So long ago its now fiction

You aren’t supposed to be here. You are supposed to be in Mexico, or at the very least Toronto. You sure as hell are not supposed to be here, on this island, in this city. And even if you came home early due to illness or under duress, there is no way the universe, my universe could have given you permission to wind up here in this bar. This is my carefree girls night out. I came to see a man who would bed be play music. I wanted that jolt of being the girl the guy on stage is singing to. I played it all right; I looked casually hot. I had styled my hair to say “I don’t care” and “aren’t I stylish” simultaneously (this you well know is for me, no small feat).

My belly was full and my step was light as I walked in. The hot air on my cold lenses made them fog on entrance and I immediately took off my glasses and started wiping them on my scarf. My thoughts were those of frustration. Annoyed as I always am that our human technology has come so far but not somehow far enough to overcome this irksome winter ritual.

This thought was my last before the room went away, before my heart spun circles and collapsed in a breathless, pounding heap at the bottom of my stomach. This was my last thought before I looked up and saw you.

I wanted to run. Toward you or away I could not tell so I split the difference and froze on the spot. I think I smiled. I can’t remember. I recall not-so-casually telling you that you were currently in Mexico. A silly thing to say to a man standing in a bar in Montreal. I then prayed to all the gods, goddesses, effigies and saints for someone to interrupt us. I needed an out. I needed to breath, cry, scream. I needed to be looking at anything except your eyes. your lips. Oh god your eyes!

I proceeded to spend the rest of the night speaking to your friend because making small-talk has never been our thing and all the talking that needed to be made between us was big.

Poem

Before any words are spokenI can hear you in the dark

I can hear the snap as your tongue dislodges from the roof of your mouth

I can hear your lips as they separate

I swear I can hear your muscles moving as

you start to shape your mouth around a word

In the dark of my room miles away from the dark of yours, these sounds alone arouse me

Your voice bouncing down from hundreds of miles north, late at night when we miss each other most makes me want to weep with pleasure

HM: The Thaw

The air today has me walking taller. Despite my physical exhaustion, i am filled with a zingy energy and an optimism I am hesitant to try to explain (gift horse’s mouth and whatnot).

And as it is every year, I find that as the world thaws around me, I find myself thawing as well. My thoughts are looser, my limbs are looser and my protective layering comes off with my coat. I feel just a little more open to grace and the possibility that it will in fact find me.

On a less deep note, I nearly bordered on rude by laughing out loud at the full -grown man on my bus en route home today. Black puffy jacket zipped up tight, arms crossed and locked high on his chest. His body was slipped a third of the way down the back of his seat like a teenager. His eye brows were slightly knitted and the piece de resistance: a pout that would only look right on a 6 year old. The whole combination was so absurd I couldn’t help but smile. Poor guy, I hope some one gives him a hug.

HM: Rollin’ with the Homies

Girlie shopping road-trip across the border.

Purple purse: 21 dollars

Office cloths: 85 dollars

Pharmacy: 24 dollars

Four white Jewish girls singing along to Ike & Tina Turner while roadtrippin’ : PRICELESS.

fear and loathing

I am shaken. I have stopped crying now, but only because, being on the subway I didn’t really allow myself to start. I was sitting at the far bench near the conductor’s box when two guys came crashing through the doors that divided the cars. They were laughing and yelling and right away my spidey-sense started tingling. They were about 20 years old. I had Mipod on but could still hear them yelling about some fag they were sitting next to and how fucking lame he is and how gays are disgusting etc etc. This is why they ran to our car, to escape sitting next to him. No one around me said a word. Now maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. I had to – for so many reasons. I told him with a smile that if it was any consolation, that he probably wasn’t this guys type. I was trying to hint nicely but apparently subtle wasn’t working cause dude smiled at me. He thought I was joking with him. I then continued to tell him that I thought he sounded like a jackass and how while  sure he is a pretty decent guy in general that his comments were pretty stupid and would he mind keeping them to himself. This was not received well. His response was, “wait wait wait, I have no problem with girls being lesbians, but gay guys are gross!”  I asked him if he had any idea how dumb that sounded. Apparently he did not. He asked me is I was a lesbian. I asked him how he could possibly think that was any of his business. He made some asinine comment and I told him again that I was sure he was a swell guy but that gay people were just like the rest of the world and that he comments we offensive and rude. He was angry now, he started moving toward me and raising his voice asking what the fuck business was it of mine and why the fuck was I sticking my damned nose in other people’s conversations. I told him that the second he started yelling so loud I could here him through my iPod was when. His friend who hadn’t said a thing the whole time knew buddy was getting angry (he was moving closer still) and got loudmouth to move down to the end of the car. This interaction took nearly 3 minutes. There were people everywhere. NO ONE SAID A FUCKING WORD. Lousy bunch of cowards. I’m not sure who I’m more angry with. The dumb-fuck loudmouth bigots or the presumably educated by standers.

I got off to switch lines and followed the nearest knot of people so I would be in a crowd. I ended up going to the wrong platform. I hadn’t seen them get off so I thought I was safe, but then there they were walking right towards me. Luckily there was a cop on patrol. I hung out with her and told her what was going on. She told me she would keep an eye on them as I made my way past them and up the escalator to the other side of the tracks.  I did that and waved to her from the safety of my car. Once the doors closed and we started pulling out of the station I allowed myself to get scared retroactively. I couldn’t help it. I started to well up. I was crying out of fear and anger. Fear for myself and for how stupid I had been to say anything and put myself in danger and angry because there is still so much blind baseless hate in the world and because I even thought about reprimanding myself for doing whats right. Also anger that no one else thought to, at the very least, offer to walk me out of the car. So as I am sitting there shaking, I start to tear. No one says anything but I can feel eyes on me. Opposite me are young girls. Two sets of two friends and a girl alone. The girl alone sits there respectfully actively not  looking at me and as she gets off hands me a tissue am gives me a sort of supportive smile. That made me cry more because I can’t recall when I hated the world and felt so protected by it in the same instant. I want to thank that girl for momentarily restoring my faith with a kleenex and a kind smile. I want to thank the female cop who let me hang out with her. I want to thank the lesser ass-hole for getting his buddy to move along and keep calm. To everyone else on the subway who stood idly by, I’d like to tell you to go fuck yourselves. Cowards.

HM: Easy

I am sitting at someone else’s kitchen table. I am typing on someone else’s lap top and I am looking out of someone else’s 23rd story window at a view of the city that increasingly becomes ‘mine’. Its a funny thing how by letting myself go I have slowly started to reign myself in. Piece by piece I have started to assemble a life for myself here. It feels… good.

The HM for the day is, quite frankly the day. Its been slow and easy and replete with home made breaky, some reading and art. Its rainy out which only adds to the feeling that I am cocooning and involved in a sort of harmless but deliciously private conspiracy.

HM: rainforest

Yesterday’s HM happened in yoga class. I was laying in shivanasana. The lights were dimmed and all around me was the sound of people breathing. The wind was blowing hard outside and between the sweat dripping, the clicks of tongues on the roofs of mouths, the sighing, the wind and the gentle slapping of feet on hard wood as the first people left, the whole room, from behind my closed eyes sounded like what I hear when I lay awake inside a tent at night. It was beautiful.

Today’s HM is laughing with a new friend and finding out that not everyone here is surface.

 

I realize these are badly written but for now its about the act of remembering to write. The art will come later. Sorry y’all.

HM: Relating

We all think we are pretty special and unique. Its OK to think this way, its what saves us from being taken advantage of, giving up and allows us to hold out for a better job/bill of health/relationship/whatever. Thinking we are special is common, even though few of us will admit it.

The thing is, thinking this isn’t always helpful –  like when you feel alone or sad or insecure. Feeling like you are the only one to have ever felt this way since the  beginning of time can be pretty scary. This is why I was so happy to re-discover Tales of Mere Existence (http://www.ingredientx.com) The artist’s art is simple, as are his thoughts. What makes it so unbelievably great is how bang-on he is with his story tellingand how it resonates so fully.

There are clips that are funny, clips that are depressing and everything in between, but this site gets my HM for the day because it is impossible to feel alone after watching them. I think he’s a genius.

HM: Connecting

Today I was inspired to journal my HMs again. Thank you JsZ.

As I was explaining the ‘why’ of the process og tracking my HMs, it dawned on me that maybe I could use a solid dose of positivity in my life. So here it is, my HM for the day – its about connecting.

Since moving here I have often  been heard bemoaning the lack of personal connection. I have found people guarded and disinclined to accept a friendly advance, let alone offer one. Today though I ventured into a tea shop that I had been in about 6 weeks earlier and the same woman was there. I recognized her and reminded her that we had discussed a book but that I couldn’t recall which one. Her face lit up and she nearly shrieked “Yes! The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!” We both sort of lit up and shared a really nice moment of connecting in a sea of commerce and general impersonality. We talked about the plot twists and discussed whether or not the ending worked for us. It was a brief but affirming moment.

Other HMs of the day include several hours in the (connecting) company of an intelligent, creative (and it needs to be said embarrassingly generous) man and walks in the chilly sunshine.

Unsent

Hi,

I knew before I sat down that this was a bad idea. Hes Just not That Into You is in theatres right now. Oh the terrible cruel timing!

If you wanted to know how I was, you’d ask. You’d write or call or send a homing pigeon or something. You have done one of these things and so I must assume that you don’t much care, an assumption I made and have stuck with for quite some time now. The thing is, your not caring about how I am, (sadly) does not preclude my wanting to know how you are. A conundrum at best.

If I had you here, I would want to tell you the following things. I would want to tell you that I see you everywhere. You are that guy on the subway, you are 4 people ahead of me at the check out counter at the supermarket, you are on the opposite side of the street as my streetcar goes by, you are the guy over there on the bike. I would tell you that I miss you, whatever that could possibly mean given that you were never really a part of my life. I would tell you that the last thing you said to me only made me want you more because it was so honest and true, despite being disappointing. I would tell you that I have an ache that lives where my ribs split and that the weight of the nothingness defies all scientific rationale. I would ask what you were reading. I would ask about your family. I would tell you I have tableaus of us permanently etched in my mind’s eye and that there are places I can not separate you from in my memory and that a large part f the city now ‘belongs’ to you. I would let you buy me a coffee and then I would say goodbye again with all the conviction of the first time and then I would leave, walking slowly, allowing you the time to make up the distance between where you sit and my place on the sidewalk.  I will do this despite knowing that you are already looking down at the paper.