Went for a walk on the beach today. There was a very cold wind. The beach grass had been bleached out by all the winter weather. It was this crazy vibrant yellow colour like the straw spun into gold in Rumpelstiltskin. I had Astrid in the carrier with my coat around her. We went back on a path through the woods. We were breaking the ice propped up along the grass of the path as we went along, which was very satisfying.
Now it’s later, Astrid and I are at home. I stood with her in the carrier in front of the window for a long time, listening to music and watching the clouds turn from bright pink to dusty grey-violet. Watching the waves rolling in endlessly. It stays light outside quite late these days. It’s something I’m still not used to in February after all those years of Swedish winters. It’s wonderful but today it made me feel uneasy. It made me feel the time to hibernate is over and the time for action is here. It made me feel I can’t hide from things: what work I have to do, what I should be and become. Uneasiness that I feel the need for action but don’t yet know what that action is. That the time is here but I don’t know time for what.
Do I feel like change is coming? Isn’t change always coming? There’s no hiding from change, but sometimes I don’t want it. I want the stillness and safety of now. This pocket of time, with my baby close to me, and the red amaryllis blooming on the windowsill. It’s in full bloom; it doesn’t have a hint of decay yet. No sign of its time being past. Its time is simply now, and it is perfect now. I love this now: watching the wind in the trees outside, hearing the woodstove crackle, hearing Astrid cooing, watching the gentle lamplight falling against the wall.
2008-02-20
2008-02-06
Tucked In
It's snowing. It's snowing the kind of snow where it looks like there's a snow machine dropping fake snow from the sky. Pretty, fluffy, seperate flakes, falling quickly with no wind. Straight down.
Lots of time has gone by. There's been all that happens with each month and with each season. Swimming in the lake in August, arms moving through the water. Fireflies blinking on and off all over the hill behind the house. (Watching them knowing you're here in order to see them) Quick cold dunks in the ocean and the fresh start it always brought.
And when did summer turn to Fall? With its leaves flying the meaning of extravagance. With its crisp fresh breath. Was it when the darker evening wrapped itself closer?
Unexpected animals slipped into the stories of our days. The fox, the rabbits, the pheasants with their comic cowardly squacks and startled departures. Two days spent watching a new fawn learn to walk, its mother nervous and nearby. Its unsure legs and stubborn continuing.
November brought starkness and pared down the landscape to red berries clear and simple alongside cold walks. All the chilly elegance of frosts on windows.
December's bustle arrived made of wrapping paper, reds and greens, chocolate, ribbons, and a tall, surreal, red amaryllis. Snow sneaking back into the everyday until it belonged again on ledges and branches. Until we expected it for our footprints down the path from house to car.
Of course there's been something different amidst the rest this year. Nestled into the seasons and days was our baby growing: inside, snug, mysterious, shifting and kicking and listening.
Slowly I want to think over her arrival. Slowly I'll file away the details of her arrival.
It began like that though: tucked into seasons changing ever so slightly every day.
Lots of time has gone by. There's been all that happens with each month and with each season. Swimming in the lake in August, arms moving through the water. Fireflies blinking on and off all over the hill behind the house. (Watching them knowing you're here in order to see them) Quick cold dunks in the ocean and the fresh start it always brought.
And when did summer turn to Fall? With its leaves flying the meaning of extravagance. With its crisp fresh breath. Was it when the darker evening wrapped itself closer?
Unexpected animals slipped into the stories of our days. The fox, the rabbits, the pheasants with their comic cowardly squacks and startled departures. Two days spent watching a new fawn learn to walk, its mother nervous and nearby. Its unsure legs and stubborn continuing.
November brought starkness and pared down the landscape to red berries clear and simple alongside cold walks. All the chilly elegance of frosts on windows.
December's bustle arrived made of wrapping paper, reds and greens, chocolate, ribbons, and a tall, surreal, red amaryllis. Snow sneaking back into the everyday until it belonged again on ledges and branches. Until we expected it for our footprints down the path from house to car.
Of course there's been something different amidst the rest this year. Nestled into the seasons and days was our baby growing: inside, snug, mysterious, shifting and kicking and listening.
Slowly I want to think over her arrival. Slowly I'll file away the details of her arrival.
It began like that though: tucked into seasons changing ever so slightly every day.
2008-01-28
What dreary weather today. Ice pellets, wind, and grey.
Have been in all day with Astrid, who is now asleep on my chest in the carrier. Staying close to the woodstove and to the opposite of outside: warm yellow lamplight.
The last days of January always seem to pass in a blur of insignificance. Days less focused on than those of the busy cosy rush of December. Nowhere near spring yet, in fact, winter is just settling in.
What do I want this winter to be? This year?
Of course in a way it is laid out for me: love and care for my new little daughter. That is my most important plan for the coming months. It's an occupation I find thrilling and fascinating, and one that gives me immense joy. I want to spends lots of time writing about her, reading to her, playing with her, walking with her, talking to her. I want to be with her in the present of each day and enjoy her I want to fully experience and explore what it is to be a mother, and I want to redefine myself to include this new role without excluding myself and my creative development.
But even though she is just two months old, I feel the need to keep sight of myself by doing something else as well. Small things: writing a few words, making some little messy collages, keeping on with jotting down ideas and striving to work along on "making visible" my ideas.
What I hope for this year are the same things I've wanted for awhile:
-CLARITY in terms of what I most want to spend my time and energy doing (besides being a Mamma). I want to be able to visualize what I want to do. Is it writing? Making things and collage, silkscreening, sewing? How can I know what is most important to me in terms of what I want to accomplish and how I want to spend my days? What I feel my work should be?
-COURAGE to try my ideas for books and projects rather than talk about them. I am so sick of always talking about but never doing. Courage to allow myself to experiment and play creatively without thinking about financial appropriateness/payback.
-A better WORK ETHIC when it comes to my own projects, not just jobs for money.
-
2007-09-29
2007-07-19
Half here
Deedee got back from India. She stopped by work to say hi. I like how when someone first gets home from somewhere far away they’re still half in that other place. They stand in front of you, their body wholly on the ground in front of you. But you know that inside they are still there.
She was so recently there, hearing the bells on pack yaks in Nepal, hearing the traffic in Calcutta, feeling the heat and the dust and the smog on the streets. There is still all around her the mist of another language, other food, and the imprints left on and inside of her: Mount Everest swept into fog and children acting silly and charming.
She was so recently there, hearing the bells on pack yaks in Nepal, hearing the traffic in Calcutta, feeling the heat and the dust and the smog on the streets. There is still all around her the mist of another language, other food, and the imprints left on and inside of her: Mount Everest swept into fog and children acting silly and charming.
Half here
Deedee got back from India. She stopped by work to say hi. I like how when someone first gets home from somewhere far away they’re still half in that other place. They stand in front of you, their body wholly on the ground in front of you. But you know that inside they are still there.
She was so recently there, hearing the bells on pack yaks in Nepal, hearing the traffic in Calcutta, feeling the heat and the dust and the smog on the streets. There is still all around her the mist of another language, other food, and the imprints left on and inside of her: Mount Everest swept into fog and children acting silly and charming.
Half here
Deedee got back from India. She stopped by work to say hi. I like how when someone first gets home from somewhere far away they’re still half in that other place. They stand in front of you, their body wholly on the ground in front of you. But you know that inside they are still there.
She was so recently there, hearing the bells on pack yaks in Nepal, hearing the traffic in Calcutta, feeling the heat and the dust and the smog on the streets. There is still all around her the mist of another language, other food, and the imprints left on and inside of her: Mount Everest swept into fog and children acting silly and charming.
2007-07-17
A frog and an elephant
Today I choked on a dried cranberry, argued, saw a snake, walked for an hour and a half carrying heavy bags because of a missed ride, got rocks in my shoes, and welcomed the breeze when a dump truck went by.
I also went swimming in a warm lake with silky bracken water, played with a cute baby with chubby legs, and ate a marvelous plum in the sunshine.
I wished, while walking down the driveway to work, that something magical would come out of the woods and cross my path. Something that would make misunderstandings and disagreements fade, embarrassed, into the background. A seal on its way back to the water, maybe. Or a sudden swarm of huge blue butterflies. Or a huge frog and an elephant, deep in conversation.
I also went swimming in a warm lake with silky bracken water, played with a cute baby with chubby legs, and ate a marvelous plum in the sunshine.
I wished, while walking down the driveway to work, that something magical would come out of the woods and cross my path. Something that would make misunderstandings and disagreements fade, embarrassed, into the background. A seal on its way back to the water, maybe. Or a sudden swarm of huge blue butterflies. Or a huge frog and an elephant, deep in conversation.
2007-07-11
Wet tents
I went for a walk in the fog after work. I passed the beach and remembered about beach peas. The ocean smelled strong. The beach in the fog reminded me of what summer smelled like when I was a kid. It also smelled like cut grass, watermelon, wet rose petals (used as confetti, perfume, decoration on mud pies…) wild strawberries, and wet tents early in the morning after rain in the night.
Today: a field of irises and contours of islands in the fog. The repetition of work, the sort of petty satisfaction of accomplishing small tasks.
Small (the baby-to-be) quietly with me all the time. What can you hear, Small? What does it sound like to you when I unroll the packing tape? When I talk to you? There’s the whole world, Small. This whole entire world that you’re going to come to. That you’ll get to find out about, little by little. It’s so full, Small. Full of big things and little things. Sounds and colours and ants and words and dogs and trees. Happiness and confusion and quiet and noise and cherries and cheese and bumble bees and love and other people and houses and boats and the knocking on of doors and the turning on and off of lights, and breakfasts, and skies, and slanting sun on the floor, and islands looking mysterious in the fog and wood and metal and cloth and paint and cameras and paper.
Needing and wanting and having and getting and the wide open space beyond all of that, that space you can let back inside of you despite all the clutter and trouble and misunderstandings.
Today: a field of irises and contours of islands in the fog. The repetition of work, the sort of petty satisfaction of accomplishing small tasks.
Small (the baby-to-be) quietly with me all the time. What can you hear, Small? What does it sound like to you when I unroll the packing tape? When I talk to you? There’s the whole world, Small. This whole entire world that you’re going to come to. That you’ll get to find out about, little by little. It’s so full, Small. Full of big things and little things. Sounds and colours and ants and words and dogs and trees. Happiness and confusion and quiet and noise and cherries and cheese and bumble bees and love and other people and houses and boats and the knocking on of doors and the turning on and off of lights, and breakfasts, and skies, and slanting sun on the floor, and islands looking mysterious in the fog and wood and metal and cloth and paint and cameras and paper.
Needing and wanting and having and getting and the wide open space beyond all of that, that space you can let back inside of you despite all the clutter and trouble and misunderstandings.
2007-07-08
Who what when where why
What have the last months been? Where? Here’s a new place in time, let’s earmark this page by leaving a few traces. And let those months in a row turn into the moths of these summer nights. It’s okay to let time pass. It’s okay to let things shift under the surface and gradually feel out the new formation. Tectonic plates shift, and things shift for us too.
Is it a news update I want to give? Or is it something outside of the who what when where why?
Something secret and small. Something I can give to you like a secret. Do the time and the place always matter? What is there besides the time and the place? People’s postures, elbows resting on tables, clues in the movements of hands. I read that a clue originally meant a ball of twine, something you could unravel.
There was an old house and a new house, there was a warm lake, there were the lost and found wallet and car keys. Sauce around the mouth and bowl after bowl of strawberries. The carrying in and out of suitcases. Muddy sleep on planes. Boats passing with Swedish flags and red houses with white trim. Fairytale forests and soft fields. The lupines and irises which came and went. The flutterings of someone new in my belly, at unexpected times. A little one growing, becoming, developing a presence and a belonging to us.
It clouds over, the children who were running and yelling have gone inside. There are bees inside and out. We’re cranky, we’re laughing, we’re looking at books.
I read that whales dream. I read that plants, like people, run fevers when they’re sick. And the chamois, a goat like mountain antelope, can balance on a point of rock the size of a quarter.
Is it a news update I want to give? Or is it something outside of the who what when where why?
Something secret and small. Something I can give to you like a secret. Do the time and the place always matter? What is there besides the time and the place? People’s postures, elbows resting on tables, clues in the movements of hands. I read that a clue originally meant a ball of twine, something you could unravel.
There was an old house and a new house, there was a warm lake, there were the lost and found wallet and car keys. Sauce around the mouth and bowl after bowl of strawberries. The carrying in and out of suitcases. Muddy sleep on planes. Boats passing with Swedish flags and red houses with white trim. Fairytale forests and soft fields. The lupines and irises which came and went. The flutterings of someone new in my belly, at unexpected times. A little one growing, becoming, developing a presence and a belonging to us.
It clouds over, the children who were running and yelling have gone inside. There are bees inside and out. We’re cranky, we’re laughing, we’re looking at books.
I read that whales dream. I read that plants, like people, run fevers when they’re sick. And the chamois, a goat like mountain antelope, can balance on a point of rock the size of a quarter.
2007-03-16
Fountain in a mall
Spring always makes things possible like this. The old grass is yellow and the trees are muted dark green. Then there all the shades of brown and the moody grey blue of the ocean. The grey of bare branches. Everything muted to the same tone. But the possibilities are under all that, invisible. It's a time for using your imagination.
I want the clarity of spring, I want the strength of spring, I want the clear form of spring. But I should remember its muddiness and maybe want muddiness too. The haziness of grey days, the fog and blurred lines of rainy days. The clarity is often hiding; green points, which are quite hard and strong, waiting just below the surface.
I saw some men cleaning out the fountain at Park Lane mall a couple of weeks ago. They had drained all the water away and were picking up all of the coins people had thrown into it. All those wishes people had made, and their coins being collected. I thought of it today on my way to work.
How can I counter that? Can I insert something unexpected here? Can I change this into a letter? What was your day like? I ate chocolate, I worked, I drove the car, I observed the colours outside, I put lip balm on my lips. I received a seed catalogue in the mail. I washed my hands. I made notes. I remembered when Amy used to call me Jasil Berry Finn. I enjoyed writing with a pen on paper. I remembered that I have to pay the rent and do my taxes. I thought about stories and how to tell them. I felt words streaming behind my eyes and felt awake and...was it sad or hopeful?
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all "
Emily Dickinson
I want the clarity of spring, I want the strength of spring, I want the clear form of spring. But I should remember its muddiness and maybe want muddiness too. The haziness of grey days, the fog and blurred lines of rainy days. The clarity is often hiding; green points, which are quite hard and strong, waiting just below the surface.
I saw some men cleaning out the fountain at Park Lane mall a couple of weeks ago. They had drained all the water away and were picking up all of the coins people had thrown into it. All those wishes people had made, and their coins being collected. I thought of it today on my way to work.
How can I counter that? Can I insert something unexpected here? Can I change this into a letter? What was your day like? I ate chocolate, I worked, I drove the car, I observed the colours outside, I put lip balm on my lips. I received a seed catalogue in the mail. I washed my hands. I made notes. I remembered when Amy used to call me Jasil Berry Finn. I enjoyed writing with a pen on paper. I remembered that I have to pay the rent and do my taxes. I thought about stories and how to tell them. I felt words streaming behind my eyes and felt awake and...was it sad or hopeful?
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all "
Emily Dickinson
2007-03-01
Give up speak up keep up stand up rise up
Maintaining a balance is so precarious sometimes. Trying to know when to stand up and defend myself, when to be humble and admit I'm wrong and see my faults. When and how to complain, when to be quiet, when to demand to speak, when to ask for help. How do you know when to point out a fault, leave out or hold a grudge, work out a new way? Keep or kick an old habit? Turn over a new leaf?
When to give up, let go, give in; when to stand up, speak up, hold on, hold out? When to change direction, or to remember an old direction. When to try to see things through someone elses eyes; when to work to make someone see through mine.
Also, when should I embrace and allow danger and risks, leaps with eyes closed, courage? And when should I hide quietly and patiently, breathing and thinking in the dark?
When to give up, let go, give in; when to stand up, speak up, hold on, hold out? When to change direction, or to remember an old direction. When to try to see things through someone elses eyes; when to work to make someone see through mine.
Also, when should I embrace and allow danger and risks, leaps with eyes closed, courage? And when should I hide quietly and patiently, breathing and thinking in the dark?
2007-02-19
Pheasant
It's been snowing lightly all morning. I've been watching it periodically through different windows. I love days like this where I can slow down. A day at home like this, all to myself, with no agenda, is more of a place than a time frame. It's a place to slow down, observe little things, remember bits and pieces of who I've been and who I want to be.
I watched the pheasant that hangs out in our yard for awhile just now. He's always alone when he comes here. He wanders around, quite simply. Sometimes behind the house, sometimes in front. Today he was in front, walking under the two big spruce trees. Taking his time. But when he gets startled, if he hears a noise or sees a sudden movement, he comically squawks and part flies, part runs away. He loses his dignity in those moments; you can see his embarrassment afterward.
I've been in the past for the last few hours, looking at photos, reading old journals, remembering things about people I know and have known. It's such a mixed experience: regrets, happiness's, surprise at how much I change and stay the same, wonder at how things turn out unexpectedly.
In old things I wrote down I find so many forgotten things, and there's some kind of comfort in reading through how I found my way then. It makes me a little more confident that I can find my way now. In the present that is always so much messier and harder to navigate in than the neat, decided past.
Are the clues I find in my past less valuable than the snow and the pheasant of today? The past is funny, how it doesn't stay in it's place, how scraps of it drift to the surface randomly. How we carry it with us, lots if it usually closed, but still on file, still waiting to be brought out for review, for questioning. So many moments, words, actions to sort through- to love, to admire, to remember, to mine, to walk around in.
I watched the pheasant that hangs out in our yard for awhile just now. He's always alone when he comes here. He wanders around, quite simply. Sometimes behind the house, sometimes in front. Today he was in front, walking under the two big spruce trees. Taking his time. But when he gets startled, if he hears a noise or sees a sudden movement, he comically squawks and part flies, part runs away. He loses his dignity in those moments; you can see his embarrassment afterward.
I've been in the past for the last few hours, looking at photos, reading old journals, remembering things about people I know and have known. It's such a mixed experience: regrets, happiness's, surprise at how much I change and stay the same, wonder at how things turn out unexpectedly.
In old things I wrote down I find so many forgotten things, and there's some kind of comfort in reading through how I found my way then. It makes me a little more confident that I can find my way now. In the present that is always so much messier and harder to navigate in than the neat, decided past.
Are the clues I find in my past less valuable than the snow and the pheasant of today? The past is funny, how it doesn't stay in it's place, how scraps of it drift to the surface randomly. How we carry it with us, lots if it usually closed, but still on file, still waiting to be brought out for review, for questioning. So many moments, words, actions to sort through- to love, to admire, to remember, to mine, to walk around in.
2007-02-17
Make noise
I said the word delightful and then felt weird about it. But it was delightful.
There's a lovely contrast between the dark, almost black lines of the trees and the new pale skies lately when I'm driving home form work.
Things I turn off and hold back sometimes: tears, desire to dance, desire to make big messes, desire to make noise. Although that's hard to admit. You like to think you can be open and transparent but you are opaque sometimes and closed. What does it? Is it that all or nothing line that makes me hesitate? There's something about protecting myself.
Lots of good conversations lately, lots of good visits. The moments of realizing lost childhood innocences like believing toys were "real" or in Santa Claus. The moment I became aware of my hands, sitting on the bus on the way to school, suddenly not knowing what to do with them.
Driving out from town today wasn't pale like that. It was late afternoon, and there was colour in overflow, in abundance, in "an embarrassment of riches." The waves rolling in were having so much fun being purple-blue like that. The sky was sloshing around new cloud formations in technicolour blues and purples and pinks and the landscapes in-between were so happy to be flooded in orange, yellow warmth.
It was thrilling, it was delightful, it was delicious. Being thrilled and delighted and excited about things makes you vulnerable. Emotions are at so many of my cores but they are hard to trust. They're messy and they choose the wrong words and they don't know how to be cool or how to hold back or how to tone themselves down.
There's a lovely contrast between the dark, almost black lines of the trees and the new pale skies lately when I'm driving home form work.
Things I turn off and hold back sometimes: tears, desire to dance, desire to make big messes, desire to make noise. Although that's hard to admit. You like to think you can be open and transparent but you are opaque sometimes and closed. What does it? Is it that all or nothing line that makes me hesitate? There's something about protecting myself.
Lots of good conversations lately, lots of good visits. The moments of realizing lost childhood innocences like believing toys were "real" or in Santa Claus. The moment I became aware of my hands, sitting on the bus on the way to school, suddenly not knowing what to do with them.
Driving out from town today wasn't pale like that. It was late afternoon, and there was colour in overflow, in abundance, in "an embarrassment of riches." The waves rolling in were having so much fun being purple-blue like that. The sky was sloshing around new cloud formations in technicolour blues and purples and pinks and the landscapes in-between were so happy to be flooded in orange, yellow warmth.
It was thrilling, it was delightful, it was delicious. Being thrilled and delighted and excited about things makes you vulnerable. Emotions are at so many of my cores but they are hard to trust. They're messy and they choose the wrong words and they don't know how to be cool or how to hold back or how to tone themselves down.
2007-02-11
Arriving home at night
There is the sky! The one with stars and clarity and plenty. This clear sky full of stars is the one I'd almost forgotten about, the one I forgot to keep in my pockets. The one I forgot to breathe in and out, the one I forgot to wrap around myself. The one I forgot to pack between the layers of my days, the one I forgot to point to and point out, the one I forgot to be thrilled by (somehow, under the embarrassment of being thrilled).
There it is! Returning like a ship in the distance, returning with full sails and new stories to tell. Bringing all that which is glorious and thrilling and new and courageous.
There it is! Returning like a ship in the distance, returning with full sails and new stories to tell. Bringing all that which is glorious and thrilling and new and courageous.
2007-02-10
Inside outside
I threw some old bread outside for the birds but i forgot to watch to see them find it. I can imagine them instead- swooping in, discovering the gold mine, calling their friends. I know it will all be gone when I check tomorrow.
Here's the house, here's the ocean, here's listening to the Pixies LOUD and here's February and here's Saturday and here's this time and this place.
The colour might be pale pale pink, almost white. There's been frost on the windows in the morning. There's been the putting on of three pairs of socks and then slippers. In this act things happen both inside rooms and outside the house. I stared at a black animal not knowing what it was. I went out to get wood and it was there on the hill behind the woodpile. We stared at each other for a long time. It had pointy black ears.
Inside, meanwhile, lights are on and casting themselves as far as they can. Wood stove is burning and making its pocket. Plants are living and growing their tiny fractions in a row. Hyacinths are blooming and sending out their scent which has a velvet texture and the words thick dense and massed.
Here's the house, here's the ocean, here's listening to the Pixies LOUD and here's February and here's Saturday and here's this time and this place.
The colour might be pale pale pink, almost white. There's been frost on the windows in the morning. There's been the putting on of three pairs of socks and then slippers. In this act things happen both inside rooms and outside the house. I stared at a black animal not knowing what it was. I went out to get wood and it was there on the hill behind the woodpile. We stared at each other for a long time. It had pointy black ears.
Inside, meanwhile, lights are on and casting themselves as far as they can. Wood stove is burning and making its pocket. Plants are living and growing their tiny fractions in a row. Hyacinths are blooming and sending out their scent which has a velvet texture and the words thick dense and massed.
2006-11-27
Ancestors
All this time without words is weighing heavily on me. If I can't file a few moments and images into words then what will happen to them?
There's no theme or red thread I can see in my scattered thoughts. Too much coffee again and I must admit it's a feeling I like somewhat, a feeling that I need to race.
Last night, dinner with all the family at Linda and Dave's house. It had long since gotten dark, and we had finished the turkey dinner they'd made for American Thanksgiving. Everyone was sitting around sort of in a circle around the fireplace and coffee tables, eating pie, drinking wine.
The room was dimly lit and there was a warm glow from the fire. I suddenly saw the scene as if I was standing outside of the room, looking through the window. The group of faces I know so well were talking and laughing. It was a typical moment like many other family dinners before, but time and distance away from them let me see them from outside the window: fragile, balanced on the edge of time, gathered around a glowing light in the vast darkness of night.
They looked for a moment like what they would someday become: ancestors. So I felt for a moment like I was invisible, back from a future where nobody thought it possible to see those ancestors anymore. I saw something that family members not born yet might one day try to imagine, and only see dimly, (the way I see the ones before, in Scotland, in England, newly arrived in Canada...)through the mist of time and ideas formed from old letters and photographs. Here they are: it's the year 2006, they're together, they're laughing, they're dressed in clothing from that era. At least right now, in this moment I rip from times notebook to slip into my pocket.
Sometimes it hits me (yes, like the clichéd ton of bricks) how our section on the timeline here on earth is limited, finite. Remember learning timelines in school? Here is a timeline of all the kings and queens of France. Here is a timeline of early man: see how he walks more and more upright. Here is a timeline of your life: it started one day and it will end one day. See how what's in between becomes fragile and fleeting. And also how it isn't really like that drawn pencil line at all. It has loops, it has pauses, it has sidetrack after sidetrack, it has skips and repeats and it changes size and colour. Music changes it, weather changes it, a sudden landing of hundreds of birds outside the window changes it.
There's no theme or red thread I can see in my scattered thoughts. Too much coffee again and I must admit it's a feeling I like somewhat, a feeling that I need to race.
Last night, dinner with all the family at Linda and Dave's house. It had long since gotten dark, and we had finished the turkey dinner they'd made for American Thanksgiving. Everyone was sitting around sort of in a circle around the fireplace and coffee tables, eating pie, drinking wine.
The room was dimly lit and there was a warm glow from the fire. I suddenly saw the scene as if I was standing outside of the room, looking through the window. The group of faces I know so well were talking and laughing. It was a typical moment like many other family dinners before, but time and distance away from them let me see them from outside the window: fragile, balanced on the edge of time, gathered around a glowing light in the vast darkness of night.
They looked for a moment like what they would someday become: ancestors. So I felt for a moment like I was invisible, back from a future where nobody thought it possible to see those ancestors anymore. I saw something that family members not born yet might one day try to imagine, and only see dimly, (the way I see the ones before, in Scotland, in England, newly arrived in Canada...)through the mist of time and ideas formed from old letters and photographs. Here they are: it's the year 2006, they're together, they're laughing, they're dressed in clothing from that era. At least right now, in this moment I rip from times notebook to slip into my pocket.
Sometimes it hits me (yes, like the clichéd ton of bricks) how our section on the timeline here on earth is limited, finite. Remember learning timelines in school? Here is a timeline of all the kings and queens of France. Here is a timeline of early man: see how he walks more and more upright. Here is a timeline of your life: it started one day and it will end one day. See how what's in between becomes fragile and fleeting. And also how it isn't really like that drawn pencil line at all. It has loops, it has pauses, it has sidetrack after sidetrack, it has skips and repeats and it changes size and colour. Music changes it, weather changes it, a sudden landing of hundreds of birds outside the window changes it.
2006-10-15
Letter
We had to yell, and the only way I could know how I felt was by yelling, blindly groping for words in the speed of anger. In that speed, that intensity of wanting so badly to describe what it was like,I found a splinter growing in my side, and gave it a name. Sometimes just describing the symptoms makes them shrink. Like looking one of your monsters in the face: they diminish.
But I don't want to be vague to you. I don't want to use a language that passes by everything in a blur, like highway driving with all the windows up. There's a call for openings, for letting things seep out and in, for unwrapping something, for narrowing things down into something visible. Don't narrow it down so that it's smaller, but clearer. A huge storm can be clear. A shell on a windowsill can be clear. And remember the opposite call for guarding, for keeping certain things in hidden rooms, in a secret garden...but there's that vagueness again, and I start to see it as a hurdle.
Is it a letter I want to write to you or to myself? Or is it simply the kind of letter I'd like to hide in a wall, for the people who hope to find something in walls? (the way I always hope to find things in walls, in cubby holes, in hollow trees...)
And if it's a letter it's easier, I can breathe out and say, to an old friend, to myself, to the finder-of-the-letter-in-the-wall: I hate the word hurdle. Yesterday talking to an old friend we agreed that Bernice Drive was an ugly name. There are the good things, and in the midst of fighting it out, again and again, reinventing and setting up new tries, let's remember them. Morning sunshine on skin. Waking up while paddling out to the waves and that clean forgiving scent of salt that says, kindly and gently, Start Over. Find new ways of building. Mend crossed communication lines and Start Over, and build it better.
But I don't want to be vague to you. I don't want to use a language that passes by everything in a blur, like highway driving with all the windows up. There's a call for openings, for letting things seep out and in, for unwrapping something, for narrowing things down into something visible. Don't narrow it down so that it's smaller, but clearer. A huge storm can be clear. A shell on a windowsill can be clear. And remember the opposite call for guarding, for keeping certain things in hidden rooms, in a secret garden...but there's that vagueness again, and I start to see it as a hurdle.
Is it a letter I want to write to you or to myself? Or is it simply the kind of letter I'd like to hide in a wall, for the people who hope to find something in walls? (the way I always hope to find things in walls, in cubby holes, in hollow trees...)
And if it's a letter it's easier, I can breathe out and say, to an old friend, to myself, to the finder-of-the-letter-in-the-wall: I hate the word hurdle. Yesterday talking to an old friend we agreed that Bernice Drive was an ugly name. There are the good things, and in the midst of fighting it out, again and again, reinventing and setting up new tries, let's remember them. Morning sunshine on skin. Waking up while paddling out to the waves and that clean forgiving scent of salt that says, kindly and gently, Start Over. Find new ways of building. Mend crossed communication lines and Start Over, and build it better.
2006-10-11
Raccoon
Now feels like a tangled twine, a first woodwork project, nails crooked and holding things in place vaguely, questionably. But it’s a beautiful day! And I want to learn to trust myself, to trust the day, to trust the tangles.
The trip to Maine is distilling itself, boiling itself down. Its images are wispier, and certain ones become more solid, growing roots. Why does only some of it grow roots?
Here are Anne, Peter, and Per, playing croquet in the darkening evening. There’s the barbecue, with smoke and coals and warmth and I’m standing beside it talking to Dave and watching. The woods are standing all around us, except on the fourth side, where the lake meets the shore seamlessly. It gets darker, they can hardly see the croquet gates anymore, and finally not at all. I stand there liking that they’re playing croquet in the dark. The kind of thing that comes as a relief and a surprise, that things don’t have to work as usual, as expected, as is proper. The same feeling as when a big storm hits, and all the wind is a relief. You want to run out into it and yell.
Here is breakfast the next day. One clear snapshot of homemade doughnuts warming in a pan on the woodstove. Steam rising from our coffee cups. Quiet book pages turning, and glances up at the lake through the porch screen. Canoes gliding past, and that’s what canoes do, they glide.
Lying on the dock on my belly looking down into the water, which is clear. Looking at leaves on the bottom, red yellow and orange, not having lost their colour yet. I think about them being there all through the winter, freezing into the ice. Dry leaves float down and land on the surface. But now I’ve seen that there are spiders here along the edge of the dock, and I jump up. We’ll jump into the water after awhile, and the shocking cold of it will be so much different that gazing out at it or down into it.
Driving home through the forests full of October is a sleepy, monotonous blur of glorious colour. It’s colour so vivid it’s alive like light, like water. I took the last shift driving toward midnight, with headlights and trucks to pass. I hit a raccoon. I felt the selfishness of our cars and highways. I felt how fast a life can go out, with a non-descript bumping sound.
The trip to Maine is distilling itself, boiling itself down. Its images are wispier, and certain ones become more solid, growing roots. Why does only some of it grow roots?
Here are Anne, Peter, and Per, playing croquet in the darkening evening. There’s the barbecue, with smoke and coals and warmth and I’m standing beside it talking to Dave and watching. The woods are standing all around us, except on the fourth side, where the lake meets the shore seamlessly. It gets darker, they can hardly see the croquet gates anymore, and finally not at all. I stand there liking that they’re playing croquet in the dark. The kind of thing that comes as a relief and a surprise, that things don’t have to work as usual, as expected, as is proper. The same feeling as when a big storm hits, and all the wind is a relief. You want to run out into it and yell.
Here is breakfast the next day. One clear snapshot of homemade doughnuts warming in a pan on the woodstove. Steam rising from our coffee cups. Quiet book pages turning, and glances up at the lake through the porch screen. Canoes gliding past, and that’s what canoes do, they glide.
Lying on the dock on my belly looking down into the water, which is clear. Looking at leaves on the bottom, red yellow and orange, not having lost their colour yet. I think about them being there all through the winter, freezing into the ice. Dry leaves float down and land on the surface. But now I’ve seen that there are spiders here along the edge of the dock, and I jump up. We’ll jump into the water after awhile, and the shocking cold of it will be so much different that gazing out at it or down into it.
Driving home through the forests full of October is a sleepy, monotonous blur of glorious colour. It’s colour so vivid it’s alive like light, like water. I took the last shift driving toward midnight, with headlights and trucks to pass. I hit a raccoon. I felt the selfishness of our cars and highways. I felt how fast a life can go out, with a non-descript bumping sound.
2006-10-10
Pools
In the afternoon I planted bulbs. I’d never done that before. It was harder to dig into the ground than I thought. The wooden dibber, a tool for making holes for bulbs, wasn’t much help. I looked in the shed and in the tool cupboards for a trowel or a shovel. Finding none, I brought out a crowbar and an old screwdriver. It was hard work but the crowbar worked okay. I discovered moist, loose soil under the deck, and carried loads of it on a piece of wood to where I was planting. Tulips and crocus: tulips along the steps to the deck, crocus under a tree. Pushing a bulb into a hole in the ground before winter struck me as being an act of hope. An act of faith. I like the simplicity of playing in the dirt. I like the complexity of how many plant species there are, and all their different ways of growing.
At dusk we went down to the beach. It was low tide and there were tidal pools among the rocks. We walked out among them. The sky was a pastel pink and purple, reflecting in the pools. The greens and yellows of the seaweed had a muted way of belonging together. There were lots of little starfish resting in the water. There were periwinkles with spiky “hair” growing upward from their tops. When I picked them up they made a sucking sound. I looked into these pools for a long time, crouching down and picking up the occasional empty crab shell or odd rock. I wasn’t doing much of anything but it felt worthwhile. As we were leaving I found a surfboard fin among the rocks.
After that, at the grocery store, we talked about which kinds of apples were which: Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, sweet, sour, hard, soft. In aisle 4 we dropped a bottle of olive oil and it spread outwards on the floor into a yellow-green pool, slick and unreal under the florescent lights.
At dusk we went down to the beach. It was low tide and there were tidal pools among the rocks. We walked out among them. The sky was a pastel pink and purple, reflecting in the pools. The greens and yellows of the seaweed had a muted way of belonging together. There were lots of little starfish resting in the water. There were periwinkles with spiky “hair” growing upward from their tops. When I picked them up they made a sucking sound. I looked into these pools for a long time, crouching down and picking up the occasional empty crab shell or odd rock. I wasn’t doing much of anything but it felt worthwhile. As we were leaving I found a surfboard fin among the rocks.
After that, at the grocery store, we talked about which kinds of apples were which: Cortland, Gravenstein, Macintosh, sweet, sour, hard, soft. In aisle 4 we dropped a bottle of olive oil and it spread outwards on the floor into a yellow-green pool, slick and unreal under the florescent lights.
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