Unintentionally Brief

Twelve hours until I begin retracing my steps back south of the border...a bit nervous, a bit excited, a bit apprehentious about what will come.

The ultimate test of patience and compassion lies not in the outside world but often within one's own family, sometimes under one's own roof.

Hoping against hope that things will go smoothly and we'll all be able to keep our proverbial cool (although, "keep" would imply that it was there to begin with, right?). Wondering what seeing certain people again will mean later on, wondering if it's possible to keep family and social life from colliding, wondering why "I" and "I'm" has been virtually stricken from my speech patterns as of late. I hate haikus and fragmented sentences.

I am no longer a Christian so I no longer pray.
That being said, Buddha give me strength in the days to come. "god" knows I need it.

Feminist vs. Feminazi

Growing up, being raised by feminists, I was brought up with some interesting theories on men. While strong and intelligent women in so many ways, my mother and grandmother are, unfortunately, of the "men are scum" variety of feminists. My grandmother's unhappy marriage and my mother's chronic bad choice in partners didn't exactly leave a good taste in my mouth when it came to the opposite sex. Despite having mostly male friends (Canadian male friends...American males are a whole other breed), the notion of a happy, healthy relationship free of drama and ulterior motives was as foreign to me as women are to Richard Simmons. Men were great as friends (like women, but less drama and more debate!) and "historically," my male friendships have been some of the strongest over the course of my life. However, like the women that raised me, I ultimately regarded them with suspicion and sometimes contempt, and had little faith in their overall humanity. I was always the first to crack the men-bashing jokes amongst girl friends and when something went afoul in a male relationship, the source of the dispute could ultimately be traced back to their masculinity (I felt). While I never considered myself a man-hating woman, I wasn't exactly their biggest supporter.

However, as with all things personal recently, the tides are turning. As I spend more time with my male friends and less with certain company, I find my own previously held prejudices crumbling (and rather quickly, too). It's as if having had the proverbial blindfold lifted. Today I came to a realization: in the words of Henry Mancini (and preferably in the voice of Judy Garland), "we're after the same rainbow's end."

One man in particular has opened my eyes to a completely different side of masculinity. He is truly a man, in every sense of the word, and I continue to be amazed at his strength, his softness, and his lovingkindness. A feminist and a hopeless romantic, he is the sort of man every woman wishes for, but rarely sees, and I've been fortunate enough to have our paths cross in more ways and places than one. Exemplifying the feminist ideal, he has managed to warm even the coldest woman scorned, and through him, I'm beginning to see the whole other gender in an entirely new, more complimentary light. Words cannot even begin to describe the sense of wonder experienced with him and because of him...I am eternally indebted.

According to a certain class of mine, one of the major components of arguing successfully (and, ultimately, enjoying a happy life) is accepting one's own fallibility. Right now, I'm enjoying being proved wrong, by a feminist and a man, over and over again, my old ideas, every day.
Thank you.

When One Door Closes...

There are few things I am ashamed about. As a general rule, I tend to shy away from the concept of making a “mistake.” There are good choices, and the choices you learn from. With every one thing connected in some way to another, it’s hard to judge actions or thoughts by their immediate results without dismissing the idea of interconnectedness altogether, something that, the more I learn about, the more fully I come to understand myself and the world around me.

However, to err is only human, and shame can be, at times, a product of human error mixed with a deadly blow to our ego. A fairly recent and potent source of shame for my Catholic-raised self was the defeated return to my hometown upon graduating. This Port City, while the backdrop of many fond childhood memories and home to many loved ones, represented for me several things, but most importantly failure. To come back dejected, in a sense, “starting from square one” was an unbelievable blow to my teenage ego. The thought of moving on, far and above the muddy roots from which I came, never seemed further, and for the longest time, I tried to keep my own failure secret from some of the people that were closest to me. For a while it worked, and I even managed to convince myself that it was only a temporary setback, that as soon as this, as soon as that, I would be on the next plane West and to a new life.

But now, as I grow older and learn as the days go by, I’ve come to accept this so-called defeat. It is a new life and there is so much in store. I’m not quite ready to throw in the towel just yet, especially just as I’m finding my own place within the fold. This past year has brought so much in the way of experience, love, and friendships, and I find myself constantly surprised at my own good fortune. There is family here. There are deep, lasting friendships here. There may even be a love here. To go running off in search of something better when there is so much already in front of me does not make any sense now. I have hung my proverbial hat in four different places in the past year and a half, and I’m tired. Yes, I may be my mother’s daughter, but where she has spent her whole life running from herself, I will rest and face what it is she’s fleeing from. She may have a past here, but so do I. The difference is, I also have a future here and I’m no longer going to let one control the other, especially when there are so many more doors yet to be opened.

Yes, there are good choices, there are choices you learn from, and there are also choices that bring you to where you need to be. When one door closes, so many others open, and I’m enjoying too much finding out what’s behind each one right now to abandon them in search of another. If someone had asked me two years ago where I would be, who I would know, what I would be doing, I would never have been able to come up with this answer…and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are many wonderful things unfolding here in this cold, curious little city and for now, Montreal can wait. Call it, a simple twist of fate.

Inspiration

I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past… …For a moment, the unearthly stillness of the desert enveloped us.

Then Newman said, “My father once told me a story I always think of, when the going gets rough and things look hopeless. It’s about Destiny….Destiny came down to an island, centuries ago, and summoned three of the inhabitants before him. ‘What would you do,’ asked Destiny, ‘if I told you that tomorrow this island will be completely inundated by an immense tidal wave?’

The first man, who was a cynic, said, ‘Why, I would eat, drink, carouse and make love all night long!’
The second man, who was a mystic, said, ‘I would go to the sacred grove with my loved ones and make sacrifices to the gods and pray without ceasing.’
And the third man, who loved reason, thought for a while, confused and troubled, and said, ‘Why, I would assemble our wisest men and begin at once to study how to live under water.’”

I, too, never forgot that story. When our cause seems doomed and the future lost, when despair becomes unbearable and the heart is on the edge of breaking, let men summon hope and honour and high resolve in yet one more stubborn affirmation: Come, let us assemble our wisest men and begin at once to think, to study, to try to learn – even to learn, if we must, how to live under water…

– excerpt from Leo Rosten’s Captain Newman, M.D.

Cheers, Darlin'...No, Really

I am stunned.

I am shaken.

I am completely taken aback by all of this.

For a moment in time, this aspiring writer was without her words.

…

But I am happy for you, so very, very happy.

I trust that you know what you’re doing. I trust that you are happy, that this makes you happy, and that you will be happy. You have always struggled against the current while at times I could only pretend to, or want to. I have always admired you for that. We are not the people we were once upon a time. Nor are we the people we thought we would be during this time. Do you agree with me that this is a decidedly good thing? I hope so.

We may not always see eye to eye on a lot of things, and I may be at times the unwelcome critic (with your best interests at heart, of course). Well, sometimes you can be my “censor bleep”, whether good or bad, and you may think I overstep my bounds in certain situations, and occasionally, I agree.

But I was my own censor bleep tonight. I realized that you are happy.

I realized that that’s what I would be arguing against. And I can’t do that.

You deserve to be happy more than most anyone I know and when all is said and done, it is not the words that are said that we remember but the actions, the fact that we share in each other’s joys and sorrows and all the stuff in between.

You amaze me. Thank you for letting me share in your joy.


…and as much as I support you, if I have to wear pink, we will have problems…

Don't Change the Colour of Your Hair

The greatest loves of my life, it seems, have always been the mildest, and sometimes the silliest. I love the rustling of changing, dying autumn leaves at night and the way the fog sweeps in over the harbour. I love the feel of cold hardwood floors in an old Victorian in the winter and I love watching the city lights from Fort Howe in September. I love the feel of a new black gel-pen the first time it hits a crisp sheet of paper, the way it glides and paints your thoughts across the page… the last few paragraphs of a really good book, the smell of candles just blown out, my grandparents’ babbling brook, long drives at night… All these things produce some sort of small happiness which, over time, add up to something substantial. To counter the mindset of “bigger and better,” we often hear that happiness lies in the small things, and to some extent, most of us concur. Yes, it’s most likely a truth, but is often dismissed as being a quaint “feel-good” saying meant to content and inspire a counting of one’s small blessings.

But perhaps happiness does not so much rest in the actual “small things” as it does the realization of them, the appreciation of them. The more time I have to think, the more I have come to appreciate that which I have the privilege of being able to think about. I think of my family, of my grandparents and sisters, aunts and uncles, mother (sometimes), and the love they have inspired in me. I reflect on the love and support between my closest friends and understand the role they have played in bringing me to the place where I am now. I sit in silent admiration for professors and mentors, past and present, and come to terms with the debt I owe them… the many people I have observed over the years, without their knowledge, and the things I have learned, the inner dialogues they have sparked. Slowly, I’ve come to see that even the people I spar with have given me a certain strength, and certainly patience, which one can never have too much of. Through long meditation, I’ve managed to come to the tip of the proverbial iceberg of understanding the world around me and the people that coinhabit it…and it’s like turning on a light in what was previously a large black room.

I know it’s always been my nature to revert to trite phrases about the human condition, but I believe wholeheartedly that we encounter and receive exactly what we are able to handle, no more and no less. And while I can honestly say that in the past I’ve been given a bit more to chew on than my respective peers, I’m still working on bettering my understanding of the little things…and the more I understand, the brighter the room gets.

Sometimes the greatest happiness can also be the quietest.

Jeux de Mente...

And so here we are again, back to this. Like devious children starved for attention, we play and we poke at each other’s emotional strings and settle back momentarily to watch the show, only to get up again shortly after the first curtain closes to bring on an encore. We toy because we can. We are insensitive because we in turn feel ourselves to be too sensitive and seek to distance ourselves from this perception, perceived by self and others.

Do you feel good after it is all said and done? Do you feel empowered by the sight of the other’s apparent weakness? Do I in turn do the same? Does he?

Of course, we can never ask these questions of each other. Words like tact and loyalty make it inappropriate. We only let it build momentum, keeping a tight lid on what needs to be said.

What is ultimately achieved here? There are a few backs, methinks, that have been sporting a bit more metal lately.

Wicked, wicked ego…

I Remember December

All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else. – Buddha

As much as I am a champion for the “everything happens for a reason” mindset, there have been times I’ve questioned it like a defiant child questions the existence of their parents’ god(s). Sometimes a breach of “faith” can be caused by something as simple as taking out the trash in the morning and meeting a homeless man going through what’s already there. Other times it can be the result of a nasty clash with a relative or friend that, at the time, seems to eclipse all previous efforts in that relationship. The period of inevitable reflection, naturally, produces varying results, ranging from a short-fused rant of questions in a rarely coherent mix that usually takes on the form of a blog post discarded at the last minute to a full-blown questioning of one’s ideological structure. Once, and only once, has it caused the structure to completely collapse down to the very foundation. However, what was built in its place, though not quite fully finished, is ultimately stronger and more carefully planned out than what was there before.

And while there are doubts to be had and questions to be answered, on the other side of the coin, there are times in life that leave you breathless, leave you speechless, leave you with something that can only be described as a life affirming experience. It is for those moments that we all strive for, for those moments we get up each day and face what we know will be a constant struggle between our multiple selves and the selves of others. It is for those moments that we construct relationships with those around us, in hopes of somehow experiencing that elusive, simple, all-encompassing joy. There is never any guarantee, but still we push and still we strive, because in some small part of the back of our mind, we believe in the balance, the yin-yang, the rules of cause and effect.

I know it is at the core of my being, this mindset. Despite all my constant back and forth and oftentimes defiance at anything and everything that presumes to know more about me than I do, I will always believe.

I know that Action A brought it to Point B, bringing you to point C, leaving me at point D going for E, you thinking about F and so on. I don’t know what I did that spurred this sudden act of kindness, whether it is presumptuous to say it was anything of mine at all, whether I deserve or caused it indirectly. I just know that while I can’t even begin to thank you, I am eternally grateful for the kindness you have shown and continue to show me. You are so many answers to so many questions, so many affirmations and so many emotions. You give and you give and you love and I am overwhelmed with and surrounded by you.

I love you.

When It Rains, It Pours (Into You)

“I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one’s life, change the nature and direction of one’s work, and give final meaning and colour to one’s loves and friendships.”

–Kay Redfield-Jamison, An Unquiet Mind

There is calm in the eye of the storm
Peace amidst the chaos
Balance in the imbalance
And you within me

Do You Boil Your Water?

Lately, I’ve come to envision my mind as water in a pot over a stove, and in a particularly large pot too. While it’s usually pretty calm or even just at a steady, slow bubbling, it has been known to splosh around, hissing and spitting, jumping out of its normal confines only to sizzle and evaporate on the hot stove. Usually the new activity is the result of a slow and steady rising heat, again being brought to a slow but predictable boil. Recently, however, there’s been a hell of a lot activity up there and I know it’s only a matter of time before it overflows onto the hot stove. Whether it will evaporate or simply hiss and spit from the sheer amount of over-spill remains to be seen.

I feel like I’m on the verge of something…major that’s about to happen. I can’t explain it. I have this sense of forboding, of excitement and terror rolled into one already over-crammed brain and there are many moments of complete clarity and just as many moments of complete chaos, mentally. Certain things I’ve been working on as of late require my stability and consistency of thought/effort, but it’s a hard thing to maintain when certain other aspects of one’s life inspires a fight/flight response. I don’t know what is around the corner, have no idea of what is in store, but at the same time there’s a sense of inevitability in so many other aspects. It’s a yin and yang, if you will, of the different compartments of life, but I suspect that they won’t remain balanced for too long.

I’ve never been wrong about these sort of things when it comes to my own lifepath, which is worrisome in itself, but that coupled with my mind’s “water” being at the hottest it’s ever been was responsible for my first major anxiety attack last week. I don’t know what’s going on…there was such calm for so long…

All I can say is that the end-result had better be a hell of a change…and for the better this time.

Phantasmagorically Yours

An explanation:…

Word of the Day for Saturday August 9, 2003

phantasmagoria \fan-taz-muh-GOR-ee-uh\, noun:
1. A shifting series or succession of things seen or imagined, as in a dream.
2. Any constantly changing scene.

. . .all combined to form a picture, like the illusory semblance of a phantasmagoria, almost leaving me in doubt whether that on which I looked were indeed reality, or the mere creation of a distempered brain.– Julia Pardoe, quoted in "Here's the Rub," by David Streitfeld, Washington Post, July 6, 1997

The new writings more and more take the form of apocalypses — that is, of supernatural visions which reveal past, present and future under the guise of a phantasmagoria of symbolic persons and animals, divine and diabolical beings, celestial and infernal phenomena.– Edmund Wilson, The Dead Sea Scrolls: 1947-1969

David Nixon created this version of the fairy tale — a phantasmagoria of grim goblins, dancing cushions, flying fish and magical mirrors — for his former company, BalletMet Columbus, in 1997.– Stephanie Ferguson, "Beauty and the Beast", The Guardian, January 6, 2003

The significant items in the ensuing phantasmagoria soon appear, however — a dry well, a house abandoned because of a series of tragedies, a so-called alley blocked at both ends, the statue of a bird looking sadly unable to fly, and the unidentified wind-up bird that creaks invisibly in a nearby tree.– Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, The Atlantic, November 1997

Phantasmagoria is from French phantasmagorie, from phantasme, "phantasm" (from Greek, from phantazein, "to make visible," from phantos, "visible," from phainein, "to show") + -agorie, perhaps from Greek agora, "assembly."


AND...


mania \ mey-nee-uh, meyn-yuh \, noun
1. An excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire; a craze: a mania for neatness.
2. Psychiatry. A manifestation of bipolar disorder, characterized by profuse and rapidly changing ideas, exaggerated sexuality, gaiety, or irritability, and decreased sleep.
3. Violent abnormal behavior. See Synonyms at insanity.

[Middle English, madness, from Late Latin, from Greek mani.]



Fitting?

An Explanation

--Blog Explanations--


Phantasmanic: A collection of observations, musings, and personal reflections collected for your reading pleasure.

InkForYou: What you see here is a small collection of some of the letters I've written in recent years. They range from those written to friends to family members, to loves and enemies, strangers in the park and political figures, and the topics and tones expressed are similarly diverse (or so I like to think).

It is my goal to be be completely free and unabashed in my relationships with others and with myself by the end of this, and it is my hope that by sharing these letters, not only will the sharing bring me closer to that ideal, but perhaps the readers will also find enjoyment in them and a certain degree of relateability.

While it was originally planned to be an image-only blog, I soon discovered that, once scanned onto my laptop and resized to fit one's screen, my handwriting became not only illegible (as it always is) but grainy, and the words appeared smushed. So, under each image post, I have typed up the contents of the letter for your viewing convenience.

There are no names attached to any of the letters, and any names initially added to help me sort them later have subsequently been blacked out. This is done with the protection of the recipient's privacy in mind (although I'm not sure how much of a concern this really is to some of them). Letters are arranged through tags with certain "feelings" or moods, relationship categories, and each letter has a certain person and their number attached. No, I will not tell you your number, but if you pay close enough attention I'm sure you will be able to figure it out yourself.

The letters are in no particular order, and the posting order by no means denotes any hierarchy of importance or significance. It is, for the most part, random and merely the result of my own getting around to scanning certain ones before others.This project was inspired by the wonderfully quirky and honest letters found on sleeptrip.com