I'm in love with the whole world

I like to thank goodness.
Because Oh! my goodness,
there is just so much of it.
And thank goodness for that.

so far sunday in the afternoon

I awoke this morning with a clattering head, and thought it might settle if I just lay in bed. It did not, and so I got up. Actually, it is not morning but afternoon. That is usual, especially for a Sunday. I am drinking strongly brewed English Breakfast tea, very milky and honey-sweet. Eating bites of oatmeal with apples and cinnamon. Head still pounds, but fading I think. Mooz is intermittently looking out the window and then at me, asking me all kinds of questions with her eyes and I don't know the answer to any of them. I can hear Will mumbling in his half-sleeping state. I feel unsure about where to be in the world today. I can't see the sky from where I sit, only orange bricks going up and up.

a dream

My parents are throwing a party, but they've decided to host it in two locations. One house for the French-speaking people, and one for the rest. They will wait until everyone arrives and then usher some over to the other place. They have prepared a lot of food, but all of it is gross-looking pastry and strange sorts of cheeses, nothing is appetizing. I have been pulled away from my job early, I guess to help set up. My workplace is a giant open stadium where the seats are in rows stacked so steep that you have to hold on dearly as not to fall down the aisles. I can't remember what my job is, but I have been seeking a bottle of some sort. Now I am at the party, and I am trying to be available to socialize. An old acquaintance of mine is talking to me. He's a teacher now, and tells me that he lives out in the country close to here. His hands are very small and fat and his fingers are shorter than my pinkie finger, although he is a very large man. I am listening to him, but when I respond it's as if my mind is far away, and I find myself saying things that don't make sense or which are not true, and immediately I take my words back and apologize for being so rude. My Mum comes to me and gives me a task, "take this toy sword and bring it over to the French house, but be sure that Hunter doesn't get a hold of it. You'll know if you are in a danger zone because the sword will glow blue". So I go off on this mission, and I am thinking to myself that Hunter is only a baby and although he has begun to walk, he cannot go far, and certainly couldn't reach the sword if I put it up high. So I walk into the darkness with it, and in some places it does glow blue, so I alter my path away from there and continue to the French house. My Dad is there and he is eating the pastries, and no one else is there yet. Lined up against the walls are all kinds of toys for Hunter and Callie, and I look at the sword and realize it's just a toy, and so I put it up on a shelf and go back to the other party. There I meet the drag queen from last night who did both Michael Jackson and Jennifer Lopez. Her body is incredible, so convincingly woman. I tell her that, that her performance was very good and she laughs and flicks her hair, and I feel sheepish. I wake up.

this nag champa dream scene

Tom Waits yell-sings over those cranky horns and creaking strings and sounds I don't know, and it makes me feel like the light ought to be bluer in here, and the air a little smokier.

One week of life in the working world under my belt, and I feel just dandy and fine. A nice change to accompany the changing air over here these days. Being awake during the hours when the sun meets the streets in these parts, getting little bits of exposure and just soaking it up and it feels SO good.

Going out later with some lovely people, to a bar where everything is inspired by candy. Once again feeding that old sweet tooth of mine. Swaying around the house again, feeling that lightness and feeling settled, too. Everything hums, pulses along... tuning in to that constant rhythm in everything, tuning my breath and my sighs and my heartbeats and it feels good.

the purring, stirring nighttime

Dressed like a black cat, ready to pounce on a neighborhood costume party. Drinking sweetened whiskey and dancing around the house while Otis Redding croons to both me and Mooz, who has inspired me in more ways than just this getup.

Montreal is filling up with that wintry air. I didn't wake in time for the ice-slicked streets, only the softened mud mess which followed. Still some flakes fell, and iced over puddles called to my toes for cracking. Watched a little black bag dance awhile in the breezes. Found a spring in my step, and some butterflies stuck inside my rib cage. Setting them free inside this cozy apartment, with every sip and sway. Foggy windows, rosy cheeks, cat's meow/pajamas, etc.

Mmmhmm.

A thought to hold onto.

Approaching every being that I encounter as a burning ball of light and energy. Trying not to think with my eyes, but rather to open up my mind and heart and allow the light to bathe me. And then feel how I feel, and try to feel how you feel. And ask questions, and build up ideas, and share feelings and histories, and imagine possible futures. Realize that nothing is the same, never the same thing twice. Uniqueness, how steadfast that basic thing. Feeling the wonderment and awe of all those things. Getting kicks, in all manners, with all people. Because I'm not sure what else there is.

cumulus thoughts blown about by cold gusts

Wiener dog comes around the corner, busily sniffing. No leash, no owner in sight. Then giant golden retriever, then husky puppy with the biggest clear-blue eyes.

Man bikes by with a tuba in his backpack.

School bus full of Jewish children, heads shaved except for exquisite fringe curls. All eyes looking out the right windows as the bus makes a tight-squeeze turn onto a one-way street.

Just noticing that leaf-crunch and then caught the smell- I have been missing the peak of days where the leaves, warmed by the high sun's rays are projecting that scent that just fills me up. Through the nostrils straight to the stomach, and I could choke on it for how filling it can be all at once.

Feeling some nothingness sneak up on me, and though I've been anticipating it, it still has come as a surprise somehow. I am getting acquainted with readjustment, and all that strangeness that accompanies so much change.

Remembering again, a plethora of old thoughts that still kick and claw at me.
How restlessness can lead to recklessness. Lying in the dark curled up, you tapping out the rhythm of Born to Run on my thigh. Falling asleep to Court and Spark, hearing everything like it were new to me. Dreamed about you like I didn't know you, felt like a stranger in the morning- strange light shining on a strange bed.
Plucked a petal from a poppy, wanted to hold on to such a soft and pretty thing. Only found it withered up in my pocket later, unrecognizable.
Thinking about birds sitting atop of strange things. "Smiling strangers riding by on bikes".
Remembered a dead sea gull, ivory belly bloated, tucked into the curb of Sykes St., eyes closed.
"I am a thorn among a bunch of roses", said the old man as he squeezed through our little group as we stood in the lobby of the Peller Estates winery. Maggie rolls her eyes, and then immediately wonders about being gracious, or just accepting the words that people sometimes offer. I wonder the same. Why am I so doubtful? I am so distrustful of everyone sometimes. Sometimes I think that I would only believe the worst in you, never just allow you to be your best self because I would find a way to dissect it, find a hole and pull it open wider. That's awful, and I'm sorry.
I wonder about everything but never seem to endeavor to get to the bottom of anything. Can never be sure what is missing, but something is. I can't blame demons for my attitude, but sometimes I like to.
Feel so useless. More like directionless, you offer. Maybe both. Need to find out in which direction I can put myself to use.
Today is a whole day in itself. Not a stepping stone to some day ahead, not one thing only, but everything all of the time. A day is an amazing thing. Thinking about a good day, a full day, and all the ways in which a day can be filled. Now how can I let a day sit empty, never put it to real use? A day can be filled to the brim! I have been sitting through too many days lately.
Need to spend more time treasuring and cherishing. A treasure box full of old things which tend to mean a lot. Ripe cucumber, pulling little carrots from the garden. Margarine container full of backyard black currants, red currants. Tea and crickets and dew and desire and adventure and longing and leaving and coming home. Someone please stay awake with me!

But my scatterbrain scatters it all again, and I am just here. 8pm coffee, 'Blue', a purring Mooz, warm lamplight, promise of good company and cheap wine. Sorting everything out.
I am thankful, I am! There is so much that I have and I love and I know this. I am going to practice graciousness. Thank the universe for everything, every thing, everything.

fall ravel

Oh September, you came and you left.
It's the first day of October. The kind of fall that is rich and full, rusty leaf-hues, crunchy on the ground, air-born in the breezes. Like a flick of a light-switch, that change from summer. I almost forgot about fall, but now I feel a bit bombarded by the way it so fully asserts itself.
I am moving on Sunday morning to a brand new place, somewhere that I have been thinking about for a long time. As much as I let my mind wander around the potential of what's going to happen, I feel pretty sure that I don't know and can't know until I arrive. So I just feel this little tangle in my belly, that twists and pulls tighter when I move certain ways. I think if I make myself productive and just keep looking at what is still here, then surely I will soon be over there and then there will be no more wondering, just plain being. And I am so excited for that just being, taking myself off this trajectory. Like putting on a blindfold and spinning before taking a step. I don't think it actually matters in which direction I step, I want to let my feelings prompt me and see where that leads me.
If you have a wandering mind that wonders too, and you roll around potential futures, then maybe we can manifest some thought, share a cup of tea in a sunny living room, maybe it will be winter then, another switch gone through?
There is so much that I was to ravel/unravel. So much that I want to write down and turn into something tangible. So many images in my head that I want to see painted, made into the kind of colours you can look at twice.

haiku you

maybe in the morning

you and mooz are both
crochety and cantankerous
old man, old girl cat

how it is

this is how it is
if this is how it is, then
I don't know nothin'

a whack of lightyears

distance to the moon
let us sit in this much space
keep our bodies close

earlier today...

seagulls fly in vees
got no sense of direction
just flying that way

all of this has come in through the window

(Driving home in the dark I saw a blowing piece of garbage, moving like a cat's tail across the dark highway. In the split second that it was a cat, my whole body tingled and jolted. It was just a piece of garbage, and so I relaxed and that was it. But it was a reminder of the power of my mind over my body. And my body tricks my mind too, and it goes both ways I guess.)

Thinking things through:

Steps through tall grass and brush, bending trees away, travelling into a different state where the welcomed rain soaks us like submergence. The air turns sideways and sweeps us up into the foggish clouds- thunder claps on our ears, drawing our shoulders together and the air quickly into our lungs.
The river there is warm to our already wet selves, first trudging then finding the spot just deep enough to float on my back (my new summer dress floating all around me), rain drops on my face, and the reverberating thunder all in my underwater ears.
Earlier,
my fortune told in the glowstick tent: I paid you five times my fare and you told me my partial fate- that I can never go back, that things are never going to be the same as I thought they would. I didn't think you knew who I was talking about (and now I don't know who I was talking about), but you said it didn't matter who, it was still the same thing. Then you blessed me with gold glitter- which was still caked to my scalp the next sunny/foggy morning.
And then,
seeing you, briefly like the first time but you hugged me so nicely and tightly, and I was sizing up your friend, imagining all possible futures like I always do, and wishing I'd never brought the other along- but then again feeling good too, sort of boundless and encouraged in proper directions because it's away from the way that one's heading, and maybe it has to take all of that to figure these things out.
Still,
finding stray flecks of gold glitter, days later and in unlikely places. Each fleck reminding me of something else she'd said, or just sparking some memory of that great open space and all the places I just inhabited, briefly and more lasting.
Later,
sitting awake all night with you, letting you guide me through my thought clouds manifested, and cancelling my apologies (for the way I'm thinking, why do I even think that way, that things must be different than I think). You settle me and help me to unravel myself.
Now,
can't figure out my feelings about you exactly, but feeling this budding thing inside me that is being watered and shone on. I think that roots have been growing in there for a long while maybe, never knew what they were up to, still don't know what this thing will turn into, but feeling open minded and hearted. Learning to just be what I am and open up all of the doors and windows so that good things can come inside to visit and/or stay.

And a new "to do": think, write, read, paint, share, sew, clean, drink, talk, remember, stretch, sleep, dream, wake up, think.

goose congregation

...would be the name of my band if I had one. Anyone want to start a band with me?

long steep, deep sleep

Clarksburg turned one hundred and fifty today. We joined in on the celebration with five cent strawberry ice cream cones, a pile of locally grown vegetables, 'heavenly raspberry' jam, a big pot of wild mint, free meat samples, Dahlia dancing on a chair, live band on a wagon playing all of the Wilno classics, and that heavy strong sunlight that cuts through any coolness in the air or shade. Beautiful day.

Earlier, the car ride down to Wonderland with my close kin. Cutting the hangovers with cold Maclays that are getting warmer by the minute. Blasting the Fugees, Janis Joplin, salsa music. Dancing in our seats and woo-who-ing every so often to let out the building excitement. The greenest scenery, the backroads, all singing 'no woman no cry' together. Getting the truck drivers to honk their horns for us. Trying to make a 'honk if you're horny' sign, but no takers (or maybe the writing was too small or too faint). Riding The Behemoth while tipsy. The flat tire and speedy spare change. Cookie-wich and funnel cake, and sleeping the whole way home. Such good company, such a good day.

Earlier still- cuddling with Callie on the couch, watching the Baby Sesame Street movie. Thinking about her tiny feet and about being able to watch her grow up and be able to be a part of her life. Hunter and his smile when he first realizes he's awake and it's a new day again. Wanting to remember moments years from now when moments will be different.

Now, steeping mint tea. Going to sing out loud, write some things down, and go to sleep deeply.

hey that's a morning moon

Dreamt about an older version of Callie, but Hunter was the same age.

Listened to the rain for ages, sounded like taps on full blast coming through my window.

Cleared some floor space in my new room and woke up feeling like it was a different space altogether.

Flowered tablecloth treasure from Meow for $20 (a splurge) now hanging in the window and I'll love to look at it every morning.

Now the rain is falling silently. Still coming down fast, but in such slim drops-to-streams that it seems to meet the ground gracefully. Barely visible actually, unless seen in front of the giant old pine tree's shadows.

Thinking about a lot of things, but also nothing really in particular. It's so quiet, that's nice.

so dandy and fine, so young and so cruel

Sarah Harmer last night at the old Meaford Opera House. Lovely view from the balcony, acoustics were perfect. Hearing almost all of the songs from the new album, and loving them, and being excited to hear them again. Thinking about her songs, the way she sings about simple things, and complicated things. The feeling of certain weather, of a way it is with a person, how she creates an atmosphere that feels really tangible whether its a place or a feeling. Such a beautiful rainy evening. And Lindi Ortega with her Dolly Parton-esque voice, so powerful and folky and sweet. Listening to music like that makes me crave playing music, to sing my heart out and hit high notes. I want to sit close to someone and harmonize. Where are all of the sing-songs going on? In my car alone is good but it's never enough.

Today, in a little while, I am going to see my new friend Mary Ellen for some energy therapy. See about my chakras. Maybe get some things aligned, figure out where the sore spots are and get things flowing again.

I have decided to move out of the little space in my head that I've been inhabiting and get my skin and my brain exposed to the outside world again. I need to feel some cold gusts, some hard rain or just dew, hot sun, shade, hot sand, water on my feet, cold water plunges in my undies, some night air, morning air, air in my lungs whooshing through my window, on my bike, stretch my muscles, sweat out everything, build up some things, get rid of some shit, make some shit.

I have been perpetually writing to-do lists- write some letters, bake some bread, stretch, find a good pencil and pen, figure everything out, write it down, write down my dreams.

The other night I set my alarm clock for 5:15am, enough time to get ready and be at work on time. Then I got myself into that in-between state and I dreamt that I needed to make a load of tuna sandwiches for the Shriner's convention that was happening at work. I re-set my alarm clock to 4:20am thinking that the extra hour would be enough time to make the sandwiches. When the alarm went off at 4:20 I awoke with a start- remembering the sandwiches sort of, having to go through what I know in my head, and decide whether the sandwiches were real or something that my mind made up. The Shriner's were definitely real. I eventually decided that I probably didn't need to make sandwiches and so I went back to sleep. It makes me wonder what else I do when I'm sort of sleeping. When my physical body is still working normally, dexterous enough to fiddle with an alarm clock, who knows what else.

Just finished 'Generation A' and in a strange way it has mirrored certain thoughts I've been having about technology lately. I don't want my future to get absorbed into something I don't understand. I don't have a complete phobia, but I know certain things for sure- I prefer wood to metal or plastic. I want to hear someone's voice straight from the source. I want to see words written down the way a hand holding a pen writes them down. I need to feel energy from organic matter. I don't even know what I'm saying, it's just a feeling.

Morning is going by, coffee is burning little holes in my belly, sun is shining so strongly onto my backyard, Winnie's paws are wet and dirty from digging, time is just time is right now and now and, now I am going to go back outside.

cloud lifting

Early morning pep talk to myself: I've been the biggest grump, walking around with a dark cloud over my head for what feels like forever. I need to give myself some advice, or learn how to take some good advice from outside of me. I can change my attitude. If the only thing I can control is how I am feeling, then I need to choose to feel differently, and lift this shade that seems to be blocking out all of the light that shines on the good things. Good things are everywhere, I am so unbelievably lucky and I know it. I need to start acting like it! Train my brain to start the day with some positive thinking. I think I forget that some things take a bit of focus, that it is useful to really concentrate and to visualize and to be present in my thinking. I can't expect change to happen on its own. I can't expect half of the things that I tend to expect. I am going to start making more of an effort.

missin' kitten

Midgeon moved out a year and a half ago. She seemed to go missing for bits of time at once, and then she'd return to our house smelling of woodsmoke and like someone else's house. Then she stopped coming back altogether. We thought maybe she had run away, but it turns out she just moved out, two doors down. I used to still see her in their yard. Once introduced myself to her new care-takers (who just love her, and call her 'Cuba'), and gave them my half-assed blessing because I knew that I couldn't tell a cat what to do. I missed her then. Hadn't seen her for a year, until on the weekend as I sat outside I saw her creeping my way through some tall flower leaves. I kiss-called her and she looked up at me, cooed in that pidgeon-like way that she does, came over to see me. We sat in the big backyard for an hour-long visit. Told her I still loved her, miss her often, wish her well. Would be lovely to do that with all my long lost friends.

six, two, eight

If I can do anything, what am I going to do?
Something different.

First new yoga class last night. It all came back to me at once. I marveled at the regular use of my lungs- three quarters full on a good day. What a bunch of space in my chest, I want to fill it up with fresh air, learn to make the most of it.

I have been building up some muscles lately, and it felt so incredible to be engaging them one at a time. Really paying attention to the way my body works, what it feels like to live in this body! What a crazy thing, to live in a body that works along with you. I focus, then I forget. I pay attention, then I wander away. I am going to train myself to be more present.

I think about my Taid saying something to me when he was about ninety, sitting in a chair that was difficult to get in and out of. He doesn't feel any older than he ever was. In his mind he can jump up at once, run up a flight of stairs, stroll through the streets, play jazzy piano music with his fingers and hands. But his body is on a different page. He reminds himself of his brittle bones, thrice broken knees, knobbly knuckles. Oh my goodness. Ninety-three years.

I used to always think about what things would be like when I grow up, when a different time came along. Every day is a different time now. I do feel differently. But mostly it's a strange and misaligned sense that things are supposed to be a certain way. I need to come to terms with not actually knowing anything. Maybe that way I can be more open to anything happening, because anything is going to happen anyway.

My tarot reading told me that I'm at the end of a chapter but there is nothing set in stone as to what happens next. End of something. A chance to start something entirely new. Things have never been like that before, at least not really. I am going to learn to open my heart to the universe.

Six seconds in, hold for two, eight out. All through the nose. I am learning one thing at a time.

where did you come from, where did you go?

Sitting in the sun in my Jughead nightie, second mug of coffee. Sun so bright, thinking about how the air smells like caterpillars and it feels early for that. I look down the side of the deck and the tent where they've been sleeping looks sagging and there they are all over the ground, surrounding my parents bicycles.

Scurrying sounds underneath me, Winnie jumps out from the shade under the big chair. A red squirrel carrying a baby red squirrel in her mouth comes running out from under my feet, moving so fast and erratically. Drops the baby, runs in eight different directions simultaneously. Somehow a squirrel (not sure which) ends up running up my back and down my arm! Span of 3 seconds maybe. Gave me chills!

Reminds me of Taid at the cottage, putting peanuts in the crested pocket of his golf club shirt and standing on his lawn. Chipmunks emerge from their homes and run right up his body to fetch the peanuts. Then one time we brought Eddie and Gracie to the cottage. So funny to see big fat cats lounging on the sandy/rocky beach, by the bonfire even. But they killed at least one of those chipmunks and I felt sort of responsible.

Missing the cottage, and Southampton all around, but also feeling such lightness in my chest at the feel of the heat and the smell of the air today. Caterpillar smell.

lovely weekend in reverse

Spent some real time listening to Darkness on the Edge of town, painting, drinking sleepytime tea, and trying to discern whether his voice just sounds slowed down and stretched out or actually is. Listen to it again today to see. Going to learn new songs, going to force fingers to become immune to strings again. Maybe learn how to use a pick to stop blistering thumb, or maybe not. Sing my heart out anyway.

off hand/on purpose

real life/imaginary

true/false, done/undone

morning after tarot, most things are true. well, some things are true.

butterfly chasing bird chasing squirrel

little monkeys.

All these wonderful things are present all the time.

So now, whole pot of coffee and 4 accumulated crossword puzzles. Miles of Aisles or Q? Hmm, Joni. Pretty morning, lucky to be awake, feeling good.

the ties the ties

Every day I am reminded about what a wonderful family I have. My best friends. I don't know about the rest of them, but I never get sick of our family gatherings, even though we seem to be doing it every week these days. But if we can celebrate life together- all occasions- by making delicious food, drinking home-made wine, connecting all these generations together, dancing to salsa music in a crowded living room, all cheeks rosy, all bellies full, all smiles- that is amazing. I am so lucky.

peculiar, and peculiarer

that green

Thinking about that colour of green that is the leaves (still new on the trees) with the high, almost-noon sun shining right through them. That is the colour I would like to fall asleep to. If I could clear out my cluttered head, I would paint the insides of it that colour. I would always feel that uplifting thought, that moment where I have to gasp in air just to catch my breath, induced just by a thought of green and everything that colour means.

so far sunday

Love notes from grade nine romance. Maple syrup-smothered breakfast sausages. Saturday Star crosswords, pretty much three-quarters finished. Two and half cups of coffee. Leftover rum cake. Leftover beer-can chicken. The Carlsruhe Papers, all the FTBs. Figuring out everything. Teaching Winnie new tricks. Cold fingers, cold feet. The Oh-My-Goodness Book. Half a case of Red Baron. DIY books. Clean laundry. Three pairs of scissors? Magnified pencils. Three-twenty-two, oh no!

hey hey hey the end is near! on a good day you can see the end from here

Yesterday evening I drove away from work for the last time, feeling such freedom and thanking goodness that it was still light outside (more than just light, bright sun right level with my eyes). Arriving at the birthday party where the barbeque was loaded full of brightly coloured vegetables, turf and surf, drinking summery drinks and standing close to the people that I love! That feast was a feast of major proportions, so colourful and delicious, and shared with such wonderful company. Oh my life, I am so lucky and so blessed to be surrounded by these things which surround me.

Later on, at the shack of a tavern at the end of the road on the outer edge of town- there's a band playing, nobody dancing except for me just swaying my hips a little bit, standing in the front. I see sitting at the table next to me a young man who has written a poem on a napkin. He won't let me read it, but he asks for my e-mail address. This afternoon, I awake to a poem in my inbox. Ted drove us home, and we kept company together, talking about the pain of a marriage ending after 24 years together, a stranger opening up his kind, wounded heart.

Today, I walked into an art gallery packed salon-style of paintings of trees, and now I might paint something to put into a show in two weeks. At the BVO I found a great pair of little black boots, for two dollars. I finally returned my pile of long-overdue library books, and Jane the librarian, bless her, knocked my fine down to ten dollars from eighteen! I picked up a loaf of cheddar sage bread, and an elk pepperette from the hundred mile market. Both are delicious.

Today, as a lot of days, I find myself thinking so loudly in my head about the universe and the wonderment of everything, and I feel so happy. And now I can finish Prodigal Summer guilt-free.

melting thawts while driving into sunset

Seven thirty p.m. and the sun is a gigantic orange globe, hanging low in the sky. Seen as a perfect circle through the piles of trees but burning my eyeballs when in plain sight. I have rose-coloured sunglasses that turn that blueish evening light into purple, making my vision feel like an old photograph. Everything smells like spring- that dusty road, the wet ground. I like to drive with my windows down all the way. I like to smell the evening air. I have to turn up the music so loud to hear over my noisy car and the whooshing air passing me. I am listening to Jungleland, and I want to be sitting barefoot on a car in the summer, drinking warm beer (or even better, cold beer), feeling that summer feeling. This melting month is the best so far.

stranger poetry

Once when I was younger- not old enough to buy my own alcohol, but dating someone who was- I was sitting outside of the LCBO in Owen Sound trying not to look too conspicuous. I was sitting on the curb in the parking lot, and a man walked up to me and started to tell me about his life. He told me that his name was James. He was a published poet, and he told me that I had probably read some of his poems before, maybe without knowing it. He was intoxicated, that kind of intoxication that seems and smells permanent- and he was on his way to buy some more alcohol for his evening. He has sad watery eyes, red red skin, days old stubble. He sat beside me and talked for awhile, about his poetry mostly. I wanted to read something that he'd written, I asked him where I could find something to read. He asked me if I had a paper and pen, and told me that he'd write me a poem right then. I gave him my brand new notebook and starting in pencil, then switching to pen, he wrote me this poem. And then he flipped the book over and wrote on the last (or was it the first) page another poem. His writing is messy, but I think I have deciphered them.

"Through the

journey through

life your journey

I know God

love's you so

through the

ups and downs

he is always

around" (signed James).

"You know

things can't go

wrong and I

know it's the

same old song

we try every day

in every way

you will do ok."

Sometimes I wonder about this man James and where life finds him, or where he finds life now.

morning window

This is the photograph that I was talking about.

hereyeson the horizon

We have been drawn together by our scents. Holding onto each other in unconscious states where we make the air warm between us. And then we can't remember much else (only that feeling) so we meet again to see what it was.

What a funny way to spend an entire day- drinking until it feels like afternoon and then all of a sudden it's evening. We are cheering together with the tables of older folks (with stickers on their faces). We are celebrating every cheer with swayed down hugs and kisses and those older folks scoff at us for being so silly maybe, and yet they are smiling at us too because we are so young and so happy right now.

You keep telling me that I've got gypsy hair, and the old Czech man (drinking half Creemore, hald Guiness) scolds you for saying that, sayin' I ain't no gypsy and if you only knew what that really meant (to him) then you would take it back! He turns to me and asks me where I found this one, and I don't even really know.

You lead me through empty houses that you have been working on with your hands, through icy streets that threaten to take us down again. Crossing partly frozen streams and treking through snow as deep as I am tall, to stand in the harbour and look out at the frozen water and wood. There is a boat that seems to be full to the brim with rotting fish so we have to run all the way back to the road, following that flattened full moon and wishing we knew more constellations.

Now you are up in the sky, probably overtop of Saskatchewan about now. I hope that you got your window seat to look at the tiny wooden houses (having left the bricks behind). I hope that you will fly back this way again someday.

my life in tea

The Past:
I saw a woman with long fingernails, she let me know how to turn my cup (counter clock-wise three times to get rid of the tears). Her round glasses sat low on her nose, her round face circled with wirey gray hair. She was wearing a necklace with a grey-white oval stone. She smiled up at me and I couldn't help but thinking of her like a canyon lady out of Joni Mitchell's song, telling me my future by the way the tea leaves stuck to the edges of my cup.

Everything is filigreed, there are angels which surround me, charming my life. A 'K heart M', and she lets me see it so I know she's not making it up. "Ken loves Mandy, or something like that", she said. And there it was! She sees five children, or children in five years. She sees a C-trip, maybe Cuba? Australia is in my future, in the next four years for sure. Animals all over the place, especially the Australian kind.

She sees my relationship as a good one, with a guy who treats me well, and she sees that I have great expectations for this to be a great relationship. But he won't be the one I marry. That K looks like scissors now, if it means Katie, maybe watch out for a woman around my boyfriend, a nasty ex-girlfriend. I don't know!

Sitting in this "Salon de Tea", the night felt funny in the first place, the snow finally fallen and the lights gone up downtown. Walking hand in hand to the appointment it didn't even feel like Guelph, I felt older somehow, and I wonder how it will feel to live somewhere where I'm not a student, to be an adult and maybe to feel differently about it.

I'm trying to do homework now that my reading is over, but I want to remember things, and I'm trying not to listen to what she says to him- I don't want to hear it, and I realize that I didn't want him to hear what she was saying to me. She asked if I was pregnant, it was the first thing she asked me. I told her about Emma's miscarriage, and she said she thinks there's another baby in Emma's future, and probably soon! She said that a lost baby never leaves you, that there is no animosity, that sometimes a baby just isn't ready to come about, but that the same baby might come the next time.

The woman who works here is on a computer with her son, and it seems like they are having a personal conversation, with concern over absenteeism, maybe apathy about school. Not arguing, but there's concern, and it seems funny to me that this building houses all of these personal issues and premonitions right now.

I wonder about this tea leaf canyon lady, want to know how she knows the things that she does, how she learned to look into a cup full of wet leaves and see the future and the past. I wonder what her life is like when she goes home. I see her apartment in my head, everything ornate and shiny, probably full of sentimental knick-knacks. I wonder what her family is like.

I think about the things that she said and I wonder now if I'll think about them later when my life lines up with them, or if it doesn't. I'd like to see her again, or someone like her. I'd like to look into my own leaves, I think I am going to try.

The Future:
Everything she said was true, or came true.

An Exhibition of the Art in my Parents' House (assignment from Learning to Love you More)

If by now you are not dead and buried, you are most certifiably married, oh married

As much as it hurts to step out of the warm coccoon at 5:30am, I love being awake. And to think that it's not even noon and I have had what feels like a full day already, it's amazing.

The other night I dreamt about grocery shopping with Adina. We were thinking about making lunches, so we were getting a lot of really good cheeses and olives and the means to make baked goods. And then we walked by the seafood section and there was Robin Williams, chowing down on some mussels. After sucking the slimy little guys out of the shells, you could deposit the empties into this tubular garbage can, kind of like those 'butt-out' smoking stations. I put a whole one in my mouth and crunched down on it, almost breaking my teeth. Immediately I started spitting the debris into the can, slobbering the disgusting juices everywhere. It was awful. Robin thought I was really rude. I think the mussel had gone bad. It reminded me of being in China Beach Provincial Park this summer, finding a clam that was fully closed up and lying on the beach. Trying so hard to pry it open, only to have it burst out the putrid mess of liquified mussel, bright orange and hot gooey gross all over our hands. Do you remember that? We screamed and dropped it, ran to wash our hands in the trickle of a waterfall coming mysteriously out of the rock face. We collected a slew of shiny shells and also crab and crayfish legs. We left the little baggy on the picnic table while we hiked. We came back to catch a big black bird eating up the crab legs! We tried shooing him away but those tasty treats were toast. I had collected them to paint their portraits, but they were really stinky anyway- it's probably for the best. That was a nice day.

a nutshell of memory

"deaf and dumb, blind, and lame"

the roots of my family- you as a kid in north wales, your grand parents or maybe even great

you sleeping. these ones, I don't know who they were.

there is a lot of beauty everywhere. I miss you so much. That watermelon was full of vodka, eaten up and then sculpted.

there are some things that I hope I always remember. That canoe trip will be one of them, I'm sure of it. My eyes give me away. Just before that boat picked us up, Anastasia changed behind a tiny tree and the tour guide saw her in her undies.

we are spelling "Jewel" with our hands. we played with that chicken for so long that day. we were between museums. we were playing cards, I think.

we were reading the muppet book and making funny voices quietly in the corner. we were relaxing after working hard all day. we were spooning. we were just waiting for that giant balloon to burst.

that whole reel of film is on the floor! we were dancing. i was alone in London at my first Wilco concert. you drew that picture on my arm.

that's wales, it's always that beautiful. those are my cousins when they were young. they were six and nine, I think. I don't even know who these people are, but it struck me as such a strange photograph- such a white coloured room, snacking in a florida hotel room or something.

My sisters kids are now the same age as my sister and brother in that picture. that golden sunlight is the kind I am always craving.

this is my family before I was born. I think they stopped taking pictures after I came along.

that hike was all uphill, and then the view was so pretty. we made oatmeal chamomile face masks on that day that we robbed the southampton market blind. this was our party at encounters with canada, I thought I fell in love that week but I was only fifteen but I dunno.

my sister and I used to talk about wishing the other didn't exist, we were so mean to eachother. This is before that. Callie looks so much like Emma does in the picture. I can't picture my parents like this anymore.

people I wish I'd been able to know, places I wish I could go back to and have them be the same way.

sun on the rock, the ice on the river in southampton, a field with falling down house.

i want to go fishing. i want to go to the cottage. and go fishing off the lighthouse dock. there was always a dead fish on shore down there. and we only ever caught baby catfish.

the cottage again.

that doorway leads to the fountain of youth- how do I get there? That was my Taid's optician shop. I carry all my crappy sunglasses around in nice leather cases with "W.E. Davies" written on them in gold.

my dad and uncle bill, in the tub and then with bows and arrows. the princess cabin at snake lake, eight by twelve feet? and cozy cozy. I love it when two photographs blend together like these.

my old kitchen and all of the things that used to sit and hang in there. My taid, looking how he always looked and me wishing I could talk to him.

I want to mix up colours that look and feel like that, and them put them onto something that I can put somewhere to look at.