name day silences

You observe another year
of your life
pass by,
and you marvel
from your hearts deep silence
as you gaze back
at the beaten path,
with all its destruction,
and searing pain,
which forced in you
a new,
vulnerable growth
that you never wanted
or asked for.

Seemingly,
now on this of all days,
the world suddenly offers you a present.
It lifts you gently out of the dark void
so that your squinting eyes
must slowly adjust
to this new light.
and the ears of your ears
must listen attentively
to these new,
emerging
sounds.

The world has finally taken pity,
if only for awhile,
extends its unfamiliar hands,
and invites you in from the cold.
It wraps you up in a warm blanket -
like a gift.

The world tells you:

"For right now,
in this moment,
you are alright,

you can lay your head down,
you can rest your mind,

It's O.K."




"You have to sit in the very bonfire of your distress, and you sit there till it's burned away, and it's ashes, and it's gone."   -Leonard Cohen

Seasons don't wait

Its strange to sit
and watch spring emerge,
to see the land wake
from it's long sleep,
when everything is at its brightest,
most beautiful and alive,
bursting with a vigour,
a rush,
an invisible pulsating force.
Its strange to sit
on the park bench
amid this incongruity
between the inner and the outer
when the heart
still endures
its own impossible winter.
Still imprisoned,
slightly frozen,
struggling to free itself
from the surrounding ice floes.

I watched two red winged black birds
playing like children,
tumbling through the air,
while the children themselves
laughed
and clapped their chubby hands,
faces turned upward
toward the blinding, perfect sun,
The bottoms of their little feet
stained by the greenest,
perfect grass.

These seasons,
just keep spinning
on the never ending wheel of time and history,
yet out of time completely,
only respecting the natural course of things,
over and over again.

They are no respecter of persons.

They don't wait for me to catch up,
or for my pain to recede,
before the jubilant display unveils itself,
and I am left sitting on the bench,
confused at so much joy.

The seasons wait for no one.

But this wont stop me from watching,
as if through the window of a cold room
which I am not allowed to leave,

for the time being.

Bizness

Tune-yards glory:

Note to self:
-loop pedal (and teacher)
-Uke
-2 snare drums
-extremely unashamed vocals
-horns
-pink feather boa.

gotta lose

 

 

One thing you cannot know:

The sudden extinction of every alternative,

The unexpected crash of the iron cataract.

You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it.

You only know what it is not to hope:

You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you. 

 

-T. S. ELIOT, The Family Reunion

 

 

 

"It's only after we've lost everything, that we're free to do anything."

-Fight Club

Dear Mr. Kappus (Ms. Churchill),

I believe that all our sorrows are moments of tension, which we perceive as paralysis, because we can no longer hear our estranged feelings living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliarity that has entered into us; because everything intimate and customary has been taken from us; because we stand in the middle of a crossing where we cannot linger....one could easily make us believe that nothing has happened and yet we have been transformed, just as a house is transformed once a guest has entered. We cannot say who has come, perhaps we shall never know, but many signals indicate that the future enters into us this way so as to transform itself in us long before it takes shape. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad.

You must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, when a sadness arises in front of you greater than any you have ever seen; when un-ease, like light and cloud shadows, passes over your hands and all you undertake. You have to believe that something is happening to you, that life hasn't forgotten you and that it holds you in its hand; it shall not let you fall. Why should you shut out any anxiety, and woe, and melancholy from your life since you do not in fact know what work these states carry out within you? Why do you persecute yourself with the questions whence this might come, and where it is going? For after all you do know that you are amid transitions and wish for nothing greater than to transform yourself.

In you, dear Mr. Kappus, so much is happening just now; you must be as stoic as a patient, and as confident as a convalescent; for perhaps you are both. And then in addition you must also be your own physician and watch over yourself. But there are many days in each illness; all a physician can do is keep waiting. And that above all is what you, inasmuch as you are your own physician, must do now. Don't observe yourself too much. Don't draw too hasty conclusions from what happens to you; simply allow things to happen.

Your life, dear Mr. Kappus, I think about with so many wishes. Do you recall how ever since childhood this life has yearned for "great things"? I can see it now yearning further, from the great to the greater. That is why it will not cease being difficult, and is also why it will not cease growing.

 

-Rainer Maria Rilke - From 'Letters to a young Poet'

 



for the swimmer

Submerged,

remembering the freedom

of weightlessness,

 

pull, pull, pull,

breathe.

 

Each time one arm descends

I watch tiny bubbles float up from the tips of my fingers,

 

pull, pull, pull,

breathe.

 

My neck rhythmically twists,

reaching for air, for life,

over and over,

one side, then the other,

in fluid repetition.

 

pull, pull, pull

breathe.

 

I feel the water flowing over and around my tired body,

it washes over my shoulders,

it slides over the small of my back,

like a comforting hand.

 

My eyes follow the thick blue line at the bottom of the pool,

to guide me,

to let me know when it’s time to turn around,

 

and begin again.

 

and I love

this symmetry.

An older woman winks at me as we reluctantly lift ourselves out of the water and walk towards the change rooms. I immediately notice the laugh lines etched permanently in her strong face. "You swim like a dancer", she tells me, "And you must know that fish love to dance". As I leave I hear her whistling in the shower. It's a tune I know from some old memory, but can't quite place.

no triumph

This is no triumph.
This is not what you meant.
This is not what you meant at all.

Tiptoeing softly passed the locked room
where you were huddled in a corner,
terrified that each breath,
each tiny movement,
would drag you deeper into the black.

This is no triumph.
This cornucopia of loss,
spread out before you
like a Eucharistic feast -
The feast of your most delectable sufferings,
and your best dressed despair.

Take,
Eat,
Drink the cup of your splintered life
down to the dregs.

But this is not what you meant.
No, it can't be.
Because this is no triumph.
This is no triumph at all.

white washed

I noticed her
staring anxiously
from a second floor window
of the embassy
her slender arms
wrapped tightly around her own body
in the comforting pose
of the solitary
but her dark eyes desperate
beneath her beautiful
hijab.

a suspended transient
in a frozen land
of blinding ceiling lights
and plastic plants
in cold office corners
which only confirm
her displacement
in an antiseptic world
washed in white
and her growing nostalgia
for an almost forgotten
heat.

she knows well
the slow unravelling
the string that is pulled
from the center of the chest
until nothing is left
but the groundlessness of being.

Leidner series #1 : Pearl casting party.

Pearls Before Swine
by Mark Leidner

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s casting pearls before swine. Therefore, whenever I’m surrounded by swine, I never cast pearls. I hold them back and cast other things that are more appropriate to swine, like acorns, bullets, and pennies.

Then, when the swine are gone, I put the bullets and acorns away, and start re-casting pearls. Then I cast pearls until I run out of pearls, or until the return of the swan. I mean, swine.

Sometimes, even when I’m surrounded by swine, all I have is pearls—because I ran out of pennies or acorns earlier, or I never had any of either—so again I have to forego casting pearls until the swine finally leave.

Sometimes I have to spend huge amounts of time on my knees, begging, sweet-talking the swine, trying to get them to go somewhere else, trying to convince them I don’t have any pearls, or even acorns, and that they are wasting their lives waiting for them.

Another shitty situation I face is when some of my friends want me to cast pearls before swine, and I’m torn by my duty to be a good friend, and my duty to uphold my own moral code.

My friends will be like Hey, we’re having a pearl-casting party. We want you to come and bring all the swine you know. We’re going to cast pearls before them like there’s no tomorrow. And I’m like nodding, telling them Sure. You can count on me. I’ll bring all the swine I can.

I don’t consider this a lie because all the swine I can bring to a pearl-casting party is zero. I consider the verb ‘can’ to be in regard to a moral labor, not a physical one.

Sure, I can physically do a lot of things that I can’t actually do because I couldn’t live with myself if I did it, and so, that’s how I define the verb ‘can.’

If you think about it, if someone asks you if you can murder them in their sleep, I don’t think they’re talking about your physical ability to hold the pillow down on their face. They’re talking about the psychological difficulty of the choice.

Though even this simple example usually earns me stares of confusion from my friends, who love casting pearls so indiscriminately that they don’t care who they cast them before, and cannot understand my resistance to pearl-casting no matter how elaborate my justification. Why I would resist casting pearls before swine to them is incomprehensible, but to me, it’s simply this:

a waste.

To cast a pearl before swine is contrary to a pearl’s purpose, which is to be valuable. Since value is subjective, anything with value has to be agreed upon to have value for at least two people, and since a pearl is pretty and smooth, and rare and hard, and white, it is agreed upon to have value because people like pretty, smooth, rare, hard, white things. But pigs don’t care about anything’s prettiness or smoothness or rareness or hardness or whiteness. Pigs only care if something is food, sex, or comfort.

If you support casting pearls before swine, it’s like working your ass off at a factory for no reason. It’s like working the nightshift, and not being able to spend time with your family, but then at the end of the week, you also don’t get a paycheck. You just have to work. No money, no bonus, no benefits. Just more work.

How would you feel if your whole life was worth nothing? And nothing came of it? You would be like a dog staring up at a Rembrandt. Or a single-cell amino acid stranded on some random meteorite in space. Or a really good baseball player in primordial times, back before there was baseball, or even civilization.

Sometimes I feel like that too. Sometimes I feel like a massive swine pearls are being cast before. Like at sunset. Or every time it snows. Or when I have sex and the girl is on top. Or sometimes when I’m not trying to be funny, but I get a laugh.

will there be an art?

This poem encapsulates exactly how I feel about life right now.



for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

there is no safety:: no stability:: and all friendship is cloaked in fragility :: because when it rains and rains and rains:: when the earth is washed away:: the bedrock of these things is me and only me:: and if I am cut adrift into the wild flooded sea:: will there be an art?:: hopefully::

we are so intertwined:: all of us::

a blessing and a curse.

-Heather Mercer

2012 in review

 

I am writing this entry from the comfort of a big, beautiful, empty house while the owners are off basking in the Mexican sun. Smart folk. Me and Zeus the cat (aptly named as he is a somewhat brawny fellow) are curled up listening to CBC and contemplating life. At least I am. He kind of looks like he is...but he always looks like that, so really, who knows.This is the first time in about three months I have been truly alone, and for an essential introvert like myself  that has been way too long a time. I have been shuffling to and from one busy household to the next inwardly pining away for some serious privacy, and finally, thanks be to the Gods, I have it. Sadly it is about to end...but I am so very thankful for the alone time I've had - and for the break in my nomadic, vagabond life.

 

During this distraction-less week I've had some time to take stock of the past year, and the tidal wave of change its brought with it. I have the tendency sometimes to forge ahead, full throttle, and completely forget about significant past events. When I actually stopped to think about what I've come through over the course of the past 12 plus months it was somewhat staggering. Sweet mother of God, what a year! So I have been doing some re-membering, literally gathering up the dismembered, floating pieces of my experience and trying to piece them back together into some kind of whole.

 

January - May 2012:

I was undergoing one of the things people fear the most, outside of death (and maybe public speaking) - cancer treatment. The first three months of this year I was continuing in the land of chemo, getting needles pushed into me so often I stopped feeling it, having poison injected into my veins in a big cushy chair hours at a time with a whole bunch of others, watching nurses decked out in full protective gear run around administering vomit inducing drugs to every sector of the population! I was taking so many pills I thought I was 95, feeling like an Olympic champion if I could manage to walk down my street and back. By the end of March of this year I was a constantly nauseated, bald, almost bed ridden, slightly yellowish, weak, with shrivelled veins (this is still a problem), utterly exhausted and afraid to leave my house since I looked like a cancer poster girl at the time (having no eyebrows will do that). Then April brought with it the joys of radiation - every freaking day for a month. Radiation was it's own brand of cancer weirdness. I have only noticed over the past month that I have a radiation burn on my neck which will never go away, and to make it worse...it looks like a dirt stain on my neck. Awesome. Anyway, when I started thinking back on all this two words came immediately to mind: Holy. Fuck.

The big question being: How the hell did I endure all that? In some ways the whole experience feels light years away, bu I can remember some details vividly, as though it happened this afternoon. I wonder if some part of me always will.

 

June to August 2012:

The summer of post cancer aftermath, bizarre misadventures, life re-evaluation etc. This basically boils down to - life kind of falling apart!  I realize now how much more prepared I was for the daily routines of treatment, as difficult as that was, than the after effects of having gone through the experience. The after - shock was , in a strange way, much harder for me to deal with. Going through treatment felt like being suspended in time. Every single other thing stopped in life and the only thing that mattered was survival. Everything revolved around that. Then suddenly the doc hands me the "get out of jail free" card and was like - "Congrats - this is over! You may still look like a bald infant with Jaundice, but your normal life is back! So get to it!". At that point normal life had vanished along with any trace of hair on my body. All that to say that the months following treatment were some of the most disorienting of my life to date. And a lot of changes followed in their wake. Changes that I believe were ultimately good, but extremely difficult.

 

Sept - Oct 2012:

Camino! Spain, you saved my life:

This is something else I look back on in complete wonder. First of all that I had the physical strength to walk so far, and second of all that I was OK to walk across a chunk of northern Spain ...by myself! I've always been a solo traveller, but I realized that I'm the only person I know (other than those I met on the Camino itself) who decided to do it alone - and a week before hand. And I didn't even think twice about it at the time?!? And it ended up to be the most rewarding travel experience of my life. There are times in life you have to give yourself a pat on the back...and I have to say how super impressed with myself I am with this one. Ha!

 

Oct - Dec 2012:

The move back to the hometown - Ottawa:

There are times you look at where you are and go - what the hell was I thinking?? I have had moments of that exact sentiment since making the move back to Ottawa. And I am still looking at it as a temporary 'experience' in order to keep my sanity intact. It is hard for me to conceive of putting down roots here after spending 10 years in the big smoke. But it has been fun re-connecting with Ottawa people, being closer to the folks, and seeing the town where I grew up with new eyes. It definitely is not the place it was 10 years ago, and it's been neat to observe those changes.

 

So the year has ended with me somewhat stupefied with everything that has happened. And hoping that 2013 is not half as eventful. I feel like I could use a cabin in the woods for a year to recover from it. This week I head back to the big smoke to work, and to go to the dreaded oncology follow up appointment. There is always that hard nugget of fear when going back, having to walk through the doors of a place that brings back strong unpleasant feelings, and hoping like hell your doctor will look at you reassuringly and tell you you are fine. No more chemo awaits you. You have your whole life ahead of you. Not to worry.

Most likely this is what will happen. But if this year has taught me anything it's this: There is no such thing as certainty.

 

Farewell 2012.

 

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." 

-Charles Darwin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gift

snow globe

 

 

I decorated another family's Christmas tree

while said family members were putting out garbage,

cleaning the fridge, doing dishes, brushing teeth for bed etc

I rooted through boxes of ornaments

representing a collection of years

kids, frenzy, fury, gut laughter, loss, gain.

 

So like a voyeur

I inspected these small personal reserves:

 

painted play dough star, "Christmas 2001",

little green and red train,

styrofoam dove,

red snowflake made out of popsicle sticks and yarn,

felt Christmas cowboy boot,

tiny wooden record player,

glass icicle,

fancy rocking horse with missing leg.

 

The typical nostalgia came

funny the way the mind rewinds,

and suddenly I'm eight stringing popcorn and cranberries

on a string,

playing trivial pursuit listening to Oscar Peterson,

drinking gingerale punch stealing handfuls of ritz crackers,

wondering what the adults are laughing so hard at,

sneaking a sip of sherry

gag

wearing my over sized Oilers jersey

to my knees no.99

over 2 sweaters nan knit me

skating circles on circles,

on circles

on the backyard rink

till I couldn't feel my face -

not caring one

bit.

 

Someone said to me yesterday

to my eyes

dead on:

"I hate Christmas".
 I saw the soreness

that takes over,

 

and in my own way
i get it...

 

 You can't run around your whole life

with your mittens all encrusted with ice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



unbalanced life

So What?

The perfect song with which to embrace the entrance of winter in Ottawa town.

Jazz geekery installment:
In this piece of staggering footage - enter three gigantic legends of jazz: Miles Davis on trumpet, John fucking Coltrane (sorry - couldn't help it) on tenor and Paul Chambers on bass!?! Holy Crap. I feel I should be bowing down to the gods of modern technology for giving me the opportunity to see this video. The song is the first track From Miles Davis epic masterpiece: Kind of Blue. If you haven't already, dear reader, look into it.
I love how this music excites me and calms me down simultaneously.

 "Aesthetic facts, in jazz as in all the arts, are proof of an old saying from the 1960s: 'Feelings are facts'." -Stanley Crouch

Until next time, cats.

Ultreia

This word has been bouncing around in my head over the past few weeks or so. I first heard of it while walking the Camino. It comes from "the ancient Galacian language", originally from the Latin word "ultra". I was walking mainly through the province of Galacia which is why I must have heard it spoken a few times.

A couple of days after returning home I discovered what this word meant and how it was used. It was a common greeting used by medieval pilgrims walking the Camino that means essentially, "walk further", "walk higher", "move forward", or "onward". So basically, the people walking the path were encouraging each other to 'keep going' in their standard greeting to each other as they passed along the way. I can see, after having walked it, how appropriate and great this is...considering the substantial amount of discomfort one can be in after hours and hours of walking a day, and how easy it can be in certain moments to want to give up completely. Even just a simple encouragement from a stranger can mean a lot in a situation like that.

As I so often do, I started concocting cheesy life metaphors with this word. After returning from Spain, the basic theme of my life seems to be "Move forward...Ultreia". I do feel like tatooing this word somewhere on my body where I can always see it, to serve as a constant reminder that this is now, and shall ever be, what my life is about. Yes this may seem somewhat juvenile or naive or what-have-you. But ironically at a time when, by all logical standards I should be feeling the most disillusioned, bitter, and hardened against life I actually feel the opposite - for the most part. Like he universe has given me a second chance. To do this thing right. To try not to be hankered too much by the past.

I also feel like a closet zealot, because I have the urge quite often lately to grab random people by the shoulders, look them squarely in the eye and say something along these lines: "Don't you get it? This is all you've got, this is your one shot: your one tiny blip of time on this spinning planet. So run like all hell towards your ultimate desire and hope. Chase it. Because its actually true that today could be all you have. A few hours, days, weeks or years, and you'll be gone. A memory. And so will all of the glory and brevity of  this: your life."

Of course, I'm not that crazy. So don't worry - I've never actually done this.

On the total flip side and another note...today at a coffee shop the guy at the counter asked me how my day was going, and when I gave him the standard response ("pretty good, thanks") he told me that he thought I looked 'somewhat sad and angry'?!?! This caught me completely off guard because I didn't think I was feeling this way at all. Does my face totally betray me? Wowsers. Anyway, after thinking about it a little, I realized that under the surface, some core part of me does feel a little like this. Because that's life. Sadness and anger make up a big part of it at times. The daily coping, and struggling, and...just living. It's the dark side of the glory. And I'm okay with it. Always have been.

There you have it.
Ultreia,
-Julia

cure it.



 



61

Happy remembrance day.

Rilke

 

 

 Dich wundert nicht des Sturmes Wucht
 

You are not surprised at the force of the storm—
you have seen it growing.
The trees flee. Their flight
sets the boulevards streaming. And you know:
he whom they flee is the one
you move toward. All your senses
sing him, as you stand at the window. The weeks stood still in summer.
The trees' blood rose. Now you feel
it wants to sink back
into the source of everything. You thought
you could trust that power
when you plucked the fruit;
now it becomes a riddle again,
and you again a stranger.

Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered
     leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.
It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing

ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, book of hours.

Music is my Boyfriend

 

 

 

"I Follow Rivers" - (Lyyke Li cover by European band 'Triggerfinger') ....note the coffee mug water instrument. Bottom line is I could listen to this guys voice all day. I love Europe:

 

 

 

"Fool for You" - Curtis Mayfield bringing us the goods. Classic beauty of a song:

 

 

 

"Lotta Love to Give" - Craig Cardiff's very sweet version of one of my all time favorite Lanois tunes. I love this video - clearly pre or post gig...and note the extremely sheepish dedication at the beginning(It makes me laugh out loud):

 

 

 

 

'All the winds are cold. But not yet. It's not yet December.'

 

So please exuse me while I cuddle up with my earphones. Peace.

-Julia