Something Blue

And so we set sail.

B.

From across this little space

I feel the sparrow lifting

upward (small and
light

she arcs

silver brown against
flesh)

A slow dance in indigo,

taken under the last fading summer

sky.

Later I seek

the promise of kisses,

in my own (lonely)

dance, it is your name

I trill.

Confession

There is something I have learned over the last year.

I am good at sharing but not my self. No, that is not a typo.

J and I have agreed to open up again and invite others into our world. Before you judge, you should know it's a sign that we trust one another. That love is not possessive. Instead love is patient and ready to move outside the simple definitions you scribble out in the bright light of scrutiny.

Call it an itch. Call it whatever the fuck you want. What matters is how we communicate what we want to one another and the honesty that it takes to stand up and say, "Please, this would make me happy."

I have learned a thing or two, yes. Not about us, but about me. This small box cannot hold me anymore. I want something more and I feel like the time is right to spread my wings and take flight into that deep azure of summer twilight. I am sick of being told it's impossible, that I am too old, that I am too young, that I am too too too.

There are some things I am better at then others. Some things I enjoy more than other things. Like the thrill of being new. Or tasting the forbidden for the first time. Feeling the fleeting thrill of adventure.

Perhaps I will bash around like a junkie after her fix, but who gives a damn. I am escaping the box. I am reaching out and I can feel the wind in my feathers, something far off is calling my limbs to unfurl and get on with it.

I am ready to live.

Come here, I want to touch you.

G.

September, Blackberries, and Tall Grass

So here we are once again. Like years before, I fought the coming of fall. I resisted the dying of the summer flowers and looking at leaves changing on the hills as I drive in to work. Oh, and the rain, I kept out one pair of sandals...



Another birthday has gone by. I am just that much older. Am I wiser though? I hardly feel like it. I wish I could say I was a great beauty, that with age comes more refinement and grace. Yes, grace would mean that I would not fall down the last two stairs on New Years in my three hundred dollar shoes. Oh and that I would not accidentally pour tea into my purse and kill a cell phone and a hands free device. Oh dear lord, I am so without grace. (Maybe next year?) But since I am not a great beauty, graceful or wise I have to revel in the things I am.



1. I am generous and have great empathy... unless you have cut me off in traffic when you are in a hurry to get to a meeting that you COULD have gotten up ten minutes early for but instead chose to take my spot in the line.

2. I have wonderful friends. At a recent dinner party I observed the wide range of women I have collected over the years, wise and funny all of them. Thank god... this means there is someone to show me the way.

3. I keep a clean house. Thank you mom for showing me that cleanliness is godliness. I don't think she taught me to have an OCD moment though when the leaves are tracked in on the floor. This might be part of not having any grace.

4. I have a great eye for shoes. No need to say more. This is a skill that all women either envy or develop.

5. I am clever. There is something to be said for clever, never underestimate it. I would rather be clever than beautiful. (Both would be better...) Clever means I can make my own luck.

6. Cooking to me is an art. And I am damn good at it. I love to feed my family and friends, to break bread is a communion of sorts.

7. I still think that sex is fun. And I am a fantastic kisser. And I am not one of those people who just says that. (I taught J. everything he knows.)

8. After 30+ years, life still fascinates me. I am infinitely curious.

9. My life partner loves me. No one in my family is a criminal. (This generation at least.) No one is in pain or lost or angry. Family is love.

10. The world is a breathtaking, vivid and utterly beautiful place and I live here. (Not really about me... but this is my birthday rant, so forgive me.)



Recently I have reconnected with a friend from high school. (Thank you Facebook?) We had been room mates in college, best friends and inseparable. But then something happened, many things happened and we drifted into our own lives. I saw her ten years ago and sent a wedding invitation which went unanswered. And here we are, years after that. She has become more beautiful with age and seemingly lost sight of who she was over the years. There are no photos of her in a white wedding dress, no conventional adornments. No career deciding where she stays or goes. Am I jealous? It would seem that I am... also a bit awe struck. Who knows what would have happened if if if. Who cares. I would not be me. I may not have such a great eye for shoes.



Life. A puzzle. I am hardly the one to figure out the riddle all be it I am clever. Who would want all the answers?



I will just be happy with the scent of the blackberries in the air, the shifting leaves and my love of words. For the things that make me the woman I am who stops at the drop of a hat to photograph grass fields and sunlight.



G.

The Littlest Birds

Something Blue

I can't erase the image of your fingers, wedding band catching the light, flat against the floor as you rise. Your wife below. And then as quickly as I caught the secret shadow of your lust, it is gone.

And you return to being just a man in a room full of men, teaching us the power of violence.

G.

Confession

Infidelity.

Define that in the world we live in. It seems like a simple enough task. ``To be unfaithful.`` Yes. It would appear so.

But now apply that to a relationship where the normal bounds are not easily defined to square edges. Where coloring outside the lines is seen as liberation from the normal day to day ideas of what is this and what is that.

Now infidelity is not so neat and tidy.

Love is an absolute. I can not like you. I can decide that your behaviour is bad. That there must be consequences... but I never stop loving. In that is the most painful reality. To be hurt by the one you love the most. Can it be forgiven... this is now the definition we need to write.

I have never faced this set of questions, this particular coloring book. Instead I have been lost in the dizzying array of colors, the scent of the crayons, and the rainbow of possibility. I have pushed for J to be as free, to be as creative, and somehow we forgot that even this liberty has boundaries.

We will be fine. More than fine.

But the question still lingers... what is infidelity in an open relationship. A debate that we will muddle through over the next coming days.

But my heart is bruised. I was angry. I was sad. I assisted in creating this mess. I gave permission to the one I love to wave that knife around and stab it into me. Oh the drama. (I actually laughed typing that.) Honestly, I am hurt. More by the recklessness with which my love lost sight of what was important.

Damn little head.

And so we move forward. There has to be forgiveness regardless of the questions. It is what we do when we color outside the lines.

G.

From The Shadows...

There have been nights of no sleep. Of wind on the roof and a dog pacing our bed. There have been days of droopy eyes and the lament of coffee long gone. There has been some laughter. Mostly, there has been this numb creeping of indifference.

My mother has been diagnosed with stage three cancer. I made the mistake of researching it online. I refuse to believe that she is going to be a statistic. There is no room for failure.

I flew to Ottawa at the end of November to settle her in for her first treatment, Christmas shopping, decorating, forced rally and tears. I returned to my own house, my own demands, exhausted. Someone said that Christmas was a whore who comes in all her finery but we don't see her slip out the back door... and I feel the coldness of her exit. This is usually my favorite time of year. I love the family of it, games and port by the tree. I love the careful preparation of dinner and wrapping... the meal planning and the execution of surprise. But all of this was swallowed by the creeping numbness and now it's after Christmas and I don't want to let go.

This too shall pass.

G.

When I Can't Sleep

The wind chimes are singing their off kilter song. The coyotes are loud and sound like they are laughing.

I lost two hours and thirty minutes of my life. Erased. A black hole where there was no comprehension of my existence. I have a hard time thinking that there was nothing in my mind, only that cold, quiet darkness. Was there at least one dream?

Leading to the surgery I dreamt in vivid color, exact detail. I was stood up by a ten year old boy in a parking lot, his hands holding a red Swiss Army knife. I can see the locks on the door as the police officer secured him. I purchased baby clothes for a friend, not knowing the sex of the child. Soft green and yellow.

Was this close to cramming for an exam?

I have had a troublesome few weeks. Maybe this not sleeping is a culmination of all these things rattling around in my sleep deprived mind.

A dear friend left his wife recently. A story I may tell more of later. But my own understanding of sacrifice, of destiny, of loss and longing have all been shaken.

And then there is the pain. I wish that old woman would quit gnawing on my body like a chicken bone. Let me free already. Push away and let the wind chimes sing me to sleep.

And I miss you. I miss you. Fragile as I am, it's hard to not. Everything feels more empty. Silent. Or is that the witching hour talking?

Send me peace. Make the laughing dogs rest.

G.

And here we are...

The heat has pulled me from my slumber. Hardly sweet... my heels have been sticking to the pavement as I move from one air conditioned bliss to another.

I am tempted my my neighbour's pool. They even have the honeysuckle that goes with it.

Sitting here, in the mid dark while sipping a glass that is mostly ice, I am reminded of how dreams cannot be merely pushed away as a used toy. How pervasive they are, whispering to us constantly their lover's lament of being forgotten.

I have such a dream.

The universe sends us signs, a good friend told me. There are guides along the way. If we turn our eyes from them, they too will eventually fade into the background. We see the signs, the path is well lit for us and yet we would rather choose the darkest corridors. The harder path. The one that contravenes our souls song.

It is so easy to muffle that sound. To turn away, resisting the climb.

Life is beautiful. Distracting. These last few weeks have been about the sensation and less about the mechanics of paying attention to the reality. This heat, the gentle desire of my mind, fingers, mouth and teeth. These desires haunt me. Now, is the loudest voice. The greatest music. The dream is lost in the heat of a summer night. (Notice how it sinks into your skin? Can you feel that pressure to lay down and just ... give in?)

But fall will come. She will come and shake the flowers from our hair. And then, and only then it seems... we will focus on the music of our soul.

First, we must dance with the seductress, desire. All 39 degrees of her.

G.

Autumnal