Beautiful Cynicism III

I woke up to a morning thick with fog and low-lying cloud; it was beautiful. The room was dark, so overcast was the sky. I don’t know why, but this gray, wet weather depresses me when I’m inside. Everything looks so pretty, yet so gloomy. Mais dès que je suis dehors, mon humeur change. J’adore la brume, la pluie, l’air humide… J’ai marché à l’arrêt d’autobus avec une sourire sur mes lèvres. The mist was gently falling on my face, and the tops of buildings disappeared into the fog. Pigeons flew by, weaving in and out of the clouds. Cars sped through puddles on the road, splashing great waves on to the sidewalk – and on to any unfortunate passers-by. Il faisait froid et j’étais fatiguée, mais j’étais aussi heureuse. I put on my headphones and started my mp3 player, which was set to random, yet somehow played a playlist that was perfect for waking up in the clouds.

By the time I left work in the evening, the clouds had risen, the fog had largely dissipated, and the mist had turned to rain – not just light showers, but big, fat drops, falling on my head with a big ’splat’. The distance between my work and the bus stop is a mere 2 blocks, but I arrived at the stop soaking wet. My hair (which was thankfully pulled back into a ponytail) was plastered to my neck and face. Water streamed down my cheeks, lined my lips, dripped off the end of my nose. My feet got wet from standing in puddles while waiting to cross streets. Mon pantalon était mouillé, grâce à les éclaboussements des autres piétons. La seule partie de mon corps qui a resté sèche étaient mes oreilles – parce qu’elles étaient cachées sous mon casque! Malgré tout ça, j’avais envie de danser, de rire, de chanter… All I wanted to do was let out great whoops of joy, it was so lovely being in the rain… I could smell the moisture in the air, and the earthiness of the mud, gradually being exposed as the snow melts; I could taste life again. Maybe that’s the difference between winter and spring; it’s not just about temperatures rising and snow melting and days getting longer – it’s about everything feeling alive again. Winter is peaceful; spring is buzzing with life.

I may have lost all of my emails over the weekend. There is a new computer in my house and during the transfer of files from the old machine to the new, things went awry, as they are wont to do, and I lost my emails. After much wrangling, they may have been retrieved – the computer says the files are all there, but they are in an as-yet unreadable format, so no one really knows how much was saved, what was saved, and whether or not it will ever be accessible.

But all of those are burned into my memory – why despair the loss of the tangible? (How ironic: the virtual is the new tangible…) I read those words when they were sent to me, when they were intended to me read, when they were fully in context. Their significance touched me then, and the meaning behind them stays with me now. Do I really need the evidence? Some things pass by us so quickly it’s as if they were never really there – an hour, a meal, a movie, even a relationship. And without the clock, or the dirty dishes, or the program or the photograh, we have no proof that the experience actually took place, as if our memory isn’t quite enough. Same with the computer: it’s as if there’s this fear that nothing really happened, that all the emotions behind the emails were never really there, as if all those messages of love and kindness and humour didn’t exist – unless I have the proof, which I don’t at the moment. But has it come to this point, where the souvenirs of an event are deemed more essential than the event itself?

I officially declare it to be Bedtime. Bonne nuit.

8:44, the sun is peeking out behind the clouds. Rejoice – this means for once I slept for over 6 hours! Maybe that feeling of rest that keeps eluding me will finally stop by and stay for awhile. It’s cold again, -29C, which means no skating on the river today. I used to skate on the river, when I was younger, but I’ve become terribly sensitive to the cold and the last time I was out on the river I actually cried, I was so cold. But this I do live in a very wintry place, after all, and not everyone has the opportunity to skate outdoors nearly every day for several months of the year… I should seize this opportunity. But so often, I’d just rather stay in my pyjamas…
I’ve been wanting to post a photograph of my old dog, Whiskers. He died 12 years ago Friday. There is one specific photo I want to post; it’s my favourite picture of him, taken the day before I left for Quebec on a school trip, about 3 weeks before he was killed. I believe it was the last photo of him – but it’s nowhere to be found. I spent several hours in my closet last night, searching in vain. I did find some nice surprises: a 45″ I had been looking for, and a few pictures that I thought I had lost – but no photo of Whiskers.
And what always happens when I do these grand closet-searches, happened: the time spent looking was stretched out immesureably because as I opened each cardboard box, a flood of memories would wash over me, and I would just have to spend 40 minutes looking thoroughly at each item contained inside: reading each note, flipping through each book, gazing at each photograph. My closet is full of boxes, you see. I am and always have been a pack rat. I periodically do a big clean-up, tossing out years of faded memories, but generally I keep things – I have a few boxes of magazines; a few boxes of school work (dating back to my elementary school days!); a few boxes of letters and postcards, interesting newspaper clippings, and old journals and diaries; many boxes of books (I’ve run out of space on my few bookshelves); boxes of art, boxes of crafts supplies, boxes of boxes… Sounds daunting, but my closet is navigable, surprisingly. I have the boxes arranged in such a way that I can access them all, with the… shall we say more relevant ones near the top.
And so I peeked and I poked and I rifled and I shuffled and I searched for that photo, but to no avail. No matter; my soul fed itself on all the memories available to me, and I was soon laughing and crying alternately. My evening was filled with nostalgia, always bittersweet. While progress is good, and my current life is fairly wonderful, there’s always that lingering question in the back of the mind:why? And although I’ve seen the pictures, read the journal entries, played the records hundreds of times, and I’m generally acutely aware of the passage of time, I’m always struck by just how much things change, and how quickly. People often say change is good; trouble is, they’re not usually the ones to whom change is happening!
So here I am the next morning, feeling slightly hungover from my nostalgia binge, still without that picture. But one day my old dog will be here on these pages, and I will write a few words about him, and I will once again be carried off by a wave of nostalgia. In the meantime, maybe I’ll think about going skating.

Photo: creekhouseresort.com

Une soirée d’hiver. Le soleil se couche.
Je ressens le vent froid qui souffle sans arrêt; il pique mes yeux. Mes pieds nus fondent la neige avec chaque pas, laissant des petits trous où j’ai marchée. Sous la neige mes pieds trouvent le sable, gelé et ferme. La neige est sêche, poudrée. Les flocons s’envolent sur le vent; ils encerclent mes chevilles, mes jambes, mes hanches. Le vent froid tire mes cheveux et arrache des larmes de mes yeux.
La lune s’élève lentement dans le ciel.

They were everywhere: men in varying stages of adulthood, wandering through the shops, that familiar glazed look in their eyes, vainly searching for a last-minute Valentine’s Day gift for the important women in their lives. Several were visibly of an age where they really ought to have known better than to wait until 2:00 in the afternoon to start searching for that “special something”. Under many arms could be found the telltale elongated triangular packaging of a bouquet of flowers; others carried small parcels hidden under explosions of red ribbons and bows, looks of quiet triumph on their faces. What is it about Valentine’s Day? I suppose it’s nice to set aside one day of the year when Love can be front and center; we have national holidays celebrating foreign monarchs, religious festivities, and long-dead politicians: why not Love? Why not indeed.

So celebrate your love on Valentine’s Day – and every day.

Il est 10h56. Le ciel est tout nuageux; la terre est couvert de la neige ancienne; les couleurs de la nature sont blanc, gris, et brun. Doesn’t sound very optimistic, I’ll give you that. I woke up a short time ago feeling dizzy and somewhat discombobulated – I felt my reality slowly seeping into my consciousness, which was still saturated with my dreams.

Now awake, I have slowly come to feel like myself again. I can see all sorts of messages to analyse in that dream! Mais pour l’instant, j’ai juste envie d’un peu de paix interne, un peu de douceur, un peu d’enjouement, un peu d’insouciance. Et de la neige fraîche.

(Je vous en prie, excusez mon français maladroit, et pardonnez-moi mes erreurs grammaticales; j’apprends, j’essaye… )

I saw the call for submissions on the noticeboard in my junior high. A small literary journal was publishing a special edition featuring teenage poetry. I lied and said I was thirteen, and submitted seven poems; these three, plus two more, were published. I was pleased as punch, but too timid to let anyone know. To this day, only my immediate family knows about it. Well, until now, I suppose!

“Water – ambiguous, amorphous. In so many creation stories, water symbolises a nothingness from which the gods bring forth the tangible. At once bright at pure, it is also a dark force, carving canyons, flooding plains, and swelling into shipwrecking waves. But whether positive or negative, water is the most basic element of life and therefore divine.” from The Art of the Bath, Slavin and Petzke.

I was born and raised on an island. Summer days were spent at the beach with friends, each of us daring the others to wade into the frigid, salty water. Sitting on the docks in the evening, when the sun dips below the horizon, lazily dangling feet into the cool lake. Watching fishing vessels unload their catch at the marina. Having your face sprayed with a fine mist as you speed along the open water in a motorboat. Walking outside in the middle of a downpour. I love water in all its forms.
I remember nearly drowning. It’s a feeling unlike any other. As a child I wasn’t a very strong swimmer. I loved being in the water, yet was terrified of it. I was walking along the edge of a pool, holding on to the wall with my hands. I dared to make my way to the deep end; I felt the ground move away from my feet. I held on to the wall tightly. There were many people about. Someone ran past me and brushed against my hands, still gripping the wall, but I slipped, and felt the wall falling away from my hands. I tried reaching out for it, but in my panic pushed myself even further from the wall. I had inhaled and swallowed large amounts of water. My chest and throat burned. I remember seeing the water level rise up over my eyes. I could feel myself sinking. I was still frantically reaching up, paddling furiously, but the harder I tried to surface, the faster I sank. I remember my feet hitting the bottom of the pool. I told myself not to attempt to breathe, knowing I was surrounded by water, but instinct is hard to shuffle aside. Besides, I was trying to call for help. I remember actually inhaling the water, in huge gulps. It felt as though I was taking in litres with each breath. I turned my head, and saw people at the far end of the pool. All I could see were their legs and hips, dangling, dancing while suspended in the nothingness. I realised nobody could see me, or hear me. I remember looking up towards the surface; it seemed so very far away. I tried walking along the bottom of the pool. I got closer to the dancing legs, but had to stop. I was too tired. Walking on the bottom of the pool felt like wading through molasses. I vaguely remember seeing the dancing legs getting closer, but recall nothing else until I was pool side. Violent coughing. Legs so weak they feel like chewed bubble gum, all flimsy and stringy. Burning eyes, throat, nose, chest. Water pouring out of every nook and cranny of my body. I felt as though I had been run over by a large truck. I do remember finally seeing the kindly face that belonged to the pair of dancing legs that saved my life.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I still adore the water. I admire its versatility, relish its freshness, stand in awe of its power.  It allows us to play with it, harness its energy, clean ourselves with it, and fuel our bodies with it. It is to be revered and respected.