Wide Open Spaces

I am sitting on my living room floor on a somewhat itchy hand-knotted Moroccan wool rug. I'm in my oldest, most comfortable, yet somehow still flattering nightgown. I have my laptop in (where else) my lap. iTunes is playing new music - songs I've never yet heard (I can practically feel the new neural pathways forming. Did you know new music does that?). I'm eating air-popped popcorn - moderately buttered, and lightly salted. I'm slowly sipping an ice-cold vodka, club soda and lemon juice. The bunny hops by, sometimes tickling my toes. Sometimes just announcing his movements with the clattering of his claws on the laminate floors (he misses BB2 and makes due with my limited company. I miss BB2 and make due with the nose tickles of the bunny).

And life is perfect.

I have remembered, tonight, certain dreams. Dreams that are more than just nebulous embroyonic thoughts  drifting in my mental amniotic fluids. Dreams that had/have pathways meandering through them. Dreams that connect and diverge and morph and grow. Dreams that are scalable, replicatable, and monetizable. Dreams that have domain names and toddling business plans. Dreams that in fact are not dreams at all but that are projects and promises ... one might even call them 'evil plans' if one wasn't more interested in creating goodness.

They got put aside, boxed up and stuffed in a corner to make room for moving, for boys in and out of living rooms, for exciting new jobs with steep learning curves, for exciting new friends with curves of their own. He'll remind me, sometimes, this new friend, that the world is waiting. 'Everyone should have a plan B,' he says. And I, wordy girl that I am, know that I could have a whole alphabet frieze of a plan book, and that all the letters could play together in sesquipedalian splendour.

I worked a couple extra hours today. I went straight on to a 3 hour seminar. And I am right now completely awake and alive and eager to create.

Even wordy creative girls need their sleep though. So that they have all the more energy to create again tomorrow. And so, with Angry Alligators and Zany Zebras dancing through my dreamscape, I sleep to plan another day.

Fall on Your Knees: Review

I went to my first book club meetup tonight. To be honest, I've as much to review about the book club as I have about the book, but ... first things first.

View on Amazon

When I first signed up, thanks to SC2's suggestion, for the book club meetup group, I thought I recognized this month's designated book as one I've already read. I scanned through my past 'reading' posts to see if I could remind myself what I'd thought the first time through, but I didn't see it there. That means that either I read it prior to 2005 when I started blog reviewing the books I read, or that I read it and merely forgot to blog about it. Either is equally likely.

The book in question is Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall On Your Knees, a depressing, dark, relentlessly uredeeming tale of one Cape Breton's family's insistance on being really really messed up. It is also a brilliant, poetic, bouyant story of harsh landscapes with the edges worn off by the sea, and imaginative, resilient children who make the inadequacies of their parents sparkle. As I re-read the book, I couldn't remember what was coming next, which is a huge testament to MacDonald's writing, since with most books I can anticipate much of the plot even on a first reading.

The main family of characters are almost without exception people you wouldn't want your child dating. But most of them also have depth and humour and creativity and spirit that makes them someone you want to cheer for. And passages such as

Following the ocean a good part of the way, James discovered that there is nothing so congenial to lucid thought as a clear view of the sea. It aired his mind, tunes his nerves and scoured his soul. He determined always to live in sight of it.

have a rhythm and beauty that keep you reading even when sometimes you don't want to. It wouldn't be unfair to compare this novel to the proverbial trainwreck - you don't want to keep looking, but you just can't tear yourself away.

I can't say whether I'd recommend this book to a friend. The writing is undeniably beautiful, but there were times when the story literally made me feel a bit sick. There's enough nastiness in the world - I don't think it's necessary to make up more.

TI♥S: Sean & Xiole

So it's Saturday, not Thursday, and I'm finally writing about what I love. I thought about writing on Thursday. I meant to write. I made notes about what I 'should' and could write about. But there was nothing new. Things have been a little tense of late; I have a few different things I'm managing & dealing with & concerned about, and it felt like work to come up with something I ♥ besides what I've already recently blogged about: my BBs, my new work, writing.

But tonight I'm clear - I love love. Witnessing it. Sharing in it. Standing for it. And in particular, I love the celebration of Sean and Xiole's love that I was blessed to attend this evening. It was fun. And authentic. And uniquely Sean and Xiole. In a yard full of apples, and pears, and tents, and flowers, and brimming with cupcakes and champagne and Celtic music, their friends, and families and "exes who have become friends and family" bore witness to a beginning that I hope will never end.

Xiole made her own lovely, unique, one-of-a-kind satin and lace gown, and wore it with army boots against the muck of our only wet day in weeks. A true Texan, she sang to her new husband a fine Texan serenade: "Love at the Five and Dime." And Sean watched and smiled and was moved to tears. They danced, and poured their guests champagne while checking in with us. And were fully themselves together.

Sometimes I can be a bit cynical about love (yes, I realise anybody who has read more than one post on here is pretty clear about my cynicism about love). But today my friend Sean married the love of his life. And seeing them together tonight, sharing that celebration with us all, I realised ... I want to sing to someone and have him be moved to tears. I want to be with someone whose face lights up when he talks about me, whether I'm in ear shot or not.

I also got to catch up tonight with my newly-wed friends Mr. & Mrs. F. To hear how married life is going for them. And to get some insights from Mr. F. on love, relationships, marriage, and keeping things in perspective. I have to say, I think that Mr. F. is a pretty clever guy.

Sometimes I go to a wedding and it's all about the clothes, or the spectacle, or the gluten-free cupcakes (a trend of which I highly approve, by the way). But so far this year I am 2 for 2 in attending weddings that re-teach me about love, and friendship, and commitment. And that is something for which I will always be grateful.

Blessings to Sean and Xiole. And thank you again for sharing your day with me.

More on Love. Say it fast ;-)

I was grabbed once again, today, by a Gaping Void work. I'm not sure how I missed this when it came out in Hugh's newsletter - perhaps I wasn't so engrossed at the time in philosophizing on love, culture and what it all does and doesn't mean. Perhaps I wasn't so consumed with trying to figure it/myself out.

For whatever reason, I overlooked this lovely, breezy eureka of a print when it was sent out, only to experience one of those brief, rare, incalculable moments when I saw it today: a moment that was simultaneously a sigh and a smile of recognition.

I love the lightness of this cartoon - the grey and blue. The space to fly. And I love the optimism of the phrase, the prayer-like clarion call with a slight suggestion of urgency to act.

And, since I'm reminded at work every day that "Love is the Bottom Line," living consistent with acts of love seems to just make sense.

It's hard to remember that in amongst all the reading and talking and cogitating, the most important part of living from love is to act. My mind need not agree - I can simply act. And fly.

roses are red. Bora Bora is blue.

I am not someone who watches The Bachelor/The Bachelorette. Which is not to pretend that I've never seen an episode or two - in fact I'm watching the finale and after show of the current season as I write this - I'm merely saying that I've never be someone who can extend my suspension of disbelief far enough to make room for the idea that such a contrived and staged concept could ever lead to a deep and committed connection.

There. I’ve said it.

My friend SC2 swears by it - is borderline addicted in fact - and I certainly wouldn't want to step on her toes on this matter. However, here I sit, wondering if it's TV shows about love that I don't believe in, or the 'romanticized' version of love that we are inundated with across our culture. Or in fact if they are part of the same issue.

Being given a rose. Or escaping to Tahiti. Or having a cornucopia of accomplished, attractive, successful men lined up fighting for you is great. I certainly don't want to dissuade anyone who is inclined towards buying me flowers of any sort, or taking me to exotic locales, or rounding up a plethora of intelligent, amiable, hotties. And having an hourglass figure, smooth skin, perky bouncy breasts and hair that never grays would also be great, but I can't for a moment believe that any of that has to do with love, fulfillment, or satisfaction.

Love me, love my belly. And at least get to know me.

The best I know of love is this: my parents met when they were 10 & 11. Sometimes they ignored each other in Sunday School and sometimes Dad got to walk Mom home. They dated, and broke up and dated some more in high school. And broke up some more. Until Grandma said marry her or quit it.

They married (thanks for that!), they raised 3 daughters through laughter and tears and frustration and fear and proud moments and worry. I think that sometimes they probably felt like they hated each other. Or at least were bone-weary of each other. And yet, they worked through it. They read or prayed or took courses or went away for the weekend. And they worked it through. And sometimes even now, after 20 or so homes, and 5 grandkids, and more sons-in-law than daughters, they work it through. And they laugh. And dad pats mom on the behind when he's feeling playful. And they bicker (though they will insist it's not bickering) and they travel and keep on. Mom makes boiled raisin cake with burnt-sugar frosting for dad’s birthday. And dad buys mom beautiful presents for hers.

I've never been able to pretend that it's been easy for my parents - or my aunts & uncles, or my grandparents, all of whom took the ‘work it through’ road - to put their commitment ahead of their feelings. I know that walking away is less difficult, in the moment, than staying for 48 years. But easy doesn't have anything to do with love either.

And, I would take the model laid by my parents any day over the TV 'unscripted' romance, the ball gowns, the roses. I know that from where I am now whatever love I create won't be the same story as the model that has worked for my parents. And I'll take 'getting to know you' and conversation and working things through any time.