Seesaw

'I trust no emotion. I believe in locomotion.'
-Jeff Tweedy

So of course everyone around you thinks you're completely crazy and the sympathetic smiles and the hands that cover yours make your stomach turn to water. But, for some reason, you cannot erase the memories of wine-fueled summer nights on a front porch and the tangled mess of clothes on the floor. Of iceburg-chasing boat rides and CBC Saturday mornings and too much coffee and an easy smile that has burned it's memory into your brain, forever taunting.

Cool

Overheard in a conversation amongst fifth graders on a Vancouver City bus.

'Everybody thinks he's so cool, but, but, but he's not. He's married!'

To you.

And to you, because I know you’re here, I miss you, despite it all.

There are moments when I realize just how much you got me through. And I can hear your voice in my head telling me to get it together, to seriously get my shit together because it’s starting to become ridiculous and on the days when I do manage to hold my head just a little bit higher, to you, because I know you’re here, well, that’s thanks to you.

Gloss

'It's become so obvious, that you're so oblivious, to yourself.'
Wilco

And it’s funny how you cross over. How you swallow a bit harder and smile a bit brighter. How you pretend. How you laugh, how you say what you don’t mean and you say it again until you’ve convinced yourself. Or at least, him. And how you feel so betrayed that he buys all your crap. Because it isn’t great, it isn’t even good and the high ceilings and the bamboo floors and the sunken living room and the fireplace – those things are someone you don’t even know.

Someone you aren’t sure you want to know. And what you want to say, what you want to tell him is that you want poor heating and bad lighting and doors that don’t lock and windows you have to slam shut. That Porsches are dumb and Parisian balconies are for jumping off of. That you want scruffy hair and lopsided smiles and you just aren't sure anything else will do at all.

Away from her

"What was I thinking, when I said it didn't hurt?"
-Wilco

My dad is an airline pilot and when I was a kid, and he would go away on trips, I would pack and sneak elaborate snacks into his suitcase when he wasn't looking. Snacks made of delicacies such as Chips Ahoy! cookies and swiss rolls, things that undoubtedly could not be had in far-off places such as Chile or Calgary.

In my mind, these carefully packed bundles were sure to provide some small, cherished comfort that would serve to ease was must surely be the worst possible pain of all - being away from me. So imagine my dumbfounded confusion when I padded, slippered and pyjama-ed down the hall early one morning, to slip one of my carepackages into his flight bag, and there lay the startling, sweet evidence that my existence was not all-consuming on the other side of the world. Maybe not even at home. The four, chocolate chip cookies and homemade brownies (I had really outdone myself that time) from last week, remained untouched - their love and reassurance untapped.

It's funny, how you can feel like a six-year old girl in a 26 year-old woman's body when someone who means so much, too much, really, lives on the other side of your country. How you can be reduced to a cookie-pushing mess unable to see, unable to grasp, how that someone, can be ok, being without you. And you somehow manage to hold back from infusing their dusty corners, and you smile smiles that are too bright. And no one notices but you.

And so, and maybe some space, Heather. And California, maybe, Heather. El Dorado. And can you watch my dog, can you feed her, walk her, love her? What about the grey, what about the yellow? And is my hair ok? How about these shoes? You think? And my ticket, the airport, five-thirty, really? And, of course, of course. Oh, but of course. There is gas in the car and money for pizza if you want, and the wine-opener is in the righthand drawer. Oh, and there are cookies in the cupboard.