seam ripper:

you are a true friend.

on journalling

I am keeping a paper journal again.  It's been a long time.  I have been thinking these past few years that writing should have a purpose -- and there was no purpose in the recording of simple thoughts and daily activities.  Feelings could be better represented in thoughtful poetry.  Daily activities transcribed into creative nonfiction pieces.  If there were no deeper meanings to the things that happened to me and the ways I felt about them, they needn't be recorded.

I realize, of course, that this is not so.

I spent four years in school tapping every creative pool that I had.  Mining my life for stories.  Searching my world for images.  Thinking about lines of poetry on long drives.  I liked doing this, but it was all because I had to.  I took classes like "Narrative: Function & Technique", "Short Fiction Forms", "Publishing Poetry", "Creative Non-Fiction"... my raven self could only collect so many ideas.  Beyond what I had to produce, I was tapped.  There was no time for today-i-went-out-and-this-is-what-saw-and-this-is-how-i-felt.

There is time, now.

But I haven't progressed to the point where I sit down and write in my journal because that singular activity is the only one I want to do.  Most of my journalling is done while waiting.  Waiting for Eric to meet me for coffee, waiting for my take-out sushi, waiting at the doctor's office.  It is a way to kill the time.  But there are less useful and meaningful methods of passing the time, to be sure.

My journal this time is a red moleskine; I received it as a Christmas present two years ago and have been waiting for the perfect time to start it.  I had hoped there would be a natural pause in the progression of my life and that I'd know exactly when I would be standing upon the cusp of a new stage.  This is not how life generally works -- for the most part, you just live it, and then time progresses in such a manner that the "right time" to start a thing generally never obviously presents itself -- so I finally decided just to rip the plastic off and start using it.

An excerpt:

I am concerned about my garden.


I guess, first: I decided to plant a vegetable garden.  I have never successfully grown anything, ever.  This is an ambitious undertaking.


The materials are expensive.


Some of my seeds never germinated.


My tomato plants, who were the strongest of them all, are now showing signs of weakness.  A stunted growth.  Leaf tips drying up.


I am not sure how to proceed.


I just wanted to eat garden vegetables, to minimize my footprint, to become more connected with my food.


This might not work.  I will be disappointed.


Please grow, little tomatoes.


The last time I really kept a journal was almost five years ago.  Before university, and during a particularly dark period in my life.  I don't know if I'll be able to keep writing while I feel relatively normal.  In the past, I've always had to feel damaged in some way to want to write anything at all about my life, which is, in general, quite ordinary.

Then I was living in painful fear of losing a loved one, and after she died, living in constant grief.  Now I am living in fear of losing a tomato plant.

You just live life, and time progresses.  You might as well spend your wait-times writing in a red moleskine.  It really can't hurt.

small prayer

thank you
for another chance
to greet the day,
to wander through aspen and birch,
to break snow with hooves
and squint in sunlight.

starting again

today

i sat in the saddle
of a beautiful horse

followed goose-tracks
down a snowy road

and i felt fine

never mind

never mind:
a blizzard.

the snow levels the ground once more
spring puddles in depressions are now one blank plane

and Alberta's landscape will never stop changing
just when you think you know what it will look like
it turns and shows you something else.

a good sunday

Today I wore a dress in the sunshine and embarked upon the world to buy pots in which I'll plant little herbs -- mint, for cool, summertime drinks, dill for autumn pickling, and basil for many lovely things.  I stood for the first time on my the grass of my front lawn and envisioned poppies and raspberry bushes and pole beans snaking up a trellis so high.

The daffodils on the dresser are dying, but outside everything is slowly remembering how it is to breathe, to face the sun, to reach upwards and grow.

I am turning out to like the person I'm becoming this year.  I'm more thoughtful, more creative.  A better steward of the earth.  And I'm learning to how to be more like my mom -- nurturing and talented, self-sustaining and brave.

Tonight, I'm going to try to make chili for the first time.  I have plans to include all kinds of things in it that my mother never put in hers -- for that reason, mostly, I'm unsure of my success.

an end

This is not the end, just an end.  I have mixed feelings about the whole situation.  I can't help but feel sad.

I also can't help but feel free.

the next four days:

1.
making plans, careful choices
running headlong into the future
and holding hands in the car

2.
doing something for the last time
feeling nostalgic, drinking rum,
remembering the start of a wonderful thing

3.
togetherness and knowing it's easy
simple things like apple crisp
and a sunday stroll

4.
a new challenge, but also
splashing through puddles
with an old friend

wilderness

I am getting restless, feeling compressed into a tight fist.  I need a change.

I want to go away somewhere with actual trees that are growing because that's where the seed landed, not because a developer planned it to be that way. 

I would like to wear short sleeves and listen to birds and bugs and marvel in Alberta's sky.

I could really use some wilderness, now. 

april 1, 2011: springtime

so the city unfurls itself
finally
after being clenched in a tight white fist

outside:
the sounds of water running
(a sound almost forgotten)

remember the sight of a tiny green bud
being born, or waking up, or taking breath.