Ether/Ethereal

My dreams are most vivid in that state of sleep where you are slowly approaching wakefulness but are still not fully cognizant. This morning I had a dream where I thought, this is awesome! I remembered it as I drowsily lay in bed but once up and moving the details elude me. I had another dream recently that someone came to me, said they loved my writing and wanted me to write for them. I was perplexed and asked where they had seen my writing. On my blog, they replied. I awoke pleased but confused as I only write sporadically!

Musings

The question is, who do you really want to be, and what are you going to do about it?

The above is a quote from an article called “The Fantasy of Being Thin” by Kate Harding (source here). I found many things about the article to be interesting and thought-provoking but those two questions stuck in my mind. Perhaps because I have slowly been trying to ask myself these questions but keep shying away. I’ve been taking baby steps – there is a page from Langara College with Bookkeeping courses on my fridge. I’ve taken a cursory view of Masters available in English in Norway.

When I first graduated from University I seriously considered applying to the teaching program at UBC. I reviewed the two-year teacher education program for primary school and ultimately decided that more debt and a second BA were not what I needed. A few years into my time in the corporate world I again revisited my options at UBC. Library and Archival Sciences are very interesting topics and the idea of being a librarian is an appealing one.

Both of theses professions have the difficulty that in British Columbia, you start in on-call assignments unless you’re lucky enough to land a job. Even securing a job is not a guarantee as funding is a precarious arrangement with schools and libraries closing each year. Three years ago I was certain that I was going to attend the archival Masters program at UBC – how I was going to come up with the tuition was a mystery. Desires aside, the practicality of funding yet another degree is the most prohibitive factor in the question: what do I want to do now?

I think what I need to invest most in is honesty and reflection. I can’t continue making decisions as I have, leaping into something and hoping that it will all work out. Before I’ve had goals leading me into those leaps and now I find that my desire has lessened. I am no longer interested in finishing a Master writing degree, getting that two book contract or working in editing. What does still interest me is literacy. Words still interest me. Expression still interests me. Creating new media to get people interested in literacy and the way words and pictures are interpreted interests me.

I want to share these interests with other people. I want to talk about the feelings people experience when they say, I don’t read as much as I should. What do we mean by “should”?

Gettin' started again

I once read a fanfic whose plot mirrored Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner”.
I really like that idea – of using one media to shape another. My
interests tend towards the more obvious: concrete poetry and the like.
I tend to think that my writing style is rather like a reflecting pool –
interesting images but not a lot of depth. Perhaps that is because I
don’t commit myself fully to the writing or to the individual pieces;
it’s hard work, commitment. It’s hard work to not just come off as a
drama queen or a caricature. I shouldn’t take myself so seriously.

Loquacious

Susurration: n. A soft, whispering or rustling sound; a murmur.

Yesterday morning I awoke to the susurrous sound of rain falling steadily on trees, balcony and street. It is a calming sound and had I opened the window then I could have added the higher pitter-patter of droplets hitting the glass.

Susurration is one of those words that sounds like its meaning; it is a purring rumble that makes its way out of the mouth. I love the sheer volume of vocabulary – the way I am surprised by the sudden recollection of a word or stumbling across a new one.

Winging Along

I love to fly; I love the pressure of take-off and I love the dropping sensation of landing. I love turbulence and way the very word embodies the motion of the plane and the force of air, the force of the unseen. I always ask for a window seat because I enjoy looking over the earth, seeing the imprints that we have made upon it. Twinkling patches of thrumming life and the quiet expanses of less populated land; flying to you I would pass over vast stretches of ocean, I could be coming from anywhere but still going to you.

NaNoWriMo

I received my first email regarding National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November yesterday. Each year for the past three years I have signed up and tried to write my 50,000 words in a month (well, last year I didn’t even try). It means writing 1,666 words a day for the month of November – I can barely get in my 100 words a day here. It comes down to the question I’ve had since graduating university – do I actually want to be a writer? Everyone has one story to tell, theirs, but is it one worth the telling? Or reading?

raw

Unfinished.

Unfinished wood, the raw materials with which you might begin to build something. Shape and form and slide a skin over to create something new, to remodel, to refine. Unfinished wood, with all the natural quirks – whorls – burns and growth – intact and displayed. Unvarnished; the whole truth, nothing but the truth – look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.

Unfinished fashion, raw edges and trailing serge threads that catch in your zipper. Deconstructed and unhemmed lines; messiness and laziness made fashionable and cheap construction rewarded with fancy price tags.

“Not altered from an original or natural state.”

woven

Spin, spun, spinning. The words come twisting, shaping, tapering down to the wheel from the sternum to pelvis focal point. What tentative mental tweaks and shifts attempt to eliminate the chaff to produce a smooth and strong, coherent, stream to the page, the ear, the heart. Anchored within myself, how long is the line cast to be caught and secured.

Once I read of cloth woven of spun emotions – such light, shimmering cloth of joy and the thorn studded chafing cloth of despair.

So, the words. So, the moments. So, so. Shh, shh. Let the fingers be deft, mind the weft, mind the warp – mind the mind and the waves cast upon its shores.

leaf, or: how the title of my poem is actually the poem and not the title. leaf.

Twist and pull, give and take
Stretched out and elongated spine
Arms and breasts high
Eyes drawn closed
Draw down the lines
My jaw
My cheek
My collarbone

My desires
My heart
My mind
Draw down the lines
Lips parted to speak
Words brought so low
Coiled tight and unexpressed
Give and take, twist and pull

Too hasty
To draw down the lines

//

Free form
Flying form
From free fall
Through it all
To be so grounded
Just
Stopped
Want to pick up and go
Wings at my feet and
Soar
Should I feel so sore
Attribute that lacking
To lack of practice
Stop the useless mutterings
Stand up
Tall
And so bare
Without cringing, flinching, censure
Tall
And so standing
Stand free to bow
Down to the ground
Grounded
Pinioned myself
Yet yearning still.

what was that?

I have to make a better effort to write down my ideas when I think of them because I know that I had some ideas while I was running this morning in addition to scattered thoughts over the weekend. Now that I am seated and trying to gather them again however, they are reluctant to come at my beckoning. I’ve always had the problem of not remembering what I’ve come up with – quips will roll off my tongue but as soon as they are uttered they pass into the ether, never to be remembered precisely again. Need some ginko biloba.

Prosaic

Facebook ads are funny things – the way they use personal profile information to target the ads and photos from various users is slightly disturbing. But it is also how I found out about the Khan Con and how I stumbled across “In Verse”; it’s an organization between poets, photographers and radio journalists. My eye was first caught by the name, I love the play on words for prose and the juxtaposition of meaning within the word itself. I am also reminded of “A Softer World”, a comic that mixes photos with free form writing that is awkward, blunt and brilliant.

des fruites

I can’t be blue, baby
Not when you’re around
The skies are blue, baby
I got no cause to frown

You’re an awfully sweet treat
Blue, baby
I could just eat you up
Blue, baby

Maybe, baby
We’ll have some strawbabies too.

I love the summertime and all the wonderful selection of fruit. Cherries and berries and melons, oh my! Amazing!P has the right family connections – cousins with a blueberry farm in Fort Langley. I have been eating my way through a 10lb flat for the last two days and it has been delightful. I may turn purple like Veronica.

A long ramble

This weekend, because my internet was disinclined to function, I could not figure out a bus timetable so I ran to the beach to meet some friends. (When planning the morning, awesome!L commented that the only people she knew that considered running as a form of transportation were people who had been running a long time. In my books, three years does not equal a long time running.) Then I ran from the beach to where I was meeting other people to play soccer. Afterwards I got a ride halfway home and ran/walked the rest of the way. My thought process? “Do I really want to wait for bus to get across the bridge when I could get there just as fast by foot?” And then as my bus came up at my transfer point, “Do I really want to waste a bus ticket on seven blocks?”

All told I ran and walked about 9km, in addition to playing soccer for about an hour and a half. It was a smoking hot morning and I’d completed pretty well a full circle across two bridges and parts of Kitsilano and the West End. It really just boggles the mind how much a person’s attitude can change in such a relatively short period of time. After I had some lunch, I went down to English Bay where people were already flocking in preparation for the second night of “Celebration of Lights” firework festival. I settled myself down, slathered on a ton of sunblock and slept for two hours.



I really do love Vancouver and the fact that there is so much to do here. It doesn’t hurt that it is easy on the eyes as well. It has its problems, a city of this size and surrounding environs will have problems because last I’d checked we haven’t perfected societal responsibility or solved the great injustices of the world. But for all that, I can’t imagine myself living in California or in Nevada. I can’t see myself achieving the sort of personal goals that I have here in either of those places.

A lot of that has to do with the wonderful people that I am lucky enough to have in my life. It has taken a lot of poking and prodding and dares to get me to the point where I am today. A lot of that is attributable to this fine lady here, and the story she relates here is hilarious because it’s the god’s honest truth. Amazing!S is one of those people who inspires others not just with her encouragement and belief in them, but also because she goes out and puts her money where her mouth is. She may push and challenge others to be better than they think they can be – but it’s a drop in the pan compared to what she expects of herself. I think you’d have to be dead to not respond to that kind of energy. Actually, that might account for the recent zombie problem Burnaby has been having….

There are also just the wonderful people that I met and enjoy being around – enjoy so much that I will train for a marathon just to eat breakfast with them. Yesterday I went out into ridiculous heat and humidity to run around the forest for an additional hour and a half, sweating straight through every article of clothing, just to meetup with these people. That doesn’t make sense!! I could just get up and come meet them at the restaurant! But it just wouldn’t be the same as comparing runs and shooting the shit as my legs stick to the vinyl of the booth seat from sweat. I wouldn’t have earned my eggs and ham.

By some sweet serendipity, my soccer team is also full of interesting, vivacious and keen women. Last year, at the end of a twelve hour session of drinking as we were moving into the tequila shots the topic of a team for the beach soccer tournament came up. Most of the ladies present at the session had participated the previous year but I had not as playing soccer on sand is exceedingly difficult. No, really. It’s exhausting. However, given a few rounds of tequila, I cried, “How bad could it be?! Sign me up – I’ll play this year!” It was hard and we did lose but it was also a riot and this year’s team was born – Team Awesome! So yesterday, after cleaning my apartment, I went out again into the sun to practice our beach soccer technique. Which for me consisted of a lot of flailing about and falling in the sand. Pretty much my same level of ability as last year. The good spirits of everyone involved and the plans to get to the beach early to stake out a tent area and setup our BBQ make all the effort worthwhile. It’s going to be two days of a bunch of people getting sweaty, sandy, drinking beers and eating grilled food. I don’t know any better way to sum up my summer.

My life isn’t perfect; I still don’t know what I want to do with my career and I’m sometimes overwhelmed at the financial prospects of a future in a world with an economy that’s chasing my bank account down the drain. I at least have the good fortune to have wonderful companions with me on this journey and truly, that is the wealth that is priceless.

Who Dunnit

I could prevent the stars from going out tonight but it would not bring back the light in your eyes. I could encompass the spirit of the sun and still you would not burn for me. I could repair time and space but lose you on a sandy shoal.

Fair of face
And full of grace
I must profess.

In this state of undress,
Lithe and lean,
Recumbent pose for this scene
I bow my head, could do no less.

Arched shoulder lifts a wing --
Trailing touches like feathers --
Bound as though tethered
Sweet words that make my ears ring.

Such Great Heights

I’ve found myself of late swept up in a wave (sensations lapping over tingling skin), caught up in a crescendo (reverberations of the toms-toms and the thrum of the vibes) and though this would suggest that I am cast along all unwilling – I confess that I threw myself into the surf; I raised the conductor’s wand.

Some friends cross a bridge and wonder what would happen if they jumped – I have always been surprised by this as it’s obvious: you’ll fall. I’ve jumped off the bridge this summer; the passing wind roared over me and the waters beneath enveloped me.

On a merry jaunt

She opened the gate to the cool patio garden and strode through talking, “So my love, I have decided. You must buy one of these gorgeous houses in your neighbourhood, be rid of this apartment and the crazy neighbours and I shall come live with you and be a house elf. I’ll clean and tidy, bake and make sure that the tea is always fresh.”

The woman sitting at the patio table smiled as her friend whirled around the greenery, setting down some baked goods and prattling with animation. She sipped her wine and when it seemed that a pause might be approaching, she raised an eyebrow and her glass to her friend. “Did you want some wine?”

Prose Revisited

There’s a moment when I look at you
And no speech is left in me
My tongue breaks
Then fire races under my skin
And I tremble and grow pale
For I am dying of such love
Or so it seems to me

////////////////////////////////////////

A moment
When it seems (a) tongue races my skin
I break and tremble
Such love grow(s) pale
And I look to you
There’s no speech for me
I am dying of fire left
In me
Under (me)
And then at my (core is a cinder)
So is (it to be quenched) or (burst into flame anew)

Reboot

Cheating slightly, written a year or more ago:

Such words would I write, with such passion as would sear them unto the page not with ink but the message of my heart and my soul. It is said, ‘writing is the shaping of letters to represent spoken words which, in turn, represent what is in the soul’. Such a large task we lay upon ink and paper. What are our tools, by what standard do we measure the worth of the scatterings of an alphabet. A scribe’s life is made up of many inconsequential words and a smattering of quotations.

Nuances

Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don't patronize

I really like the way the use of “down” shifts meaning with each lyric, it adds a subtle nuance. I tried something similar here:

How much is the trust of a girl worth?
How much is the worth of this girl to you?
Why do I still ask these questions
I’ve stopped expecting answers to
To questions I never asked
To questions I should’ve asked
I’ve never been the questioning kind

Take a moment

The same stream of life
that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life
that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
of birth and of death,
in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

English translation of "Stream of Life" by Rabindranath Tagore, as provided by Where the Hell is Matt?

Not to be confused with,Where the Hell is Truckee?