Grabbing the Oars

For a little over a month I've been drifting. First let me backtrack, I started this year with an astonishing amount of zest and purpose. I was determined to work smarter, less. And until last month I was doing really well, on top of things more or less, working smarter, not harder.

Then I went to the Writers' Federation Annual General Meeting one weekend and the next weekend I went to Moncton to interview an author. The effect has been devastating. I've drifted back into my old habits -- working day and night, unfocused, without vision and drive. And the result is STRESS! I'm stressed because I feel so out of control. And when I'm stressed, my fuse gets really short and I start going off for no reason.

In the course of one month I've gone from a peaceful in control almost zen-like demeanor to a completely out of control homicidal maniac -- it ain't pretty, but I'm not lying.

So, my goal for this day is to reach out and grab those oars floating around me and begin to steer the boat again. Today, I will accomplish something, I will finish at least one task. I will take some time for me to exercise. I will cook. I will work no more than 8 hours at my job. I will, I will, I will.

I've already begun :-)

Mood: Hopeful
Listening to: Saulisbury Hill, Peter Gabriel
Drinking: tea with 2%
Hair: light brown

Madness & Poetry

There is something very calming about reading poetry aloud.

A couple of nights ago at the height of a raging hormonal PMS fit, my sister dared to utter those dirty little words that always follow, "No offence but . . . "

". . . you're not a mother. You can't understand."

When I'm not a hormonal mess and in completely good spirits this drives me nuts. Not because it isn't true, because it is. I am not a mother so I don't know what it's like, how it feels.

I'm also not a homicidal maniac, a pubescent boy, a victim of rape, or a holocaust survivor. I can't understand what any of those things feel like either.

The thing that drives me absolutely mad when my sisters play the "you're not a mother" card is that somehow it implies I'm incapable of feeling a love that strong.

But all of this is neither here nor there, the point of this post is the poetry. After my sister uttered the hateful words, I couldn't sleep for crying (yes I'll admit, mostly due to the hormonal battle being fought inside me. Rarely have I sobbed so loud and with such gusto. It was my Oscar worthy crying scene.

I worked myself up into such a state, only reading poetry aloud could calm me.

I read mostly P.K. Paige and some Allan Cooper. Soon, I was smiling and wistful. Poetry does that. I highly recommend it when you've got the blues. Stereotypically, all poets are mad, but maybe the relationship between poetry and madness is really as the cure for madness rather than created by madness.

Something to think about.

I've just learned that there will be a poetry workshop in August. I think I should take it, learn how to express myself in poems if such a thing can be taught.

Mood: Lazy
Listening to: Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini
Drinking: had a timmy's earlier, extra large, double cream
Hair: brown and straight

Fiddler's Moon

I'm in the banquet room at the Rodd, sitting off by myself, alone, because I can't trust my emotion not to give way in front of the others. Matilda Murdoch is playing the fiddle. I'm transported back in time to 1600's Ireland. I'm moved to tears. I may have to leave. I feel heart ache, starvation, death -- I feel it in my very core. These are my people. I'm Irish and for the first time I feel it. I really feel it. Like I'm at a wedding, like we could all break out in a reel or jig. Like I could be dressed in a hoop skirt and tight bodice. It's sadness. It's pain. It runs in my blood. It's pure beauty.

This is love.

This is death.

This is life.

Mood: Out of space and time
Drinking: Merlot & Bud Light (not simultaneously)
Listening To: Matilda Murdoch on the fiddle . . . Oh danny boy
Hair: Done up real purty like

Irrational thoughts

I have this completely irrational fear that someone is watching me . . . that I'll turn around and a strange man will be standing there . . . that he'll have snuck into the house or he'll appear in the picture window outside standing on the deck . . .

It's like a horror movie in my mind. I need to put the thought out of my head . . . or put Jon Bon Jovi into the picture . . . Yeah . . . Bon Jovi . . . that's the ticket! :-)

Mood: Leery
Drinking: just tea, believe it or not
Listening To: Brother Down, Sam Roberts
Hair: frazzled

On the subject of love . . .

I no longer believe.

That is such a difficult revelation for me to make. I don’t mean to you, the unknown masses who have decided to follow my madness. I mean it’s very difficult for me to admit this to myself. No matter what has happened or how destroyed I’ve ended up, deep in my heart I always believed in love. It’s not even fully correct to say I no longer believe . . . I know people who are in love. I believe in the love of others. I even believe I can fall in love. I’d go so far as to say I believe a man could fall in love with me. But that’s where it ends. I can’t believe I will fall in love with a man who falls in love with me simultaneously and equally. THAT is impossible!

And I hate being cynical! But am I being cynical? Or am I just being realistic?

I am almost 35 years old and I’ve been in love. I’ve also been in relationships with men I cared about but didn’t love. I hurt these men. It was never my intention to break any hearts, but yes I’ve destroyed a few along the way. Of course, I have also had my own heart broken. These things happen to everyone. Generally, it’s all a miscalculation, a big mistake. Nobody intends for anyone to get hurt. It happens when you finally realize and are willing to admit that you can never love this person you’re hanging out with, no matter how long you stick around and try to make it happen. You can’t force love. Clarity happens in a random instant. Hearts get broken. Such is life.

If all my suffering came at the expense of the standard broken heart, perhaps I would still believe. But I am one of a few (at least I believe the experience is limited to a few, correct me if I’m wrong) unfortunate souls who have the great misfortune of falling deeply and madly in love with the wrong person. That isn’t the same as not being the right person. I have also been in love with men who turned out to not be the right person for me. But only one time have I fallen in with the wrong person.

It’s a terribly embarrassing story in which I come off as a complete idiot. But you see that’s the thing . . . I am not a complete idiot. I am not stupid. I am actually quite intelligent. However, I will admit that I was naïve. Before I met the wrong man, I really didn’t believe evil could touch my life. Evil happened to other people. It happened to people on television, people in the newspapers, strangers I would never meet. Furthermore, if Evil ever decided to visit me I would recognize it because it would be wearing a mask, waving a gun, lunging at me with a knife, ripping my clothes off, or any number of violent acts. It wouldn’t be the face of someone I knew. It wouldn’t be someone who had earned my trust. It certainly wouldn’t be anyone I loved. I really believed that no matter how badly a person behaved, deep down inside lurked a little bit of goodness which would flourish if coaxed and overcome the bad. Yes, SIGH I was naïve.

But even way back then, despite being naïve, I was skeptical. Before I started dating the wrong man, I knew him. He wasn’t a stranger. Having been acquainted with him most of my life; I had a pretty good idea going into the first date that he wasn’t the right man for me. So why did I go out with him in the first place? Two reasons. I was bored and needed a diversion. He was going through what I thought was a rough time in his life and I pitied him. I really didn’t think it would go beyond one night. I wasn’t expecting Evil behind the pitiful face of someone I knew.

I was shocked at first when he began to pursue me. I tried to break it to him gently that I just didn’t think we would ever be a good match. I admired his persistence. I tried being a little less subtle and gave it to him straight. He kept up his courtship. I was flattered. By and by, I started to see that we did have some things in common. I enjoyed his company. He was fun to be around. Months flew by and I started to let my guard down, to open myself up to the possibilities. More months passed and I found myself falling in love. He spent that entire time proving to me that he was the right man for me. He devoted all his time to proving that he loved me, that he could be trusted with my love, we were made for each other. I never kept my skepticism a secret. He reassured me every day that I didn’t need it anymore.

In hindsight, it seems as if the very moment when I accepted everything he wanted me so desperately to believe and opened my heart to him, was the exact moment he chose to tell me he was wrong. Memory can be selective. If you have never encountered anyone like the wrong guy, you might think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. How can I be so sure? Because it happened more than once.

Here’s the part where I start coming off as really stupid. Unless of course you thought I went through that part of the story already when I started dating a guy I didn’t think could ever be my Mr. Right. Have I mentioned how naïve I was at that time in my life?

The first time we broke up, he had a change of heart within a few days. He begged for forgiveness and I believed he was sincere. The next time it lasted for a several weeks. The time after that lasted several months and we both dated other people while we were apart. Then we separated for over a year without any contact at all. He moved to another area. The last time we had been broken up for over two years when he came back into my life. Intellectually, I still wonder how I let this happen to me. Emotionally, I was a train-wreck early on into the roller coaster ride. Logically, none of it made any sense to me. I think that’s why he was able to keep coming back and continue to emotionally abuse me. I kept looking for a logical solution. I couldn’t accept that there mightn’t be one. I never once thought that he might have never cared for me at all and just enjoyed playing games with me because it made him feel god-like and powerful. I couldn’t believe he never felt any of the same feelings I had, he only pretended because it was necessary to the game. I couldn’t think any of those things because it would have required me to believe I had let Evil into life, the wrong guy was a monster. And that was absurd!

He had been out of my life for over two years. Another completely different relationship had failed on me and I had recovered. I was at a happy stage in my life. I was starting to really like the woman I saw in the mirror every day. When he showed back up, I would not give him the time of day. At that point I was beyond skeptical. Still, he showed up in my life every day, persistent bastard. He talked a new kind of talk. He wasn’t spouting the same old lines I had heard a hundred times before. He apologized for the past. And he didn’t do it in a general way, he was very specific. For months and months he was all about remember the time I did this to hurt you and you said that and you were right and this was the way I was feeling then . . . and God help me, he said all the right things. He was so sincere and genuine. He seemed so different and more mature. I still wasn’t giving him the time of day much, but I was certainly listening. Finally, he had provided me with the logical explanation for all the pain, suffering and grief.

Still, I knew his patterns. I knew he could change in an instant and revert into his former self. I didn’t trust he had really changed. He had to prove himself. The wrong guy I knew couldn’t get past a couple of months without vile and destructive behavior. Four months tops. If he hadn’t really changed, he could never pretend for six or eight months. It just wasn’t possible.

Ten months passed. Almost a year of peace and bliss; harmony and logical explanations. I dared to believe he was genuine.

I dared to believe in love, and he was lying.

He lied. The genuine logical right guy literally vanished right before my eyes without any explanation. When the wrong guy emerged this time, even that was different. He tossed me aside with less feeling than if I was a bug under his shoe. I have never encountered anyone before or since who was so cold and deliberate. With level eyes and a steady wave of his hand he simply said he didn’t love me and he didn’t want to marry me. End of story. There was no discussion. The topic wasn’t open for discussion or debate.

This is the only jaw dropping moment I’ve ever experienced. At that point in the relationship, this was totally unexpected. It floored me.

I was another year and a half rehashing everything in my mind before I could finally forgive myself and accept that some people are just here for the sport of hurting others. Several years went by and I heard about other women put through the same sort of emotional drills. One minute the wrong guy was in love and getting married, the next he had left some girl crying in a bar. I wanted to reach out and warn those innocent victims, but I knew they would never listen. I wouldn’t have listened. He is nothing if charismatic and convincing. I took comfort in the knowledge that he would never be able to hurt me again. I gained back my personal power and strength from this knowledge.

Of course, this isn’t to say he hasn’t tried. He tries every few years. He calls to test the water. Is she weak and ripe or strong and unavailable? I’m strong. Someday, he will call for the last time. Maybe I’ve heard the last of him now.

When I went into this thing, I was a naïve young woman who believed love conquered all things. Nothing in the world mattered, as long as there was love. It was a very romantic thought. Sometimes, I wish I could think like that again. Most times I feel safer knowing I will never think like that again.

So no, I don’t believe in love anymore. That is to say, I don’t believe in the fairy tale. I don’t know if that’s a terrible thing or a blessing. It simply is.

Mood: Contemplative
Drinking: King Cole Tea with milk
Listening To: Complicated, Avril Lavigne
Hair: Brassy blonde

Evil, a Pantoum

Experimenting with this form of poetry called a pantoum. Not very good at it. Here's how you do it:

Stanza 1:
Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Stanza 2:
Line 5 (repeat of line 2 in stanza 1)
Line 6 (new line)
Line 7 (repeat of line 4 in stanza 1)
Line 8 (new line)

Stanza 3/Last Stanza (This is the format for the last stanza regardless of how many preceding stanzas exist):
Line 9 (line 2 of the previous stanza)
Line 10 (line 3 of the first stanza)
Line 11 (line 4 of the previous stanza)
Line 12 (line 1 of the first stanza)

And here's the one I did:

"If you tell anyone,
I will kill myself."
I don’t tell,
Contemplate suicide.

"I will kill myself."
I can’t bury the memory.
Contemplate suicide,
I can’t hide.

I can’t bury the memory,
I didn’t tell.
I can’t hide,
If you tell anyone.

Mood: a little freaky
Drinking: nothing much
Listening To: Feel, Robbie Williams

A Date

Last night I went on the first date with a boy that I've been on in four years. How crazy is that? I'm nothing if not extreme, when I do something, I really do it, and that includes swearing off men I guess :-) Anyway, this guy is 23 going on 24 and a student at St Thomas. We agreed to meet at the movies and we saw 50 First Dates with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore (not nearly as good as The Wedding Singer, by the way).

I wanted to write something down because I want to remember last night. Whether I see him again or not, last night was special for me. I've grown used to being alone, comfortable even, sometimes filled with a vague sort of emptiness. I've been so far removed from anything representing intimacy that I didn't even know anymore what I was missing . . . or at least I could block it out most times. Last night awakened something inside me that's been sleeping (or hiding). Last night confirmed something that I've suspected but have been afraid to embrace . . . I must claim my life, grab hold and start living again, start taking emotional risks again . . . and that means I need to leave.

This boy probably isn't the right boy for me, but I feel grown enough to let passion back in, to embrace boys and relationships, to put myself out there again. I feel strong enough to trust that I can survive emotional devastation again, I can take the risk.

Mood: Optimistic
Drinking: Life, baby!
Listening To: Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
Hair: Tousled

And the Beat Moves On

I remember when I used to do these "I Remember" exercises every day. Every single day. And looking back on it now, I see I actually got a lot of work done. I wrote a lot. I found what I had written on my sad first attempt at a novel. The Val, Steve, Ken thing Steve at Vee’s, The Party Phone Call, Killing Harold.

Man! Everything was so organized and developed and I got quite a bit down before I went into short story mode. Of course, not much of what I wrote is very good. A lot of the newbie mistakes, passive voice, weak verbs, zillions of adjectives, telling not showing. Still, there was a lot of description there, a lot of detail. And salvageable, should I ever desire to do so.

The idea of writing a sort of mystery thriller type novel now just freaks me out. I was trying to write genre fiction because I thought it would be easier. Shit! I didn’t even have an idea, was just taking it day by day on what I determined from that writing book I was following. I didn’t believe I had anything spectacular to impart. All I knew was that I had a natural ability for the written word and I wanted to do something creative for a change. That was 4 years ago. My how the times have changed.

When I wrote The Lost, I didn’t particularly like it. It certainly wasn’t my favorite piece nor did I believe it to be the strongest. I wasn’t even certain if it was a story or not or what I was trying to do. Now, heaven help the man or woman that tells me it isn’t a work of art. Ignore those shallow critters who can’t see the message, because I am an artist and I’ve imparted something bigger than myself to the world. A crock of bull. All of it, but somehow I do feel I’ve grown.

There are messages in my stories now. Emotions, feelings, I want to show and share. I’ve come full circle, from just wanting to write entertainment and sell a lot of books to creating something unique and special, my message, and having a desire to share those feelings with an audience.

Like the leaves swirling in Limbo. Something bigger than me was at work with that. I didn’t come up with that on my own. I had never heard of the children in limbo. I’m not Catholic and know nothing about being so, besides what I’ve read in other people’s novels. And yet, there it was, waiting for me to find it and put it together. That was a gift.

And so I think if I’m getting gifts, something has changed. Of course, I’ll actually have to finish the piece or else I’ll be the only one who knows about it. Or will I? If I hesitate, will the gift be passed on to someone more up to the challenge?

That is something to consider.

Mood: melancholy
Drinking: Too much
Listening To: Everybody Hurts, REM
Hair: In an awkward stage of being

On this matter of commitment . . .

I fear.

I have examined this from every possible angle and there is no other explanation. I am afraid to commit.

In all my relationships (and there have been plenty) one of two things happens. Either I love too much and that love is not reciprocated. Or I don’t love at all and break the heart of a nice man who has made the mistake of loving me too much. There is no in-between, no gray area. It is either or.

I don’t do this on purpose consciously. I think it’s a subconscious thing. When I meet a man who is unavailable to me in some way, he is more attractive to me. I tell myself I enjoy the challenge. I want to be the woman who finally tames the wild heart of the Big Bad Guy. Of course this never happens. This can’t ever happen. I set myself up for failure every time. These men who I can never change, who will never be the men I want them to be, who will never love me like I love them, these are the men I feel most comfortable in loving.

And love them I do. I pour every ounce of my being into loving these men and I hang on to them until it becomes impossible to hang on any longer. It’s pure insanity.

Then there are the other guys. There is nothing wrong with these guys. In fact, they are Really Great Guys. Intelligent, attractive, employed. Caring, honest and kind. Did I forget to mention the wonderful sex and that fabulous way they dote on me? And yes, these Really Great Guys love me. They want to marry me and raise a family with me. Oh, the horror of it all! This has happened to me more than you might expect, given that I have a terrible habit of pursuing the Big Bad Guys.

Sometimes you just can’t tell right away which category the guy is going to fall into. You need to play around a bit and find out. Sometimes you sense an element of danger and it turns out that you were wrong. Some guys give off the wrong signals. And sometimes I lie to myself and pretend I want the Really Great Guy. Regardless of how it happens, it does happen and I find myself dating the Really Great Guy.

The deal breaker is usually when my parents, siblings or friends meet the guy and begin exclaiming about what a nice man he is, followed by not so subtle hints that I’m not getting any younger and this one is a keeper. A keeper! I hear anything about keeping, marrying, forever and nice guy, I freak out. The guy doesn’t stand a chance. I dump him so fast he never knows what hit him.

I’m not proud of it, but that’s just the way it is, or should I say it’s just the way it has been in the past. Because now, after much reflection, I have come to realize that all of this can only add up to one thing - I have a commitment phobia.

This didn’t come to me all of a sudden today as I wrote this post. I’ve been considering this for a long time. Actually, I figured it all out almost three years ago.

At that time there was a man in my life who qualified as a kind of sort of Really Great Guy (depending on who you asked ;-) We were friends for many years. Occasionally, we were a bit more than friends, if you know what I mean. He wanted more than friendship all the time. I shot this man down so many times I lost count. I’m sure he remembers every time. He loved me. And I liked him a lot. I never had so much fun as the time I spent with him. I never laughed as much or as hard as I did in his company. There have been three truly great moments in my life that I will never forget and two of them were spent with him.

I didn’t treat this man very well, and still he stuck by me. On the rare occasion when I let my guard down and allowed him to join me behind my wall it was magical. Magic scared the hell out of me! I ran from magic as fast and as far as my feet would carry me.

After I did my soul searching and discovered I had a commitment problem that I wanted to fix, I decided I would tear my wall down for good and allow myself to feel the magic. I didn’t know where it would all lead but I was willing to put myself out there and take the chance. I was terrified to tell him. I was afraid after all those years he had finally given up on me and moved on.

It wasn’t unusual for months to pass without us having any contact with one another after I had hurt him. Eventually, we always came back together as friends and he always forgave me for whatever terrible thing I had done. Like that time I called him up and got him to take me to a dance and then didn't speak to him the whole time we were there and left early with another guy. Yes, cruelty I know thy name.

Months passed as I tried to work up the courage to face him and tell him how I felt. Then I decided I would go see him on the upcoming weekend and lay it all on the line. I remember feeling relief just by having developed a plan and set my mind to it.

He called me before I had the opportunity to call him. He invited me to a small gathering as a send off to him. He was leaving on Sunday to move across the country with his brother.

My heart broke. I couldn’t tell him then. I knew that if I told him he probably wouldn’t go. He seemed to be looking for an excuse not to go anyway . . . and if ever anyone needed to get away and start fresh, he needed to go. It was a great opportunity for him and I couldn’t hold him back from it no matter how much I wanted to do it. I couldn’t ask him to miss out on something so big, on the chance that maybe something real could happen between us and I wouldn't flake out.

The irony of it all!

So, I didn’t tell him how I felt. I didn’t tell him any of the things I had figured out about myself. I didn’t ask him to stay. I wanted to ask him to stay. I spent the entire weekend by his side, smiling and soothing his doubts. He had never been so far away from home before. He was afraid of what he didn’t know. I reassured him as much as I could. I also took the little bit of time we had left and apologized for everything I had done to wrong him.

And then I kissed him good-bye and he left.

That was four years ago. I heard from him a couple of times. He has a great new job. He has a girlfriend he seems to care about. He has an unfamiliar accent. By all appearances, he is happy and settled.

But I wonder about it sometimes . . .

Sometimes when we’re on the telephone I sense for one second that I could tell him and everything would be okay. But the feeling is fleeting. It never lasts long enough. Logic tells me it’s too late to tell him. The moment when our happiness together was a real possibility is lost.

Was the moment ever really there?

I like to think it was . . .

Mood: Reflective
Drinking: Diet Pepsi
Listening To: That's the Way, Led Zeppelin
Hair: Mousy Brown