a brief history of seven killings: a midview

I was so excited to get my hands on A Brief History of Seven Killings. It is set in Kingston, a city I loved while I was in it and have greatly idealised since leaving. In fact, much of it is set in "my" neighbourhood - I can feel the heat, smell the piss and flowers, see "the Singer's" house (just two blocks from my old apartment) and hear the non-stop honking of the non-stop traffic. Half-Way Tree and Camp Road and Hope Road and the causeway to Port Royal are all a part of my happy memories of Kingston. Given all of that, and my reader-crush on Marlon James, and my former obsession with Booker Prize winners (since the rule changes I've lost interest), one could assume that my excitement was high - and as I've already said, it was.

Marlon James' writing is the kind you deep dive into and it swallows you whole in a humid, multi-sensory atmosphere, not unlike Kingston itself. I have devoured approximately 2/3 of the book in large bites. It has been a solace to again be surrounded in the poetry of patwa (spelling chiefs, don't correct that - Jamaican patois is patwa), and to be transported to the sweet memories of time and place. Yet, I'm not sure that I can finish this book.

There are two problems: a 704 page "brief" recounting of seven actual  (novelized and speculative, but entrenched in fact) killings set in the most violent era of post-slavery Jamaica's history is in fact overwhelmingly vicious. As I've mention just recently, my brain - in particular my dreamscape - is easily influenced by what I read and watch, and it's important to the maintenance of my mental health that I not toss and turn and dream of hanged men and corrupt police and the most imaginative forms of violence and torture, particularly when I know that much of this is not James' imagination but how life was in Kingston at the time (and still is for some). That's the most pressing issue.

The second problem I'm finding is that there is not a single character in this book, 400+ pages in, that I care about. I love a velvet-rich atmosphere, a compelling story, and - always - brilliant word play. I like the changing points of view in the novel, and the disruption of the simplest good versus evil narrative. But I just don't care about any of these people. I need someone to like. It's not sad for me when these characters are killed off, and it should be. I want to feel that loss. It shouldn't be that the most interesting part of a story for me is looking for things I can recognize and remember. 

I suppose I'll probably finish the book. I just wanted to share my thoughts in the meantime. 

sometimes memory lane is haunted (or, why was i such a scaredy cat?)

I spent several happy hours this week completing a charming puzzle Shiney sent me. Sending each other puzzles has become our 'thing' in the last few years, although the backstory is best told offline and in forgiving company. The spark wasn't our most politically correct moment, but now ... sending puzzles is our thing. 

I don't actually remember Shiney and I doing puzzles together when we were little neighbour girls. I had a Pink Panther puzzle that I loved and did over and over again (oh, the adult luxury of the one-off puzzle!), and I imagine we must have done it together at some point, but I don't have any specific memory of it.

No,  40 years ago reading horse stories and then Hardy Boy mysteries on our long school bus ride was more our thing, along with sneaking around in the forest that surrounded our homes and traipsing after her big brother and his friend. I may, in fact, have squealed this summer to find a jigsaw puzzle comprised of Hardy Boy mysteries covers - it was the perfect golden thread between then and now. Of course I had to send it to Shiney, and she, in return, sent me this puzzle of children's book covers. 

As I was piecing this puzzle this week I was at first charmed to see all my favourite friends, particularly beloved Winnie-the-Pooh. Free-spirited Pippi Longstocking is there as well, reminding me of the year I dressed as her for Halloween and the way those fake, red, sticking-out braids built on a wire coat hanger dug into my head. Sweet, gentle Ferdinand smelling the flowers in his field no matter how much people wanted him to be ferocious always seemed a friend, and now reminds me of a certain son of mine. And there's Madeline - the littlest of all - in her confusing and rhyming French context, and always naughty Peter Rabbit who fed my love of lagomorphs. There are several books here I've never heard of, and I few I'm familiar with but have no emotional connection to, but I was surprised to see how many I remember with a bit of a cringe. 

It's no secret that I was prone to nightmares as a child. In fact, I still am. The only reason I started watching Game of Thrones on TV in 2011 was that I had a giant squishy protector to keep me safe in the dark. Otherwise, I don't watch fantasy, horror, or thriller TV or movies. I've mostly equated it to having too vivid an imagination combined with a belief in both a just and loving God and evil supernatural powers. 

What's odd, though, as I remember being super creeped out by something as ludicrous as the Run-Away Pancake (mind you, don't come between me and brunch) or finding something sinister about the Cat in the Hat, is trying to figure out why I would have been such an easily frightened child. My parents were both present and loving. I shared a room with generally tolerant Freckles, and while she wouldn't have consoled me much of the time at least I wasn't alone. We had a secure home, lots of friends, and loving connections with our extended family. Parental Guidance was an actual approach to parenting, not just a movie rating. I had a fairly simple and genuinely happy childhood.

And yet I had recurrent terrors in the night that sometimes left me unable to go to school the next day, and I dreaded the sounds of cars on the gravel road in our housing compound because I knew they would cast lights upon the wall that I knew weren't ghosts yet would inevitably interpret as such. Things that were supposed to be a treat - like watching the Wizard of Oz in our school library - sent me crying from the room and hiding under a desk until my mom could come to town to pick me up. 

Aside from the nightmares, which I mostly know how to avoid, I don't consider myself a fearful adult. I do have a bat phobia, but since I don't live in bat-infested territory I rarely have to confront that. I genuinely love adventure, seeing new places, and trying new things. And I like people - I am equally comfortable at a cocktail party with the Premier or talking to a room full of people experiencing homelessness. I have no problem wandering in the city or in nature on my own, and Jamaica taught me that I like jumping from (relative) heights into water. There's a kind of fear/anticipation that I really enjoy. So why did I spend so much of my childhood quivering?

Honestly, maybe I didn't. Maybe it only seems like that because I'm focused on those memories right now, instead of on 4x4ing in the foothills of the Rockies, and learning to shoot a gun, and tubing in frigid river waters, and exploring our wild "neighbourhood." And maybe fear of physical things is less real for me than psychological fear. I don't have any deep insights, it was just something that occupied my thoughts this quiet week as I meditated on the puzzle shapes. 

just say no to prompts

For today's prompt I was going to choose "top 5 pet peeves," but the fact is that I am often a seething ball of peevishness (especially when I'm driving), it's all too easy to bitch about it online, and frankly I'm a little exhausted with my own whining. Instead, I thought I'd post about my top 5 non-human unpeeves ... or whatever the opposite of a peeve is.

Who WOULDN'T be cheered up by that face? 

1. Mammals - I adore almost all mammals, though I will say that bunnies, dogs and cats top the list. I can get pretty darn excited about moose, cattle, and marine mammals too (although bats can suck it and really shouldn't be mammals at all). Domestic mammals are cute or loving or entertaining as they choose. Bunnies are also super low maintenance, as long as you don't mind a few escape poo pellets and making sure your power cables are out of reach. I'm not an unqualified animal lover, but many nights I'd be as happy to go home to a golden lab as I would a golden chardonnay.

2. Banking technology - ATMs, to begin with, but also online banking, depositing cheques with your smart phone, automatic deposits and automatic bill payments. I can't even imagine all the time we used to waste in bank line-ups and filling out those ridiculous forms and arranging to be at a bank between 9 am and 3 pm to access our own money. Not all technology makes life easier, but banking technology ... that stuff is my jam.

3. Farmer's markets - I love that somebody took the time to carefully grown that gorgeous bunch of carrots or to make that glistening jar of jam from blackberries in their back 40. I am not going to go risk life and limb to pick blackberries, and I am certainly not going to clean, measure, mix, boil and jar mountains of the deadly bastards. But I will eat the heck out of that deep purple goodness. And throw me that pretty mixed posy of flowers while you're at it.

4. Air travel - It doesn't matter if I'm going on a month-long vacation to an exciting new destination or taking a domestic flight for work. I love air travel. I love the small annoyances of check-in and never quite getting the seats I want. I love the feeling of superiority when someone ahead of me at security doesn't know what the hell they're doing*. I love peering out the window as we lift off and I pray for clear skies to see the land below as we journey. Air travel is miraculous. I hope I never get complacent about it.

5. Music - I know there's nothing unique about loving music, but the making of and listening to music is almost always an up for me. I miss singing. I miss my piano (which is currently in storage and I play it a maximum of once a year when it's not), I miss going out dancing, I miss listening to my friends and talented strangers make music live. Music is magical - I need more of it.

^NB: People who don't know what they are doing at airport security are a pet peeve. It's only the feeling of superiority I enjoy. 

a letter to my ex

When I first read this prompt, I thought "dear lord, which one?" When I speak of exes I generally mean one of two people - my ex-husband or my most recent ex. Those conversations are either the mummified remains of an ancient thank you for the two best gifts I've received or too soon. 

Only one other "ex" is someone I still refer to - often here, in glimpsing and side-long ways - but never by that moniker. His former status is subsumed in his current roles as my Jiminy Cricket, my confidante, my champion. He is the voice I call to mind when I forget who I am. He taught me what it looks like when love waits its turn; then when I was ready he taught me what it is to love freely, passionately, and compassionately. He taught me the joy of sex.  He taught me the joy of "you never know." He taught me that you can be fully for someone without owning that someone. There is nothing to write to him, because there is nothing I need to say to him that I haven't already said. The space between us is vast, but clean, and crossable in a heartbeat. He is in his own category that cannot be contained in a prefix.  

There are, of course, other kinds of exes. Ex-bosses, as Shiney pointed out, though that gets problematic in its own right. I've had many bosses who taught, lead, believed, coached, cajoled, trusted, and helped me to grow. They know who they are, they know what they did, and they are still in my life. The one who isn't, well, I don't think he could understand or care about anything I have to say, just as anything but an unqualified "sorry" from him is of no interest to me. 

So, this prompt has done its job in that this post now exists. But a letter to my ex? Why? The ones who need it will never see it, and the ones who will see it know all there is to say. 

5 ways to win my heart

My dearly beloved bestie is doing a blog challenge right now and since I have been feeling desperately disconnected from her, and haven't written regularly in forever, and have the worst case of chronic FOMO in a way that only a youngest child can have it, I thought I'd join in. Of course, as has been the case for 46 years, I'm running a little behind her. Here's my day 1.

5 Ways to Win My Heart:

1. Listen - listen for what I mean to say however inelegantly or haltingly I say it. Listen with your whole heart. Listen like my words are water on your parched soul. Listen like my life depends on it - maybe it does. Listen.
2. Make my sons laugh - it's my favourite sound.
3. Take me on adventures.
4. Believe in me and my rambunctious dreams that just won't die.
5. Bacon

XO

i didn't know

I didn't know,
as I wake smiling from a dream
in which a one-time lover long since a loved-one returns,
a dream which failed to thrive in life -
still dancing in the never-was of night.
Or in the waking dream in which my daughter,
for reasons we'll never know,
never became a mother
never suffered heartbreak
never made her brother laugh
never had her first breath
was one of my first lost loves.

I didn't know,
holding so tightly to love that it squeezed out of my fingers,
or holding so loosely that it wandered away.
Learning that love is a flighty thing. Not I, but love.
That the many things we label as love are anything but.
Learning that unless it birthed you or you birthed it,
Love is not to be trusted.

I didn't know
that I would have to worry about the same for you.
That a term of endearment would be replaced
with a phrase of longevity.
That the sandpaper of familiarity
would dull the shine of our
ever-young intimacy.
That what had always been might not always be.

When We Were Very Young

It’s the most special book in my collection of special books. The story of how it came to be so may not seem remarkable, and yet for me any reminder of it leaves me awash in feelings of being known and loved, of being intelligent and encouraged, of having choices and having those choices honoured. The story I attach to it might not even be accurate, but it is so much a part of my own mythology that no amount of reality would change the truth of it for me.

This is what I remember: when I was very young; well, more accurately now that I was six, my mom and I took a trip to the neighbouring “big town” from the bookless little hovel of a village we lived in. I wasn’t in school yet; having a January birthday meant I didn’t start school until I was 6 and a half. That last year at home was, in many ways, a long and lonely one. My sisters left early in the morning on a school bus that took an hour each way – most of the year they left in darkness and returned after dusk – and got home just in time for dinner, maybe an hour of play, and bedtime. My best friend Shiney who lived right next door had also started school. Her mom and I were equally lonely and often entertained each other, yet it remained a long and lonely year.

I remember playing school with my mom, as we had done since my middle sister started coming home and sharing her lessons with me. I read and drew and learned my letters and ate GORP (good ol’ raisins and peanuts). For mom I think it was a way to keep me quiet and contained for however long it worked. For me it was a chance to feel as big as my sisters and Shiney. I loved learning. I still do.

Then one day, probably not on my actual birthday but sometime near it, Mom and I took a trip. A road trip in winter in that region of the hinterland is always a risky business, so maybe we waited for spring, though I can’t imagine my birthday present being withheld that long, and when you live in those conditions you just deal with them. Maybe it was slightly before my birthday and the present got wrapped in shiny paper and given to me on time. Those details are sparse. What I do remember is the book. A real book. A big, hard-cover book with a shiny paper wrapper that I was to be very vary careful with. And a bear. An ultra-soft black and white bear with shiny eyes and a felt tongue sticking out.

I still have that bear in a box in storage. For decades he has had only the tiny remains of a tongue. Until I was married I slept with him every night. His stomach carries the brown reminder of my pubescent growth spurt when my nose bled almost nightly. Most of the blood was cleaned up; only a spot remains. For some reason I remember choosing him from the dingy department store of that slushy town. He is and was a very special bear. 

And he was a two-part present, since I also got a magical book – The World of Christopher Robin, 1958 edition, by A.A. Milne with original AND new illustrations by E.H. Shepard. I might have seen some of the stories on The World of Disney, before they were Disneyfied (by which I will always mean ruined). I’m not sure how I knew I wanted it. It isn’t even the stories – The World of Christopher Robin is the poem collections “When We Were Very Young” and “Now We Are Six.” There’s very little of Christopher’s animal friends in it. But I don't know if I've ever had a better present.

Post dust-cover

I also don’t know how a not-very careful little girl took such good care of it. The dust cover had only a slight tear in it until a pet rabbit got at it a few years ago. The book itself is still spotless. And there are so many of the poems that I still remember at least parts of by heart:  Vesper, King John’s Christmas, The Dormouse and the Doctor, Buckingham Palace … .

This morning I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie “Goodbye,Christopher Robin.” It purports to be the story behind the story, and in just the trailer I was reminded of the poems:  a little boy bows his little golden head in prayer and Vespers echos “hush, hush whisper who dares, Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.” The poem took on even more meaning for me when I had my own little golden haired boys. I haven’t lined up for a movie on opening night in years, but I anticipate doing it for this one. I anticipate being rapt with nostalgia. I anticipate happy tears. 

Flashback fairy tale

I was happy. It was a solid warm purr in my belly that I carried with me. I walked tall, at ease with myself and the world. I had confidence - perhaps beyond proof - and an eagerness to see myself how he did.

The transforming magic of his look, like a fairy-godmother's wand, made my drudgery sparkle and smoothed my belly. It sparked desire on the ashes of fatigue and fear.

That magic lingered. After the joy was gone. After the fatigue returned. After the darkness descended. The magic never waned. It just got scattered in a puff of wind, focused in another direction.

too long to tweet #IAmGreen-ish

Excuse me while I wax political: 

My Twitter timeline has been filled for the last day or so with #IamGreen tweets stating why people are choosing to vote for their BC Green candidate in our provincial election on May 9. I have debated participating in the fray, partly because I have a number of staunch NDP supporters in my timeline who I adore and respect and do not want to offend, and partly because how I vote is no one else's business. Mr. Green didn't even ask me who I voted for, and he's a politician! But I've had more than one "Vote NDP or else" type ad directed at me, and, frankly, I'm over it. 

Here's what the pundits won't see on May 10 when they sit down to analyze the 2013 v. 2017 voting results and I show up (anonymously in what I assume will be a blob of X number fewer NDP, Liberal and non-voter votes to X number more BC Green votes): the BC Greens didn't steal my vote from the NDP. The BC Greens gave me something to vote FOR that kept me from not voting at all. This is the only election since I first voted in 1986 that I have considered sitting out entirely.

Yes, I voted NDP last time around, and I imagine they thought I would this time. I'm betting that voters are like donors and it's easier to hold on to them than to get new ones. In 2013 I knew my NDP candidate and respected her work, so I voted for her. That does not give the NDP a lifetime right to my vote. I've also previously voted Progressive Conservative federally (I was young and not yet thinking for myself), Liberal federally, and NDP federally. I have no idea what I've voted provincially, but I know it hasn't been for just one party. 

This time, the Lieberals (sp. purposeful) make me nauseous, so that leaves a 2-party race for my vote. I know candidates from both the NDP and the BC Greens and have met both leaders. I also read the BC Green's policy book (before their campaign platform was announced), and read both party platforms. I have asked questions both online and in-person of the NDP and the BC Greens. From all of that I chose based on a number of factors - direct, fully-costed, evidence-based answers were a big factor, but so was party leadership, fiscal transparency, platform costing, and the BC Greens refusal to accept donations from anyone but individual voters. The BC Greens also have an exciting policy framework on intergenerational equity that makes me think at some point my sons might have a shot at good-paying jobs, affordable education, and maybe even home ownership without having to leave BC. No one else gives me that hope. 

And so on the first day of advanced voting, I voted BC Green. And just like the NDP before them, the Greens do not now have a lifetime hold on my vote. They get a chance to prove themselves between now and 2021. Whether only the party leader gets returned to the legislature, or they secure enough MLAs to achieve official party status, or they (through the magic of BC politic's renowned volatility) become the official opposition or even form government really doesn't matter in terms of their hold on my vote. My vote is a trust I place on someone saying "I'll give you this 4-year chance to prove my faith in you is justified. At the end of the 4 years we'll re-assess." That's how democracy works. 

The NDP didn't do that. They didn't prove themselves. I have zero evidence that my current NDP MLA did anything to try to effect positive change while in office. He's a nice guy, but that's not enough. Moreover, many NDP supporters have been dismissive, insulting, rude and dishonest in trying to rally support for their party. It's so unnecessary and repellant. I have a dear friend and staunch NDP volunteer who has only focused on why she LOVES the NDP - the candidates, their leader, and their policies. She makes me stop to take a closer look. This other approach - the lying, insulting, nastiness that insinuates I'm too stupid to make an informed choice or brainwashed, or ... it's a huge turn-off. 

I hope you vote. Sorry, make that I hope you get informed, and then I hope you vote. And I really hope you vote FOR something you believe in rather than from fear or ignorance. And I hope you're respectful of your friends, colleagues, neighbours and family members who vote differently.

By the way, want some non-partisan information? Check out Generation Squeeze's "Swamplight on the BC Election":

We now return to our regularly scheduled navel gazing. 

50

It's one thing when your older sisters turn 50, as mine have over the past few years. "Older" is right there in their labels, not as a put-down but as a statement of fact. When your closest and 'oldest'  (meaning longest serving) friends start doing so, however, it's a bit of a cold slap in the face. 

So happy to get to celebrate with this beauty!

Two weeks ago my darling Diva had her Canadian 50th birthday party before whizzing off for a lovely family trip to Mexico for the actual day. Diva and I have moved in and out of each other's orbits since we were 11 & 12 respectively. However, it wasn't until we both moved to Victoria, shortly before her 40th, that we really became bosom friends. In fact, celebrations of that major birthday were the first photos I posted on Facebook. And now, suddenly, in the flash of a moment filled with love, loss, grief, near misses, dodged bullets, changes, samenesses, weight lost and gained, dreams attempted and postponed, new goals and old habits, here we are celebrating 50. 

I can't believe someone took this picture before
dragging us out of there. 

The day after the Diva's party one of my earliest chums, a man I haven't seen since we were teens, also posted about his 50th birthday party. But but but ... the last time I saw him he was 16. How can this be? Even more confusing, how can the boy I sat in this puddle with be a father, husband, leading firefighter? How can things change so much while I still feel so ... me.

It still breaks my heart that Dale didn't make it. Bobby has. The Rons will, God willing. And late next month it will be my Shiney. The day after Freckles clocks out of 50 Shiney will log into it. My other half since I was 3. My sounding board. One of two people I can tell anything. She will turn 50. And then it will be only me waiting for that milestone alone. Oh no, of course not truly alone, but without the company that has done these things with me for so long - they've all gone before. 

Perhaps my incredulity is a factor of being the youngest child. I never clung to my actual youth since the teen years weren't a joy for me, but there is some call of "I'm not ready" that is seeping ever louder through my daily life. Some resistance. Some feeling of loss. I question almost constantly how I've gotten this far with so many backwards steps. I feel the heavy impossibility of fixing my mistakes with so much time gone. I dread the future having wasted so much of the past. And yet the alternative, as we all know, is even less appealing. We have lost so many too soon. I know what their families would give to see them age.

And honestly, this isn't so much about physical age. I'm very clear I lucked out on the ageing gene lottery. I haven't taken the care of my body that I could have, and yet 'almost 50' is not what shows in the mirror or in photos. But the creaking and the aches. The moaning cacophony of this body. Those too are a reality much like the shortening of time.

It turns out I have nothing to say here. Nothing new or clever or witty. I just wanted to share this impending doom that isn't a doom at all. In fact, it's quite meaningless in so many ways. "Just a number," so they tell me. "It's all in how you feel," they console.

I feel old. And I feel sorry. And, I feel oh so grateful, especially to think of all the friends I've had for lo these many years and to celebrate their milestones with them. 

the #bestlife backlash

I read a piece on CBC this week that articulated fully something that's been bouncing around in my brain for a while. Given the post's popularity on Facebook, I'm guessing I'm not the only person it spoke to. There's really two parts - the surging trend of quasi-inspiring #bestlife fitness, travel, dream job social media streams, blogs etc. and the self-editing nature of social media (Facebook in particular) that ensures we only ever see each other's highlight reels and never the struggles, drudgery or pedestrian magic of the rest of life.

I wrote about one edge of the problem in 2015, but it's continued to deepen and shift and fester since then. Let's be honest. I'm part of the problem. My home is a gallery of pinsta-gramish fauxspiration seasonally available at HomeSense: my hallway is lined with photos and art collected on my journeys (and a stunning mask my son brought me from Costa Rica), my dining room yells inspiration to grow, even my new shower curtain drips with #BESTLIFE urgency - adventure, explore, dare, freedom, wander .... 

My other blog is peserved for sun-drenched moments far from my Westcoast home, and posts pining for the same. On Instagram and Pinterest I like, pin and share cutely designed mojo-boosting mottos. I am a part of the #BestLife social media pressure squad. I've attempted to paint on a smile and ended up creating a creepy clown nightmare.  

Some of it makes me smile. Sometimes it has the intended effect of reminding me to choose what I want my life to be instead of letting my life happen by default. Sometimes, but honestly not that often.

I follow endless twitter feeds and Instagram accounts by people who have made the leap to full-time travel and berate myself that I'm not doing the same. I look at my quest list and pick only the low-hanging fruit, then chastise myself for not 'really going for it.'

My #dreamlife goals have turned into pressure and robbed me of joy in my current life. Which, truth be told, is pretty dreamy itself. Yet for months I've acted as though there's something wrong with all of it because I'm living it here and not under palm trees. because I'm not as fit as I was a year ago, because ... because ... because. Basically I've operated as though the only life that matters is an idealized #bestlife.

This exhausting striving has also tarnished the joyful memories of my time in Jamaica. I have been telling myself that those 6 months were the best my life was going to get - the best I was going to get - and it's all downhill now. Or that I can do that again but only at the cost of this life - this love, this home, this work.

Honestly, I'm over it. Which is not to stay I don't still have those goals, but they are not the ONLY acceptable life. I'm ready at last to be grateful for this life. 

for miss lady

I went to my first writing group this week. For the last month I've been actively letting go of things that no longer serve me and being curious about things that might move me in the direction I want to go. And, since it's been more than 14 months since I was gainfully employed, moving forward is getting to be a bit of an urgent matter. So, I attended a writing group. 

It was interesting. I'm not sure that I'll go back regularly, but for $20 it was a nice evening out with other creative women. The reason I wasn't over-awed was just because most of the evening was free-writing from prompts, which is something I already do a lot of on my own. That said, it was neat to hear what some of the other women wrote and to share a little of what I came up with. 

As it happens, I was chatting before the group with Miss Lady and she was even more excited about the writing group than I was. And, as is her tendency, she said "maybe the homework will be for you to blog every day!" Hope springs eternal for Miss Lady. In fact, my goal was to get writing in a more profitable medium, but ... baby steps. 

So, with a couple of great Miss Lady conversations running through my head, and my on-the-spot mantra for the night of "Looking forward. Letting go. Cutting anchor ties. Sailboats. Hot air balloons. I am not a stone," here's one shareable thing I wrote: 

When I grow up ... 

When I grow up I'm going to stop needing you so much. Look forward more than back. Stop caring what certain women think or what the gossips say. 

When I grow up I'm going to be less mad/sad/angry/suppressed. I'm going to say what there is to say without malice but also without censorship. They said I'd start doing that when I turned 40 and now I'm almost 50 and finally see the light. 

Not caring is the greatest gift I can give myself. Or perhaps it's more caring about the right things - joy, my own voice, what I know to be true for me. Caring less who likes me and my words. 

Apparently words scare the boys away. That's okay. I don't want a boy. I want a man. 

When I grow up I'll know that growing up is not so much doing what I want but being who I want. 

Strong

Tall

Vibrant

Delphinium 

Me

There are no shrinking violets in this garden. 

When I grow up I hope you'll grow with me. I hope you'll challenge my fear and celebrate my honesty. When I grow up I'd like to grow old with you. Scratch that - let's never grow old. 

of bosom friends and concrete beds

Not everyone is blessed to meet their Diana Barry before even starting grade school. Not everyone is blessed to have their bosom friend grow with them through learning to write and to ride horses, through mean girls and school bus crushes, through divorces and motherhood and unspeakable joys and inarticulable losses. Not everyone has a Shiney. But I am so blessed. And I do.

Today I received from Shiney a bag of the most perfect presents (the best part of which was an afternoon doing basically nothing with her and her family), and tucked amongst the treasures was this excerpt.

I wish I'd written it. The words ring in my head and heart like hammers. On tomorrow's list of things to do is finding the book these words come from:

So I am not a broken heart.

I am not the weight I lost or miles or ran and I am not the way I slept on my doorstep under the bare sky in smell of tears and whiskey because my apartment was empty and if I were to be this empty I wanted something solid to sleep on. Like concrete.

I am not this year and I am not your fault.
I am muscles building cells, a little every day, because they broke that day,
but bones are stronger once they heal and I am smiling to the bus driver and replacing my groceries once a week and I am not sitting for hours in the shower anymore.

I am the way a life unfolds and blooms and seasons come and go and I am the way the spring always finds a way to turn even the coldest winter into a field of green and flowers and new life.

I am not your fault.

By Charlotte Eriksson, from Empty Roads & Broken Bottles; in search for The Great Perhaps