easy monday, fine and dandy

Deep sleeping and strange dreaming. We are driving together, you the passenger like you always were, me swerving and having trouble, like I always do when I am driving while asleep. I start to pull over, you ask me why and I try to explain that my vision has suddenly become the size of a playing card, held an arm's length away. Like looking at a tiny screen from a distance, rectangular tunnel vision and trying to navigate a windy road. Later, in your big country house we are sitting around with our elbows up on tables, propping up our chins. I am showing you the beeswax beards that I have made for us, "here, you put the candles in these little holes and the whole thing will get warm and malleable and that's when you plaster it onto your face..." Later on, hobbling through sunny streets with showerless wild hair and filthy sunglasses. The bar is closed to the earlycomers and so we find ourselves inside a dive called Bistro de Paris, drinking gigantic five dollar mugs of nameless beer and eavesdropping on the other seven patrons. The men's bathroom door has a window and so I can see the back of every man peeing, see which ones go into the stall or wash their hands. The gambling corner lit up by digital slot machines, where that man is spending all kinds of money, swaying in to press the button so rhythmically like a dance, hoping for five cherries in a row. It aches to see those crispy fives get devoured when we have a loaned $40 to our names, between us. Thinking of Joni, thinking "hey, honey, you got lots of cash, bring us round a bottle and we'll have some laughs" but nope that gamblin' man's just doing his thing and we still have 29 dollars to blow so I guess that's that. Then back across the road to the matinee show of those fine country singer friends. A few more pints and now it's only eveningtime just beginning, can't be the end but we are flat out of money. But we don't want to see the end! So nevermind the end, we are coming over for your specialty rice and spinach! Depanneur deliberations and one big bottle of beer with our last nickels and dimes, but it turns out that you don't even drink and soon enough we have switched to tea (verbena and sage, steeped just right). Taking in your beauty of a voice with your haunting songs, and singing Lhasa and harmonizing and cutting up the garlic and onions like a family and enjoying that meal and sing, sing us some Leonard Cohen, but oh no! You get a phone call from down the hall to keep it down and we laugh our heads off at that and move into the room for a few more songs, marvelling at the words we remember and our voices come together and my, how a good sing song is sometimes all I ever need. When the end has come I take the steps to hobble home and it's lovely to be out when the city is so dark and quiet and empty. I am walking the way I want to, and ignoring the leering cabdrivers and kicking a can and listening to Mama Wolf and home to bed, to bed to sleep. In the morning the weather is trying so hard to be springtime and it's lovely to sit and to listen to songs and to stand up straight with my guitar. Belting out these country songs with real lungfulls of air and real room to breathe and toughened fingertips and increasing confidence, at least in the presence of my one cat audience. Afternoon has found it's way here with that same ease that a regular Monday tends to. Minty tea and tuning out the strangers, but never really. Reminiscing about all kinds of funny moments and feeling lucky in life lately because I get to feel so free and to laugh so constantly and know nothing about the future and that's dandy and fine.

mingus take me away

Sitting at the Grade Bibliothèque public computer listening to Charles Mingus and I have tuned out the immediate world. I keep glancing out the window though, because there is some very nice light shining down today and I feel some weird anxiety about being in here. My lack of home internet has made me feel some occasional funniness about checking things on here, in public. I am sure no one's looking over my shoulder, at least not directly. But still, even just trying to write openly and honestly is hard! I think about the amount of time that I spend spying on strangers, glancing at what they're checking out on youtube (Michael Jackson death conspiracy videos, soap operas, etc.) and I wonder if anyone is spying on me. I dunno, I don't care.
I feel zonked out today. I have been missing my full mobility and craving long walks. The weather has been finicky, but has been looking a little more like spring and that smell of melting things and old garbage makes me feel giddy. Funny how music like this can transform a whole situation. It reminds me of my Taid and then I remembered that I took a reference from someone earlier today who had a voice just like his, and then I remembered that it was his birthday two weeks ago and I didn't even think about him on that day. I guess he would have been ninety-seven? What's up with time and how it can make you feel so funny? And what's that supposed to mean, feeling funny? Well, I can't say. I am working on decluttering my brain and maybe in the process I will be able to work on becoming more articulate with my thoughts. I feel like lately I go through my days just giggling and feeling funny about everything and never really establishing why.

whiskertickled

I woke up this morning because I felt something very soft and gentle tickling the tip of my nose. I opened my eyes to see gigantic cat eyes staring into mine, mitts up on the edge of the bed, our faces inches away from each other's. Whiskertickled awake at 8:40am by that sly girl Mooz, but what was she looking for? I asked her twice, but she just flicked her eyes and ruffled her mane and yawned so big I could see down her esophagus.

smiling strangers

If ever I find myself having some negative thoughts about strangers, or feel my attitude start to turn a little sour, I will have to remind myself to remember something. There are so many kind-hearted people all around, and a sure-fire way to spot them in the crowd is to hobble around on crutches. Everywhere I have ''walked'' for the past six days, I have been faced with smiles, sympathy-eyes, offers of assistance, doors held open, arms held out, looks of concern, coffee delivery and endless words like ''j'espère que tu n'a pas loin a traverser'' or ''I once busted my knee up too, and I know how much crutches suck''. I feel like even though it's precarious to crutch through the slush, there are enough people watching me and waiting to see what is going to happen, that I'll somehow be caught if I fall (again). Or at least helped up or something. People are sweet.
Today was the first day that I caught my positive attitude fading, because I was getting so sweaty in my struggling and I kept remembering how good it feels to walk home from work listening to music and enjoying the fading daylight and just having a spring in my step, and getting so frustrated because I can't do that. It's an incredible thing to have legs that work, which you can push extra hard to make them strong and flexible. It's amazing to be able to jump up to grab something, or to sit cross-legged or to put on your own socks. Or just forget that your legs just do work for you and you don't even have to think about it. I guess it's good to try to think about that stuff when you have it to appreciate, and I know that I do that too. I think about it especially now though, that I have a bit of a challenge to overcome. It's really not that bad and there are many good things coming from it. My upper body is exercising in ways it hasn't since July, I have been sleeping so soundly by the night nighttime rolls around and I am lying down and I automatically get a spot whenever I take transit. But it's the best being the object of all this smiling and so thanks to all of those people for all of that kindness, it's really reassuring.

tea with eva b.

got lost a little while in the stacks and piles of things bringing my inner taurus packrat out kicking and grabbing and no i can't even wear earrings but i want those dangling things and probably i will never wear that but gosh it's so pretty and i guess i am pretty much flat broke but still i guess it's okay to get just this and this and okay this too. the tea was free. walking home then swinging that bag of loot i find myself dancing a bit at every red lit corner and smiling at every stranger and then home mooz is a purrbag and i am eating pickles and rolling around ideas about summer and the future is wide open and time time time is not even going as fast as it usually feels but feels just right...