Tuesday, November 16, 2010

"When"... bad days

The morn began with sunlight
But faded quickly as the sand-filled skies
Seeped in past my windows 
And my mind
Quiet and sombre
Like a funeral procession

One fiery tongue was made known
Presenting itself in the waning morning hours
And then another
And even more still
Until the day filled up
With the bitter taste of battery acid
And only 
Escape 
Could soothe the burns remaining
And act as the salve to take the pain away.

When the morning tastes
Like the blade of a scythe
The only release is the death of the day
Found in the starlit darkness of night.

Here I sit in the quiet
When the day has found it's end.

T

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A day

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is the ironic reference/inscription in the famous poem by Wilfred Owen. Sharing a moment of silence with my students who didn't understand the day but could understand the concept was a special experience. However, their connection with November 11th is much different. In the meantime...

Lest we forget.

T

Monday, November 08, 2010

Marks

I'm in a perpetual state of saying hello
And then immediately saying goodbye
Packing boxes and sending them abroad
Stepping foot in new, unfamiliar lands
Taking a photo
Then walking off toward the horizon

I smile, shake hands
And disappear in the distance

I wonder if, in my experiences with others,
If I tread lightly
Barely disturbing the slight film of dust
On the souls of my friends
Or exist as a breeze
Which barely caresses an ear or cheek

I want to leave a real mark
Stamp my initials on their hearts
With an iron brand
Or carve our story upon their flesh
Like a declaration of love
Upon an oak tree

I want the scar I leave to be cherished
And recalled for decades to come
Never to be mourned
Because I want people to know
That in those moments
We lived.

T

Thursday, October 28, 2010

No skies

I walked out into the world today
And noticed that there was no colour
Above my head
No sun, no hint of blue

Just canvas
And a pail of oils at my feet

There was a note alongside 
That little bucket of paints
Telling me
That it was time for me to paint the sky
And colour in everything
That hid behind my eyes

T

Friday, October 22, 2010

Another post of random bits and thoughts

A few of my own...

All things fiction are borne of reality and live as sparks in a man's heart before they find life in ink and parchment, whether presented in the realistic, fantastic, or mythic.

Some believe that mistakes cut deep and they may do their best to avoid them... but this is true only insofar as the chisel cuts deep through stone to reveal the form hiding therein. Should the sculptor avoid swinging his mallet toward the rock?

And a few quotes from Anais Nin:

"The preoccupation of the novelist: how to capture the living moments, was answered by the diary. You write while you are alive. You do not preserve them in alcohol until the moment you are ready to write about them."

"The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a ne
w word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned."

T

Monday, October 18, 2010

Goodnight.

I'm bidding my city a sort of quiet goodnight tonight, watching the rain pour down over the tile and concrete and glass that surrounds me; I battled through what can only be described as a bout of bitter melancholy today. It was only a day, as I hope for better things to come tomorrow. But the sort of angry, nearly metallic taste still lingers as if on my and makes me dread tomorrow's alarm. It came so quickly today, and I know tomorrow won't be much different. But maybe my dreams will be sweet instead of morose, and my head will rise in contentment instead of jaded frustration. Things pile. And collect. And sometimes you can actually feel their weight. Like a foot on your throat. I felt this today. The weight. And it's of my own making. The only solution: to unmake it. Tomorrow, there's a plan. End.

T

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Question-based ramblings...

Just a warning... this is more just an indulgence in streaming the nonsensical things from my brain into print... I haven't thought them through enough to know if they make sense...

***

Why does it feel, so often, like we're examples of mutual exclusion? This one or that one, but never both...

And why does a public expression seem to make for a heretical declaration? 

How can a toe in the water make such a wonderful drowning?

What need have we for buoys when gills line our sides?

And what of sunlight when we can see so well under stars and moonlight?

- T

Monday, October 11, 2010

New looks

Thought I'd try out a new template. I've had the same black background for years now, so I thought it was time for an upgrade. Let me know what you think.

T

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Coming down

A journal entry shortly after returning home from my holiday in Shanghai...

***

I'm sitting inside my stillness with pianos and guitars swimming around my ears. I can taste the silence of winter in the night air and for the first time this year I notice how abruptly the sun has run away from the afternoon. It's that silence of a quiet November walk on the west coast in the air, though this Far East home of mine has barely slipped past the advent of Mid-Autumn Festival. Quiet, solo nights lie ahead. Maybe I'll cram them full of chatter and TV and words, and although I can find comfort inside the company of others, I keep my phone silent and ignore the footsteps which may patter outside my door. Night's here... my night, and it's one of those times where home is here while remaining thousands of miles beyond the horizon.

I've been here countless times before, as if standing at the door of my childhood home. But the sense of what awaits me is much different, both cold and friendly, warm and sombre, all at once. I can't decide what colour it evokes... maybe a blue of the wintry moonlit ocean, or of the impossible purple hue in the late stages of a prairie sunset. Maybe it's the translucent black of a clear, starry, moonless midnight. Whatever it is, it remains immense and, while foreboding, is not wholly unwelcome.

I don't bother standing against it, but curl into the corner of the sofa so it can envelope me. I know I'll wake in the morning, possibly in the rays of the sunrise. All that needs to be done is to wait patiently for the warm rise of the early sun in the eastern sky.

T

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

A very "Invictus" sort of mood for life

I ravage watermelons and mangoes with messy, reckless abandon
and dream of dragonfruit and mangosteens.
I pursue sport and competition as if they were lifeblood
or the nectar of the gods.
I devour novels and poetry as more than mere subsistence
but as if they were the goal of all gluttony.
Robust red wine and seasoned meats and smoked cheeses
are no match for my appetite.
And I run...
I run as if my feet know nothing but constant motion
and without which they fail and wither and abandon me
just as I step out the door.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Split seconds...

... where you make those decisions
that keep you kicking yourself
until the day winds down
and you're stuck there dreaming
about why, oh Georgia, why
and you just ain't missing
the times when you don't have to be
apologizing for your consistent indulgences
in foot-in-mouth disease

Next time just keep your thoughts
to yourself and your own damned cynicism
because you sure aren't makin' any friends
or collecting any bits of karma
strewn aside by those who float on by
on their good luck clouds

Just sleep it off because tomorrow is coming
and you know that by the time you're waking
the world's forgetting and you just need to
keep on going about sticking to your own
business

TM

Sunday, September 05, 2010

Another true thing...

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Confucius

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Backpedaling?

I hesitated posting this a few months back (June-ish), mainly because I worried about the fact that the inspiration for it peruses the site from time to time. To my muse to this ramble, I'm sure you'll figure out who you are, but I hope it isn't one of those things that makes a girl dash for the door. I've said that sometimes my pen takes me places I don't always expect to go. But in the spirit of just hanging it all out there, here 'tis. 

***

I've got a belly full of curry
And a brain chock-full of song
I know that I ain't home quite yet
But man, it won't be long

I'm living inside a dreamworld
Exploring far and wide
Where my feet will take me next
My mind just can't decide

The world is just too lustrous
In all it's wide expanse
I know I had to take two steps back
In order to advance

Now that I'm six steps further 'long
I think I've found my feet
It took some time, took too much time
But in the end, I'm finding me.

Now I'm thinking about beautiful eyes 
Staring at me from the recent past
The tropics, I felt them calling me
And I'm wondering why I ever left

I met her in a whirlwind
And left her just the same
I'm land and sea and borders away
Wonderin' if she'll remember my name

I'll always recall that airport kiss
And the late-night full of song
I'm not sure if I'll see her again 
But maybe it'll happen before too long

And maybe it'll never be
We've got lives to live until then
In the meantime I seek new eyes
New words, new dreams, new hands

There ain't no hand clasped to mine tonight
No breath dancing on my cheek
But I've got myself to keep me company
And memories that remain so easily

I'm not living in those rainy days
But I hope she remembers my name

T

Friday, August 27, 2010

Things you may not know and a world of maybe

For recent stories about my life, check out the China blog (www.dimsumseeker.blogspot.com). For now, this is kinda the final poem from the chapter in my life that became closed at the end of July this summer. One final poem about her...

You used to hold poetry in your words
And in your eyes
Even though you never knew it
Or maybe you did but never shared that awareness
With me

And you also didn't know
That you became my muse
In all the struggles we faced
And in the turmoil I could feel
Living underneath your skin

You were my biggest challenge
And my biggest triumph
And for so many of those early months I considered the fact
That maybe I was reaching beyond my world

 As Icarus, you were my sun
And maybe now I am simply plunging into the ocean
If the tale were true

But I'm starting to understand
That such tales are merely dreams of fiction
And not reality
No matter how much welled up inside me
You were not all there was 
A gleaming star for a time, but not the only star in my skies
And maybe I dreamed you to be something else
When I looked at you
Which led to this inevitable fall
Or maybe I'm just getting caught up
In all my romantic tendencies
As an attempt to immortalize our story

The attempt remains fruitless
As we've proved that we were mortal
We lived. We died.

Maybe we embraced excitement and passion
Before we began to live in a banal world
And the appeal I held for you early on
Melted away as I embraced my inner pragmatist
Maybe you fell out of love with me long before I knew I lost you

I used to consider it my biggest failure
That I could not find and give you 
What you truly sought
I was only able to provide
The things you asked for over the years
Thinking they'd be the balm to soothe
All your anxious unhappiness

Still, I knew that all these things
Wouldn't lead the way to happiness
Or satisfaction
Or simple contentment
But that didn't destroy my hope of maybe

Not at that moment, anyway

Since then there has been calm, then storm, then distance
Before resolute calm again
But the most recent torrents marooned us
On islands endlessly distant
So now we call across oceans in meager attempts
To salve what remains

What still exists in my mind is what I remember before
And it's those memories that I'll cling to 
As a way of salvaging what we were.
You are not what's to come, 
But you'll always be that piece of who I used to be.

T

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Finding solid ground

I spend a lot of time thinking about the most recent 14 chunks hours in my life, as if in these small clumps of motion and emotion, all truth is to be found in one's character.... where it goes right and where it goes wrong and sometimes just about the fact that it goes. These moments are almost always filled with uncertainty or overwhelming triumphs or curiosities or crushing defeats or questions or frustrations or endless attempts to justify and rationalize and normalize and ratify... to condense, to tease out, to pull it all apart and to piece it all back together.

I'm in that very circle right now, replaying and analyzing the confusion of the past day, and I keep coming up with more questions and keep finding myself confused. This is a pretty common result, and it often ends with me being frustrated and uncertain of myself. Often I come to realize later that I completely overthought everything and I can move on, but sometimes it seems so easy to get tangled in the "why" of such periods of overly-paranoid moments (or moments that stretch into hours and days).

I'm being aloof (as I often am) for a number of reasons. Part of it is to protect my self, but also to maintain anonymity for others. But I just hate these moments of confused self-doubt... they throw me into an introspective and sometimes semi-miserable state and it takes me a little while to snap out of the funk. So many things that simply felt strange took place last night, and there were so many things that just didn't seem to conform to what I was expecting that I've been inside my head all day. In two days, I'm sure these things will be far from my mind (or at least more so than now), but for now, my mind is a big tangle of questions and old urges to try to rectify and justify the confusion... but I know where that road ends and it's not a good place. So, here I stand, attempting to find some solid ground for myself... breaking old habits and figuring out if I have control over the confusion of these nights gone by. Until then, my feet keep moving and I keep running to clear my head.

T

Sunday, August 08, 2010

Long days

So, vacationing is a lot more work than I ever expect it to be. It's exhausting and taxing on an emotional sanity level. It's like there's always someone to see or something to do or some form of entertainment that you have to participate in so as to maximize the time. Every moment is filled with people and the off-switch only comes during sleep time, which is typically never long enough. I know I'm the only one to blame, but I am absolutely spent right now. Not even physically... just personally.

I realize that I shouldn't complain, but after 10 days in Vic, 2 in Vancouver, 3 in Kelowna, a week in Lethy followed by another family-filled week in Montana, I'm ready for a nap. A long nap. And maybe my own apartment again. I got pretty used to being social only 2 days a week. Now that I'm on a 4 week stretch of socializing and family time, I'm ready to melt away into nothing. I think I might be a hermit tonight. I have to find a way to save my sanity.

That being said, I've started the countdown to China. I have less than 2 weeks to go before my flight and I still have a bunch of stuff to do. I might just call it quits on a few of the more minor projects, but time will tell. More to come in coming days. For now, food and caffeine call.

T

Monday, July 26, 2010

When the skies are full of sound

The tin chimneys are rattling around 
Like pebbles in buckets on a riverbank
Held by a small boy's hand
And the sky is so full of sound
That you can nearly taste the invisibly bursting seams
As the thunder rips and attempts to tear
The sky limb from orange-hued limb

The rain attempts to wrap itself around
Every minuscule exposed surface
Including the flesh I can't seem to hide 
And the wind refuses to accept a single path
Or assume a single direction
As if chaos is the end in itself

The dogs find their howls suffocated
By the crashing thunder and shaking walls
And candles flit and flicker near windows
As if the mere threat of the storm was enough
To scare them into being extinguished
And regardless...
They're too busy hiding in bathtubs to be heard
As if the rage-filled battles of the cosmos above
Are enough to encourage Earth's holocaust

It's seems so odd that a few miles beyond these clouds
Stars still find a way to shine through clear skies
And the moon can wane through it's July cycle
Just as last night when I could see a man fishing
In it's light.
And that outside this little strip of prairie
Another amazing site is taking place
Even a million sites
As if it's possible that fingertips are being discovered 
For the first time
Or love is being sparked
Or a man is laid to rest

Moments fill our lives in such unique ways
Particularly when the skies are full of sound.

- T

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Ends and beginnings

It's odd how new things can begin before the old things have ended... like new lives that start before the previous ones have ceased. It's like I'm caught in this strange middle ground of anxious apprehension leading up to my trip back to the Valley.

It's been nearly two years since I've stepped foot in the valley where I used to live. After walking away in hopes of being able to return, I've never gone back. I tried, I hoped, I prayed and was miserable about it for a long time. But the "No Entry" sign remained on the door to that former life. I've found new doors and have started to forget what that old home was like. But now that I'm returning to the doorstep, I'm not sure what to expect.

I haven't looked into her eyes in these two years. We've barely spoken. Many of the words that have crossed the abyss of e-land between us have held bitter poison and barbed tips. They were our weapons, as if our only way to stop hurting was to inflict more pain on the other. We fought over things I promised myself never to fight about. In retrospect, it was never about the things... but always about what was never resolved and about all the heartache I felt when she kept telling me, in a roundabout way, that she simply didn't want me anymore.

This is my past. This is me. This scar is bigger although more invisible than the one above my eye that came from my stitches from when I was 5, or the one running across a small piece of my gut as doctors tore out an evil organ from my belly. I think of the "scar" in Lord of the Flies... how it might grow over after a while, but it will always exist somehow. I met a girl who told me that this trial of the past few years is as much me as the books I've read or the family I've loved. But don't we all want to hide our scars? How do we wear them like jewels? Or a headdress? Or a medal of valour?

I've become so happy in my decisions over the past year, but as our meeting looms (to finalize our end), I just don't know what I'm going to feel...relief? Anxiety? Remorse? Jealousy? Hatred? 

Love?

The only thing I hope is that this last year has made me strong... strong enough to deal with whatever will course through my veins on my arrival. After a coffee date with a friend today, I realized how much it has been on my mind... it came out in a spewing remembrance of all that went on and all the wounds that were caused and all the frustration I felt. And until I finished with the ranting purge, I realized I was nearly out of breath, panting, wondering where it all came from.

All that remains is the actual event. I wonder, I dream, and I wait. Let come what may. What will happen, will be. And so.

T

Friday, July 16, 2010

To be

I want to be secret smiles
And longing glances
I want to be intrigue
And question marks
I want to be your curiosity
That may never provide you with any answers
I want to be the topic of raving conversation
And maybe I want to indulge my ego
But not just to make the pain go away
Not anymore

Those injuries have scarred over
And although they'll always remain
They're mere battle wounds from times past
Marks that have strengthened my resolve
To find all the adventure
And mischief
And jaw-dropping experiences
I can handle
In this life that is full of 
Things to come
And things to be

I want to be outrageous 
And get ridiculous
And be just a slight bit shameless
I want to fill a billion eyes
With my happiness
And plant my foot on rocks tiptoeing 
Towards the heavens
I want to have a list 
With bright, red slashes
Through all the things "to do"
And take that same pen
And scribble DONE
In obnoxious block lettering
Across each item

You know...
For impact

So many things remain of what's to be
And I want to be them all.

T

Monday, July 12, 2010

Lag

I've been up since before 5am as my body/brain adjust to the trip across the Pacific. I'm also sans-voice after picking up a bug on either the night bus back to Kunming or one of the many flights I've been  on in the past 10 days. And if you know me at all, you know that my particular personality doesn't do so well without a voice. And now that I'm back home, all I want to do is see people and visit. But I'm mute. So that makes it difficult.

I'm home, but not "home", per se. I'm staying with relatives back on the west coast of Canada, and although the city is just as comforting as ever, I no longer have my own place and will be couch-hopping for the next 6 weeks. I'm also not one who's good at being fussed over. And my relatives? They love to fuss. It's fun and endearing, but I never know how to act... I know they're just looking to take care of me, especially with my cough and lack of functional vocal output. But it's not a role I'm particularly strong in. Regardless, it's nice to be back.

It's strange. The homecoming. Like I'm in between homes and cultures. One of my new friends who I met in Yunnan discussed this on her blog before... the living in between cultures. Now, I know I'm not experiencing the phenomenon to that extent, but I do feel slightly homeless. Staying with relatives, friends, family. But never just on my own. No place that I can own and have to myself (even though I'm at my aunt's place right now and they're at work). It's just not the same. But that's okay... I'm still just happy to be able to see everyone.

This summer is going to be full of car trips and friends and family and (I hope) lots of coffee and beer and running and food. I was awake by about 4:15am yesterday morning (again, the jetlag), so I strapped on my shoes first thing in the morn and popped out for about 40 minutes in the quiet of the sunrise which was just starting to shine over the city. What an amazing feeling. The air was simply delicious (something I've never really noticed before, even if it has been sweet or delightful), and although I feel pretty out of shape, it was amazing to get out there to enjoy the morning. It almost makes me understand while people go out at that ridiculously early hour. The mountains across the water were towering and bright, the streets were silent, and the beach was so peaceful. I saw more deer than people, and even though I was cramping up and struggling at times, it was amazing to get out there.

The end of the time in China was so much fun. Yunnan was unbelievable and met some absolutely unforgettable people. I'm already trying to figure out if I can make it back again next year. I'd love to do more hiking and adventuring through the areas around Tiger Leaping and Shangrila, but time will tell if it happens for next year. Maybe a 3rd year will have to happen. Who knows? I've officially decided that it's pretty exciting that I only know what my life will look like for one more year... the unknown beyond that is just a thrilling collection of potential.

For now, though, I need to get the rest of my Yunnan stories written and maybe add some pictures to the blog. Make sure you touch base with me if you're in western Canada and want to hang. Much love from the democratic side of the Pacific.

T