Why is it 1:21 AM? Why can't it just be tomorrow? Or better, why can't it be December 24th?
I am so tired, and I can never sleep. This cycle is endless.
Tomorrow, I will go to school and work. Today, at work, I stood in front of a fax machine for two and a half hours, faxing an invitation to a luncheon. That's right. If it weren't for my irreplaceable administrative skills, the joint would be in a shambles. If not me, then what other chimpanzee could they hire to press telephone numbers into a machine? They don't even need him to press start; they could just get one of those weighted birds to peck the start button every so often. Tomorrow, I fear might be much the same.
I want to go ride my horse, tomorrow, instead of work. But the whole point of work is to pay to keep to the horse. This is another endless cycle.
I feel like writing, lately. I really, really feel like writing. Like being a Writer (capital W!). And when I open up Word and stare at the blinking cursor, I feel like I'm staring blankly at myself, asking, "...well?" And nothing comes. Endless cycle.
1:27 AM. How awful.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
"some people"
Here is the thing about some people:
They are losing their grip on the reality that they have constructed for themselves. They are living their lives based on the facades that they've created; the punch-drunk personas that they've built for themselves. The labels that they have willingly, forcefully given themselves. They are making excuses.
This reality is slipping past them, spiralling around them just out of reach. Their fingertips graze what they've made themselves become, what they've told themselves is fun and acceptable, but it's falling away too fast. It is leading them down paths that they best not go; it is offering a lifestyle that will not make them better people.
At the end of the spiral, they will not know where they are. Who they are. And since they are the only ones that have the closest idea of who they really are, once that's gone -- it's all gone. We will not be able to put the pieces of their puzzle back together again, because we don't have the cover for reference. For all we know, the cover is something completely different: some obscure picture that we've been trying for years to understand, and now the only thing we understand is that it's not accurate. The pieces won't ever make that picture; they aren't supposed to.
And we will wish that these people would become accountable for their actions. That they would live the lives that manifest all of the wonderful things that they could be if they dropped the facade, if they stopped making excuses for their behaviour, if they let us in -- for real, this time. We wish nothing but the best. Nothing but happiness.
But sometimes, with some people, it's hard to see how that will all work out.
They are losing their grip on the reality that they have constructed for themselves. They are living their lives based on the facades that they've created; the punch-drunk personas that they've built for themselves. The labels that they have willingly, forcefully given themselves. They are making excuses.
This reality is slipping past them, spiralling around them just out of reach. Their fingertips graze what they've made themselves become, what they've told themselves is fun and acceptable, but it's falling away too fast. It is leading them down paths that they best not go; it is offering a lifestyle that will not make them better people.
At the end of the spiral, they will not know where they are. Who they are. And since they are the only ones that have the closest idea of who they really are, once that's gone -- it's all gone. We will not be able to put the pieces of their puzzle back together again, because we don't have the cover for reference. For all we know, the cover is something completely different: some obscure picture that we've been trying for years to understand, and now the only thing we understand is that it's not accurate. The pieces won't ever make that picture; they aren't supposed to.
And we will wish that these people would become accountable for their actions. That they would live the lives that manifest all of the wonderful things that they could be if they dropped the facade, if they stopped making excuses for their behaviour, if they let us in -- for real, this time. We wish nothing but the best. Nothing but happiness.
But sometimes, with some people, it's hard to see how that will all work out.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
saskatchewan
The Saskatchewan horizon is a golden line that cuts starkly against the blue sky; you can see storms coming from miles away; you can see deer picking their way delicately through ditches in the spring dusk; you can see birds diminish into tiny specks before they disappear into the thick blue.
We are travelling across this flat expanse of gold in a rented van. It’s the eighth hour of this cross-prairie trip, and we’ve already played every car game we can think of, and asked every “would you rather...?” question conceivable.
Two are sleeping in the back. Two are staring out windows in the middle. One, in the front, is fiddling with the radio dial, working her way through the white noise, past oldies stations and western hits. One drives the van, both hands on the wheel, sunglasses still on despite the fact that the sun has already slipped past the sharp line of the horizon.
This moment: six of us inside of a rented van somewhere in southeast Saskatchewan – this moment lives inside of me; our togetherness lives inside of me.
And our destination: later, we are sitting at a formica table in the farmhouse kitchen, cradling cups of coffee. Smiling, answering questions about ourselves, asking questions like
how many horses?
how many foals?
how do you do it?
And the first time I see him: a tall, large-boned chestnut gelding splashed here and there with white. A wide blaze down his face. Four white stockings. He is trotting around the arena, he is not the first one we’d looked at that day. He stops, walks over to us, examines us with his neck stretched out towards us, sniffing carefully. Blowing puffs of foggy breath on my hands. Cautious and curious. Outside an unseasonably late snowfall blankets everything, coats the rented van.
The first day of years together, he and I. The first greeting. The first time he rested his soft muzzle in my hands and breathed the scent of sweet hay onto my skin.
Still, what my mind picks out of that whole trip is the six of us for hours and hours inside a rented van, cutting across Saskatchewan’s long, straight highways. Being together and living completely unaware of the way things would change in the future.
We are travelling across this flat expanse of gold in a rented van. It’s the eighth hour of this cross-prairie trip, and we’ve already played every car game we can think of, and asked every “would you rather...?” question conceivable.
Two are sleeping in the back. Two are staring out windows in the middle. One, in the front, is fiddling with the radio dial, working her way through the white noise, past oldies stations and western hits. One drives the van, both hands on the wheel, sunglasses still on despite the fact that the sun has already slipped past the sharp line of the horizon.
This moment: six of us inside of a rented van somewhere in southeast Saskatchewan – this moment lives inside of me; our togetherness lives inside of me.
And our destination: later, we are sitting at a formica table in the farmhouse kitchen, cradling cups of coffee. Smiling, answering questions about ourselves, asking questions like
how many horses?
how many foals?
how do you do it?
And the first time I see him: a tall, large-boned chestnut gelding splashed here and there with white. A wide blaze down his face. Four white stockings. He is trotting around the arena, he is not the first one we’d looked at that day. He stops, walks over to us, examines us with his neck stretched out towards us, sniffing carefully. Blowing puffs of foggy breath on my hands. Cautious and curious. Outside an unseasonably late snowfall blankets everything, coats the rented van.
The first day of years together, he and I. The first greeting. The first time he rested his soft muzzle in my hands and breathed the scent of sweet hay onto my skin.
Still, what my mind picks out of that whole trip is the six of us for hours and hours inside a rented van, cutting across Saskatchewan’s long, straight highways. Being together and living completely unaware of the way things would change in the future.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
"remembering" poem
remembering.
this is my daily task, my life’s work, my magnum opus:
remembering you.
every day I think about you, wonder where you went,
wonder where I went once you were gone.
we try to take the steps you’d take, we do.
we try to push forward
forward
forward
every day like you would have, we do.
but at the end of the day, when it’s quiet,
I sit very still and think about whether I’m doing a good enough job;
this job of remembering you.
this heavy work of not forgetting you.
what’s left?
after the urn is in the ground
after I put sunflowers on your grave
after I cried for you, for the loss of you
after everything was sold and given away and packed up in boxes
after nothing was the same
after our lost ambition
after the absence of your encouragement
after everything –
what’s left?
remembering.
this is my daily task, my life’s work, my magnum opus:
remembering you.
every day I think about you, wonder where you went,
wonder where I went once you were gone.
we try to take the steps you’d take, we do.
we try to push forward
forward
forward
every day like you would have, we do.
but at the end of the day, when it’s quiet,
I sit very still and think about whether I’m doing a good enough job;
this job of remembering you.
this heavy work of not forgetting you.
what’s left?
after the urn is in the ground
after I put sunflowers on your grave
after I cried for you, for the loss of you
after everything was sold and given away and packed up in boxes
after nothing was the same
after our lost ambition
after the absence of your encouragement
after everything –
what’s left?
remembering.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
writer
Last night the tow-truck driver came to cart away my dead car, and he asked me what I did for a living. I never really know what to say when people ask me this. "Uhh, I'm in between things... uhh, I'm a student... uhh, I enter data..." But I thought about it and replied:
"I'm a writer."
This is the first time I've ever introduced myself as such out loud.
I liked it.
"I'm a writer."
This is the first time I've ever introduced myself as such out loud.
I liked it.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
"Maps" - short fiction
Maps
There is a recurring dream; it goes like this:
The house becomes a boat. Water laps up on my bedroom windows; fish swim by, pausing to look in at me, their brown mouths opening in surprised little ohs. Startled by my entrance into their world. I sit in the middle of my bedroom, which is completely empty except for all of the maps that are lying on the hardwood floor. Maps of the world, of cities, of mountain ranges, oceans, tributaries, streams. Topographical renderings of everything on earth. The house begins to rock and it sails up and down ocean swells, dipping into the dark green valleys between waves, and steadily climbing back up again. I can hear the furniture downstairs scraping against the floor as it rolls from one end of the house to the other. And the thump against the wall when the house sinks into the valleys between swells. Rolling, rolling, rolling, thump. Rolling, rolling, rolling, thump. I sit in the middle of the floor, surrounded everywhere by maps, listening for something. Listening for you.
And then I wake up catching my breath, feeling sea-sick and heavy-headed, looking frantically around the room. No maps. Just regular bedroom items: bed, nightstands, armoire, vanity table, his bathrobe on the closet door, the laundry basket over-filled. Outside the window is early-morning air, not the secret, verdant, underwater dwellings of fish. He is sleeping beside me, totally uninterrupted by my startled awakening. Heartbeat slows to normal.
It’s been ten weeks.
The moment I put my feet on the floor and stand up, a wave of nausea creeps up my spine, floods my head, and plummets to my stomach. Sea-sick. I swallow hard, but my stomach revolts, turns sideways, climbs the green swells of my nausea and I am running to the bathroom. Holding my own hair back while he sleeps uninterrupted in the next room. On the bathroom floor, once it’s done, I stare at the closed door. The alarm clock starts going off, and I can hear him roll over in bed. Its bleeps break off and silence regains the house. In a moment, I hear him get out of bed.
The bathroom door opens and I look up at him from the floor.
“Are you okay?” He asks, stepping over me, turning on the shower.
“Fine.”
He steps into the shower and pulls the curtain closed. While using the counter to help myself up, I find myself startled to see my own face in the mirror. Crow’s feet. Dark purple circles. My hair clings to my forehead and temples still glossy with the perspiration it takes to reverse the digestion process first thing in the morning. I leave the bathroom and go downstairs.
She’s been awfully difficult. I have to hold my breath when I walk by the olive cart in the supermarket. I can’t stand chicken, milk tastes sour, my brain feels fuzzy around the edges where it used to feel sharp. And she’s been making me sick at least twice a day. She is a fetus, officially – graduated from zygote, blastocyst and embryo. Next week, she’ll start using her lungs to take practice breaths, not for oxygen but to begin teaching them how to work. She has hands and feet. A heart and a brain.
I still have your things in a box in my nightstand, close to me while I sleep and dream of being afloat in a vast, green ocean. In the moments before sleep, I think I can feel you, but it’s not you, is it? It’s someone else. A stranger. I think about her taking practice breaths and I learn to breathe at the same time: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. This is what I tell myself when I look at the weight accumulating around my midsection, when I feel the sickness coming on, when I think about your tiny, insignificant box in my nightstand. Is that all there is left of you? Of the first, fervent, all-encompassing love that I felt when I knew you were there? The first star in the night sky seems so significant when it’s the only one.
I can’t forget the dull ache, low and deep. Not sudden, sharp pains, but an omnipresent rock forming inside of me. I would lie in bed clutching my abdomen, trying to cradle your unformed body in my arms, trying to tell you it would be all right. This went on for almost a week, and when I told the doctor, she just looked at me and nodded and sighed a little. Said, “we’ll see.” And then it finally happened on a Saturday night while he was out renting a movie.
Blood on my sheets. I could hear my own voice crying like it didn’t even belong to me. Come back to me. Don’t go. Don’t leave me now. It’ll be all right, just come back.
My body recovered so quickly. I was angry at how quickly it bounced back, how quickly I became pregnant again: how dare it support her so delicately and gently and not you – why not you? Before I knew it, you were nothing but remembrance in the form of a box in my nightstand and he was ecstatic about her. He was overjoyed that you’d been replaced by her.
I sit down at the kitchen table, wanting a coffee, knowing that I shouldn’t. I think about what it would be like if the house just floated away in the night, and we woke up somewhere else. I think about sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, listening so carefully, straining to hear the slightest sound. Straining to hear you crying as though you were just down the hall behind a closed door. As though I could hear you crying out to me and I’d be able to save you, if only the sounds of the ocean outside my window would die down a little. I think about all of the maps and all of the possible destinations and all of the delineations of how to get there.
I put my hand on her, on my stomach where she practices breathing, and wonder where I’m going. Wonder where you went.
There is a recurring dream; it goes like this:
The house becomes a boat. Water laps up on my bedroom windows; fish swim by, pausing to look in at me, their brown mouths opening in surprised little ohs. Startled by my entrance into their world. I sit in the middle of my bedroom, which is completely empty except for all of the maps that are lying on the hardwood floor. Maps of the world, of cities, of mountain ranges, oceans, tributaries, streams. Topographical renderings of everything on earth. The house begins to rock and it sails up and down ocean swells, dipping into the dark green valleys between waves, and steadily climbing back up again. I can hear the furniture downstairs scraping against the floor as it rolls from one end of the house to the other. And the thump against the wall when the house sinks into the valleys between swells. Rolling, rolling, rolling, thump. Rolling, rolling, rolling, thump. I sit in the middle of the floor, surrounded everywhere by maps, listening for something. Listening for you.
And then I wake up catching my breath, feeling sea-sick and heavy-headed, looking frantically around the room. No maps. Just regular bedroom items: bed, nightstands, armoire, vanity table, his bathrobe on the closet door, the laundry basket over-filled. Outside the window is early-morning air, not the secret, verdant, underwater dwellings of fish. He is sleeping beside me, totally uninterrupted by my startled awakening. Heartbeat slows to normal.
It’s been ten weeks.
The moment I put my feet on the floor and stand up, a wave of nausea creeps up my spine, floods my head, and plummets to my stomach. Sea-sick. I swallow hard, but my stomach revolts, turns sideways, climbs the green swells of my nausea and I am running to the bathroom. Holding my own hair back while he sleeps uninterrupted in the next room. On the bathroom floor, once it’s done, I stare at the closed door. The alarm clock starts going off, and I can hear him roll over in bed. Its bleeps break off and silence regains the house. In a moment, I hear him get out of bed.
The bathroom door opens and I look up at him from the floor.
“Are you okay?” He asks, stepping over me, turning on the shower.
“Fine.”
He steps into the shower and pulls the curtain closed. While using the counter to help myself up, I find myself startled to see my own face in the mirror. Crow’s feet. Dark purple circles. My hair clings to my forehead and temples still glossy with the perspiration it takes to reverse the digestion process first thing in the morning. I leave the bathroom and go downstairs.
She’s been awfully difficult. I have to hold my breath when I walk by the olive cart in the supermarket. I can’t stand chicken, milk tastes sour, my brain feels fuzzy around the edges where it used to feel sharp. And she’s been making me sick at least twice a day. She is a fetus, officially – graduated from zygote, blastocyst and embryo. Next week, she’ll start using her lungs to take practice breaths, not for oxygen but to begin teaching them how to work. She has hands and feet. A heart and a brain.
I still have your things in a box in my nightstand, close to me while I sleep and dream of being afloat in a vast, green ocean. In the moments before sleep, I think I can feel you, but it’s not you, is it? It’s someone else. A stranger. I think about her taking practice breaths and I learn to breathe at the same time: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. This is what I tell myself when I look at the weight accumulating around my midsection, when I feel the sickness coming on, when I think about your tiny, insignificant box in my nightstand. Is that all there is left of you? Of the first, fervent, all-encompassing love that I felt when I knew you were there? The first star in the night sky seems so significant when it’s the only one.
I can’t forget the dull ache, low and deep. Not sudden, sharp pains, but an omnipresent rock forming inside of me. I would lie in bed clutching my abdomen, trying to cradle your unformed body in my arms, trying to tell you it would be all right. This went on for almost a week, and when I told the doctor, she just looked at me and nodded and sighed a little. Said, “we’ll see.” And then it finally happened on a Saturday night while he was out renting a movie.
Blood on my sheets. I could hear my own voice crying like it didn’t even belong to me. Come back to me. Don’t go. Don’t leave me now. It’ll be all right, just come back.
My body recovered so quickly. I was angry at how quickly it bounced back, how quickly I became pregnant again: how dare it support her so delicately and gently and not you – why not you? Before I knew it, you were nothing but remembrance in the form of a box in my nightstand and he was ecstatic about her. He was overjoyed that you’d been replaced by her.
I sit down at the kitchen table, wanting a coffee, knowing that I shouldn’t. I think about what it would be like if the house just floated away in the night, and we woke up somewhere else. I think about sitting in the middle of my bedroom floor, listening so carefully, straining to hear the slightest sound. Straining to hear you crying as though you were just down the hall behind a closed door. As though I could hear you crying out to me and I’d be able to save you, if only the sounds of the ocean outside my window would die down a little. I think about all of the maps and all of the possible destinations and all of the delineations of how to get there.
I put my hand on her, on my stomach where she practices breathing, and wonder where I’m going. Wonder where you went.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
lost ambition
I should go riding today. I'm having a day where I feel gloomy and trapped inside my house, and I miss her. The cure is riding, I think. I know I should go. I know I should go.
But I know that I won't go. I know that I'll curl up on the couch and close my eyes because it's easier to do nothing than to work on your goals. It's easier to just go to sleep than to think about your heartache.
There is nothing stopping me but my lost ambition.
But I know that I won't go. I know that I'll curl up on the couch and close my eyes because it's easier to do nothing than to work on your goals. It's easier to just go to sleep than to think about your heartache.
There is nothing stopping me but my lost ambition.
Friday, September 12, 2008
tribute
I want to write a book about her, about us. I am afraid. I'm afraid I won't do it right, and then what kind of a tribute is that?
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
nonwriter
I don't really feel like a writer, today. I feel like a pretend-writer. Someone who thinks that somewhere, vaguely, in the space above her head is a writer, but still prepares to go to bed at a reasonable hour so that she can go to her insipid non-writer job and not thinking about writing all day.
Why?
Why?
Thursday, July 24, 2008
news at noon
Here's what the news at noon just told me:
A man approached three eleven-year-old girls at a playground in Edmonton. He sexually assaulted one of them, while the others ran away. There was a witness. The witness, rather than rushing to the aid of the little girl, video-taped everything and called the police once he/she had gotten the incriminating footage.
I don't think that's what I would have chosen to do.
A man approached three eleven-year-old girls at a playground in Edmonton. He sexually assaulted one of them, while the others ran away. There was a witness. The witness, rather than rushing to the aid of the little girl, video-taped everything and called the police once he/she had gotten the incriminating footage.
I don't think that's what I would have chosen to do.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
song
Song
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the centerof the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
Allen Ginsberg
The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the centerof the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.
Allen Ginsberg
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
little pieces
"There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain & remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself."
-- storypeople.com
In animal totemry, butterflies represent courage. As tradition goes, when you are visited by a butterfly, it's to bring you the courage and heart to do something important. Last Thursday, the day before I was to pack up my things and my horse and head out to the first horse show in three years (the first attempt at living the way we used to before she passed away), I butterfly fluttered in front of my face in the car on the drive to work. It landed on my dash and sat blinking its pure white wings at me. Saying, "be brave!" from behind the steering wheel.
I was pretty brave, I thought. I wore butterfly socks underneath my riding boots for extra courage, and I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I did okay.
So now I know that it's possible to have a little piece of what we used to have back again. It's not the same, of course. It's drastically different, but it's a little piece of what she encouraged us to be, and I'll take whatever I can get.
-- storypeople.com
In animal totemry, butterflies represent courage. As tradition goes, when you are visited by a butterfly, it's to bring you the courage and heart to do something important. Last Thursday, the day before I was to pack up my things and my horse and head out to the first horse show in three years (the first attempt at living the way we used to before she passed away), I butterfly fluttered in front of my face in the car on the drive to work. It landed on my dash and sat blinking its pure white wings at me. Saying, "be brave!" from behind the steering wheel.
I was pretty brave, I thought. I wore butterfly socks underneath my riding boots for extra courage, and I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. I did okay.
So now I know that it's possible to have a little piece of what we used to have back again. It's not the same, of course. It's drastically different, but it's a little piece of what she encouraged us to be, and I'll take whatever I can get.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
"bridal shower"
there was that day in autumn – three years ago,
blue sky, yellow leaves and the country road.
i sat next to you all afternoon; you opened gifts
(muffin tray after muffin tray after muffin tray)
and thanked everyone for coming.
it's a photograph, now. it’s barely a memory.
it's you and me on that couch on that autumn day
smiling like nothing could ever go wrong
while everything blurs at a million miles per hour in the background.
blue sky, yellow leaves and the country road.
i sat next to you all afternoon; you opened gifts
(muffin tray after muffin tray after muffin tray)
and thanked everyone for coming.
it's a photograph, now. it’s barely a memory.
it's you and me on that couch on that autumn day
smiling like nothing could ever go wrong
while everything blurs at a million miles per hour in the background.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
where these dreams go
and you wonder where these dreams go
cause the world got in your way
I feel derailed, sometimes. And sometimes "sometimes" approaches "all the time," and that's when I just want to curl up under the covers and quit everything in my life. Just close my eyes and forget about responsibility. Forget about the part of myself that went missing one early summer's day and never came back. Fill that dark, shadowy part of myself with years and years of calm, peaceful sleep.
We had so many plans. We are so different from the people we were becoming, back then, before she passed away and everything changed. If she were still here, I'd be eventing pre-training by now. I'd look forward to riding and growing. LB would be showing at recognized dressage shows. LU would be the confident, aggressive rider that she was when Tanya was there to encourage her. Dani would still be riding. These aren't guesses or extrapolations; these were our goals. These were the tracks we were on -- the tracks we decided together to be on, and then we crashed and got scattered in a million different directions.
I spend every day torn between feeling like I could never be the person I was on the way to being, and feeling an intense desire not to disappoint her by being lacklustre and scared to live my life. Where does that leave me? I think about that long drive through the prairies, talking about the future. Picking out show names. Discussing how fun it will be when all of our horses are going, when we could all show together. Feeling glad to be part of a team. Feeling proud of ourselves and excited for the future.
I am scared to do the event next weekend. I've been trying to be excited about it, but I am nervous and scared, because sometimes when I drive home from the barn after a lesson with someone else, I wonder if I can even do it without her. I wonder if I'm just too different now. And then I immediately become scared of disappointing her, so I fill in the forms and mail off the entry. And I want to go light the mailbox on fire to destroy the form.
Why can't we go back to the people we were becoming? I was so happy to be going down that track. Now I'm somewhere so far away.
cause the world got in your way
I feel derailed, sometimes. And sometimes "sometimes" approaches "all the time," and that's when I just want to curl up under the covers and quit everything in my life. Just close my eyes and forget about responsibility. Forget about the part of myself that went missing one early summer's day and never came back. Fill that dark, shadowy part of myself with years and years of calm, peaceful sleep.
We had so many plans. We are so different from the people we were becoming, back then, before she passed away and everything changed. If she were still here, I'd be eventing pre-training by now. I'd look forward to riding and growing. LB would be showing at recognized dressage shows. LU would be the confident, aggressive rider that she was when Tanya was there to encourage her. Dani would still be riding. These aren't guesses or extrapolations; these were our goals. These were the tracks we were on -- the tracks we decided together to be on, and then we crashed and got scattered in a million different directions.
I spend every day torn between feeling like I could never be the person I was on the way to being, and feeling an intense desire not to disappoint her by being lacklustre and scared to live my life. Where does that leave me? I think about that long drive through the prairies, talking about the future. Picking out show names. Discussing how fun it will be when all of our horses are going, when we could all show together. Feeling glad to be part of a team. Feeling proud of ourselves and excited for the future.
I am scared to do the event next weekend. I've been trying to be excited about it, but I am nervous and scared, because sometimes when I drive home from the barn after a lesson with someone else, I wonder if I can even do it without her. I wonder if I'm just too different now. And then I immediately become scared of disappointing her, so I fill in the forms and mail off the entry. And I want to go light the mailbox on fire to destroy the form.
Why can't we go back to the people we were becoming? I was so happy to be going down that track. Now I'm somewhere so far away.
Monday, June 23, 2008
twenty-first
My twenty-first year will be marked by poetry. By wordswordswords, like all the years before, only this time there are spaces between them that declare things like, "I am twenty-one and trying to be an artist, can't you tell?" Even these words could be a poem if I just hit enter instead of space a little more often.
"morning"
finding sighs between the lines around your mouth
i can tell you're really thinking, now
my fingers find their way up your spine
counting the notches like years of your life.
lie here with me for a while without speaking --
it's only our breath, now
only the air between the thoughts between the sighs
only the lines of our arms and legs and fingers and faces
only the shapes of our shadows and the last breath
you took before opening your eyes and noticing
the light.
i can tell you're really thinking, now
my fingers find their way up your spine
counting the notches like years of your life.
lie here with me for a while without speaking --
it's only our breath, now
only the air between the thoughts between the sighs
only the lines of our arms and legs and fingers and faces
only the shapes of our shadows and the last breath
you took before opening your eyes and noticing
the light.
Friday, June 20, 2008
"ghosts of our old lives"
I saw your family today.
They are full of brave smiles
and unending hospitality.
I stepped inside your favourite place
expecting to feel familiar
but I felt like an outsider in a time capsule.
Like I was standing on the set
for the Sunday-night movie
someone made about your life.
Not that it was the real thing.
I touched your old things today.
Ran my hand down a stack of your breeches,
felt the weight of your riding bits,
touched your hats, your jackets,
your brushes, your tack.
Every last piece of material
that defined who you were --
and all of it will be gone.
I lay in your pasture today.
I sank into the grass and closed my weary eyes
against the bright white lights
of your Alberta sky.
I felt like sinking my whole body down.
Like growing into the earth beneath me
so that I could be closer to you.
So that I would be a part of you.
"I can't believe it's over," I said,
and looked up at the white clouds
in the bluest sky
And thought about the ghosts of our old lives.
They are full of brave smiles
and unending hospitality.
I stepped inside your favourite place
expecting to feel familiar
but I felt like an outsider in a time capsule.
Like I was standing on the set
for the Sunday-night movie
someone made about your life.
Not that it was the real thing.
I touched your old things today.
Ran my hand down a stack of your breeches,
felt the weight of your riding bits,
touched your hats, your jackets,
your brushes, your tack.
Every last piece of material
that defined who you were --
and all of it will be gone.
I lay in your pasture today.
I sank into the grass and closed my weary eyes
against the bright white lights
of your Alberta sky.
I felt like sinking my whole body down.
Like growing into the earth beneath me
so that I could be closer to you.
So that I would be a part of you.
"I can't believe it's over," I said,
and looked up at the white clouds
in the bluest sky
And thought about the ghosts of our old lives.
Monday, June 16, 2008
the time is nigh!
I am quitting the greenhouse. Today.
Possibly even right now. I'll just close this window, get out of my desk, go outside and while leaning against my car like someone Really Cool, I will phone in and tell them it's over.
I'm not good at quitting. I'm not good at breaking up with employers. It's awkward. I always feel bad. I always wonder what they must think of me. If they think I was a waste of time.
Okay. I'm going.
It is time.
Possibly even right now. I'll just close this window, get out of my desk, go outside and while leaning against my car like someone Really Cool, I will phone in and tell them it's over.
I'm not good at quitting. I'm not good at breaking up with employers. It's awkward. I always feel bad. I always wonder what they must think of me. If they think I was a waste of time.
Okay. I'm going.
It is time.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
don't know what
I need to get out of this. How can I get out of this? Of the maddening rush-hour commute to the farthest reaches of the city? Of the alternative: standing behind a counter at a greenhouse, trying to look busy, wiping down the espresso machine for the eighty-five-thousandth time?
I feel that it's socked right in for the rest of the summer. And then I don't know what.
I feel that it's socked right in for the rest of the summer. And then I don't know what.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
"the start box"
Early morning, quiet except for the munching sounds: animal jaws closing around mouthfuls of sweet hay, stamping little rhythms on the bed of shavings beneath their feet. A low nicker, the scattered sound of grain splattering into the bottom of a bucket.
Then, an hour later in the start box: the slap of leather after triple-checking the girth. The familiar clink of spurs on the stirrup irons. Puffs of air from the horse's nostrils, air condensing into a fog. A whoosh and a snort, steady. The beating of your heart in your own ears.
"Five, four, three, two, one..." the start box attendant says, and at once the sound of hooves on the grass take over, and then the sound of your own breath -- all you hear is hooves and heartbeat and shaky sharp inhales and exhales.
Then the first jump: all sound suspends in the space in the air above the jump that you occupy. You hold your breath, the horse holds his hooves in mid-air and the silence is like all your sounds rushed out of your ears until the landing, when they all rush in again.
Then, an hour later in the start box: the slap of leather after triple-checking the girth. The familiar clink of spurs on the stirrup irons. Puffs of air from the horse's nostrils, air condensing into a fog. A whoosh and a snort, steady. The beating of your heart in your own ears.
"Five, four, three, two, one..." the start box attendant says, and at once the sound of hooves on the grass take over, and then the sound of your own breath -- all you hear is hooves and heartbeat and shaky sharp inhales and exhales.
Then the first jump: all sound suspends in the space in the air above the jump that you occupy. You hold your breath, the horse holds his hooves in mid-air and the silence is like all your sounds rushed out of your ears until the landing, when they all rush in again.
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