Busy

They've officially gone urban.

Tree Pose

Whenever I get too busy/sick/tired/lazy the yoga is the first thing to get put aside. Which is, I always realize later- when I finally go back to it, exactly the wrong thing to do.

By then my back is usually screaming in pain and my hamstring's so tight I want to cry. Only then do I aquiesce and take the time to strike a warrior pose.

And the physical benefits are, undeniably, great; as effective, if not more, than any chiropractor's visit. But there's so much more to it than that. I've only been back at it for a week and my posture and breathing are improved tenfold over this time last week and, most importantly, I feel a hundred times more focused and closer to finding my center again.

Balance. What kind of crazy person gives that up in favour of more movie time?

Instructions for Disposing of Your Past: Part I

You will need:

Your own secluded island (or bathtub, any place with water will do)
A fire pit
A bottle of your favourite wine
A full moon
Lhasa de Sala discography

The method:

Strip naked. Let the sun warm, and the wind tickle, your skin, untouched now for so long the pleasure of it is almost excruciating. Close your eyes. Remember how you came to be here. Remember all the happy years, the difficult days, the eternal seconds. Remember the lovers, eager and bashful seducers. Remember the teachers, pedantic or wise. Remember your friends when you needed them. Remember your enemies when you needed them too. Remember your suffering, remember your joy. Remember you have not had an easy life, remember it was not hard.

When you have remembered every abandoned dream, every punchline and plot, slip quietly into the waves and swim. You will remember how and the water will remember you. Let the water take your memories. Let them feed the fish.

As the sun begins to set carry the box with all of the important papers - the A+ essays, the copyright poems, the love letters, the hate letters, the mortgage and first draft divorce papers- outside. Take some papers- do not read them- from the box and lay them in the pit, then stack the kindling around them, then the wood around that. Turn up the Lhasa, pour a glass of wine, light the match to the papers and let your gaze follow the fingers of the fire pointing towards the full moon rising in the heavens.

Notice

I took a lover the summer after you left. Or was it me who left? Can you leave without going anywhere? Of course you came back, you always came back, but that time, the last time, you had finally gone too far. I refused to answer the door, I unplugged the phone.

But the next summer I took another lover. He was fit and fine, especially when you factor in his age. He read newspapers. He collected art. He had two defunct families, three jobs to support them, tattoos and a personal library. If either of us had been inclined to spend the night, we’d have had plenty to discuss over breakfast. But, it was an arrangement of convenience; he did not have the time, and I had no desire, for anything more than a tumble and toss between the sheets. I thought this might make me feel alive again. I thought maybe, if nothing else, he’d fill the gap.

And it was amusing enough, I suppose, until one night when, afterwards, he said hesitatingly into the darkness, “I know your ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, sleepy and bored, thinking he meant the Ex, “How do you know him?”

“He hangs out at the bike shop. Ex snowboarder? Talks about you a lot. Says you dated for a long time.”

“Dated?” I exclaimed, realizing he meant you, then added quickly, hoping I sounded cynical and cavalier, “I wouldn’t call what we did dating.”

His laugh sounded relieved, “Yeah, so I gathered.”

I am instantly enraged with you, the ruinous romantic, still discussing me with strangers. But in the same moment , inexplicably, as though tricked into confession by either the shock or the wine, or the combination of both, I hear myself say, rawly, “Still, I don’t know if I’ll ever get over him. It still feels, every day, like I’ve had a limb amputated.”

“Yeah,” he says again, though biting and hard this time “so I gathered”.

That night I come to several conclusions:

First, as he tries to kiss me, gently, sweetly this time like never before, instead of feeling like love or caring or tenderness, it just tastes like pity on my lips and I feel like an invalid, I reach conclusion number one: I can never see him again.

Conclusion number two follows quickly thereafter, as he attempts to make love to me, instead of having sex like we used to or even just did only an hour before: I cannot do this anymore, with someone I do not love and who does not love me.

Which leads all too swiftly and frighteningly to conclusion number three: I am too broken, and human and wrong for anyone to ever actually love me.

On the cab ride home, watching the sun rise over the Osborne Bridge I remember the night we met at your favourite pub, the nights we spent in your van, illegally parked or otherwise, and all the fights we had on every street corner, restaurant, coffee shop and bar in the heart of the city. Conclusion number four: if my own heart is ever going to not ache again, I am going to have to leave.

I give notice to the Corporation, the landlord, the city and its streets.

I am done with this.

I am through with this.

This means you.

As the World Turns

As a PoliSci major, news was once an imperative part of my life but, much like Dan Bern, I gave up watching the news and reading the papers and knowing the names of the hip people several years ago. Unlike Dan Bern it's never really made me feel out of touch. Now that I am literally out of touch, I have begun listening to and watching the news again. What a soap opera. Don't get me wrong, I am amused, entertained, even awestruck but it can be dizzying.

How amazing was it to witness the head of CSIS accuse certain politicians of being vehicles of foreign interference yesterday? For me it comes in a close second in my list of most (probably only) memorable TV watching moments to Paul Martin's disastrous proclamation that he would invoke the notwithstanding clause to prevent health care reform, killing any hope of finally becoming prime minister in less time than it takes to say "Don't f*ck with my constitution".

Breathtaking. Mind boggling. But there it was again yesterday. An otherwise intelligent man announcing on TV, things that even a child would know should never be uttered out loud, even in whispers to a priest. Moments like these lend complete credence to conspiracy theorists. Otherwise how could they commit such hubris, if not as puppets playing (poorly written) parts of a much larger scheme?

Even more fun is watching the media and pundits scramble today to try to find a plausible explanation. Allow me: Occam's razor tells us there can only be one two word answer: Knights Templar.

Then there's the tornadoes, earthquakes and floods lending credence to apocalypse theorists.

And the Transcona beavers lending further evidence to my rodent revolt theory. I don't think that's the end of it.

Any of it.

(Cue camera zoom in for close up...)

The Xenotype Experiment

Christian Bok's plan to encode poetry into bacteria and, further, to "create" a bacteria that will, on replication, write new poetry, is pure genius. If it worked, I think it would be the closest act of man to do what "g*d/ boogey bugga/ tao" whatever you call it has done in creating the universe. What is it, after all, if not poetry incarnate? Brilliant and beautiful!

My New Best Friends

I am feeling great empathy for my favourite hero, The Little Prince. Somebody please draw me a box to keep my groundhogs in so they don't eat my flowers? And a leash for Digger, the campground dog, so he doesn't hurt my groundhogs?

Frankly though, despite listening to their distressed squeals while I tried to shower and Digger set about hunting them, it only took them a few minutes after he left to feel quite comfortable climbing up onto the porch where he'd been sitting, so I'm guessing they're not in the least bit traumatized.