Poem after the news

Poem after reading the news

How am I supposed to sleep at night
When the streets are running red 
And the smile upon your face
Does nothing to hide the tears they shed?

When teachers are stabbing children
And students abuse themselves
The parents are staying silent
Until the lie's too hard to sell.

How much will your silence cost you?
Is it more than a sack of coins?
Is it worth more than the innocence
Of your little girl or your boy?

I'm closing all my blinds tonight
Because the shame's too much to bear.
How do we face such a tragic problem
When responsibility has the density of air?

** I just came across this on my computer. I wrote it shortly after moving here and I read about a teacher in central China who stabbed on of her students, and another was being charged with abuse. Also, there was a student who beat a student so bad that she was sent to the hospital... in a middle school. Apparently the teacher-student abuse had happened a number of times at the schools and although complaints were made, the abusive teacher didn't get reprimanded until the abuse made the papers. Such misery and sadness piled on kids all over the world...

T

Life in perspective (if only for moments)

The March night has fallen quiet outside my window. I have a belly full of food, and my weary legs and head leave me with the feeling that I've worked hard today (though my work remains to be done, even at 8pm). My mind has been yanked and pulled in a million different directions. In one moment, I'm stressed about being up to my ears in grade 9 papers. In another, I'm trying to understand why I have yet to hear about my application for the job I applied for. In still another, I'm wondering what kind of active resolution tactic I can try with a student who continues to challenge my patience (and sanity). But all of these things are merely flesh wounds... scrapes and bumps along this sometimes rocky road of teaching and life. They likely won't leave a mark beyond the next few days. "My head is bloody, but unbowed..."

Even I sit here, dreading my pile of marking that awaits my red pen, I can sense the subtle sweetness in my life. I'm healthy, alive, and lucky to be surrounded by wonderful people. I have opportunities that are mere dreams to others. I live a life that is uncertain but brims with possibility.

This all comes out of a story I just read about through my friend Ciboulette. Her friend Steph has been facing some serious life challenges with her young daughter who will likely/definitely be diagnosed with some form of cancer in the next few days. Her daughter is five months old, and cute as a button. She is (along with her family) remaining hopeful and positive in the face of what I can only imagine to be heart-crushing anxiety. Reading this sort of story makes my problems shrink into oblivion, and her strength makes me recall a million different words of hope and optimism, from Dr. Seuss to Emily Dickinson to William Ernest Henley. I can only hope that she finds such words too, along with the support of those around her.

Why is it that the confrontation or experience of fear, pain, sadness and anxiety are the things that can make us feel the most real and make us the most reflective?

A moment living in perspective. Good luck with everything, Steph and Co.

T

Adrenaline junk and a name that lives in the sky

I was having a conversation with my closest friend from high school the other day. We're both in places of transit or uncertainty. He's just received his medical school placement (although a great city, definitely not his first choice), and I was discussing my uncertainty about what my life will look like in 6 months. I joked around about being slightly bipolar, even though I was completely manipulating the surface understanding of the word to make a point. I started thinking out loud and may have come to the conclusion that I pursue intense experiences in whatever form they take. I love spicy food, robust red wine, beer as black as death, rich coffee, intense curries, long hikes, rock climbing, running, challenging novels, music with lyrics that will move me in my emotions, and relationships where my heart will be filled to the point of exploding and broken like fine china on a ceramic floor. I like to wrestle out my thoughts into words on a page and will refuse to back down from an argument that I feel excited about or a topic I am familiar with. I defend ideas that I don't necessarily believe in and sometime the things I myself ridicule. I love the devil's advocate when challenged. I go out of my mind when the students refuse to embrace ideas and when people around me hide under a thin veil of ignorance. SP is the same way, except he's much more of the adventure junkie and seeks the experiences in a much more motivated fashion. When these opportunities arise, I jump on them, but when they're absent, I become sloth-like. It's like I need to be kicked in the solar plexus to act. I only put a small amount of effort into the less intense facets of my life, but when the passion rises up in me I feel that sense of being alive. This could explain a lot of things. Maybe it can help me be more aware and more in control of my laziness. We'll see.

These traits have lived within me for years. When I was in middle/high school, I challenged any ideas that felt incongruent with my own thoughts. I obsessed over rock music lyrics that would speak to me in order to find meaning. I started going on a few websites that had religious discussion forums and spent endless hours attempting to wrap my own hands around my personal faith while crushing all other ideas that did not line up with my ideas about rationality and legitimacy. I filled notebooks with poetry and lyrics and quotes from people I admired or just thought brilliant. I argued with my parents endlessly, particularly my father, for no other reason than I felt like I needed to defend and assert and be myself. I hated the feeling of my "black sheep" status, but I've long since embraced it. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be doing all the things I've done in my life, from Europe to the Left Coast, to today, as I sit in front of my apartment window in rural China as the spring rains finally begin to fall. I'm perfectly content being the weird kid in the family, even if that's begun to fade in my adulthood.

When I was 17, I was a member of my high school's student council, and was chosen to be Pres in my senior year. One of the perks to this title (only voted on amongst the other members... I would've been annihilated if the vote went out among the general student population) was that I was able to attend a bunch of student leadership conferences around southern Alberta. Most were local, but one was for a full week during the summer in Waterton. This still strikes me as a pretty intensely formative experience, and is probably the first legitimate time I fell in love. The girl who became the apple of my eye was from a town about 4 hours north of me, and even though we both had some really intense feelings over the years after not seeing each other for ages, we never dated and never even lived in the same city. She actually moved to my hometown at one point... the same year I moved out to the coast. Fate works in funny ways. We still keep in touch, but after my own marriage and hers (and now with her new little baby), our lives are much different. But we both pursued the same career and maintain a lot of our old, idealistic passions and ideas.

One of her friends from the same town also attended, and we got along famously. To this day, he remains one of the friends I never see but would still trust with absolutely anything and everything.

At this same leadership camp, there were a number of international students attending... some from South America, some from Europe, a few from Japan and a few from the US. One guy, Phillip, was from Slovakia. He was an absolute riot, and made our group laugh endlessly. He coined the term "1cm water" (you'll have to email me for a full explanation) when going creek-crawling up a small stream near our campsite, and was always happy to show off his short-shorts in the sunshine. We were talking one day and I'd mentioned that my father's family was Slovenian, so he asked me about my last name. I told him. A big smile came across his face as he explained to me that my last name in Slovak means "cloud". Since then, I've loved sharing that story. And I love the meanings behind names. My first name has both Irish, Celtic and Welsh roots. The Welsh meaning is "Big Village", but the Celtic/Irish meaning is "Prudent" or "Wise". I can only hope that "wise" is something that I can embrace as days go on. So, if you combine these two it becomes "Wise cloud" or "Prudent Cloud". If it was "Big village cloud", I guess my mom wouldn't be surprised, knowing her references to Badluck Schleprock (check out wikipedia for the entry about this Flintstones character). Is this a self-fulfilling prophecy? I love my communities and moved to the coast to live in the rain. And I've wanted a tattoo meaning "cloud" for quite sometime. Hmmmm...

T

Catalogues

I'm looking for a little inspiration
Is there a catalogue I can peruse?
I'm searching for something a little different
Maybe something with a view.

I've checked out a number of websites
But nothing has fit just right
I haven't quite found the perfect colour
Maybe I'll look again another night.

"Yes, hi there. Customer service?
I'm wondering if you can help me out.
I'm in search of a new-fangled something
That will take away this pout."

"I'm sorry sir, but the item you're looking for
Is freshly out of stock.
You might want to check our competitors
But the poor quality might come as a shock.

"Maybe you can find something
At a local market or store.
Please know that these things are in high demand
And anything in good condition might cost a little more."

"Thanks for your time, I'll keep checking around.
Goodbye," I said as I put down the phone.
I think I'll just check with the neighbours up the road
Maybe if they know of something they'll consider a loan.

In the meantime I'll keep the shades closed tight.
There's no need to broadcast my desperate need.
I'll go knocking when they return from work
Maybe then I'll be able to plant my garden's seeds.

TM

Where to place my feet?

The weather is slowly starting to provide glimpses of spring time. The wind still whistles in through my poorly sealed windows in the night, and I'm still doing everything possible to warm up my hands in our frosty office at the school. But good omens are upon the winds. As I walked down JinmaLu in Kaifaqu today, I heard a rustling in some trees and the cheerful chirping of some birds who were obviously longing to break out of their winter funk. The ice on the BoHai Sea has melted and departed from the beaches and bays around Daheishi. As I walked around Kaifaqu today, I noticed that I had forgotten to wear my long-johns under my jeans (a first, since probably early December), but I wasn't cold or even slightly uncomfortable. Just the other day I was telling people that I felt like Spring was upon us... they told me to get a grip and stick my head out the window to see if this was true. But now, my friends... I'm happy to say I told them so.

I realize that by saying this, I'm likely going to be responsible for causing the biggest spring cold-snap China's ever seen. But, I'm willing to assume that this is all just the power of positive thinking. Perpetually self-critical but outwardly optimistic. I think my running shoes are going to get some quality time on the asphalt in coming weeks.

Living out here has been a strange experience, where I have a foot in two different communities but don't real feel like a part of either. Every Monday to Friday, I assume my position at the front of my classroom and attempt to instill a bit of learning into the minds of my middle school kids. I live on campus, I eat lunch at the cafeteria, and play badminton with some of the students periodically. I go for dinner with some of the teachers, and go running up the highway near the school when the weather permits. But I still don't have a thing on my walls... and I feel like I'm perpetually living in wait. I've kept trying to get positions over at the high school throughout the year, and I had a lot of hope that our school would actually change locations before the end of the school year. Why get settled when you're just going to move soon anyways, right? So even though I live here, it has never quite felt like home.

Then every weekend, I run off to Kaifaqu to spend the weekends with the Seaths. They're the most gracious people on the planet to let me crash on their couch every weekend for 8 or 9 months. That's real friendship. I'm sure they're ready to tell me to get my own place, but they haven't said so yet. I've befriended a tonne of people from the high school, but it often remains in the context of being Darren and Mandy's friend. Not always, but definitely sometimes. And since I have to head back out here every Sunday afternoon and I don't have my own place in Kaifaqu, my flexibility is pretty limited to do and go where I want if I was to have my own plans. I desperately want to be a member of that community, but I am limited in that ability. And even though I am a part of things I feel as though I want to be a more independent part of it. But I can't. It's kinda frustrating. Even though I've hung out with and made plans with people from the high school here and there, they all have their lives and their activities and their events planned out. Fitting me in seems like a big challenge. And maybe since they only ever see me a handful of times a month, it's more work than anything. I keep a foot in that world regardless (I think I'd go bananas out here otherwise), but I still can't really be a full-fledged member. It's like being a constant acquaintance but little more. It's like that way with travelling... you meet someone, you get on really well with them, and then you leave. You may keep in touch for a while, but most times it just fades away. All that effort for a likely reality that you'll never see each other again. Feels that way out here.

And now that I think of it, I'm living in China. So I guess I inhabit three estranged communities.

Now that the Ides of March are upon us and everyone's starting to talk about home. The Seaths are flying out at the start of July as D has his Masters program. A few of the other awesome people I've met here are leaving to move back to Canada after being here for a few years. The returning teachers are swooping down on the soon-to-be-vacated apartments like vultures on a tepid corpse. People are talking about summer plans and where they're going and how they can't wait to be done with the year. And I can't make any plans. I don't know when my last official day of work is, I don't know if I have a job for the fall yet, I don't know if I'll need to look for an apartment in Kaifaqu for September, and I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't get on with the high school. I have some ideas, but the job application anxiety is hitting me hard right now. It's distracting me... making my sleep restless and is making my gut do backflips. But as spring time thaws and I start to stretch my legs and get that little hint of ambition, I try hard to have something to focus on. It's just a world of flux, as per usual.

T

A day set aside

To the women in my life,

For all the passion, intelligence, beauty, understanding and insight you bring into my life, I want to say thank you. You challenge me in a number of ways, whether it's through the demands to be a better friend, better teacher, better mate or better man. Whether you're encouraging me in my personal and professional life, or you're inspiring me to think that all women are just a little bit crazy*, I still thank you for challenging my worldview, my opinions and my suppositions about life. My world is a more beautiful place because of all of you. A quote I saw that I think I should share:

Women really do rule the world.  They just haven't figured it out yet.  When they do, and they will, we're all in big big trouble.  ~"Doctor Leon,"

Happy International Women's Day.

T

* (Something cheeky was necessary.)

A note on transition, and words from December

It's been a long time coming. Two years in the making. I've kept trying to will myself to it... to force it, to make it manifest. But after giving up this attempt to twist it's arm, the letting go is finally taking place. I'm finally at the point where all the memory is being abandoned in the face of my own understanding. So many things mulled, considered, questioned. And finally I know I'm going to be okay.

I know it's over. I hoped and prayed and desperately desired to hold on to the remnants, hoping that something would come from all the pining and praying and wishing. But I find myself looking back, knowing that this new understanding and sense of calm will be carrying me forward in this life that's been waiting on the doorstep for so long. I guess I let it in after it waited on the porch through the cold. Just as the BoHai Sea begins to thaw, so do I.

I wrote the following four poems in December when I was going through a week or two of missing her. I miss her still, but not in a way of longing. Just in a way of wishing that it hadn't been so miserable. I've finally let her go, and I think we finally are letting the past be the past. I don't know why I neglected to publish them... I know part of it was because I thought the poems were rubbish, but I just want to put them out there so they're not lingering in the drafts folder. I guess it's partly cathartic. I know it's time. It's been time for months. But it's finally happening. And I'm so excited about what's to come. The bitterness and anxiety and desperate longing have faded, and now I'm just staring a big, beautiful and uncertain life in the face. People used to attend Shakespeare performances as a method of experiences this catharsis. This is my method. The poems are untitled (as usual). Remember, these were written nearly 3 months ago and definitely reflect the time.

You're packing up your life
And moving across town.
All the remaining memories
You've kept shut up in that extra room
Are going to creep out and haunt you
Even if it's only for a little while.
Everything that I was to you
Everything that still remains
Of me is in that room.
You don't see my reflection
In the portraits on the wall.
Everything we were together
Remains in that closet
In those boxes I left behind.
I carried on naive hopes
Of coming back some day
And making myself at home again.
You probably think I left you and us behind
And now you're leaving what's left of you and I.

That town, it held some promise
Of a life that was to come...
A new start where we'd walk on, you and me.
I remember walking down those streets
Whispering to them, asking them if they'd mind
If we stuck around a while and made a life there.
I guess the answer got lost in the wind
Or the snowy cold
Since it wasn't a town for us
But was a town for you.
Now it's a town I'll never return to.

Maybe you have all the answers
Now that you've shed your guilty conscience
But I don't have that luxury.
The best I hope for is that the sadness
Doesn't sink too far under my skin
And if I hope hard enough
A little hope and excitement will return
For me, and for a new life without you.

____________________________________________________

I said, "It's nice to meet you," after telling her my name
She said, "I can see the lingering sadness behind your eyes."
I asked, "Can I buy you a coffee or dinner sometime?"
She said, "Not until you stop asking why, lord, why."

I told her, "I love the way you smiled back there."
She said, "You're holding on to something you can't leave behind."
I asked, "Are you doing something new with the colour of your hair?"
She replied, "The only thing you need to change is all that's in your mind."

It's high time to walk the new road now
No more faking it along the way
The only thing worth finding is what I know
Even though I won't find you at the end of the day

The signs have all been pointing
To all you haven't said
But in all this constant silence
I found what I knew I'd dread
Goodbye. Goodbye.
There's no way to dance around it all.
Goodbye. Goodbye.
It's time to say goodbye.

______________________________________________

Tonight my reflection in the window
Seems nothing like the man I knew in the past
I'm not sure whose eyes are looking
Back at me

I've been reflecting on all the memories we'll bury
And how I thought it'd last
Now I'm not sure what I'm feeling
As I fall silently asleep

My eyes are adjusting to the darkness
And my skin stopped sensing the cold
Within the shadows I'm not sure what's lurking
Other than a little misery.

This is everything I've been coming to
My memory is shed, and everything is new
The only thing left is everything I want to do
And everything I leave behind is all I did for you.

_______________________________________________

I left the door open after I got home tonight
I'm leaving it that way until midnight
Maybe you'll catch a cab
Or walk by sometime around eleven
Then we'll talk until the sun rises
Like friends who used to know each other

I left the door open again all week
It'll probably stay that way until Friday
Just in case you can catch a flight
Or find the the train into town and stop by
For a few minutes
Or for the rest of your life.
Maybe we can catch a movie and talk about
The way it all seems to work out in the end

I've been keeping the door ajar all year
Just enough to let you know you can still come in
But the house is getting cold and all the plants are dying
I've got blankets piled up around me
But the position of the door ain't changing
Is there chance you'll be here by the new year?
I've got a little more wood to burn but soon
It'll all be frozen.

The door isn't closing, but this time I ain't to blame
I can't take responsibility for leaving it open
I've been stuck in the same position
For a whole year now, never leaving
My place on the chair beside the empty, ash-laden fireplace
I'm not moving anywhere anymore

I guess there's no sense in talking to the bones
They're not going anywhere
I don't feel the cold anymore like I used to
But then again, there's so much I got used to.
The draught from the door does little more
Than to rustle the dust beneath my feet.

I spring awake as I hear the door click shut
Was it blown closed by the spring air
Beyond the windows?
I'm hearing footsteps steadily approaching
I'm wondering who that could be
But soon I realize it's the sound of my own feet
And it wasn't the wind but my hands upon the door
That made the latch click shut
I have my keys in hand and am walking toward the car
No longer on the inside of all the waiting
I'll be gone a while, and I'll be travelling far.

T