lazy girls' heaven

1, I had my dog's foot cut off, afterall.

2, I'm so sorry. Richard's ok with it, then? (a small giggle).

1, thanks alot (looking over with a grimace; as if they'd talked about this before). (sigh, (wistfully). Richard doesn't understand.

2, Richards never do. You know, i don't think I've ever met a fully sensible Richard.

1.2, hahahhahaha (together)

3, There is a heaven. You didn't let me finish last week.

2, O yes. Really (chuckling).

3, Do you all remember why we are here.
 
It was foggy at first but i suspect now, that it would have cleared up once i got in. I had the feeling it was big, and inside it had everything i needed. I didn't have time to think about what i wanted. It all happened so fast.

1.2, hmmmm.

1, , yes, your invitation was and is very lulling and compelling at the same time (wry smile).

3, It's white, a space, up to the left. i needed to turn my head to the left to see it properly. Yes, it was like a tunnel. as people say.

1.2, then what happened?

1, I could 'feel' more than 'see' friends waiting but only one main person beckoning. It looked like Jesus to me, but it was God. Could have looked like Buddha or Mohammad but i grew up a good Catholic girl.

2, My guy wore a robe, no other way to describe it. Kind of like a monk, with a hood and all.

1.2, I wish we remembered more.

3, Sadly and weirdly happily, we probably do

1.2.3., hmmmm (gazing off)

We remember getting pulled back here. We, according to the shadow in the robe, had "more" to do. We were sad. We felt old and sad.We needed help.

LONG PAUSE

2, I heard one man at my dad's nursing home say, "i'd rather die then live to 95. God, it is so depressing visiting there. 

1, Ah, the wisdom of cynicism.

2l3, You tell me about when you were nineteen.

2. You tell me about your dog's foot. (turning to 1,)

1, well, June, to start, it's strange as hell to walk a three-legged dog.

(3, (suppressing giggle)

3, i'm not laughing. i support your decision. It had to be done. (suppressing laugh).

1, Hmmm. Here i am with my three-legged dog and talking about a door to heaven which may or may not have been a collective psychotic break.You know that, don't you (looking at both 2 and 3.

2, Not as if that would have made any difference, eh what?

1, Hmmmmm.....I bet Heaven has Lazy-Girl chairs.

1.2.3, hmmmm.

Mary, Mary

I used to say the Rosary every day. I said it every day for five years. I had one in the upstairs bathroom, a flashy faux-diamond and gold one. A "shine in the dark" plastic one on my bedside, my friend Mary's brother's was on the armchair, i'm sure there's one on the table and there's wood one (from the Father from the Phillipines who was here for the summer) on the hook on the back door. On my knees, alone, in front of the tabernacle; with a group in the afternoon light of a summer's day shining through green glass, dark swirls of colour before confession.

Rote sometimes makes sense out of time. Memory, repetition. focus - i need it. Those were difficult times and so it goes on.

I sometimes return to my mother's mantra but i am not disciplined any more.

I worked along the path of the beads, each bead, big, small, ten, one angel, two, St. Michael the Archangel, Mary's walk, Mary's journey, Mary's turn. Are we to be as she? Can you say, i can be her? Too high? Takes too long? I worked through each of the five sets of ten, past the climax of the crucifixtion and down sorrow's path with jubliation at the end and harmony at last. I was taking a spiritual bath. I sobbed through the beads, pleaded, whined. Sometimes defiant and flustered.

Mary, Mary quite contrary. Not really. You are a model of consistency, which i like. You were not a woman of extremes. Gentle, kind, faith. Mary, my mother, showing the way. I'm in touch with your pain. I have trouble feeling joy, though.

If i swallow hard and walk away, remembering, saying by rote, the message of that day that leaves nothing to chance but throws caution to the wind. I like Mary.

o, but barren notes with ink gone dry

Soliloquy of Sanity
O, but barren notes with ink gone dry are my memories Alone, unto a light untold bespoke of even more forlorn. I sink with heart but stunning still, i croon for blood to flow. Still barren notes with ink gone dry, my memories grow old. It's apple trees and elephant's ears and pyramids i miss. I've seen the Babylonians, a try for it, a thought of it, a hope for power and need. They promised us the land and gold and justice true, a sky so blue, a market square and underwear and our place beneath the sun but i have now gone by way of winding road some hence, on bi-way's search for less and less whene'er ink on barren notes' gone dry.

School trips (band and otherwise)

I have trivial pursuits. proud pursuits. pathetic pursuits, ( too many of those); primal pursuits (when ill, primal takes a different direction (ie. survival)!

I suspected i had the tendency to "stray off the path" in high school - another example of trivial pursuit - and my adventures are still mostly of the mind variety! Notes from high school: Geography second floor, old, musty smell of wood staircases and creaking floors, worn, wide halls. I wish i could tell Mr. Biribauer that i liked his class even though he kicked me out. We called him koala because of his hair being so cute and straight up. He was very tolerant with me.

The unmarked, identical lockers, pristine monuments to hall monitors and prefects, lockers with shiny rows of shiny locks in place, in this sombre hall of my school, these metal tombs for junk and textooks, were all reserved for nifty-niners. Seniors were kicked to the basement. Toughen them up, maybe they thought. I was working off detention time by delivering mail to the teachers along the upstairs science departments and as he answered the door, i thought he had a wistful look when he realized it was me.

Music in the basement, toot, toot, toot, rest, toot, repeat.
Hand after hand after hand of Euchre. Necking with what's his name in the back of the bus and he felt me up too. His last name was Jewison but i'm pretty sure it wasn't Norman!!hahaha.
I had a crush on my band teacher. He told me to leave class and come back when i'm not stoned.


I wish i could tell Mr. Biribaur how, now, in two-thousand and nine, i've learned a few good lessons since i took his geography course in grade nine, nineteen sixty-nine.

I would like to describe to him how i found out along the way that the world's incessant, majestic variety has a mystery to it which he intimated was there. Each species, sub-species, proton/neuron, hill and valley, deciduous forest and human life, marine life animal, bird, all of it is backed up, held up by symmetry and balance and order. But if weren't for followin hilarious purpose down tragic paths we would have no Shakespeare, no Christ, no martyr to lean on. I consume as much as i can - it's so pathetically trivial, it feels like i have the flu.

I want more trees, marshes, bogs, birds and sunsets in my life.

I missed my high school reunion but this time - NO DETENTION - unless 'guilt' trip follow/
Hmmm.

I took many trips in high school, some bad, some not.

Vancouver and beyond

Touching mountain sites and lakefronts, scarred landscape too,
safe inside a train today, I wonder myself peculiar,
till the forest glen takes my gaze.
I take a relaxing pill and remove the glare to feel.

How can I imagine marketplace and sailors on tankers
and porters on trains who know where they’re going.
Where are the mountaintops behind that cityscape of glass
and beaches and waves and rocks that listen.

I have forgotten what to think when I gaze down the ocean,
the lip and swallow of white-cap on water top, gleaming.
Then two follows one wave and four follows three and
I remember why they family up, shells on rock.

How gulls diving are gulls fishing and not a pretence.
With wings flapping, herons cross over and seals bob and dip
and I see how much, how long, how vast, how strong,
so grateful I am for a glimpse of my way home.

my writing: my pic - 2005

When in doubt, pray for a get-a-way

Although i didn't write it down, i think i took the cover picture for this blog in Northern Manitoba, by the border of Ontario. I went across much of Canada (Toronto to Vancouver) in two thousand and five, by rail, by myself, just one year after my breakdown.

My trip was precipiated by seven or so months of horrible arguments and bad decisions with my husband, (who i now like to call my "wasbund"), three months following an eight-week stay in hospital care for a recovery program for PTSD and four months of out-patient therapy that was going nowhere.

I would have done anything to get away from the ongoing mental mush i was mired in and the vibrating, persistent pulse of marital negativity that surrounded me.

After my hospital stay i realized it was true:  he really was an idiot. 

My therapist at the time gave the strongest endorsement for going on the trip, she being a large shareholder in what was my most vulnerable asset at the time - my mind.

My family was on-board and so it was a consensus that taking this trip would help me "move on".

They were right. I asked my husband to leave about two days after i got home.