The Present Breath

Biking home from beach and very satisfying ocean swim, at magic hour, I stopped near my house, on a rise where you can still see sky and all the way to the mountains, and where there is a little park, with whorls of long grasses. That light, just the moment after the last bit of the sun has sunk behind the horizon, and everything glows, and your vision starts to play tricks on you. That light embraced the whorls of grasses, and the particular gold of them, dry and almost in sheafs, hints of green in the tenacity of other plantings - that deep gold, those traces of green, colours that take the path that goes from my eyeballs to my heart, and further, into my soul and everything that made me who I am. The peace, solace, the little wind that rises to rustle the grass, the description of ages on top of ages carried on that breeze. The giddy, lustful time right before all becomes sere, and fuel for fire. I could live in that moment, the sweetness of the smell, the warm wind on my bare arms, all time before and forever stilled and captured on this in-breath.

Reasons I Find It Hard To Wake Up

You should see the Chinatown I dreamed last night.
Rooftop dumpling and noodle cafe, looking over a courtyard bustling with humans and leafy shade trees, surrounded by crumbling brick buildings, held together by ancient layers of multicoloured, peeling paint in graphic shapes. Windows filmy with time and steam, tall windows framed by brick arches and packed with hanging plants, drummers practicing inside.  At street level grocery stores with avocados and yams as big as your head and tea counters full of all the artists, talking, crying, laughing, their exquisite shoes in various states of disrepair, and having to ask them to move to get to the precarious stacks of giant produce, everyone laughing boisterously when a pile rolled onto the creaky old wood floor.  Friends’ apartments in odd shapes at the peaks of buildings, with window seats and skinny steep stairs down from sitting rooms to kitchens to bedrooms.  Soft pinks and lacy curtains.  And kissing old friends met on cobblestone, music in their eyes and mouths, as we laughed about how hard it was to come down from trips to Calgary.  I wondered in my dream how I hadn’t known this Chinatown existed, after all my years of living here, and how I could live in one of those falling down places, draped in silk, home with my tribe.

What I Would Have Said To You If You Had Ever Been Born

I saw a man and a baby, the man was jogging, pushing the baby in a stroller. The man looked like it hurt so much, to be jogging. I thought, that man is going to drop dead of a heart attack on the seawall, leaving that baby alone. Then a few minutes later the man did drop dead, and I saw him fall, and I was there. I called 911 and took that baby out of the stroller and held her on my knee while I talked to the 911 operator. Someone asked to the general crowd where the baby from the stroller was and I said I have her, and everyone could see she was happy there. 

"It's going to be okay, little baby," I said, "don't worry, don't worry."  We both looked at the mountains a while. Then I sighed, and said, "No, it's never going to be okay." That baby listened. She held eye contact and furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. 

"It will be with you all through your life, informing your choices and identity. You will search a long time, baby, for that missing piece of your heart. But this is your story, and it will make you interesting, and complex, and you will have to decide how to be all those things, use them. Let it happen, baby."

Then the fire department came and then the police, and finally an ambulance. Not very reassuring if you're waiting to be saved, but that man wasn't waiting, he was dead. There was activity and questions and then someone took that baby out of my arms and she started wailing. Some time her mother arrived, too, and started wailing, too, and they nearly harmonized. I noticed the resonance specifically. 

The Inevitable

I am nearly ready to get the laundry from the dryer.  Right after I bang on the wall a bit, to let the neighbours know the thumping bass is penetrating even the concrete between us. I bang on the gyp rock wall, not the concrete one, though, so as not to break my hand, and so there's a possibility of being heard.

I believe myself to be the crazy lady. Do you know what I mean? I talk to myself a lot in my home, and often wonder if anyone just stops in front of my apartment door and listens to me. I speak in voices, do scenes with myself, angrily rant about what's broken in the apartment, how cold and stupid it is, complain to myself about the dumbassness of people, cry sometimes, very occasionally wail, and, once, such protracted screaming that I was surprised no one came to check on me or called the police. Every once in a while in life, the only thing that works is a good, long, loud scream.

Are the gods wrathful or kind? Within me or without? It is hard to tell because even when things don't go my way I can never be sure if it is because of the gods, or in spite of the gods, or if it is the exact thing I need at that exact moment, and the gods know, so I ought to just accept it. "Enlightenment is cooperation with the inevitable." This is my favourite thing I have heard lately, and I'm really, really sorry, but I can't remember the man's name who wrote it in a book. If you look it up on the internet, using a search engine of your choosing, the whole sentence, you'll find the writer lickety split. I know, I've looked it up before, but forget now. "But, Riel", you may well be gearing up to ask, "you're using the internet right as you're writing this entry, so why wouldn't you just Goo(my hand pops out and clamps over your mouth, to stop you from using that damn word as a word and to use other words to convey your meaning so you do)I mean, why wouldn't you just look it up using a search engine of your choice right now right while you're already most of the way there?" Good question. Sigh. One sec.   


 Just hum a little while you wait, to pass the time. Hmmm, hmm, dum de dum, la la la, mmmm, hhhmmm,


Anthony de Mello is the fellow who wrote the quote in a book.

I came on here to talk about depression, and this is what happened instead. Ain't life a funny old bear?

xoRH

Royal Oak Burial Park

Had a strangely beautiful afternoon with my dad at the Royal Oak Burial Park in Victoria this past Sunday. We went to look at the green burial part of the cemetery, because he's started thinking about where to be interred. Or whether to be cremated. Or what. It was an easier and more beautiful conversation and walk than you might imagine. I personally think he's going to be around for quite a long while yet, but I'm glad he's not scared, and is willing to talk about what he wants. Our cycle is what it is, no matter how hard people try to stop aging and cheat death, and his making peace with the process is an inspiring thing. Probably this cemetery won't be his end game, too much highway noise plus a realization that maybe being cremated and having a little of himself scattered in all his favourite places in the world would be better. What's funny is how he is not afraid of dying, but he is worried about spending eternity in Victoria. I hear ya, dad.