the nature of things

these past few days i've felt a poem coming on.

or something like a poem. my head has felt in the right place -- a place you can't force it to be in; it just doesn't work that way.

this weekend i think i'll plan my garden. it's time to start seeds in my sunny front window. i look forward to the small joy of seeing that first speck of white and green appear in the soil. proof that life works, and goes on, and the nature of things is to grow.

love and some verses

sitting in a cafe trying to bang out an article i know nothing about. it isn't going very well. i am staring off into space and drinking my coffee too slow so it's cold. i want to go home, crawl into my bed, and close my eyes. my eyes are tired.

i'm listening to the song we signed our marriage register to. i was never capable of keeping it together during emotional moments (i have cried in front of hundreds, maybe thousands of people in my lifetime), so i was teary-eyed and my nose was running and i didn't have a tissue. i watched my best friend sign her name on the witness line and i felt eric's hand on my shoulder and i looked out at all of the people watching and thought to myself, "what if the song ends before we're done?"

i am obviously not the best at staying in the moment.

all of this to say i'm three days away from deadline and i haven't written a single word. 

dressage in the wintertime

I guess there's nothing stopping me from starting my work day at 2:30 PM at a coffee shop. Still, I feel guilty. It is a marvellously sunny day outside, and I wish I were riding a horse through a wide prairie. This wish will probably never go away.

I have been thinking about her a lot lately. She's always there, somewhere, but these past two weeks she has been at the forefront of my thoughts.

It's something to do with thinking about horses. With bringing my shaggy horse in from the pasture, cleaning him up, pulling his mane back to a respectable length. Schooling dressage alone in a quiet, cold indoor arena that reminds me so much of the arena at the old barn where we all met. Something about not being sure what it is I'm working towards when I ask for flexion and bend, when I ask for more impulsion, aiming for steady straightness and quiet transitions. There's no real reason for working towards these things, when there is no end result in mind and no one there to tell me should be able to do it, or to tell me I actually can do it. To congratulate me when it's done.

Without her it seems sort of pointless.

It could just be that it's winter and we're just as far in as we'll ever be out. It's a good season to be wistful.

office space

there's a for-rent sign in the top floor window of the noble building. i have always loved that building. the hallways smell like cookies and baking bread from the cafe downstairs. it's old, and a little rickety (squeaky floorboards and old windows) and it's charming. i loved working in that building.

the windows of the suite for rent face south-east. imagine the sunshine in the mornings. i imagine renting it with a couple of other writers. having a warm, bright space to work. eating sandwiches from downstairs and coffee from across the street. contributing, once more, to the community in garneau.

but it will not be so.

to help me remember

Today is one of those days I'd like to ride my horse through the countryside and just think about landscapes.

I don't get the urge to ride horses very often in the wintertime -- often it seems like a cold, unpleasant chore. A long drive, treacherous roads, numb toes and icy fingers. I've gone almost two months without the motivation to go see my equine friend. He has grown fat and his winter coat has grown long. On really cold days I think about frost on his whiskers and on the ends of the beard he grows to keep warm.

I saw him on Tuesday. I met one of my best friends at the barn to clip his winter fur so that I could ride him inside without dealing with an overheated, sweaty mess of a horse. It was like old times, standing around in barn aisles, laughing together, talking about horses and our lives. It brought me back to the place I loved -- a place I'm not sure we'll ever get back.

After he was snug in his winter blankets and I drove home on the dark highway, I once again felt wistful. And sad.

Now I want to go back and feel the soft velvet of his nose on my hands and take him on long rides alone (I wish they could be there to accompany me, like old times -- but they won't; they haven't been for a long time).

The difference between now and then is that I have other priorities. I can't go out to the barn -- I have to work. I have deadlines looming and dozens of emails to reply to. Back then, going out to ride was the one rigid aspect of my schedule that everything else had to revolve around. Now it's just something to fit in now and again.

Sometimes I think the only reason I still own him is to help me remember.

To have something to show for it all.

a complicated balance

this weekend i have been thinking of three things:

1. wilderness, and how much i want to be out in it.
2. family, and how blessed i feel to be a part of mine.
3. community, and how i can become more connected with it.

i have been busy with work lately, which makes me especially desirous of those three values.

today i participated in community, had lunch with good friends, and then came home to work (and it's such a solitary affair, this business of being a freelance writer).

now the day is over, and i'm drinking the tea that i let get cold on the nightstand, and i've got oatmeal chocolate chip muffins in the oven and i keep wondering how it is we're supposed to balance all of the elements of our lives if we want to make our homes and our money.

winter cabin

i wish there were some place outside of the city i could go in the wintertime. if it were summer and i was desperate to escape the city, i would go to any number of places i know. but in the winter, it seems there's nowhere to go. it feels like i'm walled in by dangerous temperatures. if i leave the warmth of the city, i just won't make it.

i am longing for a winter cabin. someplace small, maybe on a lake, where my dog and my husband and i could hole up for a few days every now and again. where i could sit very quietly and listen for the tiniest sounds. i could write poems and the two of us could play scrabble.

sometimes i long to feel remote.

but i don't know of any such place.