delicious life.

1. marathon catchup, tea, walk around town, dinner with the family, wine, movie, sleepover, breakfast, tea, with L. wow!
2. tea with P.
3. tea (and bison grass vodka straight from Poland – yum!) with K.
4. laughing and smiling until my cheeks hurt.
5. midnight tea with me.

delicious life.

1. Pimm’s in the afternoon (with a little extra gin)
2. jam making lessons from mom.
3. hearing my dad sing under his breath while working.
4. movie nights.
5. doing what’s best for me.

the invitation.

She reminds me…

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love
for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

delicious life.

Oh yes, it’s true!

Weight lifted, smile renewed. Me, renewed. (At least for now, so go with it…)

Today became a most delicious of days, let me tell you all about it.
The phone glued to an ear, darling B on the other end, speaking so many shared truths, reminding me of the deepest truest part of my self.

I went to a florist for a single stem of white lilies and left them on K’s doorstep for when he got home. I wanted to say thanks. I know he’s the kind to understand “thanks” and not ask, “what for?”, and with him it’s always been white lilies.

An ice-cream adventure/kidnap with D who I am so privileged to have as a friend because he’s the world’s best hugger. I don’t mean to make light of other friends impeccable hugging abilities, so don’t be jealous that I love his the most. You can’t fight it, it’s true. World’s best. Be jealous only if he’s not your friend too!

We hmmed and hawwed over 198 flavours at, 198 Flavours (or as D reminds me, it’s really 218 but only 198 on rotation at any given time). I went weak in the knees when I tried the Basil Pernod. Not better than sex, but certainly preferable to average sex. And let’s not take that lightly either. If I could, I would mail pints of this stuff all over the country, to my most precious of friends. I was trying to match it with another perfect flavour, and then darling B called again and said “why don’t you just pick that one flavour and LOVE IT.” Saying LOVE like this oozy sexy enveloping thing that it is, sometimes. And so I did, but I only got one scoop. Remember for next time – always two scoops. Always.

From there it was on to coffee with B, which was really vanilla steamed milks, and a big long catch up. I now actually know where he lives and what his work is, for the first time in months, and it felt so nice to know. I really missed him…

I picked up cupcakes for T and drove them to his house with a note saying “you love cake. I love you.” Mint chocolate, Caramello, Lemon Drop, and Blue Hawaii. I asked for concise but conclusive reviews of all the flavours, within a day or so.

I looked through A’s book collection, what is left of it, and immediately snapped up his copy of Gogol’s Diary of a Madman. It has the story The Nose in it, which I remembered instantly was one we’d talked endlessly about. He kept offering to lend me the book but we kept missing each other at the house so I finally took it out at the library. It feels good to have a little piece, something to hold on to. (Thank you, T, for letting me keep it. I’ll always treasure it.)

And so, in order to stay true to form (though so hard to chose only 5 today), here they are:
1. basil pernod gelato
2. singing show tunes in the car at the top of my lungs
3. the best hugs in the world
4. The Nose
5. recognizing myself again/being ok.
and because today was important for so many reasons:
6. letting go.

une mille feuilles tombent, et je me réveille.

love/…

Love has been waiting patient and kind.
Just wanting a phone call or some kind of sign.
That the one that she cares for who’s out of his mind
Will make it back safe to her arms.

Hate stumbles forward and leans in the door.
Weary head hung down, eyes to the floor
He says, “……

(Your silence says everything.)
Your words cut like knives but I know they’re your shield.
I want to see through it, but I don’t recognize you.
This might be the end but I don’t want it to be the end.
Please don’t make it so easy.

reeling.

And she plays the morning up like its being shot on 16mm.
Wandering around the apartment doing her make up in only a bra and black tights.
Lays the outfit out on the bed and stands back to admire.
Looks in the mirror and nods, “this oughta break his heart.”

It’s pouring rain.
She shows up under a black umbrella, already anticipating his reaction.
He barely looks up. He notices the umbrella but pretends he doesn’t care.
She says “I just wanted to make you smile. I’m not always such a stubborn bitch you know.”
And he tosses his head back – that laugh she loves.

Soon enough the reel will slip, cause a spark, go up in flames.

cherished.

“It forced us to look fear in the eye and by boldly embracing the struggle, we chose love. And Eva only knew one kind of love, as she would always say, “my love is fierce”.  It taught us to endlessly dig for life’s tiny moments of joy and bring them to the surface to fill our hearts. Eva taught me there’s no finite amount of love, we don’t have to hold it in or save it for one person. There’s a well of love inside each and every one of us and if you want to fill it up, all you have to do is give more of it away.”

My eyes are welled up, my heart hurts. But it’s all good this time. It’s all gratitude. I am so incredibly grateful for a day filled to the brim (and a phone bill to prove it) with some of the most honest, cherished conversations I’ve ever had. Two best friends and two past loves, and nothing but love and honesty and openness.

I hope for more of the same tomorrow.

“She taught me that love never completely goes away, after you’ve given it to someone – it only changes and takes on a different form.”

I can sleep well tonight knowing that there are some things I can’t control, some pains I don’t want to face, but in the end if I do what is best for me, it will all be ok.

“It taught us that understanding life is not a solving of the mystery, but an acceptance of it, a living blissfully with it, through it, and by it. “

delicious life.

1. strawberries in krema.
2. belly laughs over the phone.
3. kissing my mom on the cheek.
4. a clean room.
5. finding old treasures and adding them to my bail-box.

“Will I ever laugh again? I’m serious…”
“Yes. When something is really really funny.”

I’m so glad that funny thing was you and the ducks, B.

2010 in 145.

flight risk.

Needed: one plane ticket to Philadelphia.

for sleepless nights and endless conversation.
for hangouts on white shag rugs.
for pastis and cigarettes.
for prayers in the basilica.
for embracing our crazy.
for feeling too much, together.
for healing and hugging.
for soulmates.

grasp.

This is the point where you say, “what can I do?”

And this is the point where I say, “hold my hand.”

all in black.

The day of another funeral.
Standing in front of my closet wondering what the hell to wear.
Knowing that it doesn’t matter even a little bit.
Anxiety creeps up my front, over the jeans I’m wearing and up the buttons on my sweater.
It gets to my neck and chokes.
I am stifled and hypeventalating.

Flashback to the days of sitting on the toilet lid in my parent’s bathroom while my mom did my hair and makeup for my ballet recitals.
Wish I had someone here to dress me. To remind me not to wear mascara. It will be all over my face before I even get there.
Someone to tell me that I look beautiful, and I will be strong, but also that no one will care because we’re going to say goodbye to our friend.

At the same time it feels routine, I’m on autopilot.
Another young person dead.
Chicken scratch it on the wall.
Say another goodbye.
Pray for something better.
Hope that tomorrow will be easier.

writhing.

For the 10 days of my guide’s exam the pain of everything that’s happened so far this month got put on pause. For the most part it stayed there – one or two weak moments, but without the support of all my loving friends and family and my penchant for worrying, it was bound to happen. I pushed through and succeeded, I did a happy dance on the beach when no one was looking, and then came home.

I came home to paralyzation. To the reality that A is dead, that N has caused me more pain than I knew anyone could. Even the wonderful, positive emotions of passing my exam somehow get thrown in the mix too. Despite them being good feelings, they are strong and seem to overwhelm with the worst of them.

I feel abandoned in a time of great need, and am at a loss. Despite the love of so many of my friends, even a hundred more would still leave me wanting the support of you. If not your support, hell I’ll take anything right now. I’ll take a “get the hell out of my life” if that’s what I thought you really wanted. But you won’t give me anything. I am running out of options, and though I’m stubborn enough to still be full of patience, things are taking a toll. I don’t know how much longer I can hold on for you. I also don’t know how to stop, how to let it go. How to lose you. I don’t know how to accept that you might be worth letting go. (Please please please don’t be.)

I can keep busy, I work and unpack and do laundry and talk to friends, I walk by the river and try to take photos that I like even a little. I am running, running, running. As soon as I stand still, be quiet, have an empty mind, the pain catches up with me, jumps on my back, and drags me down. I am incapacitated. I am writhing. I AM NOT OK.

The pain of losing a friend to suicide is enough, life, seriously. Can’t you throw me one thing at a time? I’m begging…

I am not ok.
I am not ok.
I don’t know how to be…ok.

summer’s november.

Today I stayed in my pajamas. My heart hurt too much to acknowledge summer.
Today, inside this chest, this heart, it’s november.
Turn the sprinkler on against the window, play make believe.
Nothing feels real anyway.

I daydreamed us tangled in white sheets, dull grey light streaming in. The kind that calls us outside for a coffee and a walk down by the beach. The kind that folds itself into the soft crinkles around your eyes. It’s sometime in the late morning. We lose track, entangled all day. We dance around the apartment in our underwear. You stand at the window and I come up behind you and wrap my arms around your warm waist. My head fits in between your shoulder blades. Our bodies rise and fall together.

I daydreamed us in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, bumping into each other. Tiny spaces, good excuses to kiss against the fridge. We run down the street for the fresh fruit we forgot. Lose our breath, fill our lungs with laughter. The day turns into night, I miss my train on purpose. You cover me with a blanket, and kiss my cheek. One day into one sleep into one whole weekend, always within arm’s reach of you. You wake me up with a flower on my cheek. All these things at once. All love.

I never accepted how beautiful I felt waking up at your place. No makeup, hair a mess, in your sweatpants. I saw the way you looked at me on those mornings, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it.

Instead I drank earl grey with milk and ate butternut squash soup and lay on the couch under a blanket watching movies all day and hoped that one day you’d be the softness I was leaning into.

exclamation.

Amidst feelings of loss and uncertainty, I am overwhelmed with the elation that I’ve successfully completed a dream that has been central to my life for the last 2 years. I passed my guide’s exam, and will be spending the summer on the water, in the sun, breathing it all in. Desks aren’t for me, I was made for this. Fuck yea we can live like this!

love/hate.

Love writes a letter and sends it to hate.
“My vacations ending I’m coming home late.”
“The weather was fine and the ocean was great.”
“And I can’t wait to see you again.”

Hate reads the letter and throws it away.
“No one here cares if you go or you stay.”
“I barely even noticed that you were away.”
“I’ll see you or I won’t, whatever.”

guide.

Dear me,

Should you ever again doubt the strength of your spirit, remember this feeling, this moment. You saw a dream right through to the end. You got what you wanted. When you couldn’t see how it could possibly be ok, you relied on your friends. You trusted them when they believed in you. You trusted them when they said they knew you could do it. You believe them now when they say how proud of you they are. Life dealt you some of the worst all in a row, and you not only pushed through it, you flourished.

You are the fern pushing up through the concrete.
You always are.

Love, me.

delicious life.

Maybe delicious is the wrong word given the latest life has thrown down, but I still strive to see the beauty.

1. (finally) getting some sleep.
2. sunshine.
3. sisters.
4. a big house full of love and laughter and family.
5. knowing that I am surrounded by friends for whom I would do and give anything, and feeling their love for me in exactly the same way.

shattered.

Everything is surreal. Frantic and in slow motion at once.

Blur together, whirl through my mind, stop.
Screaming mind, silence, repeat.

Breathe in. Breathe out.
Hold it in. Swallow hard.

Last night I felt like I was losing my whole world.
I was out of my head, writhing in my skin. Needing to be next to you. Body aching, nausea, sweat, short breaths.
I didn’t care about what you wanted. I was selfish. I assumed you’d be there tomorrow.

Then later that night came, and someone else lost their tomorrow.
Three words escaped my best friend’s lips, barely. They scraped out of his mouth, cutting, bleeding. They hung in the air until they slashed hard into my mind. I gasped, I grabbed my face for a second. And then I grabbed T, and I didn’t let go. We cried as we fumbled to find each other’s hands, to intertwine our fingers and squeeze. Whispers of “oh my god………oh my god………” Sucking it in, hoping that someone would whisper an answer. A why. Any kind of sense.

I held him for an eternity. Time stopped.
Never a thought of letting go, of a back ache or a head tilted at a funny angle.

He was there.
I was there.
I was there for him.
That’s all that mattered.

We told each other how much we loved the other. Words that should have been spoken years ago. Always known but never said. (I’m not afraid anymore – Eva breathed it into my heart and now it bursts with love for my friends day and night. My heart, my love grows bigger and fuller every time I say it, and I’ll never hold it back now.)

We lay in bed, not sleeping.
Not wanting to close our eyes.
Not knowing how tomorrow would ever possibly come.
But then it was morning, somehow, and we have our tomorrows.

If we’re lucky, a lifetime of tomorrows. But I never want to take one for granted.

N, I’m so sorry. I LOVE YOU.

T, you know but I’ll say it a million times more. I’m here. I’ll do anything to ease your pain.
I LOVE YOU.

A, I’m so sorry for your pain. You are so loved. You will be so missed.