belated sunday scribblings

what i remember.

what i remember?

a big red apartment building
with scary stairs and train tracks
running behind.

the smell of gas
coming off strong on my dad's clothes
when he came home from the garage.

pigeons being mistaken
for butterflies
and toasters catching on fire.

sesame street
and the friendly giant.
its bixby and me, we live in a tree...
inside out
and cbc educational television.

creamed peas on toast
(which i hated)

****************************
moving to the country.

a house with red shingles,
a blue tree house with real windows,
hanging from my knees from a tree.

meeting R at her birthday party
at her grandmother's house
and the beginning of our bond.

crying everytime my dad shaved
his moustache off and
running behind the house to hide.

the smell of the house when my mom
spent a day cleaning...the curtains off
the windows, everything so bright,
the scent of pine-sol and windex,
another world on tv
with rachel and mac being my favorites.

eating goulash
(which i hated)
and telling the fishman no one was home
when he drove in the driveway
for fear of having to eat mackeral,
ugh.

****************************
starting school,
being anxious,
being worried, being scared,
feeling sad and alone and different.
peanut butter sandwiches.
jealousy that everyone else still got to stay home
with mom but me...

thunder and lightning at school
at recess
and the pandemonium of everyone
rushing for the door at once,
yelling
and crushing
and getting my arm caught in the
steel door,
crying
and calling my mom to come
get me
but she couldn't.

always pretending to skip
in the playground,
without a skipping rope,
all by myself.

reading archie comics
during grade one
and getting in trouble.

my mom telling my dad
that if he didn't stop drinking
she was going to leave him,
neither of them knowing
to this day
that i was sitting on the stairs
in the muted colored light
that came through my favorite
stained glass window
hyperventilating
and
anticipating
the divorce
that would never happen.

"our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final
today, me and little J-O-E will be
going away"
******************************

my dad quit drinking
(he never drank much anyway,
only on the weekends)

vacations in the big blue van
with orange flowered curtains.

anxiety lessening as i got older,
still a loner for a long time,
relying on myself for amusement...
eventually becoming somewhat more
adept
at social skills...

grateful sunday (written on a sunday)

i realize this morning that even when
i am upset or sad or confused,
i still have so much that i am grateful for
and that
things always seem better
in the morning.

what i am loving this week:

-the way this blog makes me think
-the way this blog makes me feel
-the response my handmade card and blanket
received at the baby shower i attended friday night
-spending time with six yesterday tickling
and giggling
-a headache gone
-a hot bath last night with tons of bubbles
-easy access to lilacs, which led to a lilac filled house
all weekend
-how these blogs inspire me and make me want
to do things
-the sight of teeny-tiny lettuce already growing
in the garden

hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

oh and sunday scribblings here

poetry-thursday-read-aloud

prompted by liz and lynn
to read some poetry out loud this week,
i skimmed through a book of canadian poets
and randomly chose some to read aloud.

i sat on my couch
in a silent, still house...
heavy, overcast skies
heavy with the promise of thunder
weighed me down, too,
and slowed my mind's pace,
allowing me to take in the words
i was reading out loud
in turn
with the addicting scent of lilac
freshly picked
and placed on the table behind me.

and i waited for something
to strike a chord.

this is what did:

There Are Delicacies

there are delicacies in you
like the hearts of watches
there are wheels that turn
on the tips of rubies
& tiny intricate locks

i need your help
to contrive keys
there is so little time
even for the finest
of watches

Earle Birney

which in turn led me to feel full of words
with no place to go
so i tried to harness them here
and oddly enough,
what i wrote tonight
seemed to fit as a second half to what i wrote on
may 25....



1.

this morning, i was corel
i was word perfect
i was full of type.
i was media friendly
and worth the hype.
my font looked good,
crisp in clarity, black and white.
my pages were updated,
my codes functioning right.
my audience pixelated,
my mind; my site.

2.

tonight i feel slow and languid
pregnant with pause
and deliberation
words mulling around inside my brain
seeking forgiveness
seeking refrain
and yet, i cannot redeem...
i can only constrain.
they beat against my thoughts
dully with powder soft wings
they nudge and bump my metaphors
with the intensity
apathy brings.

grateful friday becomes grateful monday!

all weekend, i intended to write my grateful friday list.
and now,
its monday....

i may have to rethink doing grateful friday
on friday.
maybe i should do grateful sunday...
then when i forget,
and don't do it until
monday,
it won't seem so late....
heehee

how's that for twisted logic?

grateful for:
-the grace
-the garden progression

-six's badly needed haircut (heh...and all that hair is from my son!)
-spending all day saturday with my husband planning a flower garden
-spending all day sunday with my brother's and their families planting
a "community" garden at my mom's with the kids.
-baking banana bread for my first time and having it taste like banana bread!

sunday scribblings eight

The Definition Of First Love.

What I thought was my first love was
not my first love at all. Even at the time,
some hidden away secret silent part of me
was certain that this was not my first love,
not because I had loved before, but because
this could not truly be considered love.

Unless love consisted of fear and anxiety,
impatience and mean words, spite and degradation.
Unless love held you captive and silent and resentful.
Unless love made you hate yourself.
Then, perhaps, this was love?

But somewhere, deep inside, a serious-voiced girl
told me, this is not love. This is making due.
This is being hopeful. This is making concessions
and one-sided contracts and deals that if I would
only be good, be sexier, be thinner, be funnier,
be quieter, be happier, this would all be better.
Then he would love me.

That is not love. It is a poor excuse for love...at best.

The time span in between that first mistaken, heartfelt
yet clumsy stab at love held many more attempts. Drunken
shots in the dark. Obsessions. Passing fancys and
possibilities. Killing time. And yet, none of them, love.
Being rendered powerless for so long caused me to beleive
that in order to not be controlled meant that I had to
become the controller. From now on, I would call all
shots. I would pull all punches. I would take all they
would give and give as little as I possibly could, in return.

It worked, but none of that could be considered "love".

When love found me, I was a bit of a mess. Drinking too
much, dating too often, too busy trying to win the game
to care what the consequences might be. Love challenged
my thinking without controlling it. Love cleaned me up
and beleived in me. Love listened.

As it turned out, my first real love played no games.
That was established the first night we met. At the bar,
I thought as usual, that I held all the cards and he would
follow my lead. I took him (as I did all others) to the
Parkade, where I would walk drunkenly around the
outside edge, balancing precariously, while the others
begged me to come down. But not him. Instead,
he picked me up and held me over the edge until
I was the one wanted to be on safe ground.

And yet, the true test still waited. The church by
my apartment was a magnet for me in its vast
beauty. There was staging built for renovations
that whole summer. I desperately wanted to
climb that staging but no boy was willing. Except
this one. Drunkenly, we climbed the entire staging
and at the top, he kissed me.

And that was where my first true love began,
almost twelve years ago now. And that, for me,
is my first real love.

more sunday scribbling here!