more – just what you wanted, right?

It’s Sunday night and raining here. It’s been a movie marathon day, ranging from one dystopian scifi movie to another… and a romantic drama – I just finished watching The Notebook and am now a messy, snotty, puddle of mucus and tears. I should have stuck to the dystopian flicks. Nothing like watching two old people die at the same time, while holding hands. I suppose if there was a perfect way to go, that would be it, wouldn’t it?

I’m trying to remember what it feels like to love – the “aimer fort” kind of love that makes your knees weak, your blood course just a little faster and your heart break because it feels so dangerous and wonderful all at once. I am trying to remember the optimism of my youth, when I knew with certitude that I would love and sometimes (more times than not) be loved back. It wasn’t merely a possibility but a given, the natural order of things.

Now, I’m not so sure. How many people actually experience that kind of love? Is it left behind with youth, and it’s inherent naïveté or cockiness (perhaps both in same measure)?

That girl… she’s drifting further away from me each day, and it scares me; scares me that she will leave and never come back.

Oh hell – I know I don’t look the same as I used to thirty or even twenty years ago. To be honest, it doesn’t bother me. I’m so much a better human being now than I was then. I’m everything that I had hoped I’d be, minus a few things that I still have to temper and perhaps outgrow. But for the most part, I’m so much better than I imagined. I just haven’t figured out how to convey that to the world yet – or to the someone – that has been waiting for the me that I am today.

I’m really not any more special than anyone else; we all are pretty wonderful, in our own way. It’s all a matter of opinion and perception and… well, maybe need.

We see what we need in others, that we perhaps don’t have in ourselves. Someone to tell us the truth when we don’t want to hear it, in a way that we’ll listen. Someone who will hear us when we aren’t even coherent to ourselves. Maybe that’s just me. We all search for different things I suppose.

My heart hurts. Sometimes I don’t think I can stand it… and then another day passes, and then another, and pretty soon a week and a month and another year goes by and I wonder how that happened, that passage of time without living fully, and I wonder what it will take for me to truly live before the days stop.

I listened in to an audio conference on Saturday morning and the speaker she said that many people live to 70 but they live the same year over and over again, while few really live 70 year’s worth of living.

I don’t want to be to one living the one year over and over again, but the last time I really, truly, felt alive was twenty years ago, when I’d decided to marry and move to California.

I don’t know how I could have made such a mess of things, and not fully and wholly grasped the opportunity that had presented itself to me then. It wasn’t about the marriage or the relationship, per se, but about finding myself, and what made my heart sing and building a life – for myself – independently of anyone but myself. How could I have not been able to find it, sooner, rather than later?

But I know how. I was waiting on Steve – I was waiting for us to build something together and I waited so long for that to happen that the time for me to do it myself passed and I had nothing to show for it in the end. What have I contributed to this world? What proportion of what I should have given to this world has actually been given? I wonder, sometimes, how profoundly I have failed.

Anyway. I need a shower. And perhaps a tea. Yes… I’ll make myself a mug of decaf earl grey tea.

self containment

It occurs to me that I haven’t been doing much writing or journaling lately, here or elsewhere, my posts mostly photographs or descriptions of things. (Perhaps you are all thankful for that – I do go on about things, sometimes.)

I have to admit that I’ve been in a weird place for a while, and my constant self-examination was becoming tiresome (to myself; perhaps to you too).

The rain has returned after two glorious weeks of uninterrupted sun. It trickles and shooshes, somewhere between mist and shower. It calms, sometimes. Certainly it inspires me to stay indoors, though during the week I have no choice but to go out into it. I tell myself I won’t melt, but the moisture is effusive – it permeates everything. (Enough about rain, already.)

It’s quiet in here this morning. Earlier, as I lay in bed and was going through email messages on my smart phone and started link hopping, I eventually arrived at this post.

It is beautiful and simple and touching. Something that I don’t seem to be able to evoke when I write lately, so I’ve chosen to give it a rest. Mostly because if I can’t write something gorgeous and moving (and definitively lacking in despondency), why bother writing at all?

When I write, it feels like one long and wailing lament. But then… but then I think I can’t be the only one to feel this way, to feel the contraction and the need to pull myself in, the need to contain myself, because overflowing is just dangerous and wreaks havoc. Better to let things settle and reach coherence, to harden like a diamond.

So I see, and I notice, and I rejoice in little bits, by giving hand wrought things and smiles, by being present with those who surround me, by being attentive to the rain tapping at the eaves.

knitty things – progress

knitty things

Grrrr. Starting this thing over, since I can’t seem to stay focused on which row I am working(!) despite the row counter(!) and I also can’t seem to follow a pattern *cough, cough*. I inadvertently added several stitches (like five!) after resuming work on the scarf following several months of dormancy. NOT that it was a vision of perfection prior to this, mind you, because as I mentioned earlier, I would regularly lose count of which row I was on, so when I’d pick it back up again to knit on it some more, I’d do my best guesstimate and it would not always be accurate.

SO… out come all those hours of stitches, and starting it over once that is done. It is the Old Shale Scarf by Tiennie and available as a free download on Ravelry, knitted with Mini Mochi yarn in the Brandied Apricots colourway on US6 needles. It will be pretty once it’s done properly. I’ll admit that when I started this project (ages ago) I was a somewhat less seasoned knitter. Not that I’m great now, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least my gauge doesn’t wildly fluctuate between segments and I now cast on (and off) loosely enough so as not to skew the shape of the piece. Yay me. So here I go… starting over. At least The Fat Squirrel Speaks podcasts are keeping me company.

small art 5.4.13

mannequin carnage redux

small art 4.28.13

rainy weather, recaps & online dating

Well, the rain has returned. We had a nice little stretch of sunny spring goodness, so much so that the dandelions and all manner of other wild flora are blooming with abandon. I shouldn’t lament, but I will anyway, though I am now equipped with some rockin’ gum boots and a red hooded spring rain jacket that I managed to blow the two top buttons off of in less than a week. How’s that for superhero protuberances? Guess sewing is on the chore roster this weekend.

Speaking of superheroes… last weekend was the Vancouver FanExpo, this city’s version of Comicon wonderment, which I had the pleasure of attending.

It was (obviously) smaller than the (’08) San Diego Comicon, which is the only other con of this sort that I’ve ever attended, but it did the trick. I was slightly disappointed for the lack of representation from comic publishing outfits (of which there were only two: Arcana – a Canadian outfit, and Aspen), but the fans were out in great number, and they dressed for the occasion. Maybe next year I will too. (Or not.) But seriously… where was Drawn & Quarterly and any number of the big players who must *surely* have enough cashflow to throw some of it towards a booth to connect with the Vancouver fan base?

I found plenty of places to throw *my* money at, as there were many retailers selling books of all kinds of the comic variety, and the artists in the Artists’ Alley (like Diagon Alley, only different) had some pretty sweet art prints for sale. I made acquaintance with some new (and local) artists whose work I wasn’t familiar with, and picked up some small print zine-type stuff which I always love to find but can’t seem to outside of these sorts of venues (or at Meltdown Comics on Sunset, which is no longer just a hop in the car and a drive up the 405). I was also one of the few people going around with a sketchbook and asking for (free) sketches from artists. It’s not that I was being cheap (because I’m not) and I pretty much picked up something from each of them, in the way of comic books or graphic novels or art prints.

On Saturday I had the privilege of attending a Q&A panel with James Marsters and Juliet Landau (find them on YouTube), both of whom were lively and disarmingly engaged with the audience. I’ve never been to an unmoderated Q&A before, so that was interesting and quite delightful. The questioners (mostly) behaved. The lovely Juliet complained of allergies and puffy eye issues, so had on these awesome little sunglasses, and James was trim and dressed all in black looking very yummy. As Dru would say… “rrrrrr-uff!”

And finally, after sharing my newly acquired Process Recess volume 3 (which was one of my new acquisitions obtained at the con) with a gal sitting across from me during my ride home on the Westcoast Express a couple of days ago, come to find out that she is one of the mobile app designers at POF (Plenty of Fish) and we had a rousing conversation about all things art and online dating. She encouraged me not to give up on the process, which I had pretty much determined wasn’t working for me. In light of that conversation I asked a (male) friend of mine to write a profile narrative as if he were me – maybe I’m just not going about it the right way. Let’s see if it’s any better than what I’ve been able to come up with. I guess perhaps removing my Blowjob Princess award I received on one of those silly OKC (OK Cupid) tests from my profile was a good place to start.

insomnia

{way too early to be up}

Sleep is eluding me tonight. I went to bed and fell asleep just fine, but awoke around 3am and can’t seem to get back to sleep. Perhaps the cat awoke me (she meows at the bedroom door sometimes), and once awakened I’ve been unable to fall back to sleep.

The only emotion that has been prevalent these days is sorrow. It’s weird to still feel like a teenager at almost fifty, still crying into the night. I spent so many nights crying myself to sleep during my marriage, lost and feeling misunderstood and unseen, and then, when I knew it was ending, cried some more in an attempt to purge the sense of failure and to mourn the love that was no longer in my life. With my mother’s passing, my only real deep sense of belonging and being loved left. I was cut adrift. And to understand how fucked up a dynamic the relationship between my mother and I was, it would take some time and a lot more writing.

I know some rationalize (or perhaps romanticize) the notion that love doesn’t die (I wonder where hatred drifts off to?), that the universe is filled with love, and that we just need to reach in with our big ladle and get ourselves a cupful of the good stuff and it’ll be there, but I can’t feel it.

All I feel is energy unmanifest, without emotion or intention, good or otherwise. This sense of it being good and beneficent, I think that’s a human construct, something we put in place in order to make life bearable when the going gets tough. Something to believe in when we have nothing left inside of us to get us to the other side.

Now I’m not saying that there isn’t beneficence in the world. I see and find it in people. This dialog (ingenious writers!) between to characters from one of the final episodes of Buffy illustrates the viewpoint:

Anya: There was this other apocalypse this one time. And, well, I took off. But this time, I don’t… I don’t know.
Andrew: Well, what’s different?
Anya: Well, I guess I was kinda new to being around humans before. And now I’ve seen a lot more, gotten to know people, seen what they’re capable of and I guess I just realize how amazingly… screwed up they all are. I mean, really, really screwed up in a monumental fashion.
Andrew: Oh.
Anya: And they have no purpose that unites them, so they just drift around, blundering through life until they die. Which they-they know is coming, yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They’re incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane, and yet, here’s the thing. When it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting. But they do. They never… They never quit. And so I guess I will keep fighting, too.

Most people will rise to the occasion… there are moments in our lives when we all rise to that place. And also moments when we sink, and do despicable things. Our nature is dual, and yet we are capable of such greatness and beauty.

In a weird way I’ve isolated myself from most everything. At first I thought it was because I needed healing, time to rediscover myself and figure out my next direction in life, but the more I stay in this place, the more I wonder if I’ll ever get out of here, if anyone will ever be able to reach me, or if anyone will care to venture in. I’ve lost patience for most things. The drama bores me. It is unnecessary and tiresome, a waste of time and energy. I know the point of being here is the interaction, but I don’t want to interact on those levels. And I think it scares people, because I have a way of stripping things down to the essentials. You know, we really are all fucked up, and to not see it for what it is truly is a disservice to ourselves and others.

The only thing I do these days in the way of interaction is random acts of kindness. It is the only thing that brings people to their surface, and perhaps me as well.

small art 4.21.13

small art 4.5.13

small art 4.3.13

On Knowing What You’re Good At & Being Driven

A year or so ago they held one of those personality typing workshops (based on the Keirsey Temperament Sorter) at the office for the administrative folks to assist us in better understanding ourselves in relation to working with others. I’ve done this sort of testing at other workplaces as well, using different models, but the result was always similar: those who were already somewhat self-aware became moreso, and those who weren’t prone to self-inquiry or observation (in general) would revert to whatever behavioural patterns they were prone to and the exercise was pointless (at best) or served as yet one more weapon in “their” arsenal to better exploit the perceived weaknesses of those who were not type As.

But the personality typing isn’t specifically the point of this post, it’s merely to point out an observation that I made during the sessions in regard to something someone said during the event.

Throughout the sorting process of establishing which category one falls under, certain traits are highlighted, and I remember one of the participants saying that being “driven” was one of hers. I wondered, at the time, what she meant by that, because she was pretty much at the top of the totem pole in our current hierarchy and there didn’t appear to be anywhere else to go. Of course I am not privy to much, so it didn’t surprise me that about a year later an announcement was made about her transitioning into a newly created role that was administrative but no longer secretarial. She is good at what she does and makes this obvious to everyone that crosses her path. A typical type A personality, she is great at self-promotion. There certainly is a drive to succeed, and she exploits whatever means there are in order to achieve a goal. Being goal-oriented is part of who she is.

I am not a type A personality. While I can certainly list the things that I am good at, I am less than likely to make you aware of what those things are, figuring that if you haven’t caught on to them yourself then you are either a bit dense or have no appreciation for them, and hence even if I were to point them out to you, you wouldn’t find them remarkable anyway. Many of my “skills” are soft skills, intangible and difficult to articulate or administer to a goal-oriented business setting. Clearly this is probably not the best way to “get ahead” in a competitive market, but then I am not the competitive sort. I don’t enjoy competing and find it (*yawn*) tiresome and counterproductive.

I think that making a workplace run optimally is really like putting together a 3D puzzle; you gather all the pieces and see where they fit best. Unfortunately that is mostly not the way things are implemented, due to several factors, one of which may be that the puzzle pieces may not agree with the overall assessment of where they are placed, but also because managers tend to be unable to really accurately assess what peoples’ true skills are, looking at them from the cubby hole they have been slammed into, irregardless of the person’s initial shape (shaped peg, shaped hole, not always fitting together properly).

So, pulling back from the tangent I’ve indulged myself in, how, you ask, does this apply to this post?

Being a creative type in the typical corporate workplace can be a difficult thing (I will include myself in this group). Many of us have a wide variety of skills because we have a natural curiosity, and yes drive, to learn new things, the steady flow of incremental improvement something of import to us. While not all of us are so, we are also mostly introverts, which means we tend to not overtly run around our workplace flying our awesome-and-we-know-it flag. Mostly, we are subdued and compliant, always willing to conform to the needs of the company as they arise. In fact, if it weren’t for us there probably would be no sense of balance in the workplace.

At any rate, self-promotion must be prefaced by self-assessment, and since we introspective folks tend to do that really well when it comes to figuring out the areas of improvement that we must focus on, we seldom seem to notice (much less acknowledge) the things that we are good at, especially those intangible things that are important to the smooth running of an organization as well as society as a whole. So I encourage you to make a list of your contributions and accomplishments from the perspective of someone who already does that well. You don’t have to be that person all the time, but certainly slip into the persona when doing something (such as self-assessment) that feels unnatural and counter-intuitive.

As for drive. Well, that is an interesting word.

I am currently reading the most gorgeous bit of writing I’ve read in a long time, called tiny beautiful things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar (see here). The book is a compilation of pieces from an advice column on therumpus.net, an online publication that calls itself ‘the online urban hipster coffee shop’. One of the letters was from a creative writing professor of a classful of soon-to-graduate literature majors about to set foot into the world with much trepidation as to how they will be able to apply the skills that they clearly have but which most of society sees as “impractical”.

I will quote a part that I found incredibly poignant, because it applies to those that create things, and how despite being undervalued, at the core of us is an intrinsic knowledge that we ARE capable of great things:

Years after I no longer worked at the last restaurant where I waited tables, my first novel was published. The man who’d been my manager at the restaurant read about me in the newspaper and came to my reading. He’d often been rude and snappish with me and I’d despised him on occasion, but I was touched to see him in the bookstore that night. “All those years ago, who would’ve guessed we’d be here celebrating the publication of your novel?” he asked when we embraced.

“I would have,” I replied.

And it was true. I always would have guessed it, even all the time that I feared it would never happen. Being there that night was the meaning of my life. Getting there had been my every intention. When I say you don’t have to explain what you’re going to do with your life, I’m not suggesting you lounge around whining about how difficult it is. I’m suggesting you apply yourself in directions for which we have no accurate measurement. I’m talking about work. And love.

We pull things out of ourselves. Our calling is to express things that somehow form within us and ask to be released into the world. They serve a dual (in fact a multi-) purpose: to show a view of something that others may not have seen and to express the things that move us, which in turn may move others as well in ways that perhaps they would never have been capable of being moved had it not been for our voice.

That is important work. Never forget that. And always, always know your true worth.

sunset

I’m tired tonight. Bone tired, despite resting for most of the weekend. Despite the appearance of the sun yesterday and today, and absorbing same like a sponge during forays outdoors over the weekend and at lunch time today.

This is a tiredness of the soul, I think. I sit this evening in semi-darkness, light filtering from the overhead stove light and the lamp at the kitchen entrance into the dining area where I sit at the table with my iPad propped up, the wireless keyboard submitting without complaint to the tapping of my fingertips as I type this. From the lamp’s switch hangs a tiny porcelain rabbit charm with a carnelian bead and faceted crystal strung on a red knotted string – a talisman that is supposed to bring luck and prosperity. I am not feeling very lucky. Or prosperous. Still, I hope that the tide will shift. Soon.

A dream that I had (last night? the night before?) resurfaces as I dig deeper into this sorrow that has bobbed to my surface: I dreamt of Steve and how he pulled out these haphazardly folded, crumpled up blue jeans from one of his travel bags and it is teeming with insects – worms, mealy and earth varieties, pill bugs, grubs of all shapes and sizes, and hands them to me to wash. My aversion to the bugs is outweighed by a sort of stoic resolve in knowing my responsibility, so I drop the pants into the washing machine and get the cycle going. I can’t remember much more than this. Perhaps more will come, but I think this is enough to work with, if I choose to dissect this message from my psyche.

I haven’t examined this dream too much yet. I’m sure it means many things, on several levels. Today I finally popped our marriage dissolution agreement into the mail; I’d signed it about a month ago but then it languished on my desk at work for another month. The signing of it took about a year for me to accomplish. Why this has been such a difficult process for me, I have no idea. It will be four years that we have moved apart (geographically) at the end of this June. By that point it had already been ten months that we had made the decision to part ways, on the basis that whatever love that may have been present at some point during our marriage was no longer there. This end of April would have marked the twentieth anniversary of our wedding. In many ways I am still mourning the end of something, or perhaps mourning the fact that the something that I had hoped would be our marriage never was, and now I am old. I’m not so old that I can’t function or take care of myself, but my youth is gone, and with it, it feels like, also my dreams, particularly those regarding a loving, nurturing, intimate relationship with a another.

All this talk about loving self first in order to be able to love another… on some level it makes sense, of course, but I think that growing to love self through loving another and receiving that other’s love makes more sense to me. I think we all like, maybe even love, things about ourselves. Wholly loving every aspect of ourselves is a more difficult task, and certainly doing so with another is perhaps as difficult. Yet I think it is possible, but it all hinges on how two people relate to each other.

How can we be accepting of our shadow parts when the person closest to us – the one we so desperately wish to entrust the secrets of our soul to – is unable to fully embrace the very parts we ourselves are appalled with, and mirrors back to us the same disgust and nonacceptance we perceive at our core? If the dark sides of ourselves aren’t acceptable to the person who is supposed to love us, then how can we function in the relationship, how can it thrive? How can we evolve and shift our view of our shadow parts if we are asked to disown them, to “fix” them, instead of integrating them in a more positive way and shifting them so that they serve us rather than stymie us?

So I put it to the Universe: let it bring me someone who can see these shadows within me and find them to be beautiful facets of who I am – tweaked a little, perhaps, but still wholly acceptable and loveable in spite of them (and that I may do the same in kind).

spilling open

The night (and weekend) is drawing to a close. I am laying in bed in the darkness, savouring the sweetness of a couple of freesia blossoms on the simple altar set up on my dresser, my feet warming beneath my blankets, toes tucked under an herbal heat pack stuffed with rosemary and lavender.

I’m feeling sad again, though I truly can’t name the exact cause of my sadness. It is many things, really. Mourning losses, over again; could have beens, never wases and should have beens. Never agains.

I mourn that I have no living parents left.

I mourn that the only sibling I have has grown so distant from me over the years that we can’t even share the truth of our hearts, or have adequate words with which to do so, or trust that no matter what, we will not add to the other’s pain.

I mourn that the relationship that I thought I had with my husband, at first imagining that it would be solid and impervious to all storms, proved itself to be something else entirely.

I mourn that the one relationship I thought could weather such a storm, or the capacity to grow into one that could, is being experienced by another person who in so many ways is very much like myself.

I mourn my younger self, who was beautiful even though she never thought she was, though she still had enough confidence in her appearance to know she could sometimes be almost pretty, and her body was still desirable to someone that she might also find desirable.

I mourn the silencing of my heart, the part that was intrepidly pursuing love despite repeated failed attempts.

There is a saying (from Rumi, I believe, or perhaps Hafiz) that says that to love gives us strength and to be loved gives one courage. This is true, but I think, also, that it takes great courage to love – to really surrender to loving another and *to the love of* another – but to do so also gives one great strength. I know this to be true, because I have felt how unwavering that sense of faith is in the strength of a common love. The hard part for me, now, is to overcome my skepticism about the transient nature of this love, to allow it to infuse me, should it ever present itself to me again.

Perhaps, when that happens, my faith and spirituality will also, once again, be restored.

on being vulnerable and open

Blogging has once again slowed to a crawl. Between fits of writing (both poetry and prose) and shooting the odd photo when I am awed by my surroundings, I also fulfill other functions: single-parent mothering, full time office working, part time (and very novice) yogining, friend being (to many, far and wide, and close), and occasional knitting. (That Hogwartz/Gryffindor scarf is creeping along slowly.) And soon to be (officially) a divorcée. Weird, this final severing. Such a huge chunk of my life tied in to this now defunct part of who I was and identified with, still searching to pick up the threads of where “I” left off and veered off from so long ago, in order to reclaim myself.

My ex-husband has been in a relationship with someone for quite some time now, and yet I continue to be alone in my life. Not because I don’t wish to share it with another, but because I wish to share it with the right person, and we just haven’t met yet. I also continue to nurse past hurts; it is surprising to me how long they take to heal. I wonder, sometimes, if they heal better when you let them show and share them with others, allowing them to be loved away. Still, I can’t seem to do that yet, even though I long to be able to do so, to be able to open my heart again to another.

I am happy, though, in this simplicity. Each time I look around me I appreciate what I have, the beauty that I see, in nature and in those whose lives cross with mine. I see kindness and humour and fearless vulnerability. And love. I am blessed.

crescent moon

in the silence, words find their way out

The house is silent. Our upstairs neighbours must have left the building. My son is still asleep. The shushing from the light rainfall and car tires making their way through the wet are my backdrop. I just lit a stick of incense, too. Establishing sacred space in which to create, I guess. Waiting to hear what direction to go in, and which project to pursue. Silence. Ease.

Happy Saturday. I’m off to write…..

raindrops on windows

on this eve of a new calendar year…

may you each find your place

small art 12.21.12

small art 12.20.12

holy mother-trucker cookies

the recipe. and silpat mats rule!

needs

A friend of mine recently mentioned that he and his partner argue all the time. I asked “about what?” and got “anything… everything… literally” as a reply.

But… why?

Seriously. What the hell is there to fight about?

• Unmet expectations and needs?
• Divergent viewpoints and thought processes?
• Poorly synched principles and values?

At their core, arguments are never about the bone that’s being picked; they are about the underlying story:

• the feeling of not being heard, cared for, respected;
• the feeling that our trust in another has been misplaced or violated;
• feeling that the other is unsupportive and not engaged;
• it’s about not communicating the things that are going on inside of us in a way that the other can understand and perhaps find a way to support or appease.

It’s never about scrubbing out the toilet bowl or taking out the garbage. It’s about the why… why the toilet wasn’t scrubbed, and what it means in the context of the two individuals who find themselves in conflict with each other.

In the end it’s about communication, or the lack of it… or rather not having the skills (and at some point, the will/patience) to decode each other’s emotional expressions and landscape.

And about:

• Unmet expectations and needs;
• Divergent viewpoints and thought processes;
• Poorly synched principles and values.

Living this|close to another human being is messy. It takes a lot of patience and forgiveness, because no matter how hard we try not to have them (or to stuff them), we all have quirky human schticks and they aren’t going away any time soon.

If we can’t find the humour in them, and love each other in spite of them, all is lost.

As for me? I question everything. Because everything must be scrutinized and dissected so that I can understand (myself, as well as other). I will wear you down, and will wear you out. Beware.

Which is why I am single. And I do have a sense of humour, in case you were wondering.

And now to bake some more cookies (provided the electricity stays on).

softness

The gently falling snow reminded me of this Vonnegut verse that my friend Kelly Kilmer shared on Facebook today:

‎Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. ~Kurt Vonnegut

snow!

soon… soon light will overcome dark

’tis the season

The recipe for these peanut butter blossom cookies can be found here.

The recipe for these chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies can be found here.

inspired by story

Dichotomy

I’m learning to hold
a space for you;
here in this place
tears come, in waves,
sorrow crashing, lashing out
and holding me breathless,
wondering how I got
to this fibrillating heart
and tugging of soul.

In this space I breathe;

I see the waves and feel,
oh yes, I feel again, see
how to unfold beneath
your gaze, how your light
shines, washes over me,
how beneath your hand
I come alive to remembered
potential, my heart
alight with a million suns,

or stars; in this space

both exist, in tandem.
In this place, your
absence holds presence, and
the void left in your wake
an indelible indent
filled with longing for
what is already there
and what is yet to appear,
both; indivisible.

(c) 2012 Adriane Csicsmann Giberson

mini tide pool potential

the journey IS the destination

I’ve felt strongly about this for some time, but Alan Watts puts it so eloquently, and the visuals are lovely too. Enjoy.

armchair travelling

Tea parties and all that

And down the rabbit hole she went.
The unquestionable draw of ‘what if?’;
necessary tractor beam for the excursion.

What goes on down there in the lofty darkness,
somewhere I’ve only been in mind?

Ever the armchair traveller,
garnering enough gumption
to finally take a plunge;

or not.

Just a cup I’ve reached the bottom of,
where my heart is etched in tea.

(c) Adriane Csicsmann Giberson 2012

through the trellis

Years ago, when I first moved out west, the oddest thing about the Christmas season was the lack of snow. Something about seeing coloured Christmas lights reflected in mountains of white show is… magical. Snow acts as insulation and alters the acoustics of a home, lending an already quiet moment that much more.. quietude.

Growing up I loved nothing more than to sit in our darkened living room late at night, the curtains to our front window open to the street to watch gently falling snow outside all the while admiring the juxtaposition of that scene against the beautiful multicoloured lights of our Christmas tree.

It took some getting used to, these snowless Christmases. Black is reflective when it’s slick with rain (which is often at this time of year), but it really doesn’t have that quality that reminds me of my days of yore.

Regardless, this is my favourite time of year, a time during which people’s hearts soften and they feel a little more compelled to think of others, and share their good fortune with others.

However you celebrate this time of year, I wish you all much joy and merriment — may the sweetness of these moments carry you through another year. Wassail!

wild and precious life

“Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?”

From The summer day;
New and Selected Poems 1992

where to live

The verdant draw was compelling -
a promise of fecund lushness after
the arid dust that blew through my cracks.
Impatiently I waited for my neglected parts
to grow in this green, expectant
that I would lay down upon it
and rest, grow roots,
but those take time to sprout.
For the first little while I was seed
looking for a place to germinate,
tumbling along, carried by wind and rain -
there was no rest,
only the dysphoria of upheaval,
the discomfort of change,
of not yet finding my place
amidst the smell of freshness
that the green promised would come.
It turned treacherous, instead,
thin layers of moss on every surface,
slick rocks licked by the rush of water
creating an impasse of sorts.
Moving is easy in theory: belongings
packed into boxes and trucks,
loaded and driven or shipped
across roadways and borders,
to do the reverse at the opposite end.
You can inhabit a place, unpack,
put nails into the walls and hang things
but it takes a while for it to inhabit you,
for home to sink in, if ever,
to embrace you welcomingly.
Sometimes this never happens.
Sometimes the welcome you were expecting
is yet another rebuff, clear indication
of yet another place to not quite fit in to.
The wondering comes then,
whether it is you who can’t fit anywhere,
whether the search for home will ever bear fruit,
wondering whether the one place
that needs inhabiting is you.
(c) Adriane Csicsmann Giberson 2012

by the light of the moon

baked goods

ring around the moon means rain soon

through the rain, shine

morning haze

arborous filigree

sweet samples

spontaneous offer of samples = the best thing ever!

(chatting with the sales crew is a good thing…)

frost

the promise of light

NaNoWriMo set up… ready for take-off

nothing like cobbling a writing set up together when you (or rather I) don’t have a real computer…

happy halloweenie

mannequin carnage

the beginnings of a spectacular sky

legends and inspirations

Well… I almost missed my date with greatness. My alarm was set to ring early; I awoke with a start at 8:40 (late, late, late) realizing that I hadn’t reset the alarm to ring on a weekend day. So alarmed, I threw clothes on and ran out the door. Traffic cooperated and I made it into town in record time (I had intended to take transit – oh well).

I met Colleen near the office and we drove to Granville Island with enough time to spare for an inhaled cup of some JJ Bean dark roast and a chocolate almond croissant from L’Échalotte et al. Breakfast of champions (you know… sumo wrestlers).

Hundreds of people are packed into the theatre, many no doubt like me waiting to be in awe by the grande dame of Canadian literature. Peggy (as she is many times addressed by her writing peers during the panel but whom most of the world knows as Margaret) is to Canadian literature (or literature in general) what Judi Dench is to the theatre. Resplendent. And incredibly funny.

All of the panel participants are wonderful and provide great Insight both into the historical aspect of Canadian literature throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into this one. Savvy. Something I am (perhaps obstinately) not. The arts are a fickle realm to operate in – we all wish to indulge the creative genie living in each of us but we are seldom able to make a living doing only that (because, as was mentioned during the discussions, there is a popular notion that the results of our endeavours should be free because why should people pay for something that we had so much fun in creating?).

At the end of the panel they pulled a name out of a hat – let me correct that to Margaret Atwood pulled Colleen’s name out of a hat… a brilliant stroke of luck since their original method for awarding the prize (which was from the publishing house Anansi and included a gorgeous black leather bag stuffed full of their ten newly released A-List titles, and an A-List Roots t-shirt) was a bust when they realized many people had chucked their feedback forms into the recycle bin – we never even got one. Since Colleen purchased both of our tickets she had the grace to share some of the spoils, and I’m looking forward to reading (for the first time, I’m ashamed to admit) Graeme Gibson’s Five Legs.

Recently (at one of the north by northwest studio 2 book club recordings I attended), one of the audience members asked the eternal question of the unpublished wannabe published author: what do I need to do to be published? In response one expects to receive concise directions (a formula, really) and names (preferably with a “hey, I’ll hook you up”). I remember because I was that person, asking that question (and hoping for that response) some time ago. Until I had an ah-ha moment. I’m still unpublished but I realize now that that is the wrong question. It’s not about the deal or the money or the contact name – it’s about writing and the craft of writing, loving to do it so much that the process is in itself the reward, and because not doing it would break your heart and leave you somehow incomplete. Not that writing things like Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray don’t bring huge monetary reward (though they are flukes of the highest kind) but because the kinds of things I wish to write I wish them to crawl under your skin and settle into your heart and psyche, and maybe, just maybe, you will want to read them again. And I still have so much to learn on how to achieve that, but at least I am now asking the right questions.

the rush of water; balance restored

a smidgen of bright

I love autumn (I know I’m repeating myself). The fiery hues of the leaves alone make my heart sing and my camera eye want to capture their splendour, but nothing is better than when all of it is further illuminated by sunlight.

Yesterday was a nice break from the rain. Everything is fresh after a cleansing downpour, the air sweet with an earthy pungency.

This morning I was up bright and early to get some chilli started in the crock pot, the habaneros so potent they made my eyes water. I got home to the splendid smells of an almost cooked meal, whipping up the cornbread muffins and the lime-y sour cream. I love it when a plan (or, in this case, a meal) comes together.