Wondering

As we get older, manage different relationships, forge new friendships, break up and make up, do we hurt more or do we hurt less? Or with each new heartache do we simply hurt differently?

Sometimes when we fly, we fall

Some time today, in a crowded restaurant among strangers, I fell.

Sometimes we need to free fall in order to find ourselves back on the track we are supposed to. Sometimes our hearts need to be cracked so that we can put them back together. Sometimes when we find ourselves falling, all we need to do in order to break our fall is hold out our arms.

The trick is to know how to fall, so that we can never stop trying to fly.

Thursday

Sometimes some days are better than others. Today has almost been perfect but I am grateful for all its little quirks and charms.


Sean's 2 albums of the week to keep me happy on the way to work

Chocolate cake from Absolute Sugar

A voicemail telling me I am loved

Animating my first ever scene and learning something new, hopefully these are the first few steps to new adventures

An unexpected coupon from Aveda when paying

A colleague winning a photography exhibition

All new Supernatural

My department's brand being accepted and recognized worldwide through a little networking

A glass of wine at the end of the day

Finding North: Volume 1

There are times when you just know that it’s over, that the time for flogging that poor flayed horse, for making up excuses and holding on to something that just fell away is well and truly done.

You don’t even need to ask or sit in an uncomfortable silence, you don’t need to even hold on one last time. You just know that it’s complete, that whatever came before has simply faded out, that the feel, and breath and voice and weight of all that was moments before will just dissolve and leave behind its sticky fingerprints, its cloudy imprint, its irrevocable past.

Thoughts

I tend to forget, sometimes, how much I love food. How I can simply while away hours daydreaming of the perfect recipe for pulled beef, or braised ribs. Reading Sean's blog from Bra reminds me of those Piedmontese lunches that go on and on, of wine ladened afternoons with Amelia over the last 2 decades. Revisiting notes from my travels brings back pungent memories of Hang Be market, dusty streets and bia hoi, inspires me to open cookbooks collected from around the world. Always there are stories, quesadilla and ices outside Tec de Monterrey, tortilla soup and lime beef in a shanty town in the rain forests, windswept hair and suntanned arms. Tom's Sunday evening kedgeree, bottled beer and chess in the conservatory. Warm, sweet baclava from the bakery melting in our mouths, legs dangling over the blue water of the Pelion peninsula.



Perhaps this is another way we tell stories, through our carefully measured ingredients. The food we serve, the restaurants we choose, picking our way across menus, leaning over to share bites. I am slowly finding my way back into Vancouver, through its food. Rediscovering favourite restaurants of my own and those hidden gems of my friends.

Perhaps I can find a place of my own after all, in this myriad of streets.

He is not big on public displays of affection, he says. Outside in the real world we have never held hands, we do not kiss, we walk side by side laughing, our bodies close together. I do not greet him with a kiss as I slide into the car. He smiles his boyish grin and steals glances, I sometimes reach over and touch his cheek, run my fingers along his bearded jaw.

Sat beside him at dinner, he rests the palm of his hand on my rib briefly, makes the odd gesture to touch me in some way.
When we are alone, our legs entwined, he wraps his arms around me, his fingers closing around mine. I can feel his heartbeat, his breath on my neck.

Last night, he teases me and I steal a kiss in a crowded bar. When we leave, the February night on our cheeks, my hand finds his and he does not let go. I am tired, and just a little drunk. He is not coming in, he tells me as he drops me at my door and kisses me good night. I understand his fatigue, it mirrors mine. We have always respected each others' boundaries, yet tonight I am feeling small. My heart is big in my chest, the strain of the last 2 weeks laying emotions heavy. Sometimes my timing and my questioning are not well thought through.

His hands rest on the steering wheel. 10 and 2 o'clock. He is honest, brutally and direct. I concentrate on a pink scar on his thumb. I know the words before they come out of his mouth, and realize that the man I have wanted is more the man I know he can become, and less the man in front of me. And I realize just how far I have come, as I shut the door behind me and walk away.

Amelia says if you don't risk, you can't win. Life is about going out on a limb, climbing higher and sometimes falling down. Maybe I'm ready to start falling out of trees again.

Realizing

...that after 5 years it is finally time to let it go and move on. And that my life now is better than it ever has been.

Timing

Timing is everything, apparently. I have just never quite been that good at balancing mine.

Right smack dab in a mess of hormonal emotions, I decided to start blogging again.
Get back out there, I think, my monster endochrine system wreaking havoc with the world. I've been wanting to get back to writing for some time. And so it was. And here I am.

Smack dab in the middle of a project at work which is kicking the pants out of me and meaning my hours are long, my sleep is fairly non existent and my diet is consisting of mandarins, green tea and copious amounts of coffee.

The good news, however, is that I am less hormonal and a whole lot more rational than I was a few days ago. All is right with the world again. In all affairs, save the heart. The heart is getting there, it just needs to catch up with the rationale.

Wondering

What happens when you leave a little part of your heart somewhere?
Do you ever get it back?

And what happens when you leave little parts of your heart everywhere, in every city you fall a little in love with? Does your heart ever regenerate, is it ever whole again or do you spend the rest of your life with a little something missing?
Can new adventures and new memories ever make up for those little bits of your heart you left scattered along the railings of Pont des Arts, on Soho's cobblestoned streets, amidst the dust and bia hoi of Ha Noi?

There are moments in our life where a small gesture, a word, a simple smile can put us off our course. When we need to relook at the way we hold onto our armour, how we push away for fear of broken hearts and the sting of rejection, how we admit defeat and realize that our hearts can only be kept so close to ourselves and sometimes someone comes along and without our approval pushes past all those barriers and ends up getting too close.

Do we cut and run? Do we give up because all those little insecurities start pouring out of our carefully preserved facade and somehow we need to ask the questions. Are you ready to let yourself fall a little, to take a chance, to let someone in again? Or do we shut ourselves off and deny ourselves, purely because we are scared that the cards will all come tumbling down again?

I have spent the last 5 years alone, dating one man and then another. I have had lovers, but never let them get far enough under my skin that I couldn't walk away, have met men I could have fallen far if I had only put myself out there just that little bit, allowed myself to get emotionally invested in the man who was already committed to someone else and therefore never completely available, took pleasure in bodies and walked away without a backward glance.

Sometimes I cannot always see past all the layers I put up and it is the women closest to me who keep me in check, who remind me on a daily basis of all that is good and whole in me. The last few months have been a journey that began on days when I did not want to get out of bed, when self loathing drove me and a fear of never being good enough kept me from ever being able to look in a mirror until I just couldn't take it anymore, I knew things needed to change. Sometimes someone needs to be brutally honest, and sometimes you have to be brutally honest back with yourself. You need to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and see yourself for who you are. and slowly you begin to build yourself back up, find your way back into your body and feel yourself in your skin. Know that you have so much to give as long as you are willing to open yourself up to all these possibilities.
Out of the woodwork then come all your ghosts, your fears and your trials. You make the choice to fight or to give in and take the simpler road of misery. It's been a struggle, confidence is not always without its ying yang balance and all those insecurities still sit there, they just have lost their voices.

Until now. When one night you look over and realise just how close to your heart he has found himself, that for all your pushing and simple statements of not wanting to be anything more than friends and lovers, you never really kept those layers up because for some reason you let him get closer to you than anyone has been in a long time. You let him see past all the layers and get a good long look at who you really are.

So do you let him in? Or do you let history repeat itself, choose the simple path and cut and run?

A little something controversial

One of the most definitive quotes that came from the media scrum after Robert Pickton's conviction for the second degree murder of 6 women came from Trish Baptie. On hearing his conviction she said

"...families will receive their justice, women were made to be what they are ... women, not former junkies from the Downtown Eastside."

Perhaps we felt somewhat more superior than these women, dismissed their deaths because we have no idea what they must have gone through, what desperation they must have felt because it is so far away from our cozy existence. The saddest part is that we failed them, time and time again, stopped seeing them as women, as mothers, sisters, friends, daughters but as the victims of horrific crimes. I realize every day what a blessed life I have, and the choices and support I had as a child set me up to succeed. I never had to experience the effect of fetal alcohol syndrome, sexual abuse, and foster families. Never had to spend a night on the streets, or turn to alcohol or drugs to get me through the day.

We need to now ensure that the lessons that were missed so many times never happen again. Regardless of how these women lived their lives, whether as homeless, addicts or prostitutes, these were all women who had families, who had personalities and people to love them and who did not deserve to die so brutally. It is time we all stopped glossing over the shaky facts, asked the real questions and made plans to ensure that this never happens again. It is time that we opened our eyes and took a long hard look at what this city is doing and not doing to help get people off the streets, into rehabilitation centres and give back purpose and self worth.

Dina Rabinovitch

I first started reading Dina Rabinovitch's columns when I was working for the newspaper she was writing for.
I was always struck by how brave and how honest her columns were, in the face of what her illness meant.

She passed away yesterday, and with her death I feel as if I have lost a long lost friend. I felt the same when John Diamond passed away, I know I will miss her posts and her grace, will miss how the stories of her children and her bravery. I don't know many people these days who haven't lost a loved one to cancer, and I find those odds far too sad for words.

My only tribute, I suppose, would be for me to share her story.

Find her blog here, and her Guardian Unlimited columns here.

Vancouver - the way I see it

Before I started my new job, my commute to work was a 10 minute stroll up Davie and across Burrard.
On a good day, wearing reasonable shoes I could do it in 7, my iPod plugged in, my eyes focussed in front of me, past the pink waste bins, and Marquise wine cellars. Past Numbers and Celebrities. And along that short stretch of sidewalk from Thurlow to Burrard, always there were figures curled up in dirty blankets, gracing storefronts and often times simply the sidewalk, cardboard signs carefully scribed *spare change*, *broke and hungry*, *anything will help*.

The subject of this is controversial, the sidewalks of this city are literally littered with ragged faces and dirty fingernails. A couple sits together on the sidewalk with beaming smiles and outstretched hands. A shaven haired girl sings, her guitar held across her chest. A trembling man holds out his hat *spare some change*, a bearded man throws his arms in the air and fights the demons only he can see. A dreadlocked woman dances and teases the cars speeding past.

This is how I see Vancouver, this gritty reality of a city. Of addicts, and illness. Despair and circumstance. This is as part of Vancouver as the mountains and the oceans, it is a part of the city I never want to ignore, nor turn a blind eye to.

When I started this blog, way back in 2005, it was as a way of keeping in touch with my family and friends back home in Vancouver; to regale my unfortunate mishaps, my stumbling blindly through single life and finding my feet in the first year that I found myself single again after a 5 year relationship ended.

Along the way, I have had some incredible people find their way here and stay a while, have made new friends and interesting acquaintances, moved countries and continents. Over the last 2 and half years, it has been a cathartic adventure, it has been therapy and support, at times it has been candid and painfully personal. The blog adapted to each new situation, evolved and grew and then suddenly, I hit a plateau. I seemed to have achieved what I set out to do, and in the process gained much more than I had ever anticipated.

But the sense that there wasn't anything left for me to accomplish here has been niggling at the back of my mind for some time, that perhaps it was time that I found new outlet for my writing, that perhaps it was time that I started taking myself and where I wanted to go seriously, that I took every happening in my life out of the public domain and healed. I have always written, kept tallies of my pain, of my happiness. I have always wanted to write, have always wanted to be a writer but have hidden behind my own negativity.
What happens from here is anyone's guess, but I know in my heart that right now I have done all that I can here.

Thank you for all your posts, your links, your emails and your comments... but I am really actually officially taking an indefinite break this time.

x

Out of Office

My bag is packed.
My carry on sits at the front door, ready for a few small early morning additions, I have remembered to send my mother a Mother's Day card, have left a note for the flat sitter, emailed itineraries and contact information to parents and sibling, arranged pictures for visas. My alarms are set for 4:15am, flights confirmed. In a few minutes, I will turn off my laptop, put it away for a long time and go to bed.

For the next 3 weeks I am going to be travelling through South East Asia with Amelia, my cameras, a journal and a rough itinerary. Not exactly sure where we'll be on any one day, just knowing we'll go where we need to be.

This last week threw me off balance, a confusing and frustrating appointment with the specialist and the death of an uncle on Monday left me flailing and gasping all week. One foot in front of the other, one more hurdle. Such is life. And suddenly the trip was right around the corner, and now, finally, my bags are packed.
I'll be writing, but most likely not here*. I am going back to the basics; pen and paper and a clearer mind.

At least, I hope.

(* I will however be sending out email updates to friends and family, if you'd like to be included please send me an email. And Mark Morford.)