Time, Warped.

A fall day in 2018.

I sit drinking my coffee, listening to the guy playing the fiddle in the square below as the tourists pass him by. His repertoire is seemingly limited. Or maybe he only plays what "works" for his audience of vacationers. Whatever his reason, this guy plays non-stop traditional-Québéçois-sounding fiddle tunes. The next guy who will take over that corner after him plays piano. Last week, it was non-stop Pachebel's Canon. The fiddle stops, and a kid is screaming.

Eight floors above, I take another sip of my coffee and type, still somewhat drowsy. I woke up at 11:36 a.m. The bedroom is dark with the blackout curtain closed; it's easy to lose all sense of time.

Advent.

I've always thought of Advent as some sort of merry, ascending on-ramp toward Christmas.

This year Advent feels like a descent into darkness.

It's a snowy deep winter night full of unknowing and quiet waiting.

Sage.

A year ago yesterday, my life was suddenly blown apart with one incredibly brief sentence. Tomorrow is a year from the day my now-ex-husband walked out of our home to be with his girlfriend.

If you had asked me then to imagine what my life would look like now, I would have been completely incapable of it. At that point, I could not begin to imagine my life without my ex. My mind couldn't even process what had just happened, let alone my heart. In the beginning, each morning I woke up from a few hours of sleep to re-remember what had happened, after having forgotten while sleeping. Eventually I began to wake up remembering. It took time to accept that things weren't ever going to go back to how they were before, and I don't think I will ever fully understand what happened because it was all so dissonant to absolutely everything I had believed.

Death and resurrection.

Where I grew up, Easter Sunday was important. There was usually a new Easter dress and sometimes there were hats, but there was always an abundance of pastel-clad people. And green plastic tinsel grass inside bright cheery-colored Easter baskets with chocolate, Paas-dyed eggs and jelly beans.

Until this year, I didn't really have much experience with death. And it turns out, resurrection feels pastel-colored only if you don't know what it's like to go through some sort of death.

The coup continues.

Well, it's clearly not over, this rebellion of my belongings.

My computer arrived at work today, and since I wasn't working today at the office, I drove to pick it up so I would have a back-up plan if my old computer decides to stop working again before the translation is finished. I had my coins ready to stick in a meter, but no metered spots were available near my office. Then I saw there was a loading zone spot. I thought, huh, I am here to pick up something for 2 minutes, this is exactly what this spot is for! So I parked and ran in to get the computer and was back out super quickly. I was unlocking the passenger door to put the computer in, and my key broke off in the lock.

My possessions are staging a rebellion.

So. My laptop broke on Monday night late, and I had to buy a new one on Tuesday because I have a freelance translation contract to finish for Friday. It was supposed to be delivered Wednesday, but it was not.

On Tuesday I came home and walked in the door and the lights wouldn't work. I thought it was the light bulb. I tried two and determined that it wasn't. Then I thought it might be the fuse. (The fuse box is a mystery to me because it is the old kind of fuses because the apartment is 100 years old.) After someone else checked for me (and I made notes of which fuses do what!), I know that all the fuses are fine.

The process of elimination revealed it is a problem with the contact in the lamp itself (for one of the non-working lamps) and a timer explained the other non-working lamp. The timer is now adjusted and that lamp works now.

Wednesday night I tried to go to meet someone to borrow a laptop to use until the new one arrives and to see if there was anything to be done for the broken one. I got in my car and turned on my windshield wipers. They started up then stopped in the middle of the windshield on the first swipe. So I couldn't drive anywhere because driving any significant distance without windshield wipers in winter in Québec is just not wise.

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.)

Downhill.

It was one of those weeks that started out good and then all of a sudden went downhill in the middle and by today, there was a pile-up of bad things. The bad things were bigger disappointments and hurts, and as I walked home from work I was thinking about them.

Though I didn't feel like it, I managed to summon the energy to stop at the grocery store because I needed to buy a few things for the weekend. It was a quick stop and soon I was walking home again. As I was thinking about the most recent turn of (bad) events, I fell on the ice. There were people around, but no one said a thing. I picked myself and my grocery bags back up and continued walking home (carefully) on the dark, ice-covered sidewalks.

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.

The boots are on.

Crisis: Dead-End or Transformation

This was in my neighbors' mail outside their door. I took it as extra motivation to fight my way through to the other side of this experience. I recently watched Under the Tuscan Sun, and it's just like when Patti says to Frances (whose husband left her for another woman):  

"You know when you come across one of those empty shell people, and you think 'What the hell happened to you?' Well there came a time in each one of those lives where they are standing at a crossroads... someplace where they had to decide whether to turn left or right. This is no time to be a chicken-shit, Frances."

Today my ex moved his stuff out.

Things Not to Say.

When someone tells you that their husband/wife/partner left them for someone else suddenly without any warning signs at all, here are some things it's probably best not to say out loud to that person.

"C'est la vie." 

Morning coffee.

 

As I was walking home from the grocery store the other day, I realized that I had lost track of how many times I have been to the grocery store since July. I suppose that is a good sign.

4.

We got married four years ago today. Last year when we celebrated our anniversary and exchanged our annual anniversary letters to each other, I didn't know we wouldn't have a lifetime of anniversaries to share.

I thought we would one day be a little old couple walking down the street holding hands. I never ever imagined the possibility that any of this could ever happen. Ever. Let alone before our fourth wedding anniversary.

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.

Around here (in no particular order).

• On Saturday, I opened the fridge and found the cocoa powder in there. Oops.
• I have only been to the grocery store twice since June. I have been to the market at the Old Port twice or so for fresh veggies and to the corner convenience store a lot. Somehow this is working for me.
• I am working on a challenging and fun artistic freelance project.
• Did the title of this post make anyone else think of Counting Crows circa 1994?
• I only have about a month more with Booboo and that thought makes me so terribly sad I can't think about it too long.
• This summer I finally found coffee beans that make coffee I really enjoy. I used to like the beans from this one place near my apartment, but then the coffee started tasting like dirt. After I inquired about why their coffee now tasted like "la terre," as I put it in French, I found out that they had changed the blend's mix of beans. Unable to find anything better, we drank overpriced, dirt-flavoured coffee with a hint of "burnt" for months. Finally, I decided to experiment with beans from a different place in the neighborhood. My first try was an improvement but a little weak; the second try was perfect. I am now on my third bag of that coffee. No more dirt coffee for me.
• I finally ordered beautiful embossed stationery with both our names on it in mid-June. A lifetime supply probably. I went with stationery instead of an address stamp, because I figured our address was likely to change at some point. It was a little too risky. I had the beautiful cream correspondance cards shipped to my parents' home, and they arrived just before everything exploded. I never saw the stationery, which is probably for the best. I had been so unreasonably excited about that goregous stationary with our names embossed on it. I guess it will get recycled.
• Thankfully I had also ordered some for myself with my monogram. My dad mailed that to me, and I have been thoroughly enjoying using it.
• My car turned 20 years old in April. But I don't drive very much anymore. Maybe once a week, often less. But the car works well still, much to my surprise and happiness.
• I find I love having a life that is so local. I love walking to work and having most everything I need a short distance from where I live.
• I am not looking forward to winter coming. I keep telling myself if I can survive 'til spring life will look better. I just need to survive this death of our marriage and my life as I had expected it and make it to spring and wait on some sort of rebirth.
• Shoveling. Ugh. Do I need to say anything more?
• I have a bag of green tomatoes in the fridge. I bought them to do fried green tomatoes. I have been unable to motivate myself to do that though. My level of energy is more on the basic sandwich-level of Maslow's hierarchy of culinary needs.
• Last week I spent $11 and some change at the thrift store and got a pair of jeans, a skirt, and a top that all fit. This helps. Baggy jeans do not.
• I was undecided on the skirt but thought that for $3, it was worth a shot. Once I got it home, I realized it is kind of the perfect skirt. It is black with thin pinstripes, plus it's quick drying and ideal for travelling. A pretty great find.
• It's still raining. I don't mind.

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.

Thankful.

I have an amazing group of friends, and I am thankful beyond words for them. Friends from long ago and from recent years; those that are here and those that are far away. Even friends I have not yet met in person, and the new friend I made as I got off the plane at Midway airport in Chicago last week.

I am thankful for them all.

Since July 4

Light bulbs that have blown: 4
Fuses that have blown: 1
Splinters received from walking barefoot on the wood floor: 2
Days that have passed without crying: 1
Movies watched: 0
Times I have made waffles: 2
Original vintage windows that have decided to no longer open: 1
Trips to the grocery store: 1
Birthdays: 1
Weddings attended: 1
Books read: 2
Favorite pens that have run out of ink: 2
Journals filled: 1
Times I have bought myself flowers: 1