a lonesome thing

A pandemic is a lonesome thing. 

At home, with the cat who adores me and the blue light holding me in its thrall, I am never alone. 

But in reaching out and finding no hand reaching back, the gulf feels unbridgeable. 

As I said, a pandemic is a lonesome thing. 

In a year I've only been touched - for more than the briefest hug or littlest toddler cuddle - by people I pay. My massage therapist. A hair stylist. It is not enough. 

They are good at what they do, but they don't hold the length of me in their arms as I drift to sleep. They don't replenish the cells of my body like the pure water of a caress. They don't breathe new life into me with their kisses.

I walk out. I wander my neighborhood. I strain to make connection with friendly eyes since the rest of my face is hidden. 

And I shrink away. The too close shopper. The slipped mask. They are to be avoided, as I - a stranger with too bright eyes - is to be avoided. 

This unending pandemic is a lonesome thing. 

I signed up for match dot com and it revealed the writing embossed by this year. It has become a part of the story. 

Some guy on pleads "give me a chance." Please ignore the flashing red light. Please take me at this word, not my previous words. 

But I know. 

I know that the biggest mistakes I've ever made have come from listening to those words instead of to my heart. I know I don't belong there - that these guys are not the measure of THE man and thus cannot take his place. That as long as he's the measuring stick, I will stay alone.

A pandemic is a lonesome thing.

But some kinds of being lonely are okay.

bad math

"I thought she was 'the 1'," he sighed.
The calculation in my brain instantaneous.
I counted my frozen breath.
"1" - the difference in the friendly smile that did not reach my eyes;
"I thought you were the 1; sometimes I still do,"
I did not reply. 

His 1 and my 1 had never quite equaled 2.

In fact, we are told that 1 plus 1 should equal 1.
That whole numbers are comprised of 2 other wholes.
And when it doesn't add up,
(1 equals 0) plus (1 equals 0)
Equals 0.
Oddly, 2 minus 1 also equals 0.

We never talk about the minus 1.
Or about the infinity that exists between 0 and 1.

We are cordially invited to plus 1,
Preferably "the 1."

So we push on, looking for the next 1.
Are you "the 1"?
Are you "the 1"?

"You told me countless times 

you didn't believe in 'the 1',"
I didn't reply.

Because I know that sum.
He didn't believe in "the 1,"
Like I didn't believe in Infinity.
Like an unbeliever can't believe
Until they see the proof.

after the empty nest

As a parent, and especially in the decade or so in which I was, without design or expectation, my sons' primary parent, my main goal has been to raise (and to become) happy, healthy whole people living lives of choice. I've never actually articulated it as such, but from where I sit now I can see that's been the hope, dream, work, intention - for my sons as well as for me. I've never been attached to how they make their way in the world or who they love, just that they be happy, healthy and whole and that they have the confidence and tools to create life (we're all a work in progress) rather than letting life happen to them. 

DS28, as DS7 (?) - when tree climbing was free and easy

Yesterday, as I mowed the lawn using a mower that DS28 got to run two weeks ago - the only mower I've ever started on the first pull, thanks to his work - I realised, something has shifted. I've been an intermittent empty-nester for 8 years now, with one or the other son moving back in as they needed. I've worried and fussed and offered unsolicited advice. And sometime in the last year, that stopped.

Oh, I still worry and fuss, but it is so clear that they no longer want or need my unsolicited advice. They are healthy, functioning adults, and even more than empty nesting this shift brings me both deep contentment and a confusing sense of loss. Having identified so deeply and so long as a mom first, I now have to reimagine what "mom" means for these men.

DS26, as DS1, exploring in the kitchen

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure my sons need me in some way. I'm just not sure what that looks like. Sunday dinner and board games are wonderful. Trading chores (I sewed his pants while DS28 worked on the mower and the yard) is nice. But anyone can do those things. What is the mom role for independent men making their way in the world, especially as/when they have partners to walk alongside them? 

If they should choose to become parents themselves in the future that will be another shift; for now, perhaps it's enough to watch from the sidelines for a while. To speak when spoken to. And to be a quieter version of head cheerleader, knowing they'll let me know if they need me. 

  

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. 

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.

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.

life in the time of hyperbole

I am sometimes accused of being a drama queen, of playing things up, or (at best) of "having a way with words." Part of that comes from being writerly, some from a vivid imagination, and some from my ongoing mental health battles. But it occurs to me that in this present culture, hyperbole is the norm - a cacophonous crescendo as too many voices work to be heard.

Dramatic tension is the life-blood of all fiction and most non-fiction writing - whether that's for TV, short stories, 'creative non-fiction', or, increasingly and perhaps problematically, journalism. If the story doesn't capture the reader's imagination, some other flashing headline will. I have taken a small and meaningless stand against the mental spam, click-bait, formulaic video and article headlines that are the standard pap of Facebook these days. No matter how compelling the story might otherwise be, if you use one of these ridiculous overstatements, I will not reward you with a click:

Ugh. My head. 

No video has yet changed my life. 

No laughing baby has made me re-assess my philosophy.

No rendition of "Let it Go" has driven me to rhapsodies of spirit and soul.

And yet, I am pulled to play that game. When the whole of society has turned the volume up to 11 and crying wolf is the most common form of communication, how do you make yourself heard, and how do you find the room to think?

That's the task before me for the next 17 days - to create quiet and find a way through the yowling morass to a high place where I can see clearly.

lacuna

I have been too long out of the academic world; my mind is no longer as attuned as it was to the theories and structures of silence. What I know, or think I know, is that silences - despite the best efforts of theorists - are uninterpretable.

There is a term in manuscripts for a missing portion of text or an unfilled space - it's referred to as a lacuna. It's a beautiful word for a gap; the Latin root is the same as that for 'lake,' a body of water that for me invokes memories of childhood and peace. Of course there are theorists who will spend whole books trying to measure this missing, trying to fill it in, wondering if it is there on purpose, by accident, or worn away through the abuses of time.

In the Psalms of David, there's another word "Selah." If I remember my Bible lessons correctly, "Selah" is somewhat like "amen" but more of an invitation to pause - to sit a moment in silence and let what preceded sink in - than an affirmation of what was said.

I tend to panic in silence - to imagine the worst. Not in the silence of a quiet evening at home, but in the silence of unanswered questions; of unmeasurable canyons. I fear the unknown and want the missing blanks filled in. I think the sea bottom is close enough to put my feet down, then realize I am out of my depth. Yes, I am a strong and joyful swimmer - but panic doesn't come from reality. Panic comes from not knowing.

I would prefer the other kind of emptiness - not the void but the luftpause, to  borrow the musical term. Here you may breath - you will be stronger after. Or, here you may breath, much more is coming. Come up from the music for air.

There are gaps and spaces. Missing words and invocations to breathe. The problem with silence is you can't know what kind it is until it's over. You can't know how long it will last until it is done. You can't know where the bottom is until your feet hit sand. Words themselves have endless play; silences stand unmoving.

as though I had wings

I claim no rights to this aside from the right to hold it as my fervent prayer.

Photo by the incredible Julia Margaret Cameron.

Lines from "Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver

the void

My mom sent me a message on Facebook last night observing that I've been pretty quiet this week. She's right, I suppose. I haven't blogged here or there. I have been less active than usual on Facebook (that is, less active than I usually am, not less active than the average bear. I suppose some people will be glad of that). In truth, it's been a long, lonely week, I didn't see a way out of it, and I really wasn't going to talk about it. I knew that this too would pass and like so many others, I'm tired of my whining.

I messaged specific people asking for connection & most of those messages went unheard. Or heard but not yet acted on for various reasons. It's no one's fault - I am here, in a different time & space. I was thinking today of a comparison to a swimming pool: when one person steps out of the pool almost nothing changes for the people still in the pool, but everything has changed - however temporarily - for the person dripping on the tiles on the deck. 

In essence, the water has filled the space I left when I stepped out of the pool, and that is natural, but hard to break through. I can't think of one person who has asked for my address here. I can't think of anyone who has called me unless they first missed a call from me. I chose to step out of the pool - it's only natural that the waters rush in and fill that void without anyone even noticing. 

I spend my life in a world of communications technology & strategy, but my day to day experience is one of missed connections. It's as true here in Kingston as it is at home in Canada. It was as true when I lived with the man I love as it is living with someone who started out a stranger.

I came across this video today and it spoke very powerfully to me of why I experience such a relentless desire to connect. If nothing else, the video takes some of the shame out of wanting (and missing) connection so much that it overwhelms me at times. At least I come by it honestly.

one need not be a chamber ...

I just came across this poem via Twitter today. Not being much of a Dickinson scholar, I haven't read it before. Or maybe it just never spoke to me before as it does now.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted
by Emily Dickinson, 1924

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

in quietude

I used to say that I didn't understand shyness, or what it meant to be shy. I used to think that there were shy people and not shy people and that as a 'not shy' person I couldn't really understand what it is is to live with a body and spirit that doesn't want to interact with other bodies and spirits. As a youth I minimized it, thought 'shy' people would get over it if they just tried, thought they just needed more confidence. 

I also, with a great lack of self-awareness, retreated frequently into the quiet of books and the nooks of trees and hidden spaces. I retreated into written words - words I could edit and manage and line up in tidy rows before people jumped in with their interpretations and messed with my words. I performed in life as 'gregarious me' - singing, acting, smiling and laughing, throwing a quick barb, joining in, and thinking that was the preferred me the world wanted, no matter how drained it left me. Sometimes I felt feel that there are two Shannon's fighting it out, dancing in circles as to who is the 'real me.' I forget, sometimes, that there is no 'real me' there is only who I am each moment. That I can choose. I can be both gregarious and quiet, though not at the same time, and neither one for overly long. 

We talk a lot now about introverts and extroverts. It's a very trendy subject about a (not that) old concept. Blog posts, including my own, on the subject are plentiful. But introversion and extroversion are not measurements of shyness - shyness is, I believe, something else, something more anxiety based. Perhaps shyness is an avoidance and introversion is a retreat. For me, the perfect introvert day is the house to myself; electronic umbilicus disconnected;  tea, chocolate and a book in hand. It is not about not wanting to be with others; it is about wanting to take care of myself. 

I am not shy in the traditional sense. But, like Harry in the video below, I live in a shell. It comes and goes. It gets thicker and thinner and sometimes I break out of it. But often, when things are not well with my soul, I live in a shell. It's January 2nd and all around me people are making broad proclamations to be more active, more adventurous, more more more. It all sounds so draining. What calls to me, for this new year, is somewhat less. Less striving and more resting. Less worry and more peace. Less doing and more enjoying. Less irritation and more contentment. And in the end, perhaps, a gentle dissolution of that shell. 

Set the physical brilliance of Harry Shum Jr. against the philosophical tenderness of Ze Frank and what you get is a beautiful, generous understanding of what it is to be shy.

pondering

After 12 years of blogging, I feel like maybe I'm done. I think about it a lot and have many ideas, but I swallow the words down before they get out into the world. It's not just content that been holding me back - it's the bigger picture:

• If I'm going to keep calling myself a writer, I need to write elsewhere, not spend my writing currency on a meaningless blog. I need a structure and a plan and the space and time and energy to give to it.
• What would I have to change in my life to have the energy and juice to really start writing again? 
• My blog as it currently exists is narcissistic - no one is interested in my writings about me - I need to find a niche
• A blog can't be all book reviews, yet the personal stuff is ... done, unsafe, uninteresting
• Should I just shut it down? Should I relaunch as something more focused? What could I write about that would actually keep me interested, not to mention feed an audience something nourishing? 

I'm not the only navel gazer out there. 

There are 13 draft posts sitting waiting in the background for completion. Several of them are book reviews, some are just the beginning of ideas, a couple are drafted but don't seem like the good idea they were when I wrote them. Every couple days I'll think of something I want to say, then change my mind. The statements are things I should be saying to people in my life; the questions are ones only I can answer. Nothing's wrong, per se, but things don't fit right. 

And ... I'm exhausted. Bone tired. Worn out to the core. I think constantly about running away - about reading in front of a fireplace with a dog curled at my feet, about hours and days and weeks of quiet and comfort and space. I am taking a beach vacation in three weeks - 7 all-inclusive sandy, sunny, relaxing days with my sister and our parents. Already I think it won't be enough, but it is what I can afford in time and money.  

Maybe it's the time of year. Maybe it's the time of life. 

Maybe.

be here now

You bit into the perfect flesh of the peach. It was warm from the sun burning down on the roadside stand. Juice misted from the meat as you sank your teeth in. The aroma of peach - not peach scented or peach flavoured but raw ripe perfection - filled your nostrils. Licking the sweet sticky juice from your fingers you sighed 'there is nothing in the world as perfect as an in-season peach.'

But the season is fleeting. A few weeks at best and you make do with that poor substitute, canned peaches. If you are lucky they were canned at home - anyone's home. In a desperate pinch, you can make factory canned peaches work, though you'll probably choose instead to go without. 

How would you ever know, sitting outside that road stand and lamenting your lack of napkins or wet wipes, if that peach would be your last fresh one? Would knowing make you savour it with that much more attention, or would it add the hint of a bitter edge? 

How often in a life do you experience a last time and not know? That favourite chocolate bar from your youth. That summer trip as a family. That soft kiss on the cheek from your grandma. That perfect night in the arms of a lover free from pretense or concern. Would knowing ruin the moment? Would you work to make it memorable and in so doing ruin it? Would your concern about the coming emptiness take away the fullness of now? 

I suppose that's one point of the oft-repeated refrain to be present, to stay in the moment and experience the power of now. Then again, maybe knowing would also free you from being haunted by that everlasting question - was that it?

by the way

I'm working on shaking a few things up. Change is a-comin' and it will be ... deliberate.

brain glitch

So I have this weird thing that happens. I'm quite sure that I'm not alone in this, but here it my particular version. When someone - particularly someone I hold in high regard or authority - compliments or encourages me in a public endeavour, I stop. It's happened over and over in university, grad school, singing, etc, and more than once here. 

Which is why after several months of very frequent writing and feeling some momentum and breaking through some barriers to say things that really matter, I've been a little quiet for the last nine days. It's one thing when your friends and family say they read your writing, but when other writers - writers you truly admire - send you feedback and encouragement. 

Stage fright. Sudden shyness. 

And this from a girl who LOVES the limelight. 

wrapped warm in a winter kitchen

There are few photos of me in this house that was home to my formative years. And the ones that do exist are as grainy and blurry as my memories, yet I have flashes of scent, sensation, and smell that continue to live in my body on the most cellular level. This house was on the outskirts of nowhere, and right next door to my one and only best friend. This home of slippery polished hardwood floors and purple bathroom curtains and fragrant kitchen smells and always a new batch of kittens.

It was a house of firsts and lasts. Of learning to tie my shoes. Of getting my last pair of hand-me-down shoes, which were also my first pair of heels. How often I've longed for those blue suede wedges again. It was likely winter, but it's hard to know for sure - winter was so long there, it seems like a safe bet. This was a safe house where nothing bad ever happened except in my imagination. No other house would be that again. 

I loved that flannel nightgown. It was pretty, feminine and so perfectly cuddly. I wore it until the fuzz wore off the elbows. I can remember the sadness of letting it go when it had served its purpose. Most clothes I grew out of, but some special ones I wore as long as I could. I've never liked the feel of lace, but this gown was perfect - the flannel protected me from the itch of the lace. 

Those woven orange dining chairs itched and scratched as well, so I pulled my nightgown over my legs. I'm tucked under the peninsula cupboard that separated the kitchen from the dining room, no doubt watching my mom cook or bake while I keep the kittens out from underfoot. Most pictures from those days were special occasions but this is just an ordinary moment in time - a snapshot of a girl who is warm and safe and loved and loving. I can imagine all kinds of amazing smells that filled that kitchen - cookies, or maybe beef rouladen. It might have been game meat of some kind - maybe moose. Or maybe some magical Christmas baking - shortbread, sugar cookies, rosettes, fruit cake. 

The kittens were from one of Muffins many litters. We'd gotten Muffin as a kitten when I was only three. She  died beside my bed when I was 18. People will tell you she was a nasty cat, but I loved her and every one of her kittens - I think she had 7 litters. At some point, nearly every one of my friends had one of Muffin's kittens in their house. 

I wish the photos and my memories were more clear. I loved living in that house. I loved how spacious it was, and being surrounded by playmates in our isolated way-station on the highway. It was a great house to be a child in.  

---

Today's Prompts: 

1. Post a photo of yourself from before age 10. Write about what you remember of the day the photo was taken. It may not be a full story—it may just be flashes of event and emotion—but tap into the child you were as much as you can.

2. The saying goes What you don't know won't hurt you, but sometimes the opposite is true. Talk about a time when you were hurt by something you didn't know.

event horizon

He tried to smile, though his eyes remained unchanged. He nodded.
- So, when do you leave? 
- Four months. End of June. It's so far off.
(Please, please ask me to stay. I'm scared. I'm hurt. Just ask me to stay.)
- Okay.

And that was that.

Some event horizons are so small, you don't hear the star implode on itself.

Event Horizon: The boundary (‘horizon’) of a black hole between its ‘outside’ and its ‘inside’; those outside cannot know anything about things (‘events’) which happen inside.

---

Today's Prompt: 

1. Write about someone who was a mentor for you.

2. What have been the event horizons of your life - the moments from which there is no turning back?

safety

It’s hard to write about safety without thinking about its absence.
It’s unclear to talk about lessons learned without say what came before that.
It’s unfair to tell others’ stories if I’m not willing to tell my own.
It’s unsettling to drag up past dangers in the warmth of my current home.

I waffle, with this post, between wanting to throw the doors of the past wide open and just posting a Men Without Hats video. The stories of the past only have relevance if they can inform and guide us now, or if we can share them in such a way that they help others. Otherwise, it’s just so much drama, and we’re better off leaving that to the experts in Hollywood.

Oh, what the heck - when isn't a littl 80's flashback the right answer? 

drowning

Like my mom and BB1, I’m a fish. I love the water. To be in a lake or a warm ocean is a pure joy for me. Swimming pools are okay, but I’m happiest in wild water. I’ve paddled kayaks and dragon boats, played in the surf, and splashed along the beach. But no matter how happy I am on, in and near the water, I never lose my healthy respect for it.

Life is much like the water. It’s great to take life on – to play full out, splash around, take chances, try new things. And, when the tide turns, or unseen under-currents threaten, it’s important to know my limits. This has been a winter of sitting on the shore watching the waves crash. It’s time now to get back out in the swirl and splash around again.