waiting on the front porch

(thank you to bohemian mama)

1. What I was doing five years ago:
~i had just come back to ottawa after living in san diego over the winter, and was trying to sort myself out over a broken heart and a casual drug addiction…i believe i had just found a job at a jewelry store, and was living with my stepdad and his new wife in the house i grew up in.

2. Five things on my to-do list:
~ write a story
~ stop hemorrhaging money
~ get my financial situation figured out so i don’t feel like something’s chasing me all the time (this means filing my taxes, applying for loans, etc.)
~ take a yoga class soon
~ clean my apartment

3. Five favourite smells:
~ the soap that field uses, because it instantly reminds me of him and is like a little hug from him to me whenever i smell it.
~ baking oatmeal raisin cookies…that burned sugar/cinnamon thing.
~ lilacs or the very delicate scent you get from sticking your nose down a tulip.
~ freshly washed clothes. even though i don’t use fabric softener i think that’s the scent i love when clothes come out of the dryer…or that “i’ve just been dried in the summer air for a few hours” smell.
~ the back of my pets’ necks. (i pick em up and kiss them and breathe in that smell all the time).

4. Five junk-food items I enjoy:
~ green and black’s caramel chocolate bar
~ ice cream (pretty much any kind).
~ toast with tahini and honey
~ “treat” lattes
~ expensive fruit

5. Five favourite articles of clothing:
~ any and all of my lulu gear. (SO comfy and makes you look hot while you’re doing whatever. and their hoodies are like wearing custom-sized blankets from grandma).
~ butter-soft jeans.
~ black tank tops.
~ a red flamenco dress i’ve been coveting for years that was just handed down to me by my best friend.
~ anything BLUE or GREEN.

6. Five things I would do if I was a billionaire:
~ open a retreat on an island, and make a scholarship fund so that people who wanted to go but didn’t have the money to fly would always be able to. my retreat would be a creative one, (with artists’ studios, yoga classes, a music room, etc.) but would also explore the connection between the creative and the political - how you can use art to synthesize the world around you. there would be classes on everything - from how to grow gardens in small places to learning how to communicate non-aggressively with people you don’t get along with, and would concentrate on being a healing and regenerative place to go.
~ pay off my debts and those of the people i love.
~ take off for a number of months, or years. travel the world and observe and honour the cultures i find there.
~ make dreams come true.
~ find new and challenging ways on how to make the world a better place.

7. Five of my bad habits:
~ smoking every so often
~ over-spending
~ negative self-talk
~ not trying enough
~ being very “all-or-nothing”

8. Five jobs I’ve had:
~ cleaning limousines (which is as bizarre as it sounds).
~ front desk clerk at a long-term stay hotel.
~ cashier, etc. at 4 different organic food stores.
~ cosmetician at a pharmacy.
~ puppeteer.

9. Five all time favourite movies:
~ the princess bride
~ all about eve
~ reality bites
~ movies about writers
~ tootsie

10. Five favourite bands/musicians: (at the moment!)
~ jamiroquai
~ the roots
~ quincy jones
~ led zeppelin
~ nina simone

i feel sorry for this little blog space, i admit. days go by and i visit here, or read my lovely comments from the few people who haven’t given up completely, (thank you! i love you!), but i can’t write what i want to write, so i don’t.
the thought occurs to me that this little porch is in dire need of a spring cleaning, otherwise it’s going to fall right off my house.

last week i signed the lease for my dream apartment. a week ago friday, my (new) landlord had left me a message asking me to call him, but i wasn’t able to get in touch with him all weekend…so i was a bit of a nervous wreck, thinking that the place has gone to someone else oh my god i don’t want to keep looking it’s perfect it’s right by the canal it’s close to friends oh, god and then on monday, at 9:30, i called him, got through, and all of a sudden i had made an appointment for 1 pm to meet downtown to sign the papers.

so on july 1st, i am moving. to an apartment in a neighbourhood where i have always wanted to live, but not many other people understand why. let me explain.
10 years ago, in montreal, housing prices were ridiculously low. it was right around the time of the (latest)separation imbroglio and anglophones were moving out of province, everyone was abandoning ship and this tiny, neglected island in the middle of a province the federales weren’t sure they wanted anymore was one of the “victims”.
you could rent a sizable 2 bedroom apartment here for i’m not kidding, $275/mo.

but, of course, montreal’s coolness couldn’t stay hidden long, and in the past ten years or so, a lot of gentrification has taken place. don’t get me wrong, although i hate gentrification, i love my adopted hometown, so i’m glad it’s thriving. i’m glad, due to quebec’s cultural preservation tactics, that it’s become such a unique “big city”.
there are only a few neighbourhoods that are still considered “undesirable” or “unchic” to live in (ergo, their housing prices are amazing, in comparison to the inflation that is going on elsewhere) and i’m moving to one of them.

my new house is on the upper level on a building that has only six apartments. it has it’s own door (instead of a main door with my own door within that door). it has a shared balcony off the (huge) kitchen with soon-to-be-new-stove and leaf-inlaid linoleum counters, with a tiny yard off the balcony. it has hook-ups for a washer and dryer. it is close to the canal, which will be awesome for my girl. it will be a BIT of a walk, but it is conceivably within walking distance of the school. it has hardwood floors, windows that let in a lot of light, two bedrooms, (so i can keep all electrical type things out of my bedroom - or, have a separate room for yoga entirely).

it is near a very cool, as yet undiscovered to many people in montreal, street that has an organic food store, a yoga centre, a neighbourhood cafe, and a second-hand clothing store within a few blocks of each other. i could fall over and hit my metro stop.

to say i’m psyched is a little of an understatement. and i won’t lie, after living for two years in a (wonderful) apartment that had its drawbacks after a while (when we were still dating, field asked me to look for a place in his neighbourhood. i’m currently around the corner from a few of his relatives. we broke up in this space and i had a breakdown here, and although i’ve also done a lot of my healing here, i’m ready to leave.

it’s funny because our friendship is in a really good space. it’s better than it’s ever been, in lots of ways, even though we’re both incredibly busy with our own lives.

i have a OH MY GOD i want to be your friend so badly, reciprocal connection with a girl who just started working at my store. i’ve been calling her my girl-crush for a while now…she and i are starting to realize how much we have in common, and i’m so excited for this friendship to (hopefully) blossom. to boil her down to a few descriptive sentences:
she rides a motor cycle, quit teaching high school special ed to work in an organic food store, is the lead singer in a reggae band (and is selling her and her partner’s home to fund their debut album - i find that faith-in-her-own [and it is goose-bump-giving amazing] talent so inspiring), is HILARIOUS, is ….i want to be her sleepovering, tell-everything-to, drinking copious amounts of wine with best friend.

i’ve been reading. i read sweetness in the belly, by camilla gibb, which is incredible. i hate writing reviews, but i would recommend this to everyone. it’s about a white muslim woman raised in ethiopia during the reign of haile selassie, and…if you need a good, interesting, amazingly-crafted, can’t-put-it-down read in the next little while, go there.
reading john updike’s until i find you now, although to be honest, i think i’m going to stop.

have bought the artist’s way. read through the introductions, and am waiting to start the program ceremoniously. if anyone wants to participate, or re-participate, maybe we can do this together.

going to the gym. running a LOT. running feels very very good. i can’t get over how much i love it. it’s funny - i stopped going in the beginning of march, right when that fight happened - how i always stop doing the things that i enjoy and are healthy and good for me, the second i become stressed out. like doing “comforting” things are smoking and eating junk and watching movies, instead of going on long walks, and eating food that is healthy and doesn’t weigh me down, doing yoga and getting out there.

and that, pretty much, is all….

(image courtesy of wikipedia)

i think it was maybe a month ago, when i was going through another one of my “panic weeks”, (i just thought of that phrase for it), when my anxiety was high, all the time, i did what i normally do when i can’t take it anymore: i put myself to bed early.
sometimes i have problems sleeping, but more often than not, i have an ability to go to sleep at the drop of a hat. i cocoon myself in my blankets, rub my bare feet together, and if sleep is taking more than five minutes to arrive, put my head under the covers - and all of a sudden, i’m blinking and it’s eight hours later.

that night i was jumping…my body felt like a live wire. i could feel my heart racing in my chest. i felt like i was falling through the air - through the mattress. all of a sudden, i thought to try something different.

i imagined the universe catching me. holding me, even though i couldn’t feel it. i imagined the softness of my mattress actually being this huge palm. i tried to feel the love pumping up from the earth through my floor, suffusing me.

i only say this because it has helped, tremendously, in the past little while, at recalibrating me when my tendency to lose it kicks in. the universe, bigger than me (and aren’t i just a miniscule part of the whole?) loving me just for who i am….having a reason in creating me just the way i am…knowing. not judging.

i’m trying to remember this today.
i resolved the sadness brought up by the therapy by telling myself that i was worried about something that had not happened, that it was pointless to worry about the future - and maybe, if what i feared happening actually happens the way i fear it, that i’ll be ready for that when it does.

i saw a place yesterday in a neighbourhood i’ve always wanted to live in…for $100 cheaper than the place i’m living in now. two bedrooms, separate entrance, hook-ups for laundry, balcony, backyard, hardwood floors, light….i put in an application, obviously, but i want that place so badly it’s making me sick. i’m worried about my bad credit, because there’s obviously a credit check…
i’m hopinghopinghopinghopinghoping i somehow pass it. and get accepted. and i’m also trying to stay philosophical about it.

the universe knows…i know this, and yet, the constant reminding…

i told field early this afternoon that i was nervous about my therapy appointment. he asked me why, and i said that whenever i talk for an hour solid about what i’m feeling, things get stirred up. he said that it’s a good thing that they get stirred up, that if things come to the surface that they’re meant to.

i agree, but what that means is that after a little bit of a brutal foray into things i knew but was avoiding dealing with, i feel like my heart is becoming unmoored…ripping out from its harbour in my chest.
i’ve gone into lockdown mode - ordered sushi, am taking a break from watching juno in order to write this(next up, lars and the real girl) and am unplugging my phone, crawling under the afghan my grandma knit for me fifteen years ago, (it’s pink), and cuddling with daisy. we might take a walk later, she and i, while i listen to my iPod.

this mood…this feeling down, is a one-off. i don’t want to scare anyone with this update, like all is woe-is-me over here. i’m not sure why it’s been so long since i’ve been able to publish anything (because i’ve tried to write here. it’s just not been working - you should see my drafts page.)
i’ve been trying to write other things - what i consider “real things” - and that hasn’t been working so well. i’ve been looking at a few apartments, trying to figure out if i should move. i’ve been working more hours at my job. i’ve been walking daisy a lot more now that the weather’s finally flipped its switch to spring, and i’ve started therapy. (today was my second session.)

i feel like i really want to talk about what i talked about with my counsellor, but i also feel that i can’t prod that bruise at the moment. it will surface here, at some point, but just not now.

i’ll be back.

for the past month or so, pretty much every morning i have woken up in the middle of what feels like a heart attack. at 6 am. no matter what time i go to bed.
my pulse races; i spend about a minute slowing my breath down; i toss and turn, staring at the dark sky and the bright moon outside my window, thinking that i’ll fall back to sleep in just a minute.
i don’t.

i had a gigantic fight with someone a while ago, as i mentioned. what happened afterwards made me feel like i was an acorn, being shaken from a tree after a storm. i was tossed straight to the basic ground of my issues - the ones that i really need to resolve.

i burned through the rest of the fog i was feeling in a hurry, though. i don’t know what the space is called where i landed, but it’s a lot more clear.
i see now that i’ll need to explain.

this fight had a lot to do with my depression, on both sides. on mine, i can’t keep things in perspective very well at times. on my friend’s, he’d been feeling attacked. this is something i’ve heard from different people, at times in my life, which is why i paused and tried to consider the situation, truly, from his end of things, rather than keep going with the whole, “he lied to me, my feelings are hurt” part of the misconception i was originally running with.

i think in a lot of ways, because i try and nurture very close, familial-type friendships, that i can take them for granted and act somewhat disrespectfully to them when i’m feeling strange, because i think they’ll “have to love me through whatever”, when there is really never that kind of guarantee.

so, thump. the person i felt closest to in the world was saying he didn’t want to be treated the way i was treating him anymore, and that made me face a few things, namely:
we are all on this journey, ultimately, alone. i can only answer to myself. i have to have a healthy relationship with myself. what am i waiting for?

i started worrying about money. and where i was going to live. and school - how my depression has affected my grades and hopes for grad school. and my job, which doesn’t pay enough or give me enough hours or really appreciate me enough.

i kicked around the idea of moving to peterborough, to be closer to my sister.

i kicked around the idea of a lot of things.

what became clear to me is me. i realized that i want to become a writer - train more to be a better one. this means masters. i don’t know where yet….a master of fine arts is not offered here, and is more writing-intensive, but has less job opportunities; a masters is more academic. regardless, even though my grades are going to be okay, (mostly a’s and b’s), i need to make a bigger impression on teachers in order to have references for grad school applications, which will have to be deferred until next year.

so. even though i have enough credits to graduate, i just enrolled in another year of undergrad courses, to a) raise my g.p.a, and b) get references.
i’m going to say “f*** you” to working, apply for a loan, and do school. i’m going to move apartments.

i realized that even though i feel that what i’ve been through was definitely necessary, that i need to refocus. i’ll be 30 this year, and i want to be as good at life as i know i can be….i’m meant to be a writer, i’ve got to dedicate myself to that, and not get slowed down by anyone, or anything….

i realize that i sent out a cryptic s.o.s a few weeks ago, left a quick posting to say everything was all right, and then disappeared again.

there are a few reasons for that. the first is that my internet was cut off. there was a misunderstanding between the left hand and the right hand of the company i deal with, and so while we worked it out, i was without access at my home. i’d stop by a cafe every now and then to check my email, but i didn’t really have time or money to do much else.

second, the paper(s). i had to write a 16-page paper, and a 5-page one, to fix a d- i got accidentally in a class last year.  i was knee deep in books, those neon post-it flags, highlighters, and ball-point pens for a good long while. i sent them off by email yesterday, and today the hard copies caught a courier, so that’s just over.

easter weekend, (well, thursday through saturday) being spent in peterborough with my sister and my best friends.

my part-time job.

my dog.

i want to tell all about what i’ve been thinking in the past few weeks…but i find i still need to think about it. but i’ll be back.

i am okay. i am being reborn.

a few weeks ago i had a brutal, brutal fight with someone who’s very close to me, and it shook up and brought to light my most core issue - which can be boiled down to abandonment. i think my heart took a few isolated instances in my life and translated them into, not lessons, but if change occurs at all, it means the cataclysmic end of a relationship, and that’s really not how it is, at all.

having that experience, and then the subsequent discussions and rapprochement, meant that i tumbled deeply into myself for a while - inside to look a few things that i’d been avoiding. i asked myself a lot of questions, and came up with some unsettling answers, that honestly, i’m still sitting with.

winds of change are blowing, and i think they’re blowing me in another direction, at least geographically. i have to finish a mammoth paper (which is the first thing on my mind every morning) and then i’m going to apply to grad school, whose deadlines are in a little more than a week.

i honestly don’t know if i can pull it off - but i think i can. it’s a lot of writing, once i finish a lot of writing, but i’ve been doing a LOT of grounding exercises in the past few weeks, (deep breathing, ginger tea, going for walks, reiki) and the result of that is, i don’t feel overwhelmed. still, honestly, anxious as hell and a little bit uncomfortable with that, but also hopeful. 

i can’t discuss right now what is going on here, but something large is potentially happening to me.

i know that whatever happens, that i will keep breathing and moving forward with my life, or at least, that’s what i keep telling myself - but in the midst of a huge personal issue, i have to put all my crazy emotions aside and get tons of work done. that’s never been my strong suit - at least, not lately, but i have used up the last of my last chances with everything.

if you can spare a good vibe, a comment, words of encouragement - i am humbly asking for it. i need help. i’ve been in a state of shock for 12 hours now and i can’t really communicate much else, except to reassure you that nothing life-threatening is happening.

it’s 12:11 am and my head kind of hurts (maybe it’s those few cigarettes that i smoked in my friend’s bedroom as i was helping her write her paper on the invisibility of lesbian and gay elders in the health care system), but i feel the need to touch this space. move in it.

it’s honestly too soon to be sure, but i think the depression is slowly lifting again. i did a little backslide after the kiss last wednesday - i’m not sure if it’s because i realized, again, how many unresolved feelings i have about him (and i know, there’s nothing i can do, but letting go is not my strong suit sometimes), or how much i hurt for him and what he’s going through, or being aware that he is just not calling me and this is still not the right time - but i continued on my sopranos rampage and ate cheeseburgers and basically felt like i was at the bottom of a very deep well.
and then it changed, partially due to field’s unique brand of tough (sometimes searing) love, (”are you kidding? if you want to go to grad school, you keep taking classes until you raise your g.p.a. you make them accept you. you don’t give up! i think you LIKE being depressed. your life isn’t ruined!”) and just…putting it into perspective.

you might laugh, or you might not, but lately i’ve been telling field that i want to be a ninja. i think it stems from when i was 13 and watched that scene in the silence of the lambs where clarice is doing her physical training for the fbi program. it probably also has something to do with the fact that i’m not perfectly agile or balanced, as well as being this avowed pacifist, but i’ve had this distracted fascination for that kind of spiritual/physical kickassery. that lithe, flexible deadliness.
and then, lo and behold, when i was in chapters the other day, i found a book called “the spiritual practices of the ninja” which SOUNDS gimmicky (i’m as skeptical as the next person) but actually makes some kind of sense to me. as far as i’ve gotten into it, it’s fairly factual, with a history of ninjas (they were apparently political and social subversives who were forced into the mountainous regions of japan by the emperor and also forced to eke out survival there) as well as getting into their philosophy….all about facing fear and getting accustomed to life as it is, taking what is useful out of the present moment and discarding the rest.
what i’m saying is, i think i was in the market for a new “spiritual manual”…lord, it’s late, i don’t know what i’m saying.
i’m training to be a ninja.

musical intermission….if you need to get up and dance, now’s your chance.

things on the docket: turns out i’m going to be writing that 17-page behemoth paper to get the d- taken off my g.p.a so i can graduate. that’s going to happen in the next 3 weeks.
i also have to finish an editing job by the 7th. i have 400 pages more to read.
i have to write a biography for an artist and start organizing his vernissage. (i actually know his benefactor through the store where i work. the benefactor is this lovely older british man who is an incredible character. he won $2 million in the lottery 2 years ago, invested it wisely, and now is a man of leisure. he bought the building where the art show is going to be, has known the artist for years, and when the artist started painting - 9 months ago - chris liked his work so much he offered him the space. chris, for whatever reason, loves me, and offered me the job. at $30/an hour.)
maybe, if i have enough mental power left, starting another editing job, another 700 page book about german myth and fairy tales.

lots and lots to do…..

have been listening to phrenology by the roots pretty much non-stop. it’s kickass motivating music.
r.i.p. jeff healey….canadian music legend. huge nostalgia value to me…spent a lot of car trips when i was small listening to this tape. (one of my mama’s favourites).

inspirations (well, not all, but just a few) from blogland:
first of all, i must thank megan from fleeting moments for sending me this gift of a banner after i asked for one in my last post. um….amazing.
read this post by jessie.
and either this or this (or both) from megg.

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