Drifting toward darkness.

Around here it's clear that the darkness is gaining on the light, a little more each day. I just googled to find out when the winter solistice is (December 21), so that I will know exactly how long I have to hang in there before the light starts making a comeback.

A slow train to spring.

Crocuses are late
Only snowdrops have arrived
A slow train to spring
— Kim Philipps, 48, Bronxville, NY. 

I thought spring would come with Easter. 

It was gorgeous outside this afternoon on my walk home from work. I enjoyed the sun and thought about how I felt at home in my town. Recently, I spent too much time online looking for the (seemingly nonexistent) perfect pair of gladiator sandals in Canada. Despite this, I still feel like I am somehow in between winter and spring.

Woken by rain.

I'm not sure I ever wrote about this before, but in the winter of 2011 our bathroom had two leaks coming from the ceiling. There was one leak coming through the vent thing over the tub (which convieniently dripped into the tub) and one through the light fixture beside the tub (which required a bucket). I quickly realized that the leak only came when I heard the upstairs neighbors using the toilet and then flushing. But the leak started dripping before the flush.
 
***

          Lights up.

The audience hears the sound of the upstairs neighbor peeing.

Drips begin coming through ceiling at a rate of more than one per second.

Toilet flushes.

Drips continue for a while, then slow to a stop.

          Blackout.

***

So....yeah. Gross.

Well. This morning the sound of running water woke me up.

Winter stuck like molasses.

Things improved after my last post, and just when I relaxed into a new, pretty positive state, those same disappointments have boomeranged around again.

Winter. I don't see any magic in it right now. Winter is looking out my kitchen window onto my part of the snow-covered balcony and seeing lots of piles of poop from the neighbor's dog, along with some yellow snow for good measure.

At least it is sunny today. And I made some cinnamon rolls. (And I am happy to know that I can make brown sugar by adding molasses to regular white sugar. I often can't use up brown sugar before it goes as hard as a rock, so my new plan is to do this from now on, every time I need brown sugar. Did everyone except me know this?)

I know I can recover from these disappointments; I've already survived the worst. (And Booboo is here for a while visiting, and he's being particularly sweet right now so that really helps.)

No going back no going home.

I got home from my holiday travel three days after my return flight was originally scheduled. The domino-effect delays and cancellations caused by the recent snowstorms led to my Thursday flight being cancelled and rescheduled for Friday. Then that Friday flight was cancelled. After lots of time on hold yet again, I was told the next flight I could get was for Monday. I later called back and managed to get a flight for Sunday, but then that one too was cancelled. More time on hold and the feeling I would never make it home led to looking for flights out of a nearby city an hour and a half away. I managed to get a a flight out of that city for Sunday. I was told that if I didn't make that flight, my next option from either city would be the following Wednesday. Both legs of that Sunday flight ended up being delayed, but I eventually got home at 2 a.m. or so Monday morning.

Darkness and light and the belly of the whale.

I've been thinking a lot about darkness and light, death and rebirth, and the journey into the belly of the whale.

In writing about the monomyth, Joseph Campbell described three overarching stages of the journey: departure, initiation and return. The last step of the departure stage is the journey into the belly of the whale, where the hero seems to be swallowed up by death.

Choosing thanks.

As I sit at home with Booboo in my lap, I look at the snow outside and think of life and it's unexpected turns. Sometimes life's surprises are exhilarating, sometimes they're excruciating, and sometimes they're just...different.

It's American Thanksgiving, but since that's not a holiday here, it feels like a normal day. Thursday. Except it's not just Thursday, so I am choosing to focus on what I am thankful for today. I have a purring Booboo in my lap, I have a home to live in that is within walking distance of most of what I need, I have a job I enjoy (and freelance opportunities I love), and family and friends that love me and support me. I am lucky...blessed...and thankful. I'm also thankful for hope that everything will be alright in the end and that life has good things in store for me in the future, despite the hell of these past months. It may not always feel that way, but I will choose to believe it anyways. Life does have a way of surprising us, after all.

3 months.

It's been three months since my husband left me for another woman. Completely out of the blue. In those first stunned weeks, I couldn't see how I would survive. I felt like I was dying. I am certain that I've cried more tears since July than I've cried during my entire life before that. Which is really weird because this was the surprise ending to the most wonderful and happy five-and-a-half years of my entire life. (The time I was with my husband, during our dating and marriage...up until the day he came home from that trip where he fell in love with her.) It's mind-boggling. And devastating. And I just don't have the ability to get my head around it. Time hasn't really helped yet with that.

With that I think I will just list some thoughts as they occur because that's about all I can muster right now:

• Last weekend I went to a free open house two-hour life drawing session. It's something I've wanted to do for over two and a half years. I used to do visual art in high school, and have only done it sporadically since getting into theatre. It was fun. I want to draw and paint more.
  

Detangling.

I've only been to an actual grocery store twice since S left. Even in normal times, going to the grocery store is not my favorite chore. I think most of my dislike has to do with the process of hauling all the groceries out of the store to the car and from the car up to the apartment. I particularly disliked it in my single days, but it became fun when S and I did it together because I was with my favorite person in the world. We would often stop for poutines for dinner just before so neither of us would get hangry.

But that day in mid-July I found myself at the Fruiterie 440 holding a package of mushrooms and trying not to cry.

Digging in.

This is my second year to choose a verb as a theme for the year, inspired by my blogger friend, Fiona. In January, after thinking about my artistic goals and dreams, I chose "dig in" for 2013. I had been trying to pursue my dreams here in Quebec these past couple of years I've lived here. But on New Year's Day, after another grant rejection letter, I realized that this was the year I needed to really work to try to make my dreams happen. Even harder than the hard work I had already been doing throughout 2012 and before that. I knew that more determination and persistence were called for if I wanted a crack at the life I envisioned. And I knew that if I didn't give it my absolute best effort, I would regret it forever.

Dig in.

So I made choices to do just that. I stopped some part-time work I did on the side (that I was doing in addition to my main day job) so that I could focus my energy and time on the artistic pursuits. And wouldn't you know, somehow I got a few paid artistic gigs that balanced out the financial side of having stopped the other non-artistic work. In June, I looked at the past half-year and felt good about my progress and excited to see where the rest of the year would lead.

Then July happened. Overnight, my life became a landslide.

I have spent the last two months holding on so that I won't be washed away by it all. Or, much more accurately, it's my friends and family that have been firmly holding onto me. Abandonned and stunned, all I had enough sense to do was reach out. And they grabbed me and held me tight as the debris thundered by and the rain beat down.

Three haiku.

1.

My world exploded.

I am left here surrounded

by sharp shards. Alone.

2.

That day in July,

time stopped. But the pain keeps on

reverberating.

3.

The path obscured by

broken promises and dreams:

winter came early.

Broken.

It's been 4 weeks and two days since my world fell apart.

But I am still here.

Surrounded by the devastation of broken dreams, I know I have no choice but to try to figure out how to get the hell back up.

They say the grief process is not linear, and now I can say I agree with that. There are just so many triggers. I never know when I'll encounter one, but I am trying to just let myself experience the pain as the waves hit.

And hit they do. While at work, walking down the street, climbing the steep stairway to my apartment, or hanging out at a BBQ. I am getting used to crying in all sorts of places. Thankfully I am surrounded by a supportive community.

They say the only way out is through. So I am trying to make my way through.

I find solace in the river and water. Usually I walk to the water on my lunch break because it helps somehow. I am thankful for working near the water, loving friends and family, Booboo, daisies, waterproof mascara, sunglasses and my favorite dresses.

The worst month of my life (thus far, and I surely hope, ever) is over. Here's to a less bad August.

Not cat-proof.

I had wanted to find a cat-proof solution for my plants this summer. So I was thinking of vertical hanging bags. But then S came up with this free solution using stuff we had already. Not as pretty as what I had envisioned, but it was okay with me and probably easier. And I liked that it was re-purposing the shelves the previous renters had left when they moved and did not clean all the random stuff and trash out of their/our storage unit. So...it seemed like a good idea.

I thought it was cat-proof. I mean, I didn't think there was enough room to walk around the pots on the shelves. I wanted to ask S to help me move the shelf to be centered in between the windows so that it was not close to either window sill, but that didn't happen before everything fell apart. So the shelf has stayed in its location.

It is clearly not cat-proof. 

That's Pippi on top of one of my my non-flowering daisy plants. 

I bought these daisy plants back in May. Well, they are supposedly daisies, but there are no daisies at all. I have two pots of leaves. Just leaves. Leaves that I try to remember to water. They appear to be pretty comfortable.

The daisies are refusing to bloom this summer. Maybe it is an act of solidarity?

Pippi is not this cat's real name. It's just what I named her. Her real name is probably, you know, a French cat name. But, even so, she seems to like the name Pippi too. She comes when you call her by it.

Does anyone else name the neighborhood animals you see around and then actually talk to them using their not-real names?

Pippi did not seem to mind too much that I got in her face with a camera.

At least someone is getting some pleasure out of the no-daisy daisy plant.

 

 

Boxed In and Other States of Being



Credit: Adventures Along the Way

Ah, Booboo. This is Booboo's favorite spot. He has several preferred spots, but he spends more time here than in the other ones. It cracks me up when he squeezes all the way in like this.

In other news, spring seems to be here. By that I mean that the snow has stopped (well, our last snow was a week or so ago) and they have just today cleaned all the rocks and dirt out of the streets in our neighborhood. Now there are only a few patches where the snow/ice has yet to melt. It is lighter coat weather (which, by the way, is what I used to consider a "winter coat" until I moved out of the south). Cafés are starting to prepare their outdoor seating areas.

I find myself thinking about planting some herbs and flowers on the back porch, but it is still too soon to actually get started. I am interested in sewing some hanging bags to attempt to get them off the ground so that they will stay cat-poop-free. I am inspired by these (scroll down to see the "smart wall pouch"), but have a different design in mind.

I made the best lasagana I have ever made on Saturday, using a former college roommate's recipe. And on Sunday I made the worst muffins I have ever made. I was trying to salvage some not-very-good cream cheese icing by mixing it into the batter, and the muffins were a disaster too.

As for pursuing dreams, my continued efforts to pursue my artistic career have had some return. I've had a couple of opportunities so far and have two more lined up. Life is feeling less splintery. I am ready to welcome spring.

An update of sorts.

• Earlier this summer I was fired up to write a post about how I was seeing a lot of rudeness in society these days. But....eh. I decided not to.
• This is partially because we escaped away from it all and spent a month in Australia. A month in Australia can do remarkable things, including reducing levels of annoyance.

Photo credit: S

Photo credit: S

• See? It does wonders.
• The jet lag I had after coming back was the worst I've ever had. It took me ten days to get back on our Canadian time zone. But hey, it was fun staying up to dawn again; it had been an unbelievably long time since I'd done that.