WHAT WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULD NOT FAIL????

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. What would I do? I think I’d move to Paris. I’d wear floral prints & silk scarves. I would write a novel & learn to sculpt. I’d e-mail the person I miss & who’s been on my mind all week. And I would tell him that I miss him. No expectations, just so he’d know he was missed. I’d make a list of things I want to say to people. Then I’d call each one & tell them. My voice wouldn’t shake or hesitate, I’d just tell the truth.

That’s it you know, the truth, that’s what we’re all really afraid of. It’s definitely what keeps me awake at night. Afraid to speak it, afraid to face it, afraid to live it. What if we were disappointed? Or worse, what if we disappointed others? What if they laughed? What if they thought our pain or our profound truth was funny? What would happen if we leaped, into the unknown, & fell flat on our face?

Truthfully, we’d probably get up & start over. We’d survive, a little battered & maybe a little wiser. But honestly, it most likely wouldn’t be the end of the world. And the thought that it could possibly mean the end of all things, is just slightly conceded.

So , why then don’t we do the things we want to do? Why are we chained down by fear?

Why am I not in a cafe in Paris writing the next great novel?

It’s the leap, not the fall that’s really scaring. But the fool must leap. Or except a half hearted life.

“The Stones Tell The Story”…I think that will be the title of my first novel.

Cactus! That’s what I dream about this time of the year. -33 degrees Celsius, 2 feet of snow during the night & I dream of cactus. Not Christmas trees or mistletoe, succulents.
Christmas is a great time of the year. I love the decorations, the gift wrapping, hunting all day for that perfect something. I really do love it. At least I used. I’m trying to get the old feelings back, I’m trying hard. But too often now I get preoccupied. Now, the end of the year is a struggle for me. I get overcome with memories & emotions that I successfully keep in check the rest of the year. My dreams become chaotic, when I sleep at all. I find the ends of my mouth heavy & I look at my feet a lot. This is the time of the year when I lost the thing I didn’t really know I had. My friend. My only true ally.
My father was not in any way a perfect specimen on which to judge mankind. He was eternally flawed, no one would argue. He complained too much & drank too often. He also invented porcupine kisses & read encyclopedias as if they were novels.
Its been 5 years now without him. And I can still smell him. A mixture of his cologne & apple chewing tobacco. Not exactly Chanel, but when it hits me I am suddenly comforted, no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Odd, I know.

Christmas was never his season, he was a Spring man. That was when he could stop wearing so many layers, when the walk to get to his weekly card game was not a frozen trek & all of the plans he’d been devising all winter for his prized vegetable garden could start to come to fruition. Spring was his season.
Summer had its perks but Spring was were it all began. I’ve always been an Autumn girl. Opposites even in seasons.
Oddly, the thing I miss most are the arguments. I don’t fight with anyone the way I fought with him. There was an abandon there that I’ve found with no one else. I was never afraid of offending or going too far. I trusted that he would never get angry, the argument would never turn personal & when it was over, it was as good as forgotten. No grudges were held or stern silences kept. And they always ended the same way, with a cup of tea.
Sometimes I pretend that it never happened. That I miss him only because he is at home & I am not. I pretend that it is geography that separates us. My fantasy never lasts very long, I always remember. Even so I cherish my brief delusional moments.
The thing that invades my dreams. The thing that makes it impossible for me to sleep at all. Is the not knowing. Other people can tell me. I’ve read the books. I can tell myself. But I will never really know if he knew how much I loved him. I will never really know if he knew how grateful I was to him. Because being the self absorbed person that I can tend to be, I never said ‘thank you’.

Making peace with a ghost is no easy task. And I know I may never find the stillness I seek. But in searching for it I do seem to have found a slightly better understanding of a man I thought I knew. And a deeper appreciation for the people still near me. Anniversaries come every year whether I want them to or not. They never seem to get easier. I don’t know that they ever will. But I got through this one without crawling into a fetal position & ugly crying. That’s progress. It’s not peace. But its something.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there.
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there.
I did not die.

-Mary E. Frye

I’ve been thinking lately about ships. For those of you who know me you know I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the high seas. Love the lifestyle, hate the passengers (most of them anyway). But I’ve been landlocked now for 7 months & I have to admit, though a year ago I didn’t think it possible, I really miss it.

I didn’t leave ships because I hated it. I left because I had a lot of personal burdens, things I needed to face, things I needed time to deal with. And as you know personal time is the one thing you don’t have on a ship. I was so unhappy my last year on ships. But it really wasn’t the job or the lifestyle that was making me miserable (though I may have blamed them at the time), it was the mess I had spinning around in my head. But now that I’ve made a little peace, with myself, the thought of going back just doesn’t seem that crazy. It almost seems right. I’m not saying I will go back, I’m just saying I’m weighing my options. And its nice to have options. So if I do decide to go back don’t think I’ve gone insane or that I must be desperate to get away. If I do go back it’ll be because I want to.

For right now though, I’ve resigned myself to surviving a Canadian winter (-38 degrees Celsius..you’ve got to be kidding me). Why does anyone live here? I know its very pretty but pretty doesn’t keep the icicles off my ass.

Icicles aside, Christmas is fast approaching. And I’m looking forward to celebrating here at home. With snowmen & ginger bread. With family & friends( even if they are not as close as I’d like them to be, it bets being countries apart).

The decision as to what I’ll do when I leave Banff, if I leave Banff, can wait for now. Right now all I want to do is learn to snowboard, go ice skating & sing some carols (in the shower of course, I’m not that cruel).

Was this look ever hot? Really??? You’re shitting me. Because I’m torn. Part of me is thoroughly amused, in that, I must look away but it’s so damn funny, kinda way & another part of me feels like my skin is going to crawl off my skeleton & hide, somewhere far away from this.

What if I told you this picture is like a week old & this guy thinks he’s the shit?

Excuse me I have to go find my skin.

You know sometimes I think about getting older & I get a little blue. It actually makes me sad to think that I will never be a teenager again. That those wonder days are lost to me forever. And then I see a photo like this & I think “Thank Fucking God I am not a teenager any more!” 30! Bring it! Because teenagers are idiots! And you just know that somewhere there’s a father saying, “Now dear, calm down, I know their a little late but its not like their passed out on the side of the road somewhere covered in their own piss & vomit. I’m sure everything is fine.”

www.postsecret.com Awesome idea, I wish I had thought of it. Some of these post cards are funny, others are heartbreaking. But they are all so truthful.
If art is suppose to reveal the human condition, then this site is the Louvre.

We want to laugh more & love often. We want to save money & go shopping. We want to say what we mean & not offend. We want to be honest & stay mysterious. We want to be good but occasionally be naughty.
We want to live a peaceful life and learn to fight with a sword.

We want to be independent & sometimes let you save us. We want to be Gloria Steinem & Honey Ryder.
We want you to understand us but never be predictable. We want to believe in fairy tales while living in the real world.

We don’t want much, just everything.

FIRE AND ICE

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Muhammad Yunus:
He doesn’t have the profile of Bob Geldof or Bono, but this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has an interesting idea & its working.

He is the man of the hour. Honored for his groundbreaking micro-economic strategy. Which he has implemented in his home country of Bangladesh.

Yunus has started a revoutionary new kind of banking that has loaned millions of dollars to the worlds poorest people with no collateral. (Noteworthy: 97% of his banks customers are women) He is confident that he will reduce the poverty rate in Bangladesh by 50% by 2012. He says his strategy is simple & can be implemented anywhere to do away with poverty. He started by simply lending $27 to 42 people, split amongst them, (about .65cents each).

Imagine, from $27 to reducing the poverty of one of the worlds poorest countries by 50%.

Why aren’t more NGOs & governments looking into this? Seems to me, & the Nobel Committee, he might just be on to something.