dreaming making being

handcrafted journals

2010-12-12T20:20:00.003-06:00

i make these.
if you want to custom order one, email me at: dreamingmakingart@gmail.com

yum

yellow bumble bee

birch butterfly white magnolia

renewal

flower tulle

purple velvet

talisman

purple geese

purple butterfly

yellow butterfly

thrive

map geese

plant matter

abundance

2010-04-02T20:28:00.002-05:00

i love this

2010-01-20T14:35:00.003-06:00

i'm working on family history.
i have spent the whole of today so far (5 of my waking hours) sitting at the kitchen table while bread has risen, and is now baking in the oven, sorting and researching and tying together flapping tails of family history. gillian welch's revelator has played at least 4 times, now it's grizzly bear. i've drunk 2 litres of lemon balm tea and 1 of hot chocolate. the sun is now blindingly pouring into the kitchen.
i love this.

one happy thing

2010-01-19T22:39:00.001-06:00

i love holding hands (paws) with my cat.
she lets me when she's lying down.

bosphorous

2010-01-14T14:08:00.003-06:00

what i'm really asking is...

2010-01-12T13:45:00.001-06:00

if i got my wish, what would i miss?
if i got to go back, live on that island,
would emerald rainforest moss substitute for towering cumulus clouds
or endless prairie sky?
would the kids i miss,
tian, caitlin, medjula,
and the kids whose names have not yet met my tongue,
make up for the loss of baby girl elliot,
or oskar,
or isobel?
would a cedar shingled cabin and woodstove,
views void of hydro-lines,
replace the small niche i've burrowed in this community,
the wild hidden places nestled within city land?
would proximity of plum, hazelnut and apple trees
overshadow my friends' effort at carving arable land out of downtrodden city dirt?
if i could see you,
tony, sophia, anna, rena,
would a small ache subside?
if i could dance with denise again
in her large studio greenhouse with the sprung white plywood floors,
the geese honking out back,
and the bathroom of thistle patch,
would i miss city classes?
dancing nine hours a week?
having six different teachers?

if i could travel your curves again,
rocky windswept coastal island,
spend lazy afternoon hours lying atop an unnamed bluff,
reading virginia woolf in salt-soaked sunshine,
would i miss paddling the clear waterways that lace their way
through this rocky canadian shield?

what i'm really asking is,
how do i love more than one?
how do i divide my heart in two?
how do i navigate a world so beautyfull
that i can't bear not to have it all?

if i had you again, dripping grey clouds in a water-logged january forest,
would i miss -20 and snowflakes drifting like glitter in a pink night sky?
if i had fir trees tall like ten-storey buildings, trunks wider than i can hug,
would i miss wide prairie,
yellow canola and blue flax blowing,
far as my eyes can reach?

what i'm really asking is,
how does one begin to let go?
and why does one keep reaching?
if i relented i'd go spend a few years in the yukon
travelling the thin gravel spine of the dempster,
learning the muskeg and fast-flowing rivers of it's surrounding land,
the blackstone, the peel, the ogilvie.
(and then i'd have to learn how to divide my heart in three)
i'd spend some winters and dream away the sunless days,
imprinting a new land,
a new place to love.

what i'm really asking
is for an instruction booklet.
an illustrated guidebook
to the pathways of the heart.

nux vomica, only because the words are beautyfull

2010-01-10T15:06:00.001-06:00

what i long for right now, are the paths walked late at night, a waxing or waning moon guiding.
only knowing they will carry you to the road from the experience of them having done so before.
when i lived there, i'd sometimes dread these night walks,
the having to get the 25 minutes out the driveway by sheer wits and trust and remembrance,
encroaching forest on all sides, with its things unseen.
now i miss it, now i want it.
the forest with its silent ghosts and sleeping creatures.
all sound at rest for the night.
driveways skinny and winding always taking longer to navigate than the more direct but exponentially more frightening trail. the trail that, should you look away for a moment, may disappear into the woods.
these are what i miss.
late night wood walks.
daylight exploration through sunlit woods.
ralphs giant firs. too huge to imagine existing.
cow dung.
the bushes formed by spreading nettles on the edge of a gravel road that leads nowhere in particular.
pathless wandering.

some nights

2009-12-02T22:53:00.002-06:00

( ( (sea change ) ) ) over wildflowers across the prairie as you go find another lover

2009-11-04T23:16:00.002-06:00

pocketing belladonna in the loose pocket of this grey wool sweater
shifting all attention to the letter to be written on the couch.
learning the pathways of love,
boiling water for rooibus chai,
soothing a sore throat of words unspoken,
grief spilling through the locks.

i dream of wading through murky water
tossing around plants
my grasping attempts to filter it.
they get caught in the undertow and re-circulate,
thrashing about,
no place to find root in the turmoil.

i realize today that this is my grief:
turning over and back on itself
going nowhere
not given proper avenue to pull clean water through.

later on shore,
someone appears
who is not you.
i relax into her
relief at having found my way.
there is so much i don't know
about her
but she wants to tell me
and...

you ask if i have grieved,
the death of my gramma.
you are trying to show me the tools.

i grieved her loss before i lost her.
now you are ignorant of what i need.
to grieve you i need to talk, or maybe to just be
with you in space,
until the hurt moves out and understanding moves in.
but there is no time for that, and i misunderstand how important i am.
and i wonder what is important.
and i blame.

you don't hold the reigns to my feelings
like beck's sea changes swell the tides of happiness,
some days.
others,
feed a stream of melancholy,
grey as a week of no sun.

three am last night the pain in my left nostril woke me,
so much burning i tossed and turned for an hour before sleep found a way back in.
this morning i sleep late and dream of letters un-sent and getting left behind, friends taking off in a horse and buggy,
my arms full of clothes and cameras as i try to find my way.
wake to the sound of the mail slot,
just before noon.
today is not sunshine
but partial clouds.
tomorrow will still come.

act 2.

i made a journal for you,
i keep wanting to give it to you.
there is an absence in my life
that you used to occupy.
the fugitives find me here
soft songs of remembrance
pushing into the space you created.
bon iver follows
telling me to be patient,
i turn him up
sending out all sound but his voice.
night brings on the soreness in my throat,
that endless cups of tea or hot water can't smooth out.
will this continue until you hear me out?
i can't wait that long.
i won't.

he sings over and over,
what might have been lost?
and i'm riding a wave with no end.

the journal is called
'sou-venir'
because of my love of language.
how souvenirs have come to symbolize
inexpensive trinkets people bring back from two-week vacations.
literally it means
memory or recollection.
but also,
broken down,
underneath and come.
how will you take it?
as a cheap remembrance of something brief
or
a space to place things
that once held meaning.

(entr'acte)

i have determined to grow lichen on my front steps
as a memory of love passing through.
a petroform made,
in a brief slice of someone's day
reads:
hi (heart) ks
she has no idea i intend this to last as long as the rocks on the canadian shield near betula lake,
formations of turtles, people, snakes.
attracting visitors from provinces away.
written about in guidebooks and attended for healing ceremonies.
a note on the front door says, all visitors to the back door please
my steps are going to last for centuries.
a testament to the strength of love.

(resume)

i could stay up all night writing half-baked poetry.
piecing together memories of dreams
applying them to you in a questionable sort of sense.
boiling pot after pot of water,
looking up words in the dictionary to make this fit the hurt.

but

the battery on this computer is running out.
bon iver is getting old.
tomorrow i need to do things that don't involve sleeping late to dream,
my yard awaits garden beds before
winter wraps me in those unforgiving arms.
if i drink any more tea my guts are going to liquefy.
and tomorrow night is hip hop,
so maybe i will dream of her
instead of you.

things right now

2009-11-01T20:11:00.002-06:00

sadness over feeling dislocated
becoming a doula
reading about writing and dreaming of a winter of reading
thinking about the garden and how i will move the shed
feeling removed from a culture i belong to

together again

2009-10-29T23:05:00.000-05:00

hip hop is a foreign language.
tight tanktop and running shoes
an aggregate of ballet, modern and improv
tries to crump
and crumbles like shale.
a mass of movement resembling nothing in particular.

plaid shirt, baggy sweats, hair falling out of ponytail
teaches us "house".

[watching your hips roll
i imagine.
watching your hips roll
i tempt the lava to flow through my gangly limbs,
tight tanktop and running shoes
not meant to be hip.]

what if you took your hands,
climbed me.
like a wall of granite maybe then
i'd be solid,
rock.

a little bit of here

2009-10-20T23:31:00.003-05:00

and a bit of over there too. a remnant of summer cabin in flin flon. lazy days of crosswords and delicious food and books and sleeping in.

lullaby

2009-10-05T09:21:00.002-05:00

the taste of your skin
a new word in my language.
i fumble over it
mispronouncing the formation
of vowel and consonant
til my tongue becomes familiar.

pronunciation affected by location:
the soft hollow behind your ears requires
a whisper, a slackening of consonants.
your breasts elicit
a language mix of old and new.
your belly,
a frenetic spill of mispronunciation and
unintelligible sound.

traveling further,
the words all blend together in a slurry
the lullaby of a foreign tongue.

if you know the route to my heart, why did you take the detour?

2009-10-04T22:04:00.003-05:00

i've been busy:
-fostering heartache
-organizing my closet
-experiencing love
-thrift-storing
-screening my calls
-baking bread
-biking into the wind
-listening to the magnetic fields
-homesteading
-examining the things that make me happy

things that make me happy:
-people telling me their stories: the two women at value village, one who makes porcelain dolls and hasn't yet figured out to use her dremel tool, the other with a nunavut license plate.
the man at the goodwill who drove home the two wooden chairs and adjustable workbench that i was attempting to load onto my bicycle.
-attempting to log into my google account and finding that leighanne is still logged in from the last time she was at my house.
-simon and pat being an old married couple at windsor plywood
-david b and his teenage son riding bikes down westminster without helmets, his son signalling a left turn all cool + gangsta and david signaling behind him, completely normal
-riding home after dark behind two kids on bikes. a girl about 12 on a bmx, pedalling slow for her kid brother, about 5, riding a bike with wheels not bigger than 12inches.
-walking at night in the quiet of my neighbourhood, winter coming on strong.

sure-footing rocky trails

2009-09-13T22:08:00.003-05:00

ok, so it looks like i'm not much of a summer blogger. i got hi-jacked by heat and fun and lakes and music and the long-day-looseness-of-time.
now it's that september time of change again and i feel an upheaval of all sorts of things.
i bought my house, for one, and it's lovely, but there are things i need to adjust to. and being unsettled with all my stuff in boxes makes my adjustment just a little more difficult. it is the sweet cabin in the city that i wanted, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need work.
tonight, in the slow unfurling of change, comes a little poem of remembrance...

she uprooted her life
on land with an ocean view
to work at a flower shop
in the bustling city.
85 acres of rock, moss, rain-forest,
tides that marked the days,
vines drooping flowers
hiding paths over bridges.
vines that she planted
with calloused loving hands.
chickens and tipi and tequila,
cats whose names have escaped.
harvest seasons of tireless bodies
busy minds
meals cooked
jars scalded
conversation made,
before dormancy and saying no to company.

i had the pleasure of you there.
sure-footing rocky trails to visit you,
in the solid wood house balanced above the sea.
we swam nights neck-laced by phosphorescence.
was it you who taught me phosphorescence?
instilling in me a knowledge i went on to yield casually,
hiding my pride.

here a star flickers in my window,
a distant cousin to the light in the forest night sky.
i am countless cities away,
scratching the surface of sacrifice.
you are only one,
and i wonder if the smell of flowers in your busy city
is enough.

lemons

2009-06-28T12:53:00.002-05:00

in my dream the lemon was rotten
and i carried the whole mushy mess of it
in my mouth to the kitchen sink.

you had already moved
to saskatoon
and it left a hole
the size of that lemon.
your family was renovating the house,
unintentionally removing all trace of you.
your brother said i looked hot
your mother wanted to take a photo
of the lemon before i threw it out.
earlier you found me in the relics
behind simon and brans new house.
i told you how to get there,
you needed a treasure map to find me:
ten steps straight east off the back porch,
curve Right around the oak, take 25 more
giant steps heading east/northeast past the boulder
then close your eyes and turn left.

everyone is moving away from this city,
their loss burns sour in my mouth.

an excerpt from 'cherry' by chandra mayor...

'you forget that summer happens, you forget flowers craning up from the grass, you forget getting the mail barefoot, you forget naked arms. you forget sweat. you forget earthworms drowned in rain puddles. you forget rain. you forget making love without blankets. you forget kissing in the sun on a blanket. you forget fishnet stockings. you forget sunset after nine. you are a marionette controlled by the strings of your mittens. you sleep in flannelette and dream of wet wool. you forget that there is more to winter. you forget.'

my latest video

2009-06-27T19:57:00.004-05:00

witness

belief

2009-06-21T22:12:00.003-05:00

i wrote this a few weeks ago now and forgot about it until i found it tonight....

i can believe. i am here to believe in beauty. in possibility behind what i perceive as wrong. past adversity. i am here to see the possible in what they say i cannot do. i am here to say yes. to say i believe in you, in your beauty and that i have faith in what you think you can do. i see beyond what looks like the commonplace. i know when you say yes i can, you mean you can. i know that smile will come.

“In adversity, it is necessary to cry out, ‘Hope! Hope! And yet again hope!’” victor hugo

i believe people will tell the truth without being asked for it. i believe we are made of goodness and sometimes we can slip. i believe in second chances and taking life slowly so we can savour it and revel in it and feel it deep. i see your beauty even if you can’t right now. your beauty moves past borders of what you think is worth it. i see how your smile disarms even the most critical. i will be here seeing you until you can again. i see how the way your lips purse over unspoken words is more exquisite than a supermodel’s pouting lips. i see how your girth cradling me in softness is sexier than fitting into jeans two sizes too small. i see how the way your nose turns upwards and presses itself against your cheeks is more clearly definitive of beauty than blending in with what magazines like to tell us is perfect. i hear your voice curl itself into parts of me that have not heard such pure song until you filled me, and i see how that is what matters. more than anything else.
i believe in change, every new moment a new chance. i believe that love comes first and that we can stick with it. i believe in what they don’t want me to. i believe a smile can heal something that may be broken. i believe in the benefit of believing in what i feel is good.

wishing at flight

2009-06-13T22:06:00.002-05:00

make no mistake, it is a dead bird. but oh how beautyfull. i had trouble placing it back on the dirt and not taking it upstairs with me, my permanent pet. imagining what it would take to stuff it. taxidermy my new occupation.
though right now it is still soft, freshly pressed itself against the pane of glass that became it's end. stuffed it would be hard, no give to it's neck, stretch in the tendons that still allow the wing to unfold, wishing at flight.

my days and evenings have been spent looking for a house. i feel busier now than i did in school when i thought i was as busy as i've ever been. you know what i look forward to? when i do find a house and i've moved in, and things are becoming in order, or perhaps already are, and i have time again to just relax. to lie in a patch of sunshine listening to good music, reading, drinking tea. just being, and knowing at least for a little while that there are no time pressures.
looking for a home is not something i want to rush, but there are time constraints, so the trusting that this will all work out is challenging me again. the worry of finding a place to live before my lease runs out. but, thankfully, the worry is beginning to be shoved aside and i am starting to enjoy the process of looking for my perfect home.

and i'm not saying i can't currently chill out on the bed in the sun with a book, but when i do things, i do them intensely. so i don't tend to leave room for relaxing in the middle of things, unless i'm forced to. and oh, to have a house of my own, where i know (or at least hopefully) i won't have to move for a long time, where i can set things up and leave them. i am looking forward to this. a place where i can garden and build up perennials. the bushes i have always wanted: honeysuckle, clematis, roses galore, wisteria, lilacs. and other beauteous things: hollyhock, rhubarb, raspberries, medicinal herbs, lavender, strawberries. mmm, here i come.

the even-ing

2009-05-31T14:23:00.004-05:00

today is the listlessness that follows the completion of something huge. all shows are done. no more rehearsals, no more costumes, no more classes. time for summer to take me in its arms and carry me along on it's whims. for me the first day after finishing a major project can never be long enough. in that day i need to fit in hours of repose in my pink chair with a good book and mugs of hot water, sleeping in, cleaning up the miscellaneous by-products of the past days or weeks of project (food jars, water bottles, dirty clothes, numerous smaller projects shoved by the wayside to make time for the larger one), begin the other projects that have been waiting for me to have free time (fill the balcony garden buckets with soil to plant the straggling seedlings that have been living by my bedroom window), finally make a hearty decent meal after days of quick omelettes on the go, and really, just some plain easy sitting in the sunshine would be lovely.
such a satisfying thing, completion. completing something well. and also knowing that even if now it's done, now is only a break on a much longer journey where in the future you will be faced with challenge again, and will again have the satisfaction of struggling and overcoming. moving on through.
yesterday ended with eight of us riding around on bikes, one of which was a bmx, which was SO cool. the seven if us felt like a steady planet riding along, each of us at a different pace, sometimes falling behind, sometimes weaving forward and through everyone else, and the whole while being orbited by this fast and wild moon, spinning circles around us and dodging passing asteroids (any curb or stairs or potholes that needed to be jumped or dodged). until yesterday i'd never given bmx-ing a thought, but i think i'll need to re-think the thoughtless-ness.
and in the middle of the culmination of dance, i received an email from the national screen institute saying they've accepted my dance film 'loss studies' to be screened in their online film festival in august! i am so stoked! so stoked, and more to do in the write-up of paperwork they need me to do.
life keeps going, and it is just so good, isn't it?

and the trees are blooming into their green.

expelled

2009-05-25T21:04:00.003-05:00

okay, so those pretty fern heads i put in the last post? i've decided to eat them.
if i am correct, they are matteuccia struthiopteris, or ostrich fern. if i am incorrect, there may be no more posts. hee hee.
i'm kidding! i did my research. for the longest time i thought what people considered the edible "fiddlehead ferns" were sword fern shoots, but apparently i am wrong. the only somewhat poisonous fern i could find was bracken, and this is definitely not bracken. funny though, bracken is considered a delicacy in japan. with my limited research i found there's question of whether the ingestion of bracken (considered carcinogenic) is connected to the higher incidence of stomach cancer in japan.
while out there gathering dinner, i found this little creature. fragile and soft and creepy too. are all dead things creepy? maybe because of it's not completely formed state. maybe that's why creepy. it looks prehistoric, doesn't it?
i've been dreaming of gardening, building beds. perusing books full of photos of unconventional houses. wondering how i can get away with chickens running around my yard. the little bird baby reminds me of our history.

and the shows went great. thanks dear friends for your well wishes. please pardon the quality of the above photos, they're video stills.

in between

2009-05-23T17:57:00.002-05:00

pants full of burrs, room full of sunshine.
in between the beginning.
renewal. new growth. shelter and sustenance.
care.
taking each others hands and leading in times of blindness.
trust.
-
it's my second free evening in a row and i am relishing it.
making french fries. omelette full of orange pepper, leek, zuchinni, broccoli and mushrooms. about to watch one of my new favourite things, animation movies about romance and magic by hayao miyazaki (thanks shona).
we've now finished five straight days of dress rehearsal and tomorrow is the show.
mmmm. it feels good.

processing

2009-05-16T21:35:00.000-05:00

lately...

2009-05-09T19:29:00.004-05:00

i've been baking a lot of bread. it's pete's recipe, flour water salt and starter. i am getting to know my starter better and it's SO cool. i'm talking to it now. it's like a pet, it's been with me for a month, i think. to make new loaves i'll completely empty out the giant mason jar of starter, except for the bits that get stuck to the side that i can't scrape out, and i'll go on making my beautyfull sourdough bread that is more successfull every time i make it, and then i go and refill the jar with water and flour, and wander away and do my tiddly things, then a few hours later i come back and it's bubbling away and growing there on the counter. (i did mention that this blog was about rambling-on sentences, right?) it amazes me. so cool! it's a low-maintenance pet that needs no sunlight or socializing, AND it feeds on it's own waste! i highly recommend it.
other than baking bread, i've been dancing (as usual) and becoming more aware of how demanding it is to spend so much time dancing. and this is only the beginning. i am taking 7hrs of class this year. next year if all goes well it may be up to 15. i spend time every morning and evening stretching religiously. and i stretch again before and after any physical activity, and still there are aches in strange places. the sides of my feet, my ankles. last sunday i over-stretched my hip and since then, almost a week, some muscle in the back of my left leg, running from below my knee up into my back, has been tight no matter how much i stretch. i can see how this takes up ones life. and really, i'm ok with it taking up so much of mine, but to balance that out, i need to do less of other things. not possible right at this moment, but the school year is almost over, and maybe there will be changes for next year.
other than baking bread and dancing, i've been lamenting to friends about how my life feels unbalanced, how i want more creation time of quiet, how all the house hunting options i am coming up with are a little depressing and i miss making messy art. since my studio moved (or disappeared, really), i haven't been that inspired to create in the small space that i have. i know this is partly just an excuse, and if i really wanted to create, i would. despite that, it hasn't happened yet. there are SO many things i want to make, and i haven't made time for them. three quilts, felted stuffed animals, photo editing. a messy life of so much that i want! ha ha ha. all these wants. i picked up 'the artists way' (by julia cameron) finally. i know it may seem strange that i have not yet read it. it's been on my radar for over ten years now and i finally bought it almost a year ago. going through this wanting creation phase and missing all the spiritual books that i was reading last year, i picked it up and laughed when i looked at the sub-title: "a spiritual path to higher creativity". sometimes things just fit perfectly. sometimes we just need patience and should maybe give up on forcing things if they don't want to happen when we want them to. (remind me of this later). this current feeling of upheaval has me thinking about many things, one of which is even though i say i am so busy and have so little time for so many things i want to do, i really do love this. the balancing and rebalancing. finding where i am supposed to be.
feeling overwhelmed and itchy feet-y, i am remembering past trips and actually thinking fondly of the bike trip i took in the fall. the trip i said i would never do again: cold and desolate, tourist season done, no safe psychological havens of tourist bureaus or travelling family motorhomes. biking with ALL of my gear on because the mornings were frosty and i underestimated october on the shield. but here i am at home, sitting in my pink chair, dreaming of the empty roads in late morning sunrise, frost on pavement evaporating into the air. (here it is.)
how time softens things, colours them a paler shade of pink. are the wrinkles we acquire with age physical signs of the give and take of life? the balancing? the softening of resolutions we held so firmly to when we were young?
this trying to find a house that is right for me has shifted into me thinking i want to build a strawbale house here in the city. just the thought of this is overwhelming. i like to do things that i can see the limits to. things that i can comprehend given the knowledge that i already possess, or can at least see myself understanding in the near future. to me, the idea of buying a house is a relatively simple endeavour compared to building one made out of straw. every other time i've thought of building a home (which is a great many times), it has been outside of city limits, woods or ocean in the background. there has never been a thought of building codes, or plumbing, or electricity in my mind. the city and alternative building did not go hand in hand for me. but now, an idea blooms. and as ideas generally go for me, they bloom into full glorious flower, luscious in texture and scent and voluptuous beauty before i've even taken the time to find out how to care for the seed i've planted. how to make it grow into a strong deeply rooted tree with many-a-limb, blooming year after year, instead of a datura or poppy, radiant for a time and then dispersing its seed on the wind.
nevertheless, here i go, dreaming and planting and hoping to coax these seeds to grow from roots strong and deep and widely reaching.

home is where

2009-05-06T00:19:00.003-05:00

when spring comes around, the desire to travel hits me. i was talking with a friend, wondering if this is a biological thing or a pattern that emerges from past actions. spring and summer have always been times that i've travelled. i have rarely been a winter traveller. my travelling usually takes me to various parts of canada. wooded areas, remote areas, anywhere, it has usually been in the summer. if i were a winter traveller, i imagine i would want to go somewhere off this continent, or at least somewhere warm. but in the winter i tend to want to nitter down in my house, wherever it may be at the time, and do things like read and art and drink tea and do crafty things. maybe it's a combination of both, of biological urges and past history dictating current desire. i just realized as i write this, that my last big move, from bc to manitoba, took place in december, a roadtrip across half the country. you'd think if pattern was going to embed itself in me, that would be one of them. but nope, no strong urges to take off strike me in december. now that spring is here i find myself yearning for last year's paddling trip in northern saskatchewan. i have urges to ride fast and hard out of this dusty city and into quiet land, full of birds and trees. last years dry grass blowing in the wind.
it's a little hard being tied to something so scheduled. for me, this year, that scheduled thing is dance school. i've spent the last 9 years of my life being loose, in a sense. free to come and go as long as i can book the time off my various jobs, which generally hasn't been a problem. this year is the first that i have committed to something that has specific time constraints. something that is an investment towards my future, though i can't clearly define in what sense yet. something that says, 'caroline, you have to be in this city from september to june regardless if you have the desire for the open road or flowing waterways. you have committed to something and it takes precedent over whatever else you may want to do.'
there are so many contradictions and compromises. or maybe these contradictions i see aren't so much that, but just changes that come with time. i spent a major part of the last nine years attempting to elude schedule and commitment. not necessarily for good reasons either, fears mainly, of being tied to something that i thought i may not be able to follow through with for one reason or another. now schedule is catching up with me and i find myself planning things weeks in advance. it comes with living a busy life. my life has never been busier than it is this year, and change is constantly rolling itself through. this years big planned change is buying a house, which is a commitment tying me to this city that i never imagined would happen. not here. no, never. but there it is. and now that i'm actively spending time searching the listings for the perfect home for me, it has me thinking of all the places i've lived in the past.
i have a book called 'home'. photographs of houses, cabins, people, spaces that have embodied what home means to me. it is bound with cardboard and two metal rings and filled with brown paper made from old grocery bags. it's cover is layered with a piece of arbutus bark from the west coast. i can't remember when i started it, but it covers the span of time from my last year of high school, when i met a group of fabulous friends who have shaped the direction of my life, through the van i lived in that moved me to the west coast, summer camps, motor-homes, houses in the woods, tents on quiet highways, cabins by the sea, apartments in houses in cities. i hope for all of the perfectness in these various places to culminate into one beautyfull cozy space for me in this city. surrounded by towering elms and big-sunny-yard for art picnics and gardens. quirky strong and big windows, hardwood floors, big dance space. rooms for both my painty art and my sewing. sunshine and green-space and coziness, find me.

everything is wonderfully normal

2009-04-29T11:59:00.003-05:00

hey! i figured out how to post non-pixelly photos! or rather: viv told me how to! thanks viv.
this was just a test, but i'll post it anyway.
i just finished the personal legacy theatre workshop through urban ink and it was INCREDIBLE. for diverse and fabulous reasons. i'm not gonna write about it right now though. i need to go practice some dance.

artifacts

2009-04-25T17:08:00.000-05:00

the non-digital slr has been resurrected.

being

2009-04-22T20:34:00.005-05:00

i was feeling listless today and coral asked me why, and i said because i was just emerging from an intense book, and it immediately occurred to both of us how like a human relationship it is, to be with a book. and we laughed and took off with it. coral advising me to watch out for the rebound books and me telling her i will look over the titles and author biographies carefully. this all came out after our first evening of the 5 day theatre workshop we're doing.
the workshop wasn't open solely to females, but that is the way it turned out. two men were going to be in it, but last minute changes of plans gave way to 6 female participants and our two female facilitators. for some reason, at this point in my day-to-week-to-month of life, i deeply want to be surrounded by the warmth and care and attention of women.
upon entering the space for the first time this evening, there was an overwhelming feeling of being welcomed and safe. that feeling is a warm coat holding me, enveloping my listlessness and cradling my desire for curling up at home.
what a gift it is to feel at home in the presence of others whom you've only met for the first time.
and now, after video-ing the sun set over brick-city-buildings and century-old elms, i am watching the sky fade into twilight from my cozy bedroom, and writing by the warm milky light of jolie holland's voice. revelling in the gifts we are always giving to each other, if we keep taking the time to feel and listen.

here, from andrea gibsons poem 'say yes':

never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart

and, well, ummm, just cause i love dancing,
especially dancing to pop-y songs with hilarious lyrics, here's some beyonce

each day grows richer

2009-04-18T17:18:00.000-05:00

time is dodgy, it takes or leaves 10 minutes whenever it pleases

2009-04-18T13:14:00.001-05:00

i watch you as you dream, or i think you're dreaming. wondering if you breathe harder than you are now,
when you're truly sleeping. what do you look like when you're sleeping? i toss and turn all night unused to the heat another's body puts out as it releases the happenings of the day. all the covers off aren't enough to cool me of the warmth pressed against my right thigh, forearm, shoulder. i wonder if i'll get used to the weight of you beside me, your smooth feet nestled into the soles of mine. the way you lace your fingers through my left hand at the head of the bed. your smile the sweetest pleasure after a long slow kiss. will i learn the pattern of freckles on your lips, the imprint of your coarse hair on my cheek?

{i ride around the next day in a daze, picking up and dropping off packages by rote, giddy but too tired to show it. hoping someone will ask me why i didn't get enough sleep last night.
they never do, but i talk about you anyway. i live my life like this: barrelling into one moment and then the next.}

but
the imprint fades like a dream after an abrupt awakening. your freckles remain unmapped constellations in my night sky. i dream of running my fingertip along the invisible lines, a fumbling astronomer, but your lips move too fast and occupy themselves holding so much back that i can't get near the flickering light. you do not leave room for a getting-used-to. your weight leaves my bed, and once again i need three wool blankets and one cotton sheet to fool me into a suggestion of heat.
will anyone's body make a promise it can keep? will you stop moving one day, stop leaving before you've arrived?
i watched your emotions gloss over as i asked you if you needed anything. frustration to uncertainty to vulnerability to a fast-built wall of o.k. i wanted to reach past o.k and hug you, but i knew the hug was more to reassure myself than you. that i was still a matter of import in your life. i would not ask that of you right then. you had already left my bed once,
the imprint too fresh on my skin, not to leave a searing mark if you touched it again.

you're my bad habit, talking about everything that's superfluous to get around talking about what isn't. i have no time or desire for that in my life, nor do i have time to worry that i am not giving you enough.
so how come i still want to pull you into bed with me, kiss you,
map that constellation of stars that is your voice.

offering

2009-04-14T22:25:00.002-05:00

we were sitting in a guest cabin on a sea-level island. my right shoulder was to the open window frame, you faced it with your left, we were both on wooden stools and a small breeze was blowing over us. the island was completely sand except for the cabin that stood upon it on stilts. i was describing it to you because you were blind, sitting beside me. i told you the island was about a kilometre long, maybe less. and half that wide. attempting to be descriptive as possible, as i tried to hold you up with my voice.
we were surrounded in dark wood, everything bare, like we didn't live there. the light was early morning or late evening, those slippery twilight hours where time is not linear. i spoke of the rooms full of bunks, twelve in that one, more in the next, a capacity larger than i expected.
there was a charge to our conversation. the intensity with which i was trying to convey, the quality of air and light.
as if we were racing something: time, memory. the faster i could paint a clear picture of what surrounded us, the less likely time would creep in and steal it away.
this whole while, knowing i was not to touch you, i gave arms to my voice.

she holds wheat and ribbons

2009-04-12T22:08:00.005-05:00

eeeks! no post in a long time!
life has gotten busier than the busy it was before. i have been accepted to be part of a theatre workshop on personal legacy/ancestry and so have some heavy research to do in the next week and a half. i've been doing lots of writing too, except i now have a video project in mind to do with the words that have come, so i don't want to post it here yet. but, a photo for the meantime.....

and now back to writing and attempting to finally go to bed early!

the title of this post and the following are both by michael ondaatje:
we die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. i wish for all of this to be marked on my body when i am dead. i believe in such cartography- to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map...we are communal histories, communal books.

night walk

2009-04-01T17:43:00.003-05:00

march 31st snow.

...her body full of sentences and moments,

2009-03-30T08:43:00.003-05:00

as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams. (michael ondaatje)

photo roadtrip through snowy manitoba. sweet sweet sweet.

plethora

2009-03-25T22:16:00.007-05:00

a sweet friend has recently lent me a deeeelicious camera so i am on photo over-load and OHHHH does it feel good. my slr has been on the blink and i'd forgotten how amazing it is to take photos with a good camera. now i am smitten with this digital camera after so long of being anti-digital, and then easing into it with a point-and-shoot. gosh do i love it! i think an investment may need to happen soon.
another thing i love:
tuesdays. (i also love sundays, but i'm going to talk about tuesdays right now)
tuesdays are the day that i finish dance class at 730 and my lovely friends finish print class at 730 and we congregate at the local coffee shop and eat cake and laugh too loud and talk too much and sometimes draw and sometimes cry and sometimes are just quiet in our own reveries.
tuesdays happened by accident. and i've come to call them womens therapy night. sometimes there're only two of us, usually three, sometimes five, sometimes men show up. and it's all okay. it's all SO good. it's all so perfect in it's lifey-ness. after tuesdays i am brimming with the wonder of the messiness of life. somehow these women turn it around for me, not that i should be so surprised. talking with them turns my muddy unsure thoughts into sparkling gems worthy of a jewellers gaze.
tuesday nights make me sparkle.
sometimes all i want to say is t h a n k y o u.
thank you to my friends for being the amazing sparks of light in my life that they are. thank you to life for bringing me everything i really want.
i'm coming to realize a couple of major things lately: that what i thought i really wanted isn't actually true. i thought i wanted long term partnership, for years now that has been my 'biggest thing'. but in the last couple of weeks, i think i realized how serious that is. not that i haven't acknowledged in the past that it is a major thing to think when looking to be with someone. but that somehow the idea clicked into action recently. that just being with someone with NO EXPECTATIONS is so FUN and freeing. i know, that may seem like such a simple thing, but sometimes i don't catch on to the simple things.
i'm also coming to accept that just because i say one thing one day, doesn't mean i have to feel that way the next, and same for my expectations of other people. they can change, i can change. and we need to leave that room for change in each others lives. also, if we get into relationships for a goal (like i've so often done with my longtermy-ness) we are missing out on the gifts of the present moment. we are missing why we are really there with that person RIGHT NOW. a hard thing to see, and keep constantly in mind. the not living into the future. but right now, it's glimmering in the forefront and it's all i can see.
so thank you thank you thank you.

letting life be life.

2009-03-13T09:44:00.005-05:00

how do you define your life?
as something shifting and changeable and un-fixed and perfect in it's mess?
i don't understand so much and inherently understand others.
i am revelling in saturday morning pancakes drenched in maple syrup. the sun is pitching tiny rainbows onto my bedroom wall and laying it's brilliant self across the brown patterned quilt of my bed. i am revelling in the weakerthans singing themselves into my morning. i am revelling in the beginning of spring. the plus two weather that has been forecasted for today. the fact that i could ride at least a few blocks yesterday without my mitts on, that i could take off my wind-breaker for the first time in months. that every secretary's face shone as i talked to them while they were signing for packages, they finally had something positive to say in our daily exchange about the weather.
our lives are mystery to me while we're living them. these present moments.
and then there's the future, when we look back and say, ahhhh, i see.
how does that happen? is time a magnifying glass, or a distiller of the essence of any given situation?
i don't understand how i can love things so intensely, how the loving can drive me to madness. like how i want to squeeze babies because they're so-darn-cute-oh-how-can-you-not-squeeeeze-them! where will this intenseness get me? into trouble? what does it mean? do i try to understand things too much, instead of just riding out my feelings? if i just love what i desire to love intensely, will it moderate itself out?

umm, i just started listening to hip hop and it's not helping the writing thoughts flow. time for a brief intermission.
i also want to know why all the photos i've been posting lately are so pixelly. can someone tell me this? i haven't changed anything about them and they are still quite large files. do i need to change a setting somewhere?

this post has a theme song and here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWeGI0qiFz8
not the best sound quality, but i couldn't find better.

i wonder about love, how it feels. if i can claim it. why people are scared when it's said. why it has so many definitions. how i can love sunshine or butter or my cat or any dear person in my life. i wonder if i can say that i love what i love. that i can love people who i barely know. that i can truly say that and feel valid. can i love my new friend who lives downstairs, after only a month of knowing him. can i love the 17 year old girl in my dance class who put on someone else's pants after rehearsal and when she discovered this said: tHAT'S why my pants were on the other side of the room. can i love the clerk at the library who slowly examined my varied cd choices and said: your taste in music is very different. is it too much to say, after she says this, that i love people. is that too general?
and even if i love something, do i have to say and show it ALL the time? that's where the intenseness comes in, that i don't hold back. and that i don't know if i SHOULD or not. i constantly want to show love to people, and in a way, it distracts me from the rest of my life. as in if i were to spend as much time with pete downstairs as i want to, i would never get things done. well, not never. i find it scary that i can want to spend so much time with someone.
where is the part where i say, caroline, this is okay. does that come? does understanding kick in? or is it all muddle, all push and pull and give and take and try and fail. am i getting to the point of what i'm trying to say here, or am i going in circles?
what i want to know is why i love so intensely, and, iS THIS OKAY? will life just balance itself out if we let go of the reins and let life be life?

the pebble beaches of your history

2009-03-08T16:27:00.003-05:00

do we start out whole and end up broken, or do we begin broken and grow into this world attempting to make ourselves whole?
i return from rehearsal and make myself motion sick trying to get the moves right. lie down into the warming march sun for a reprieve, a necessary settling of the belly. my dad and two brothers all get motion sick too. my brother is the worst i think, he gets motion sick riding in a car if he isn't the one driving. i told him i wanted to become a bush pilot. he said he wanted to as well when he was younger, fly any small plane. (i don't know how i didn't know this). tells me that on his third flight out he had to drop into a tailspin and not recover from it till he was almost back to earth. he did recover the plane, but not himself. he lay in his van for three hours afterward just trying to function. he said i could simulate the feeling by hanging over with my head between my legs and spinning as fast as i can for thirty seconds. i haven't tried it yet and have placed being a bush pilot on the backburner.
my brother rides bikes now.
my other brother bought a sailboat and sailed around the west coast for a couple of years until he ended up on a small island. an island only accessible (unless you've got your own boat) by a sixty-passenger walk-on ferry. an hour and a half of torture crossing the georgia strait on the worst days. fifty minutes on days when the sea is at rest. i lived there for a few years too. on the days you plan to go over, you pray that the massive firs surrounding your cabin aren't swirling when you wake in the morning. the worst is a north-west. the bay the ferry is docked in faces north-west because the prevailing winds are south-easters. on the rare days a north-west rages, you can barely get on the boat, it's rocking so hard. those are the days you are wearing full rain gear and gum-boots, standing out back getting drenched by each wave as the ferry heaves side to side. no way can you even think about going inside unless you want to experience breakfast twice. those are the days you hang onto your neighbour and brave the swells with words of stoic encouragement, and sometimes, if you're faring a bit better than the next guy, humour.
is that how we make it, i wonder? with humour and tolerance and the desire to experience a life that pushes us to our limits, forces us into discomfort and pressures us to resolve.
choices we make. paths we take. roads that start out as pavement and peter away into gravel. bike tires spinning under us and sunshine pushing down hard. fireweed whipping by, bugs smacking our faces.
choices we make. paths we take. growing up with parents who love us so hard we run, make our own way, and somehow forget the way back. forget how to love well. continue stumbling along the path trying to find ourselves. trying to be a person we'd be proud of. how much do we write off as part of our character and thus abandon the will to change?
choices we make. paths we take. picking up the phone and saying, i'm sorry. opening the door and saying, i love you. being willing to be vulnerable to fix a brokenness that was starting to feel whole.
choices me make. paths we take.
i am here today, rehearsing dance moves in my small slope-y-ceilinged living room. i am here today washing the three-day-old grease out of my hair and picking up the phone to say i'm sorry to someone who should matter more to me than anyone else in my life, but doesn't. i am here today telling myself that i think i'm not doing my best,
but i'm trying.
and for now, that's good enough.

the sweet babyness in my life

2009-03-07T16:40:00.000-06:00

just too cute not to post. and ohhh those toes.

a ten-year-old girl's dream

2009-03-07T16:06:00.001-06:00

heartsong

2009-03-04T20:04:00.003-06:00

are we passengers of our emotions?
do we have control over ourselves, or do we just think we do?
where is the venue for logic and where is the venue for emotion?
is it all about striking a balance between the two, or is it sometimes worth it to be completely governed by one, and then in other aspects of our lives, by the other?
me: i have every idea, and none at all.
i think one thing and i feel another.
and how do we muddle through this? with constant thought and communication, or...
feeling.
feeling feeling feeling

i am shades of rose grey. tones of dream. wandering this world with my feelers out and struck off balance if asked to explain myself. i am here to laugh and ponder and flirt with life. i am here to listen to this song and have it push my feet endless across this living room floor. i am here to tap these keys and punch ideals and wishes into the air. i am here to be vulnerable and and silly and ridiculous. i am here to be moved to tears. i am here to sing this song that defines me, this continuous shifting me.

*the title of this blog came from my dear friend viviennes blog

colour in that dream

2009-02-25T09:29:00.002-06:00

the current feeling of being overwhelmed by life is continuing on.
i can see the perfection in these bits of overwhelming-ness, i really can. but i wouldn't mind if that perfection took a step forward and blocked out the worry and fear. the fear of change, the worry that a choice i make will lead to more scary change that i can't handle. it's funny, i thought i liked change, but when it comes time to make major decisions in my life, i freak out and worry that i may choose the wrong one. is this a new pattern? maybe i've just never had so many options to choose from in the past.

i got home last night after a pastel colouring session with friends. much cake eaten and talk shared. ideas and insight passed around. the ride home was treacherous, 10cm of snow had fallen and the past weeks of clear roads had me forgetting how difficult it is to ride in messy deep snow. lots of pushing the bike instead of riding.
i got home and checked my email, to see if there was any magic there waiting. reassurance. hope. promise. reminders that life won't always feel like this. that life will sort itself out if i just let go and let it.
and i found this, a little email from gina titled 'settling'.
thank you gina.

'May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly
where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite
possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you
use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has
been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you
are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the
freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and
every one of us.'

a pep-talk list i gave myself a few days ago:
-you do not have to live for the future.
-some thing's are worth the sacrifice.
-realize that you're getting what you ask for, when you do get it, even if it doesn't look like how you expected it to.
-you don't need to attach to your ideas and expectations because life is completely malleable and someday your ideas will not hold true and the only way to move forward and not get stuck is to believe in something new.

and here, a seed for the future, for the summer soon....

what does the grand canyon look like?
colour in that dream

begin

2009-02-22T21:15:00.000-06:00

gratitude and love songs

2009-02-18T13:04:00.005-06:00

love song for lasqueti
i have a family there
on that island that smells like three-inch-thick damp moss, dust and calm-ocean seaweed.
mainly bull kelp
tangled in the wild embrace of waves and wind,
i would swim out into it and emerge a mermaid
a ten-year-old girl's dream.
if you squint your eyes maybe it even looks like yellow-green glitter and water diamonds
dripping down your tail-legs.

i have a family there that i can call by name
faces i haven't seen in four years, but voices that slide in and out of my dreams,
fluid and thick like the water they live their lives by.
their words flow in and i wonder if maybe i haven't left.
i wonder if we ever leave places that we've been,
or if we are constantly leaving ourselves behind and
growing new parts to replace those unwillingly abandoned.

do i need to remember you right now?
in the middle of stark white winter in this city,
dead center of vast canada.
in this frigid air that sucks out my breath
and holds it for the briefest instant
in front of me teasing
before it disappears to who knows where.

do i need to remember your limbs,
douglas fir (not a true fir!),
cradling my feet as i climb up to the unbelievable height of your ageless growth.
i can't count your rings, you've been around too long to be sensical
my numbers don't go that high.
i am like a five-year-old in front of you,
trying to remember how to tie my shoes:
what are they called? bunny ears? does a rabbit go into a hole somewhere?

do i need to remember the bare rock of mt.trematon,
where i could see clear over the ocean
east, south, north and west
watch sunrise and sunset and
the zodiac of stars appear.
i would go up for as long as
the water i could carry with me would last.
lie on my Thermarest reading Natalie Goldberg
as the clouds shifted overhead and
the gentle wind tugged at my pages.

i have a family there that consists of faces and voices and
gravel roads and trail-marked forest and stories of
people lost and pebble laden beaches and stinging-nettle patches
and morning sunlight through wood-smoke and trees.
i have a family there, but i have a family here too.
and i have roots starting and begging to grow in
golden and whitehorse and thunder-bay and inuvik and
all those other places you stop along the way.
and i wonder if it's possible not to have the longing
to have them surround you all at once,
if it's possible not to miss your family.
or if the missing is part of that sweet feeling,
of knowing that you are loved.

gratitude
on my blog i write about how unworthy
i've felt
this last little while,
putting all my thoughts and energy into someone who i do know loves me
but not in the way i thought i wanted,
and never reflecting back to me
how amazing i am.

it baffles me how vehemently you can love someone
who gives you nothing back.
does this come from being fucked up by our parents?
all the little things we grew up with that we have no idea are making an impression on us:
that my dad was never there
not present to give me the fatherly encouragement and approval
that my soft-haired little girl needed in a way she could never understand.
so now i go looking
for the remote stolid
male
to take over the role i am so familiar with:
someone who gives nothing
as i try and try to elicit
some sort of praise
or at least acknowledgement
that i am worthy.

i write this out,
the blog being a receptacle for my loose poetry,
a map to follow on this trail of me.
and andrew writes back,
says of his three-year-old son:
Max thinks you're cute and loves the way you build with blocks....he is currently available.

and i laugh uproariously
at the gifts i am given
in this sweet sweet world.

are these the things that are important?

2009-02-11T16:37:00.002-06:00

what do chances missed look like? if you could catch them in a snapshot, what would the colours be? how would it leave you feeling? is there always so much left unsaid? how much do we trust what we think is our intuition, instead of what people are telling us? what if someone says the just perfect thing and it's a lie? and what makes it a lie? if it's just perfect? what are the checks and what are the balances? and where is the definitiveness in subjectivity?

i thought he was cute when i talked to him for hours at the farm two years ago. the heat pressing down on our pale skin, the sweat beading under my straw hat. cracked mud under our feet and dusting our farm pants, as we weeded the rows between the chives. i thought he was cute and marveled at how i could feel comfortable in his presence. marveled at how time wears away our edges and makes us eventually who we desire to be. ever a process, ever changing, but always moving forward into something new. something we never fathomed we wanted.
at the end of the farm day we parted, a connection made and a connection passed.
it is now years later and i am going through heartache and transition and kels says to me:
i think you should date duncan.
and i say:
no. i don't want to have a crush on anyone right now. i cannot put that energy towards someone, when i have been doing so for years and feel so so broken. i need that energy put towards me. i need to feel wanted again. i need to feel beautyfull in someone's eyes. i need to feel worthy. of love. but as things go, i think about him all day until he is stuck there. a seed planted in the fertile dirt of my mind, of my tireless, patched up heart. and she says she'll set it up, but it doesn't happen. i see him at a party that week and feel like he doesn't even know who i am anymore. and i almost say to him, as i am walking out to leave and he is standing alone by the bathroom door: kels thinks we should date, do you want to? but, like i've always done, i walk past. i gather my things and by the time i am ready, he is in the bathroom and i am out the door. i say to simon next week: ok, you offered to set it up, i'll take you up on it. a week later, simon reports back. duncan has replied to his email, he says:
when i first talked with her, i thought she was cute, but i thought no way would she go out with me. and now, this week i have just started dating someone. oh cruel world.

and is it a cruel world, i wonder? a day passes and everything is different. choices are made. action is taken. and we move on. and i realize what i am left with: someone has wanted me. someone has thought i am beautyfull. someone has found me worthy. so i say thank you, cruel world, for the beauty in the perfection of things that don't always seem so perfect.

life begins every moment

2009-02-08T16:26:00.004-06:00

"life is short, but wide". ya-ya wisdom

2009-02-04T22:21:00.003-06:00

so, ahem, i've been reading divine secrets of the ya-ya sisterhood. initially i was embarrassed because it's not the dance of anger, or, the power of now, which are also in my to-read pile. it's this journey of healing: there's a perfect time for everything.
i do want to read those self-help books, know they'd have good ideas and insights into pain and wanting and letting go. but it's just not time yet. right now is time for dinners and bad jokes and foolishness with friends. right now is time for costuming-up and dancing till the wee hours. right now is time for impromptu dates with girlfriends when i see them sitting in the window of our neighbourhood coffee-shop, one night after dance class. we laugh so long and loud over the silliest of things that i go home exhausted. right now it seems to be time for distraction from the deep emotion until it wanes a bit. lessens in power. so that when i go back to it, it won't be strong enough to knock me over. right now the deep lifelong friendships of the ya-ya sisterhood are a balm for my heart.

willing

2009-02-01T13:41:00.004-06:00

everyday there's something new

2009-01-25T18:18:00.003-06:00

ontario. 2007

dawson city. 2006
-

6 hours of dance today. my body so pleasantly exhausted. drinking deep cleanse tea after consuming almost a whole raisin hazelnut chocolate bar. mmmmmmmm.
my studio is now out of its old space and in my room once again. extra shelving and art table stuffed into the porch for the time-being. even-though i was initially devastated to be kicked out of my studio, i now see how necessary it was to get out of that space (the space belonging to the three-year crush). he was right in kicking me out, i kept thinking i could do it, be in the same space as him, i so desperately didn't want to give up my studio.
but as soon as i said good-bye to the space, devoid of all my belongings, and hauled the last tote of supplies up my stairs, i felt r e l i e f. my living room and bedroom space still in upheaval, but despite that, this instant relief. so thank you r, for the kick. showing me what i needed but what so resistant to see. sometimes its hard to know what we really need. sometimes we know but resist it with all our might, because it's not what we want.
learning. always learning and growing.
the studio space is small now, and there's carpet surrounding my little island of plastic-splash-guard, but i can blast music and tune out the world and make art in this space that is my own.

flin flon. 2006

the shapes that healing takes

2009-01-18T18:54:00.004-06:00

packing up the studio, it's time to move it out and move on.
as sad as it makes me, i'm beginning to see a little light. making a place for clear mental space. for now it will have to be moved back into my already small (and carpeted! not good for paint!) bedroom, but hopefully from there a new studio will grow somewhere that will be even more wonderfull than the last one.
the shapes that healing takes...
-multitudes of self portraits
-staying up way late watching episodes of greys anatomy
-batches of soup (east african pea, sicilian white bean and tomato, curried sage and lentil...)
-time spent with friends, just being
-sad and angry poems
-extravagant food preparation, tiny cups of tea and raucous games of dutch blitz with friends so dear.

sometimes i find it so hard to be a romantic in this world.

2009-01-13T22:14:00.001-06:00

'a phone rings in the nurses station, and i push forward so i will not be caught. i am a midnight bandit, masked and fleeing on horseback from sleepy desert towns, charging into yellow moons with gold dust in my saddlebags. i am young and strong with passion in my heart, and i will break down the door and lift her in my arms and carry her to paradise.
who am i kidding?
i lead a simple life now. i am foolish, an old man in love, a dreamer who dreams of nothing but reading to allie and holding her whenever i can. i am a sinner with many faults and a man who believes in magic, but i am too old to change and too old to care.'

-from 'the notebook', by nicholas sparks

phenomenal woman

2009-01-12T09:58:00.003-06:00

for when you may need it:

PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them
They think I'm telling lies.
I say
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please
And to a man
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees
Then they swarm around me
A hive of honey bees.
I say
It's the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth
The swing of my waist
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say
It's in the arch of my back
The sun of my smile
The ride of my breasts
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say
It's in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need of my care.
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That's me.

these tiny moments

2009-01-11T18:52:00.004-06:00

i know beauty exists in the tiny moments. it's part of my caroline manifesto. but when you're in the depths of ache, it's hard to see beauty anywhere.
today though, here are the exquisite tiny moments.
thank you thank you thank you.

the tendrils of my plant reaching out and looking verdant, brimming with life.
sweet family kisses.
dancing and singing loud to old man luedecke's 'at the airport'.
friends who are supportive beyond belief.
gathering for anna's birthday, being incredibly silly and surrounded by love. (and scrumptious food!)
finding insight in the most unlikely of places (greys anatomy!):
sometimes, no matter how badly a thing is hurting us, letting go feels even worse.

remember: it's perfect to be where you are.

even this loss wouldn't be much of a loss.

2009-01-07T17:41:00.003-06:00

there are too many things i miss in this life that, like a stooping old man, grows shorter each day.
i miss the rays of light that filter through the morning forest on a quiet wooded island on the pacific coast.
i miss the kisses and cheek-to-cheek dancing on a street under moonlight, that haven't happened yet.
i miss a lifetime of companionship true.
i miss sausages and eggs and hash-browns and pancakes with maple syrup on long holiday mornings that stretch their limbs into afternoon.
i miss writing strong and fast into the hot morning at chris and dougs picnic-table garden. tomatoes watering themselves while i gorged on sun-warmed figs, dug from the depths of the fig tree, branches bending under the breadth of overripe fruit.
i miss what hasn't happened yet.
i miss none of the things you think i will.
i miss feeling whole and clear and sound in who i am.
i miss knowing.
i miss hugs and circles of women-with-a-Y singing songs that belonged to their ancestors. kittens that knew which women were bleeding and would snuggle their armpits, trying to eat pheromone snacks.
i miss babies passed through the community, like mom was a collective word.
i miss dancing barefoot and safe in a hall built by love and trust.
i miss things never changing and not having to believe in beauty because it was always there staring you in the face.
i miss believing in true love, like santa claus.
i miss ricks bluff of sunlight through towering douglas firs, and momo, ever impatient to go for a walk.
i miss the singing sighing raging ocean. temperament i never had to ask for but was always given.
i miss such obvious change.
i miss my thoughts being my own, not yours.
i miss medjula looking at me with wisdom brimming in her ten year old eyes. toughness and innocence painted through her summer-brown skin.
i miss climbing that too tall tree with ferguson. reaching the top in disbelief and no longer feeling afraid because triumph was trumped by wonder and height was clouded by limbs of fir.
i looked out over the strait and thought that life wasn't anything other than phenomenal. thought that i could believe this forever.

forest field and falling snow

2009-01-07T17:31:00.008-06:00

watching broken movies.
taking freezing walks at sunrise to see if i can find.
living life like it's okay.
in these thoughts i am cracking,
pushing you away and willing you to enter in the night
dreaming of your kiss under a face that seems so unfamiliar.
how can i claim it to be you?

i hang out my laundry on the line and it looks like ache.
stained. worn. aged. torn.
it falls off, the birds flying way with the clothespins, lands on your balcony.
i wait for you to take it in, but it curls into a sopping mess with the next rain, useful now only for rags.
i'll leave it with you,
to use for wiping up the water that collects on the floor at your feet while you wash the dishes.
the kind of rag that never gets washed again, is only handled with the tips of index finger and thumb,
dropped to the floor and swished around with your right foot.

my jubilance is false
i want you to think i'm having fun without you,
but what does it matter anyway?
i don't get it.
or maybe it's true in moments. those moments where grace shimmers in,
plays the right song for me on the radio
makes me dance.

today what works is william fitzsimmons.
tea. chocolate chunk muffins that need more sweetener but are baked to perfection, despite.
i sing and dance wildly. drowning you out of me.
or trying.
i sit in the tepid january sun, willing it to fade you from my skin.
your effects: the lines beside my eyes,
the tiredness hanging from my cheeks.
the way i jump at the smallest of sounds.

you are not the colour of my future,
you are the wrong shade of love.
cory said it right when we were talking in the basement:
he knows what he wants but it is not up to him to get it.
i mourned his loss, and the loss that hasn't happened yet,
that he has to let go of what he wants.
clear in his speech that he has yet not.
but at least he has had love.
knows what it feels like, true and deep.
or is that delusional,
as if we can ever know.

rambling and rambling on. thinking words will push you out of me. playing the same music over and over. a balm for ache. loud and permeating.
stuffing myself full: hunger, there is no place for you here. i've had enough of you. no room. find another place for your squatting ways. i will not allow you in any longer. i've joined OA. obsessives anonymous. my sponsor says you're not good for me. if i make it a year without thinking of you, i get a cake. maybe it will fill the spaces.
god knows this muffin is not enough.

for now my skin is enough

2009-01-07T14:13:00.002-06:00

last night, white geese in the grainfield. sunrise releasing itself into the clouds, a pale pink.
the stacks painting the sky with smoke.
us in the bathroom, watching the wonder while my arm-fulls of tupperware tumbled across the floor. we picked them up and filled them with leftovers. tofu and rice, a large turkey drum stick. peas.
and then back to the class we were ditching, someone had started a small fire in a knot in the wall, but the teacher didn't notice. earlier we were paddling and not reading the map. light falling into night and still no camp. then a flicker in the dark turned into a bonfire, turned into you.
i was happy to see you.
i wish i could always be,
finding you in the forest, a calm surprise.
but right now,
if you were in Siberia, or the Scottish highlands, or anywhere but here,
i would be happy.
someday the reminiscing will be fond, i know.
for now,
please go.

the lengthening of limbs into days and weeks and years

2009-01-03T17:36:00.004-06:00

a new video i just uploaded, and a thought i sent to a friend recently...

it's never too late to live the life you are choosing

poetry fragments

2009-01-02T12:15:00.002-06:00

the trauma of our life
the daily disasters
the nights spent weeping
the flowers that fail to bloom
the days that dawn grey
the hearts broken beyond mending
the words that come out wrong
the ones left
unsaid

decadence

2009-01-01T18:11:00.005-06:00

i just had two dear friends visiting for a few days. they are from a small island out west, that i also used to live on, and much delightful time was spent talking about island life and things that have changed, eating delicious rich food, and playing music and singing. oh is this the life.
i'm also posting a poem i wrote on that island, all of five years ago now, because i was reminded of it as we were reminiscing.

we went to nalia's parents house where we tried our hand at a traditional mennonite dinner (with a few additions). those perogies were tha bomb.

they left this morning, with deep sparkly snow to send them on their way.

The Ralph Poems

II: Rural Delivery

I trace my finger along the edge of the metal mailbox,
hinges rusted open from years of rain and neglect.
Trace it further along the stark white outline of his name,
R. Lewis,
on the rusty green of Canada Post.
My mind overflows with questions that my finger doesn't know how to answer.
Old curmudgeon, many have called him.
Was that a self-appointed title,
unwilling to let anyone get too close?

His life boarded up now.
Box upon box filling his empty shell of a house,
left to mildew and rot.
A row of mismatched socks still hanging from a line on the porch,
as if he will return tomorrow.
How I long to go in and rifle through his past,
the stories I know he must've had collecting in the corners,
the history that will slip away if no one reaches out.
Why did he move from the orchard down to the beach,
to that big old house,
so huge for one small soul?
Was he hoping the winter storms would wear his old bones thin?
Make his passing smooth?
Where was he when he died? Who found him?

Ralph, I wish I were a few years older,
had come here a few years sooner,
maybe then I would have met you.
But even so, meeting you wouldn't bring me any closer to your heart.
You would have to let me in.

a small beginning

2008-12-28T18:25:00.001-06:00

i've been working and thinking and writing in the studio.
i am starting a blog.
because:
its the holidays for a week and a half, the only time out of the year where work closes down and i have obligation-free space for what feels like an endless amount of time. it's rejuvenating.
i've been solitary and dreaming and arting. my knees getting cramped from not leaving my house. i love it.
i went for a four block run two nights ago in the milky december air. that took care of the knee cramp problem and i only had to be gone for 15 minutes. awesome.
i'm starting this blog because i've been reading the amazing jeanine caron's blog and she has inspired me to pull out my retinue of cameras, don lipstick and go on a self-portrait rampage. the art is flowing.
i went to the bridge over the tracks by my house at 8am the other morning to take photos of the sun rising pink on the frost of the chain link fencing. with me came two medium format cameras, and my little digital to make video. the slr stayed at home.
the sun didn't rise from behind the clouds but the photos still happened. they formed a different story than the one i intended to tell, but isn't that always the way?
i'm starting a blog to have a public space to display my run-on sentences.
i'm starting a blog because last night i went out riding and words formed into rhythms into somewhat coherent thoughts and instead of sending these thought poems to unsuspecting friends, maybe i should just release them out into the world at large and perhaps people who really want to read them will find them.
and, like i said, to display my run-on sentences.
welcome, and thanks for joining me.

december 27.o8

late nights are the worst.
for sifting and thinking and bike rides that take you (k)nowhere but deeper into your mind.
by worst, i mean best.

tonight a poem scrawled out rough by streetlamp and persistence.
tonight the graffiti run down walls of this city.
tonight the fyxx closing at 11 and me showing up at 1048, wanting a pastry,
knowing solace shows up in uncomfortable guises.
tonight thoughts that aren't meant to make sense but feel so good in the coming.
tonight happening after days of percolation and silence and reading nonstop about vietnam and loss and ada and jon and charles boatman.
tonight plugged in loud to headphones and candlelight,
examining the glimmer of a bucket of roughcut thoughts.

i prefer the taste of words together,
to the sense they might make.
i went tonight to get lost in something
but i got there and there was nothing to get lost in.
the music starts too late for me in this town,
in these dark but busy hours when my thoughts shuffle themselves into a rhythmic kind of sense.
i needed to go home to write poetry the colour of skin,
skating on the thin rotten ice of melancholy.

after i unlock the door
the snow crunches under my bike tire and i look behind me,
certain someone is there.
i turn on no lights
willing the ghosts to appear in the bathroom mirror,
convinced of wishes and haunts.

remember when we were six and in the lunch program?
we'd go into the bathroom and switch off the lights
and scream BLOODY MARY
three times at the top of our lungs.
and there she'd appear,
this skeletal wispy ghost straight out of a horror flick that no six-year-old should ever imagine.
i was petrified and shrieking.
you were too.
why didn't they ever stop us?

sometimes we'd dance, maybe,
to the music on the speakers piped in to the open gym space;
sometimes scooters.
sometimes i played with Peaches and Cream Barbie.
my coveted favourite with her soft chiffon dress,
i wanted one just like it.
i wanted my body to grow up just like hers
plastic-ly perfect.
did i know what sex was then?
was it anything more than squeezing Ken and Barbie together,
making sure their faces were mashed into one,
so tight they couldn't breathe.

i thought maybe after years of NO
i'd get it.
but Hope is blind,
it's a baby bird
vulnerable and hungry and
oh so sure
that momma will always come.