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.