September
1999
September
1999
psss...! october is here but i am not
September 29 Wednesday
they tell me i'm an HSP
but it sounds a bit too fragile for me
yes, there are noises i hate
and music i'm a part of
and lives i could save ...
but i'm also S T R O N G
S T R O N G
enough to write this down
S T R O N G enough
to write this
S T R O N G enough
to write
S T R O N G enough
but still much of what they say
is true, worrying constantly
thinking too much
feeling i have more to give
vivid dreams and US cash
feeling taut; smug
sleeping soundly for a change
outside is quieter than before
our house neater, closet grander by one pair;
little graphs of the Canadian dollar
taped to the black door
as if it's going to grow right there
in front of our eyes.
humid, so, it's foggy
the outward early people
pass by
and the inward-gazing ones
figit here,
they anticipate,
bouncy bouncy
dreaming of airplanes
proudly,
I'm an HSP!
staring blankly
my exchange babies need me
the coffee wasn't yet quite strong
i made a special trip
and i'm still yawning tiger-yawns
thinking of my upcoming journey
unsure of what to expect-
and the uncertainty once fear;
now joy
dreaming of Coltons all night long
September 26 Sunday
i actually believe that my
slow
and distorted methodologies are
an important contributing factor
to other's perceptions that i am
intelligent. for me to learn
something, understand and digest
most concepts, i require such an
intricate view of the subject
that i must take it apart, reduce
it to elements that i am capable
of knowing, completely and truly.
it is a laborious and uneccesarily
detailed pattern of learning. it
is slower, it is painful. it is
inefficient, but it works. and once
i know something, i know it. i'm
not too sure that i don't know the
hills of parma in northern italy
where the warm spring breezes lap
across the hanging, pressed, salted
ham, as well and as passionately as
the butchers and artisans who hang
it themselves.
so yes, i have just learned that i
am slow. i would like to believe,
however, that i'm slow not only
because i am so stubborn that i
won't accept only seeing things
'your' way - but that my
subconscious just won't allow me
to learn something unless i truly,
truly, know it. makes sense to me!
that said,
i sat down to copy down something
i scribbled at the inlaw's tonight
during dinner. it just so happens
to be about knowledge. i wrote;
"there was a time when i knew math.
complicated formulae, exponents,
integrals. academia was my world
and learning - the more complicated
the better - was paramount. since
then, life has shown me other things,
more than that, even. i didn't even
notice while my mind was being
purged of chemistry; erased of
radicals; and wiped of virology.
i only questioned tonight, if i care.
and then i realized, in a deep way,
something that the quick people
figured out a long time ago:
believe it or not, there are
more important things in life.
much, much, more important things."
harumph.
i'm on an outward spiral;
expansively yang and
contractually yin -
i'm making up for lost time
now
i'm feeling again,
i'm grounded, again,
i'm in that space that i know best:
the one i want to get out of.
but scraping the bag sure
feels good.
September 25 - saturday
what ? i lived thru yesterday?
hardly believable.
that kind of stress isn't the kind
that can easily be described on paper, - er,
or a digital cave.
and today the sense tell me to combat
what happened yesterday and into the
tiresome night, with today!
aside from a quick jaunt to the neighborhood
daypanner to pick up some vinegar and
chat with the art gallery owner, i cannot
be one of the thousands who laid claim
to soaking the golden rays that warmed
the city on this late September afternoon.
i, veged. i lounged, i surfed, i wrapped a roast,
slouched some more in this chair, contemplated
looking under the blinds into the zunenshyn,
alternately ate, drank, and ate, and thought
about things that cause me no undue stress
whatsoever; building a voluntary webpage,
whether or not today was the right day to
bring in the patio plants, and does that damn
coffee table really need dusting again?
so tonight a sticom episode was made,
which in fact is the sole reason i sat down
here just now. while we were placing slabs
of broken glass into a week-old pizza
box, we laughed as we ad-libbed the
lines of the couple who comes in the door
ecstatic that we had ordered a pizza
on their behalf. much to their chagrin,
we were only piling in broken slabs of
glass coming from a pile of rubbish on
a dining room table. "oh geese, they
exclaim, you've broken a picture!"
"yes, we admit, in july"
LT
and then the husband grabs the entire
picture, photograph of my nephew and all,
and dumps it into the pizza box. i shout,
"not THAT!"
LT
so then i realize that there are actually two
broken photographs, and we laugh really hard.
then the neighbours make some kind of gag
about greeks throwing plates on the ground...
and i'm just having too much fun on this night
that had no plans, no schedules, no pre-conceived
ideas, no expectations, no fancy invitations,
no martinis, no 40 dollar tequilla, sitting around
planning to get old with that guy over there
whom i love as much as love itself.
and that, is a whole lot.
September 24 - friday
usurped:seize
or assume (a throne
or power etc.) wrongfully.
uxorial: of or relating to a wife
coffee in the grocery
store sits
longer on shelves. i can taste
it's age and the air that has
passed through it, since first
it was bagged.
being lazy now, my dreams
remember
me; they perhaps telling; what i
know and what they think, are very
different things me thinks.
i can't sit still in yoga
class
reeee-lax-ing and having my head
on the ground are not things i
do well. i was a princess in my
previous life; or will be in the
next if such a thing exists.
like the dog making his espresso
or the figity frail madamoiselle
who knows just where she wants
things and just how she wants
them to get there, lying around
on a floor in a room full of people
is difficult for me. perhaps that is
exactly why i am doing it, but not
really.
what were you in your
previous life
have you chosen what you can and
cannot do, do you simply play simon
says in life and have you decided that
freedom is impossible
because i'm not sure about
my freedom
but at least i can say that
people like patterns,
face it.
i suppose there's a pattern in me
somewhere. maybe you've found it yet.
it's nearly October, and
that's
anniversary time for the mEp
how many years is it this year,
three i believe. three years.
bad coffee, down.
dreamt of a dog last night in the
Willibord school yard who was
making funny singing harp soudns
and no one believed me and he
had a wirey thing in his mouth
and the way he was breathing
it was making
a singing noise and no one
believed me.
the radio is talking about
the leaves
not turning colors this year
and i always forget that at the
bottom of each page of the dictionary
is a reminder of how the pronunciation
symbols are pronounced. darn.
walking and smiling nicely
may not be the exact way i want
to spend my precious kleenex time
but it might lead me to a place
or at least closer to the place
i really want to be...
how do you want to spend your
special kleenex time?
and what is the point of
trying to use ordinary words
and phrases to explain non-
ordinary things?
how can i rephrase the first line
in words that the dog will under-
stand? i cannot. the dog cannot
know my struggles; the dog has
never heard beth neilson chapman's
woes, as she learns,
the hard way,
that time is so precious
and how unbelievable that we
throw it away like kleenex...
and i'm not too sure
that most people don't value
kleenex more.
the dog sighs.
and thinks of a day
and the bones flow free
just at belly-crawling height
every dog knows.
winter is here.
we create.
we live.
guest rant #4:
if somebody could have
told me
that one night i would be
sitting around, satiated by booze,
food, and smoke and doing math
homework for a university course
while my wife surfed the internet
and listening to Leonard Cohen in
my home town...
i would have said "how curious
that you would have to specify your
hometown."
HOW curiosly we live
IN OUR hometown
that is in us
wherever we go.
"i learned a long time
ago
that a place is just a place
but a memory is the place you go
when you're looking for a face"
-guest ranter ca.sept.99
(my husband)
The crowd
It sees
The people
They look
But do not ponder
I feel remorse
I have to sit
And really wonder
-guest ranter
September 22 - It's a very Leonard Week
morning comes and i awake
the flutter of the dove begins
and life again greets the newborn day
oh lovely one oh friend so gentle
your cry suggests it's time to go
upon the voyage to the land of lasting peace
the dove is peace and lasting happiness
the dove is peace and lasting happiness
the dove is peace and lasting happiness
the night is oh so long and
cold
and i have known the emptiness
that comes from selfishness and insincerity
the willow and the ash do whisper
nights are long but peace does prosper
it's the only life you'll ever know
the dove is peace and lasting happiness
(not by Leonard Cohen)
These are songs i
sung as a child;
this is what my brain was trained by
slightly neurotic, but i didn't know it
and idyllic; dreamlike; peeeeeaceful;
the chewing has slowed;
the coffee, free, but different;
and normality returns to this house
rain reminds us this is not
los angeles
and the coffee-table, thrice dusted,
remains adamantly so - unused, after
at least as many weeks.
last sip of tepid java, hello
terry
it took me a while to interpret your
water-logged comment ... goofus me
movie theatre last night
big screen;
big movie; and my memory tells me
that it was truly an event...we were
truly swept away off our feet into
another world with a Bruce Willis
who became another man...
"wash and peel the carrots
and slice
them on the bias into 1cm slices.
heat the olive oil in a frying pan and
add the carrots. sprinkle with salt.
cover, and cook over a lof flame for
10 minutes, shaking the pan from time
to time. add the garlic, water, sugar,
salt, and pepper and cook for 20 minutes
more. add the parsely and toss gently.
check the seasoning before serving."
it's quiet out there;
quiet in here.
September 21
dinner has been decided:
A fruity Fall Dinner
Bacon-topped Skillet Slaw
Veal and Chicken braised
in white wine and Fruit Juices
served with couscous and
medateranian glazed carrots
upside down apple and currant cake
September 20
i'm pretty much glad to be returning
to work today. a semi-weekend leaves
me angsting some things that are un-
settling: one night alone; spending
some forbidden money; caught in the
middle of a lesbian love triangle;
caught in his husband-silent angst;
having to be at work on a beautiful
Sunday; drinking coffee at night and
tossing and turning; finally falling
asleep and my on-call phone rings
you ran away with your conscience
clear
there was a red flag waving in my ear
saying stay away
you've got something to fear
well why did i not choose to hear
well i am thru with suffering
gonna make better choices
i don't need no wedding ring
i can sing i can dance
but i cant make this feeling cease
cause deep in my heart you left a permanent crease
and we all got our cross to
bear
our Star of David our dreadlocked hair
oh yeah baby i still care
and if you need some help you know i'll
always be there
it's been a strange year
you've been a very bad dog
as my fire went out
you put on another log
but it was worth never having any peace
and deep in my soul you left a permanent crease
i wear my heart like a wrinkle on my sleeve
and i've got this aching love
that only you can relieve
but i'm not afraid to go down with a sinking friend
gonna live out my dreams even if they
kill me in the end
-Vonda Shepard
September 18 - Leonard Cohen turns 65 (Sept.21st)
i only have access to Leonard
Cohen's Montreal
in my intimate connections between the city
that i know; and the city that i can imagine
of the past. these images are so intense for me,
so emotional, that mostly, i ignore them.
let's explore those images, beginning with the
impetus ... now i see all too clearly:
one can never really know who one's mentors are
until the mentoring is done.
September 17
ringing separates me from Martin
Luther King
and the lady who is showing me pictures of
macrobiotic food. earlier in the night, i
quit my job. busy busy busy.
rain falls now in our city as
i chew, chew, chew
with all this energy i could build a skyscraper
or perhaps open up a school for women
when the energy finds no endpoint
it rots
into oblivion. becomes chewed cheeks
bad prose
and restless yoga classes...
new projects flicker through
my minds eye
much like the aurora borealis did on sunday
night. some bright, sharper, but flickering
and disappearing too. i supose i'm superstitious
my loved one leaves in the rain,
carrying the green box,
carrying the brown rice,
carrying my love...
ten days now i have been still.
aha! explains my rotting energy
but i need to turn it now,
aimed differently - at the city
at the lights - i need to help someone
we glance at the new computers
on the
black and white paper
we glance at our pocketbooks,
now swelling as we fill our refrigerator
with legumes
we steal glances at new homes
i dream of a basement
music is absent
but present
and my level of altruism rises
it's no cooincidence
the first chilly days since
March
in this city of bewlidering snow
the rains mean the flowers will live
the men will carry umbrellas to school
if they have them
and for many, umbrellas will not suffice.
for many, shelter and water must suffice.
i've left room for you to read
between
s p a
c e
for you to breathe
and
in today's altruistic style,
some leftover energy,
carrying my love.
September 16
alternating between energy and drenergy
September 2
i've got lyrics of my own:
songs that only i can sing
i've got rules and laws to follow
maps where i'm the only king
i know worlds where nothing matters
no one starves and no one begs
i see things that show no pattern
up is down and arms are legs
i refuse to play their card games
things they do can make me sick
i might want their wands and riches
they can't change what makes me tick
mine are ways though lost and lonely
lead me somewhere i belong;
and though the rules do not apply here
my God alone will sing that song
September 1st, 1999
can you do more than believe truly and fully
in the here and now?
what would his God say about that?
is belief a momentary thing?
the here and now changes, and along with it,
my beliefs.
what role does our higher force play in this?
absolutes are not supposed to change...
i'm writing while chewing
while staring
and becoming stressed even
as the day unfolds, without me.