Daybreak

The morning comes quickly and no sun greets you. And yet, everything seems a bit brighter, somehow. You turn and look into an unsmiling face, and the arms that reach out squeeze a little too tight.

And yet, not tight enough.


Salut, Montreal. You have been good to me.

Heart of Hearts

As I get ready to make a cross-country move, I am reminded that home isn't where you lay your head - it's where you lay your heart.

Dead on impact

I got an e-mail this morning from someone I dated very briefly last winter. We parted amicably, and so to see a message with his name on it in my inbox wasn't surprising, as we had made very casual plans to see each other some time in the next two weeks or so, before I head off to BC. I had to cancel those very same plans this weekend, and felt no real sense of urgency to reschedule, which was why the content of his message this morning struck me as so bizarre.

Mmmm there is something in particular I wanted to talk to you about. I have seen a therapist a few times since our relationship ended, and one of the things we talked about was you. I thought it might be insightful for you to hear some of the things that I took away from those conversations. Don't worry. I don't think it would be an unpleasant conversation for you...perhaps a little bit uncomfortable at worse, but there is also a chance you might find it...hmmm...educational *lol*.

That being said, I am not sure if I am feeling an urge to talk with you more for my benefit or your own. Well...I'll leave it to your judgment to decide if you have time for a talk. I suppose I could just write you a letter instead.

It amazes me the impact you can have on someone's life, when taking leave of their company brought you nothing less than a sheer sense of relief. It leaves me stunned that a four-week period in my life I can barely recall the details of, and am not particularly interested even in revisiting mentally, could have prompted someone to spend even five minutes worth of a therapy session discussing.

And yet, the reason for my amazement, and subsequent sadness, is the realization that some of the men who have had the greatest impact on my own life, likely felt that same sense of relief when they walked out of my proverbial door. It feels so tragic in a way, that the surest way to hurt someone, is to feel indifferent towards their pain, because that is the one thing you simply cannot help.

The heart, as they say, does not lie.

Cheesecake

It's the intense, blinding hatred you feel for your telephone and the inability to see the madness behind such emotion for an inanimate object. It's the questions, the ambiguous answers and the questions that come from those answers. It's the roller coaster ride. It's the wondering how on earth you ever managed to sleep alone every night, and how you will again. It's sex that leaves you starved, it's intimacy that leaves you ravaged. It's you, betraying everything you thought you were, and loving, hating every minute of it. It's the clear sense that you, are slipping away from you, it's the fogginess, the blurred edges, the impossibility of interpretation. It's the shift, it's the change, it's a tiredness you can't quite name. It's knowing and it's ignorance.

It's sitting at your friend's kitchen table and watching as her husband cuts her a third piece of cheesecake and knowing you will never have that.

Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying ---
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
-Dorothy Parker

Hmph.

Watershed

It's funny how it changes.

How you can sit and stare at your convictions, hold them in your tired, cupped hands, only to watch them slip through your weakened fingers like water. And what amazes you even more, perhaps, is the complete absence of desire to try and capture them, to regain some sort of stronghold over what you thought mattered most.

Because somewhere, in the tiny, wet beads that remain, hopefully, lies something better. A little less certain, a road not quite as traveled, but with the promise of a pool at the end, an entire body of water, waiting, just for you.

Kids in the hall

He strolls down Robson, a yoga mat tucked neatly under a toned, tanned arm. Bluetooth firmly in place, a warm smile of recognition breaks across his face as he sees you sitting, folding up your copy of the Vancouver Sun at the plastic, umbrella-shaded table to make room. An airy kiss graces each of your cheeks, an order for a non-fat-something-or-other is placed. A sense of calm, of relief washes over.

He glances down at the frantic, red-penned circling you've done on the 'apartments for rent' page.

'We'll find you something babe, don't you worry one bit about it.'

The briefcase is opened; a blackberry is placed on the table.

He sees the smirk you tried, failed to hide.

'I know he says,' sheepish. 'I know.'

But he's a lawyer now, he's a grown-up now, and I guess you should be, too. And it's heavy lifting now, and it's no more playtime now and I guess you should follow suit.

He tells you of people, of places and things. And they all feel so far from the nights piled into his mom's minivan, from backyard parties with ice cream cakes and first kisses. It's property now, it's research grants now, it's car co-ops and broken hearts.

As you stroll through your goodbye, making plans, making promises, you remember to gently inquire. The girl, the sweet one, with the brown eyes and the light laugh. A silence casts over, and he turns to you, eyes questioning.

'I'm scared, Heath,' he says.

And you realize, that despite, or perhaps in spite of, courtrooms, Lacoste running shoes, flaxseed and composts, regardless of London jaunts and ski weekends, conference presentations and tailored-suits that he is still what he always was. That you both are, what you always were. Kids playing at being grown up. And not always doing a good job.

The hug lasts a little longer, and you feel it might be because you're trying to hold onto something that always feels so out of grasp. And so, you take the opportunity to whipser,

'You're alright. We're alright.'

Faceless, spaceless

'I'm trying to tell you something about my life. Maybe to get me in between black and white.'

-Closer to fine






And it's good, sometimes, to be nameless. And it's better, sometimes, to be faceless.

So that you can eat ice cream for breakfast and cookies straight from the box for dinner. So that you can ride a merry-go-round in the rain and laugh so hard your face hurts. So that you can splash through puddles and kick at stones, so that you can run up a flight of stone steps just to see what's at the top. So that you can laugh at your own breathlessness when you realize there's nothing. So that you can board a train when you have no idea where it stops, and no real concept of where it started, either.

It's good, sometimes, to be nameless. It's good, sometimes to be faceless. Because often, what's hiding, what's lurking and what's smiling, is you.

Unwedded Miss

I started packing.

I started packing, and I have one, small box now sitting in my living room, apart from all the others, the name of my new city written bravely across the top. Housed in that cardboard container are several, select items, pictures, three books and a few candles, that will keep me company for the next two years, as I trade in a half decent apartment and a decent-paying job, a car and a medical plan, for a dorm room, a bus pass and textbooks, on the other side of the country.

I am excited about this move. I'm excited about my new campus, which sits on top of a mountain. I'm excited about my new program. I'm excited to be able to wear jeans again every day and be justified in eating cereal for dinner if I choose to.

But most of all, I am excited to be escaping the stark realization that I, unlike many of my close friends, am not getting married. I do not spend my weekends out house hunting. I don't care about tile samples and I don't stress over the colour of my bridesmaids' dresses. I am not pregnant, and I won't be for a long time. I may not ever be. And so, I do not spend my Sunday mornings at Baby Yoga or Stroller Aerobics. I don't post copious amounts of photos of me and a swollen belly to my facebook, I don't e-mail my friends with the latest pictures of me and baby in the park. I don't browse the David's Bridal website and I have not given two seconds thought to whether I prefer white or yellow gold wedding bands.

I'd like to be able to say I am completely comfortable with my life and where it is. In a lot of ways I am. But there are instances, situations, exchanges and times where a 26-year-old, unmarried woman with no marriage prospects can't escape the feeling she's done something wrong, that she has missed a critical step somewhere, and will be forever branded by this fumbled, foiled footing for years to come.

Or at least until the first of her friends gets divorced.

Maybe it was the look on the face of the bank teller yesterday as I signed for my Japanese Yen, when he wished 'my husband and I' a fabulous trip, and I smiled and told him I was going alone. Maybe it's in the note of smugness I detect in some of my friends' voices as they show off their new dining room tables and stainless steel refrigerators. Or maybe it's me and my own insecurity, and my fear at knowing that when I step on that plane at the end of August, it will be to get away as far as I can from the sounds of wedding bells and baby showers, registries and seating plans.

And hopefully, with a bit of time a bit more courage, it will feel like home.

Child's Play

You know you're not cut out to be a mother when, at a children's birthday party, a balloon hits you in the back of the head, prompting you to spill a glass full of Diet Coke all over the new linen pants you're wearing, and your fury at the four year-old child whose antics culiminated in this disaster is entirely disproportionate.

That, or when you realize that while everyone else brought the one year-old child gifts of teddy bears, corduroy dresses and blankets, you bought her a pair of pink, leather Puma shoes. And your reasoning behind this gift selection was, that if they had them in your size, you would have bought them for yourself.

Baby and the Bathwater

"I throw myself, at nothing."
-The Be Good Tanyas

It sure feels like it sometimes, n'est pas?

Update: Which is alright, because on those particular days, specifically when the weather is ghastly, lamposts throw themselves, or rather, hurl themselves, at my car, hitting their target with a disturbing amount of accuracy.

Sigh.

Holding Hands

I went to a figure skating show on Saturday afternoon.

I know.

I had to.

It was a fundraiser for the women's shelter, and everyone on the board pitched in to sell tickets, direct people to hot dogs and hot chocolate, etc. It actually turned out to be a fantastic event, and despite having to sit on a freezing cold, cement bleacher for three hours, it was a lovely day.

My favourite act of the entire show was the group of 12 and under kids. There were roughly 20 of them, decked out in bright yellow outfits, shaky on their tiny skates, arms spread wide for the balance they hadn't yet mastered. At one point, one of the taller girls in the group, lanky with long, stringy brown hair and glasses, tripped over her own skate, and went crashing to a cruel fall on the ice floor. The girl performing beside her, stopped dead in her tracks (which didn't appear to be an easy feat in and of itself) and reached out a hand to her fallen comrade. Oblivious to the fact that the routine was carrying on without her, this girl's sole concern was helping her friend safely to her feet. It was the best part of the show.

That evening, I went to a going-away party for one of my closest, childhood friends. We ended up making the trek to St. Laurent, to wait outside in the bitter, freezing cold, to get into Rouge. When we finally got the coveted nod from the sombre bouncer, standing, arms crossed, expression firm, we made our way inside. I'll skip over the details of the evening (the place is red inside), but what struck me was the washroom system. They were set up so people waiting in line could peer in and watch you washing your hands, sucking in your cheeks, or fluffing your hair, but this wasn't terribly surprising. What was remarkable, though it perhaps shouldn't have been, was the fact that people literally trampled over one another, jockeying for position in front of a mirror. Stepping on toes, slamming into shoulders, making no eye contact, the mission was the mirror, and nothing else mattered.

As I made my way out into the cold Montreal night after our evening, and my friends and I piled into a cab, I started to think; when did we stop holding out hands, and start crushing them instead? When was the moment where we decided, that when someone was falling, we wouldn't provide a safety net, but rather, we'd move out of the way to give them ample room to land alone?

Sometimes, I think we, with our grown-up faces and our grown-up pink drinks, our perfume, our busy, self-consumed days and nights and in-betweens, could stand to learn an awful lot from a seven-year-old girl, shaky, unsteady and uncertain, on a pair of figure skates.

'Take a look, at my face. For the last time. I never knew you, you never knew me. Say hello. Say goodbye.'
-David Grey

He sits down at your table, which is crowded with practice exams and Splenda wrappers; he looks like he hasn't slept in a month. He leafs through your textbook, bored eyes glazing over the numerical equations, looks at you and says, 'Christ, H, I'd rather edit the bloody thing.' Heads swivel in your direction at the accent, reminiscent of Manchester United and enviable jagged-sharp wit, much in the same way they always did. The way they always do. Your face breaks into a smile you immediately wish with a vengeance you could undo. Because this is the thing. This, is the point. You always smiled. You always laughed. You always bought in, and you paid full price. And this time, the cost was so high it left you begging on the street corner in ratty clothes with a tin can.

'You've hurt me,' you say in a voice that unwittingly takes on the tone of a child, and the moment the words escape your dry mouth, you realize how pathetically hollow they sound. Because he knows. Because he always knew.

He leans forward. He leans too close.

"I know," he says.

You kick open your own floodgates now, start rambling about the moral integrity that used to be yours, how you were tricked, lied to, used. You launch into a bitter tirade of a tainted history, of misinterpreted tears and shallow fears. Of cars and houses, of wives and friends, of careers and plane tickets. Of oceans and ignorance.

"I'm sorry that it was you," he says, tears welling in his eyes. Tears filled with salt you would rob, if you could. "I wish it had been anyone but you."

You tell him to leave and don't mean it. Because as he looks into your face and stands to turn away, you know that you have been forever changed. That he holds a piece of you that you will spend many years to come, trying desperately to get back.

And yet, the truth remains. Because the truth is, you probably wouldn't have had it any other way.

The last supper

I went out for dinner on Friday evening with some girls I know through work. Sitting at a table slightly behind us was a group of four women, roughly between the ages of 45-50.

Amidst their chatter of husbands and a lack thereof, of high school curriculum, the benefits of probiotics, of mortgages and Disney World vacations, each woman took a systematic turn at cutting a small bite of carrot cake from the slice that sat on a plate in front of them. It was comical to watch the pattern that developed; bits and bites, decreasing in size were removed from the hunk, as no one wanted to assume responsibility for attacking the middle. The cake took on the distinct appearance of a top-heavy, withered apple core, finally toppling over in collapsed, weakened surrender. The four forks took turns hovering, none making the daring move to dive in. The cake lay there, under the forlorn glances of its polite consumers.

Meanwhile, at a table across the room, sat roughly 12 men, between the ages of 25-35. Working like a well-oiled machine, slices of pizza, french fries and slugs of beer were traded back and forth across the table, unabashed hands reaching, swapping, slapping away.

Sometimes, I think men have got a really, really good thing going.

Lie to me. I promise, I'll believe

I lied, he says, and it's plain and it's simple.

Only nothing will ever be plain again.

And the truth floats between you like a teasing, helium balloon that neither of you reaches up quick enough to grasp.

It's a betrayal you can taste, it's a ravage of all you hold dear.
It's an anger you don't quite feel.

It's what was there all along, but what you, in all your childish delight, squeezed your eyes shut in front of, in defiance, in fear.

In love?

Building her case

And it makes a case then, for being alone. It makes a case.

She makes a case, the girl does, as she screams into her cellphone on the corner of De Maisonneuve and Guy, spitting and swearing, cursing and crying. The male passersby chuckle, thinking 'glad it's not me,' and the women glance upwards shyly, because we all know we've been there.

She makes a case, the woman does, as she packs her things into boxes, forced to start over, to make a new beginning, again, only this time, it doesn't feel new. It feels tired and forced, messy and in shambles.

She makes a case, then, the girl, who rummages for phone numbers and sifts through errant pieces of paper, who checks e-mails and msn's and all the other voyeuristic technological mediums of our generation. She makes a case, because she's right. Of course, she is right.

She makes a case, the woman does, as she redecorates her house, as she cuts her hair. As she treats herself to measured slices of chocolate truffle cake and walks in the Arboretum. She makes a case, as she gets a library membership, a gym membership, an art club membership, as she sections off her time into manageable compartments, filling up the days, the hours, the weeks and the life not lead.

You make a case then, for yourself, you do, as the hurt rolls in, as it rolls over you, and you think, 'welcome in, old friend, welcome in again.'

But the question remains of when it will end, and as the fog slowly becomes replaced by a daunting clarity, that it will only end when you make a choice, when your case, is won.

A Million Little Failures

She stands, she hovers, arm extended, invisible particles of sea salt falling to the carpeted floor. Eyes bright, hopeful, she shakes her hand.

A silent offering.

I glance up from my computer screen, finish typing the sentence I have in my head before I lose it.

‘Would you like one?’ she questions tentatively, waving the Miss Vickie’s chip bag in front of me.

I wrinkle my nose.

‘No thanks,’ I reply.

The arm falls, the bag crinkles in her hand as she bunches up the top of it. She smiles a sad smile, turns and leaves my office.

I watch her go and I immediately I begin to feel badly.

My co-worker is on a diet. Of sorts. We cheer her on as she measures out her teaspoon of salad dressing at lunch and look the other way as the cookie cupboard is mysteriously raided in the afternoon.

I realized that her offering me part of her already guilt-ridden snack was in actual fact, a request for an accomplice to a little failure. A plea to share the pinprick of shame; to make it somehow seem not so bad.

We all fail. In a million little ways, we fail. We fail ourselves, our friends, our families, our co-workers; strangers.

The other day, in the locker room of my gym, a middle-aged woman, relatively new to the club, stands on an electronic scale for an agonizing, five full minutes. She leans slowly to her left side; re-balances to the right. She steps off, removes the elastic band from her graying hair, shakes it out and steps back on again. Frowns. Leans forward. With a final sigh, she steps down.

No one says a word. No one, myself included, says what should have been said to that woman. That it’s OK. That she is beautiful anyway. That she looks healthy. That her skin is rosy, that her smile is bright. That she is a woman and she is radiant.

And most importantly, that the scale on the other side of the room weighs you in at five pounds less.



You phone a girlfriend at two in the afternoon on a Saturday.

‘Hey hon, how’s it going? What are you doing?’

‘Drinking a glass of wine and watching my roommate make my bed.’

‘You ok?’

(Laughs) ‘Why, because it’s two in the afternoon and I’m drinking or because I wasn’t able to make my own bed and my roommate is doing it for me?’

‘Well, you know. Either.’

You’re in a food court, trying to manipulate a piece of sushi in and successfully out of an impossibly small plastic cup of Soya sauce. A woman, standing in line for a piece of pizza, is holding a roughly eight-month old baby girl who is screaming with fierce determination. The child’s face is red and angry; she is pushing with all her force against her tired, frazzled mother. The woman tries to shush her. Rocks her. Tries to give her a bottle. A Pacifier. The child screams and then screams louder. Finally, in a moment of pure frustration, the mother looks into her child’s face and screams back.

A man you care about, a man you care about a lot, tells you he’s sorry, that he’s really sorry, that he can’t. That he’s failed you; that he’s failed her. Tells you he’d like it if you understood, but that it isn’t really necessary at this point in time.

We all fail. In a million little ways, we fail. But I find, that as I bumble along, that it’s the failures in people that make them human. It’s the failures in people that I like.

10 little things

A tag by Vila over at http://thesmokingsection.wordpress.com prompted me to put together a little list on the ten oddest things about me.

Alors!

1) I always spoil the ending of a book by reading the last page before I get there, no matter how much I'm enjoying the story.

2) I never pay parking tickets, license or medicare renewal fees or return library books even remotely close to on time. Which reminds me...

3) One of my absolute favourite snacks is peanut butter stirred with Splenda. Don't judge.

4) After finding a bug on my pillow a few months ago, I now unmake and remake my bed every single night, just to make absolutely certain no unwelcome visitors are crawling around in there!

5) I am shamelessly addicted to Oprah magazine and read it religiously every month. From finish to start, of course. Don't you judge me!

6) I don't own a working television.

7) I have absolutely no fascination with celebrities. I can honestly say there isn't one famous person I feel my life would be enriched by meeting.

8) I make 99.9% of my phone calls from the bathtub.

9) I once got yanked over by security at the airport for a 'conspicuous-looking item' in my bag, which, I humbly admit, was my bathroom scale. I was 16. So don't judge.

10) This list got progressively easier to write as I went along. And that makes me nervous.

I am ridiculously terrible at inserting links properly, so I'm not even going to try. But Arthur, Walters, K, Mood Indigo, S'Mat and Jonasparker, kids, you're up. A vos tours!

What they didn't tell you

It hurts a lot more.

That crossing your own boundaries is harder on you than when someone else does it.

That no, you actually won't grow up to love green beans.

You won't feel as guilty as you should.

That the world can be polarized into two, broad categories: People who are good at math and people who aren't.

And that the people who are good at math hate you.

That a piece of you really in fact does die from a broken heart.

That time doesn't heal all wounds. Some remain oozing, gaping gashes for years to come.

You don't learn from your mistakes. You keep making them until you simply arrive at a point where you've accepted the fact that you are a person who makes mistakes.

Big ones.

Scary movies get scarier the older you get.

That always being true to yourself doesn't always work out.

That just being yourself is really, the hardest thing in the world to do, because your concept of self is in perpetual shift mode.

You really weren't the prettiest girl in the class, and plaid did, in fact, make you look fat.

Face forward

I know.

I said, I know.

But in my defense, I was blackmailed.

I joined facebook.

And all that it implies.