, listen to an audio book in the car to prevent road rage, go home and take a nap. Maybe I could watch re-runs of sitcoms on TBS like I used to when I had nothing to do and no one to see. Maybe I could pretend I haven't anything to do in the world, and just watch four back-to-back episodes of Seinfeld on the couch with a bag of chips and a cup of tea.

trouble sleeping

I put coconut in my latte this morning. Sometimes I like to try new things. Sometimes I like to run headlong into 1995 and never come back.

I'm feeling that familiar tightness again. Like all of my thoughts are materialized into a long, dark cord and it's wrapped around my chest. Every time I put something off or get into an argument with someone or spend all night losing sleep or find my bank account overdrawn, it pulls tighter. There have been lots of those sorts of things lately; the cord is much tighter this fall.

I have a lot of thoughts in my head this morning. I thought today would be better -- I got many hours of sleep last night, and I don't have to work today after school, and I don't have any assignments due in the class that starts in five minutes. But as I drove the commute, I felt like all of my thoughts were bumping up against each other.

Where is the solution?

I keep feeling like there's no time for anything. There's not enough time for me to make money. There's not enough time for me to go for lunch with friends. There's not enough time for me to write comparative essays before the ninth of October. And then, simultaneously, I feel that there is way too much time for me to prioritize. There is way too much time before I will ever get married, so what should I do with myself before then? There is way too much time before I will ever move out on my own, so why should I bother working towards it?

"We listened as he played the guitar & sang old love songs & then there was a moment we looked at each other & discovered we were much younger than other people might suspect & it was good to know we had that much more time together."
-- from storypeople.com

There's a song by the Perishers that goes, "I'm having trouble sleeping; you're sitting on my chest; I really need the rest -- leave me."

late sunday nights

Crisis averted.

Cuddling resumed.

sunday afternoons

I've come to a time in my life where I'm wondering:

Do I stick to my guns, as they say, or do I cave in and just be nice?

I miss him after two days of not speaking. I keep carrying my cell phone around the house just in case he decides the right thing to do would be to call me. Is that even the right thing to do? We're childish, right now. We're stubbornly giving each other the silent treatment, and that is something that is so not us. We don't do that kind of thing. We talk it out, we get over it, we go out for dinner and have a nice time. We don't hang up on each other and then think it's the other person's obligation to call first. We aren't those kind of people.

I stayed up too late at a barnyard bonfire last night. Three of us rode down the road through the trees in the darkness. We galloped around under the stars for a while. Then, I woke up too early this morning to do some more galloping -- this time it was on purpose, and over cross country obstacles.

And I spent the rest of the day feeling tired and sorry for myself and watching Sex and the City on DVD, thinking about relationships and Carrie Bradshaw. And looking at my cell phone.

Now, I am stressed out about a nonfunctional printer and legal cases that need to be read over before class tomorrow morning, and I feel like it's all hanging above my head. Maybe I need to just put on some makeup, feel pretty, and have a cup of coffee.

dispatches from behind a pile of boxes

Boring classes at 8 AM make me chew my fingernails to a whole new level. I need to find something else to do with my hands during classes like Legal Issues and Applied Editing. My fingers hurt.

I'm sick of making phone calls from a storage closet. It sounds strange, but it's actually what my job entails. Excel spreadsheets, online databases, and phone calls from inside my storage closet. Can I get a window, please? Can I get some stimulation? I'd even settle for good old fashioned motivation.

I am too tired to do anything tonight but I know my horse will be sitting in the field feeling neglected when all of his friends (who have good, non-negligent owners) get taken out to go on trail rides and jump brightly coloured fences and receive treats. And I'll be dozing off on a couch in front of Grey's Anatomy re-runs.

haikus and happiness

For some reason I've had an intense yearning to write haiku. I feel like I could write one every day and then eventually I'd have enough to make a huge poster of them, all typographically aesthetic and all, and pin it to the back of my door to remind me that there are other writing styles besides short fiction and pretty prose.

I am currently annoyed with work, so I am wasting my time blogging for revenge purposes. I just phoned a company and after two rings, I was immediately put on hold. No, "CEB Technologies, can you hold please?" Just, "ring... ring... elevator music." And after listening to a synthesizer remix of Three Times a Lady, I got someone's voicemail. And that voicemail was not that of the person that I was trying to contact.

I know it's not my company's fault, but it's Wednesday. And I've decided that I am ten times more stupid on Wednesdays than any other day. Wednesday is the new Monday. Traffic was exceptionally enraging this morning, which doesn't help Wednesday seem better than Monday. I need to get some audio books. They help me to be less angry while behind the wheel.

september

I love September. It feels so clean-slate new, and it feels so much like all of the thoughts I've jam-packed into summer are falling to the ground in brightly coloured leaves. It smells like death and growth at the same time, and I think it's important to see that the two should always accompany one another.

I find it imperative to my own health that I understand that new things are borne of the old disasters. Life and death happen on the same day, and it's sad and comforting together.

I like the parking lot at school in the fall. I like sun glinting off of car windshields and the big tree at the south end that blows its yellow leaves onto the road. I like coming outside after school and feeling smart and fresh and crisp, like the air. I like knowing that I'm chosing my own life.

validation

As a result of the 3 AM almost-break-in to our hotel room the other night, I've been tired for the past two days. I can't get ahold of myself, and I'm assuming the whole sleepless nights thing is the reason. Am I just too tired to process my own feelings?

I feel disappointed in my abilities and accomplishments, and I've never said that out loud, really. Well, I've never said that out loud in any specific way that goes beyond vague ranting between friends on long car rides. But I can pinpoint the things I feel that I lack, and instead of fixing my own problems, I sought validation from those around me. Of course, they didn't know I was looking for some sort of validation in terms of my abilities and success, so I didn't get what I wanted from them and I just assumed that meant that they agreed with me. That they were agreeing with my own distorted view of myself.

Were they?

I wish that I could read other people's minds from time to time. I wish that I didn't need other people to tell me that I'm fantastic in order for me to think that I am. Why should I need encouragement to feel like I've really achieved anything? Shouldn't my own sense of self-worth just be enough?

I am introspective at work today. I like being introspective, but it's not a good use of time right now. I am way behind.

who ever thought a girl could love office supplies so much?

Today was my first day back at school. We discussed subordinating conjunctions and the woes of dangling modifiers. The text book for this class costs $128, so needless to say, I won't be buying it. I'll just write thorough notes and rely on my previous knowledge of comma splices and rhetorical schemes.

I think that I'd like to work in a stationary store. I want to be surrounded by pretty paper, leatherbound notebooks, interesting photo-albums and thank-you cards. I want to test out cool pens and give my friends the most unique greeting cards they've ever received. I want to fill my house with notebook upon notebook, each with a different cover, each with different line heights, each precious and special and perfect in their own way. I think that a good journal is something that really belongs to a person, you know?

Mine has a Japanese-inspired drawing of a tidal wave on the front, and big spiral coils and it's uncluttered and exactly what I look for in a place to write down my little inspirations and stories of joy and sorrow. Or something less dramatic.

So Thursday morning, on my day off, I'll drive around to stationary stores in town and see if I can force them to hire me. And if that doesn't work, I'll revert to plan B: drive around to flower shops and see if I can force them to hire me. If I can't be surrounded by fabulous stationary, I think I'd like to be surrounded with pretty things. And if that doesn't work, I'll revert to plan C: the toil-filled jungle we call retail.

ghost of a good thing

Today while I drove home from the lake I listened to a CD I haven't listened to in a very long time. Eric made it for me, two summers ago, before we were dating. We'd just had a huge fight in the laundry room at the ranch, and he gave it to me as an "I'm sorry" kind of thing. And the very first time I ever drove home from the lake by myself, on an early Sunday morning, I listened to it. And fell in love with it (and consequently, more in love with the boy as well).

It reminds me of a different time in my life. When I was younger, and had no inkling of the profound ways that my life was going to change in the next year. I would have braced myself for the impact if I'd known.

So the songs on that CD remind me also of the leaves changing in autumn, and of living simply in my tiny dorm room, wearing two sweaters to work and being able to see more clearly because September air in the country feels thinner and purer. The smell of dying leaves and watching my breath hang in the air in front of my face on the road to the main lodge.

Of listening to it while doing my hair and choosing what I'd wear to her bridal shower. Of tires crunching over the leaves that blow across the long driveway on the way into town on the day of her wedding. Of thinking that everything was completely fine.

Then listening to it today, on the highway, and thinking that everything didn't turn out fine. Everything was fine for those few months. I was living in such an in-between state of perfect content. I got up early, ate a good breakfast, worked outside, breathed country air into my lungs, cozied up with big cups of tea at night. Rode horses through the falling leaves of the trees in the back pasture. Watched one of the most important people in my life get married and live happily ever after.

And then things changed, in every possible way, and while I sometimes think about going back to that life I had, I know that things will never be the same. I can’t keep wondering whether or not I’d be able to just go live that life forever.

Why can’t I ever move away from who I once was?