Remembering

It's hard to imagine, but it's been three years since it happened.

I was in the later stages of my practicum. I was swamped with work and stress while looking forward to the end of my year. I had even started to reconsider my choice of entering this profession (as I've mentioned from time to time). I think it was a Sunday night while I was at home grading papers. My principal called me. I thought this was strange, since he and I had never spoken over the phone. He told me to sit down. That's something that doesn't happen in real life. Or, I guess it does. I heard words like, "unexpected" and "tragedy", but as I sat there frozen in my chair, K just looked at me trying to figure out what was wrong. I'm not one to be at a loss for words. All I could say was, "Oh my god" and, "Thanks for letting me know." Before that, I had never experienced such a profound sense of paralysis.

It didn't really hit me until the next morning when I walked into the school. I saw the faces of a few kids and some hadn't even heard. They looked at me the same way they always looked at me, but they seemed different to me. Something had changed. The realization of their mortality, maybe. Or maybe about the secret, sad lives they lead (suicide was suspected but never confirmed). Or maybe they just seemed more like kids than they ever had before. And they were kids that, even in all my frustration and anger and annoyance at their work ethic or incomplete assignments, were kids that I cared about.

I sat in my office all morning, and couldn't bring myself to go into the hallways. I kept thinking that as long as I didn't have to see anyone, that I would hold myself together. Then Dee, one of my practicum supervisors, came into the office. And I lost it. I couldn't even imagine how I could see the kids after that and not be in pieces. Every time I glanced out my office window into the hallways, I thought about every one of the kids in my classes and in the hallways and that I coached and that I barely knew who still said hi to me in the hallways.

The next few days were a blur or just trying to nod and smile my way through the few classes I had and through the halls and classes of the school.

I have all this on my mind because I recently found out that a student from a Kelowna school was murdered by another student late last week. At first, I didn't know what happened, and since I have two cousins who attend the school, I found myself struggling to breathe and I was panicking. I couldn't imagine if it was one of them. I found out when I was speaking to a teacher-friend who works at the school and who taught the victim last semester... she was pretty upset and was looking for someone to talk to, so I happily obliged. Luckily, she was understanding of my questions and told me who it was and what happened. And although I found a great sense of relief in learning that it wasn't one of my cousins, the sad reality of one child killing another made me mourn the nature of our lives. And my mind flashed back to KL (my former student). And to all of my students now who make me smile and drive me crazy and make me wonder about my place in this profession and in the world.

T

Buoyed

I often wonder about moments and times in our life when we become ready for, well, whatever it is that stands in front of us. Big decisions, personal challenges, life paths... I've watched in the lives of my family, my friends, and as many of you know, myself. I've never been apologetic about the major decisions I've made in my life. They have made me who I've become, and they've all helped mold me into the person whose fingers tap away. I've had moments where the initial sensation of regret creeps into my mind, but with a little bit of time and reflection I come to understand the role of these decisions in my life.

There have been moments (more than I can count, really) when I can't see beyond the tunnel as life pushes me into a place where I can't turn down the opportunity that sits in front of me. I'm sitting in my seaside apartment in a small summer holiday area outlying a peninsular Chinese city as May rolls into June, which explains enough in itself. Not so long ago, I was wrestling with all the misery lingering from losing the one I committed to nearly five years ago. And I can't deny that there aren't still days when I mourn that loss... but I don't regret my decision to leave or to come here. In fact, I couldn't (and still don't) acknowledge that there was another reasonable decision to be made. If I would've tried to wait any longer, I would've given away every remaining piece of me. And I sit here today as the spring clouds roll in over the coastal shores knowing that I've made it through the tunnel.

I'm finding myself reflective because of a man I'm lucky to have as a friend. We were speaking online tonight from across a continent as he makes his way through Europe for a trip with some of his amigos. Over this past year, he's been a phenomenal source of solace and good advice for me. He went through a hard breakup a few years ago and made it out with a new perspective, and passed on what he learned in every way he could to help keep me grounded and positive. And after speaking to him earlier and getting an email from him, I realized that his perspective has changed more in the last year than I could ever imagine. For a long time, he avoided the steps he's now taking... maybe because of fear, or uncertainty, or another phenomenon that made him balk. And the more I think about it, it just seemed like it wasn't his time. And now it is. And I don't think I've ever been so happy for anyone in my life. 

There were a couple of years after high school and after we'd both moved away from home that I wasn't sure that our friendship could weather the years and distance and changing lives. We had started to become extremely different and the conversations that came so naturally in our closer days seemed to be a lot more forced. Our common experiences were slowly fading. Now, though, even though we're leading radically different lives, we're still close. And through him and especially through his decision tonight, I finding my own hopes and wishes becoming real, and it's buoying me in ways I can't even explain. 

The decision he made today will hopefully be one that he'll live to tell his great-grandchildren about. Hell, I'll tell mine if he doesn't. Good on ya, SP. Making memories that'll last a lifetime.

T

A part

I hear words and melody and I think to myself
I want to be a part of the song I hear playing
While I'm looking at all you've created
In this world-non-world
Of perfect images

I see flashes captured and the instances boxed
And I want to be the eyes that stare out
From behind the framed glass
On your wall
Only so as to connect with all those
Passing glances from other's eyes
That seek meaning
In still moments

Maybe you'll find that I'm the sign

That you pass by on the roads ahead
When you're looking for somewhere to turn
Toward a place you can curl up in
And find the calm you seek

Could it be that you may
Let my breath be the breath that causes your skin
To shiver in the summer night's heat
As sweat beads on your neck
And slowly disappears into the linen
On which you breathe and sleep and dream

One day, it may be possible
You'll find my words
Are your words
And your love
Is our love

Maybe one day we'll speak
I'll meet you
Maybe one day

TM

Sharing some songs stuck in my head

For the first time since living in China, the rain is pattering at my window and has been all day. The smell of the water sneaks in my door, seeps through the walls and makes me think about all those quiet, soggy, book-filled days of walking through the coastal streets that I'm excited to get back to... makes me recall all the words I've abandoned through the years, like the rain is a graveyard for discarded thoughts and resentment. Something about the rain takes it all away... maybe the old metaphors and cliches of life made new and the world being refreshed. Whatever the case, I love the comfort I'm in, turning away offers of umbrellas so I can feel the drops on my pate and my brow in the short distance to my apartment. My hometown can keep the snow, but let me have the rain.

I got my mitts on a whole pile of Dave Matthews songs lately, and a few have been inside my mind for days. Others are new tastes that I unexpectedly stumbled upon or songs that I don't think I'll ever get out of my head because of their power/beauty. Click on the titles and enjoy...

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Eh Hee

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Down by the River 

Rusted Root - Send me on My Way

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - Nothing but the Water Part 1

Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum - Let it Be (from the Across the Universe soundtrack)

T

Friday night nonsense

I'm daydreaming, escaping these walls of mine
Mind slipping to silent dreams
Of hands clutching coffee cups under cover of a car's roof
Beside coastal waters as waves crash overhead.
We quietly clasp each other's hands, keeping close and warm,
Listening to the world speak in windswept whispers
And water-flooded shouts where we can feel alone
Yet endlessly and eternally not alone.

I'm recklessly romantic in these mindful rendezvous'
As I ignore fact and embrace these fanciful fictions
Found inside my brain.

TM

Recent, unfinished thoughts

I've always lived inside the philosophy that life (and love) needs to be electric... charged like static sparks between fingers or live wires whipping erratically between telephone poles after being snapped in a storm... unpredictable and alive. I have reflected on my dating habits prior to marriage and know that none of the girls I dated seemed to last more than a few months. They had the fire and the initial spark, but something began to fade after a few months. There was one instance when the electricity didn't fade, but it was snuffed out. 

When I think about moving on in my life, I think about the pursuit of this high I used to know... the charge of passion and electricity that I used to feel... how good and alive it felt, and how I needed it like cocaine. Every ounce of me pursued it, and even when it led me to the self-destructive I still longed for it and craved it and hated it for escaping my grasp. It wasn't simply physical, but something more all-encompassing. It was the pursuit and the pursued, and it eluded me.

********

It's another morning in paradise
Not sure if I'm going to to leave my bed
All this sun streaming in the window
It's doing nothing to change my mind

All I know these days is that these days it's only
The darkness of an empty apartment
Waking up to an empty mailbox
And to the vacant pillow beside my head

Stretch those arms out my way
I'll only wait for a little while
I can't quite reach your fingers
My breath can only last so long

In my mind are memories of crisp, spring nights
Where the night is clear and the stars are out
I'm falling asleep to candle light
With the faint hum of jazz in my ears

Now the laughter I hear is outside the window
Twenty floors down where love lives now
This laughter lives in frameless pictures
That have left the walls of my life behind.

*******

Another bout of restless introspection
Is following me to bed
As if it conspires to create
My newly insomniatic head.

Blue lights buzzing,
Memory fuzzing
Over all the details
That weren't worth remembering

*******

I'm a million words swimming in a stormy head
Not certain of up or down
Or if there's anything particularly interesting 
Any which way or long way 'round

I sometimes like to kid myself 
I'm an anomaly like the rest of the world
I'm an intriguing glance across a room
As everything tightly wound becomes unfurled

I'm overused rhyme schemes
In overused thought streams
I'm a mystery

I'm baffling and inspiring
But more maddening
Than anything
You cast glances, they're loving
While I remain 

TM

Early morning sensory stimulus and a million beginnings

The smell of smoked duck neck is penetrating the air in our English office. The Chinese ESL teachers love this as a morning snack, and I have to admit that I can't bring myself to try it at 9:00am. It doesn't quite go with my sweet muesli/fruit/yogurt/coffee breakfasts or my freshly brushed, pepperminty teeth.

Lately I've been starting a number of different posts, full of lofty poetic ambition and life-fulfilling insight. Only to get a stanza or two into the writing before abandoning the effort in an inability to connect with what I want to say or how I'm feeling. I keep feeling like I can't find any stable ground right now, and every time I settle into some sort of emotional mind-state, something arises to rip that sturdy platform from under me. At school, I'm having my classes changed and rearranged on a daily basis. I'm struggling to sort out exactly what to teach the kids as they have so little time remaining in the semester/year, and I keep trying to figure out what the priorities need to be in order to maximize the effectiveness of my classes. This hasn't exactly been a fruitful venture.

Then, after getting a preliminary teaching schedule for next year from my friends at the high school, I find out that it's turned into the undesirable dog's breakfast of classes... more or less a mix of stuff that no one wants to teach. Now I'm hoping for this state of change to keep going, as the classes have almost zero appeal.

I'm also still reeling from all the anger and frustration felt with the recent splitting up of stuff and the signing of paperwork as K and I attempt to finalize everything. Maybe we'll never be able to forgive each other or get past the recent bitter exchanges, but I just really want that. I'm still also seeking some final closure and feel like I want the chance to really talk about everything, but it seems
impossible right now. And maybe it will remain that way. I don't know. All I know is that I don't want to feel like 9 years are going up in a smoky fire of resentment. But it seems impossible to bridge the gap at this point. I've never been patient when I feel the need to fix/resolve things, and the anxiety relating to making an attempt to just bury our metaphorical hatchet... but it seems like we're both guarding the weapon with our lives, as if by maintaining our grip on the hostility, we're maintaining some sort of dignity. But all it has been doing is destroying that very thing.

The past few weeks haven't been unpleasant... they've just been unsettled. While on vacation last week, I spent some quality time with a few books and I thought a lot about the fact that I'd love to dedicate more time to that. And maybe about going back to school in the not-so-distant future. Who knows. I also keep thinking about starting over again with new people in my life, new women in my life... I've tried to avoid the thoughts but they keep creeping into my mind. Maybe because I just keep thinking about the fact that I haven't really been able to share my life with anyone recently, from vacations to personal triumphs to the regular, daily struggles. And I
can't really burden people over and over with such expectations, especially when they have their own lives to lead.

That's probably the most obvious and real thing I've noticed since K and I separated... all the people in my life that I used to be so close to are now so involved in their lives and communities that I feel like a satellite now. This is due to, in large part, to my own decisions. But it gets a little lonely because of such decisions.

T

Cusps

I've escaped my slightly prison-like accommodations in Daheishi for the week and am enjoying the warm, overcast humidity of Xi'an in central China. It's the May Day holiday week, and I'm off school until Sunday. Currently, I'm sitting in my hostel, watching the local kittens jump and play at my feet as I think about where I'm going to get my next cup of coffee.

My first few days here haven't been particularly exciting... I've been taking it easy and definitely slept in this morning in order to recapture some of the sleep debt that I've built up over previous weeks. Even my first night here, I tossed and turned and reacted to all the noise in the nearby courtyard and only managed to get about 4 or 5 hours of rest. But, with the purchase of ear plugs yesterday (which came with a delightful Winnie-The-Pooh eye mask to keep that pesky light out), I was able to assume a more zombie-like state last night in my small dorm. It also helped that there was only one other person in my room and he's extremely quiet.

So much is awaiting me in coming weeks... there's only another 7 weeks of teaching once I get back to Dalian, and then (hopefully) a 10 day trip to Yunnan before my stressful/busy/fun-filled summer in Canada, then another year of teaching and adventure in China. I'm on the verge of finishing my first year away from Canada while also being close to becoming a legally-single man again. So many things to think about... finding apartments, sorting out who I can see and when I can see them when I return, trying to figure out how I'm going to see everyone, try to find some civil ground between K and I.... just so many things.

The prospect is pretty daunting. Realistically I've been going solo for more than a year now (been away from Kelowna for nearly 2 years), but there's something particularly final about the signing of the paperwork and making it legal. It's been a pretty miserable past few weeks, dealing with embittered emails and a combined inability to understand each other and to let sleeping dogs lie. I think both of us are just frustrated and maybe we're both refusing to see the other's perspective. I don't actually know where the root problem lies, but I'm pretty sure that is stems from the unresolved feelings from the beginning of the separation. But now that we're really going our separate ways, is there any reason to sort it out? I want to say there is, but the realist in me is suspicious.

For now, though, I'm off to make something of my day...

T

Sharing

So, this is unrelated to anything that I typically write, but I thought I'd share.

Glee.

It's funny. And entertaining. And I may have watched all of this season in the past 10 days. And I'm probably going to watch the rest of the episodes as they come out. So. Judge as you wish. Or just share your love. Whatever you want. 

T

The other days

It's early on your side of the world
But it's not like I'm keeping track
Anymore
Not because of you, anyway...

Today's one of those other days
Where I leave you behind and find
Another little way to say goodbye
Another moment where the scissors
Go to work, cutting you away and shaping
What's left of everything that was
Into another cast off memory

This is one of the other days
Where I'm looking elsewhere
To another pair of beautiful eyes
Ones that will find a way to love me
And follow me on another one of my adventures
Hands that'll find me in the darkness
And hold on to make sure I'm not going anywhere
A silent breath beside me to let me know
That there ain't nothing left between us.

This is just another day
Where I'm letting you go again
And again and again
And again.

I've never been ready
But baby, the ready's all in the doing
So I guess tonight says it all
In another little goodbye.
I know this isn't the last one
But one day it will be
Until then
Until then
I guess that says it all
Until then.

In repair...

"I'm in repair...
I'm not together
But I'll get there"

- J. Mayer, "In Repair"

The words in my head, as they stream through metaphors like spring waterfalls through canyons

I'm living in a blue world tonight
But it's not because I'm pining away
These unnatural lights buzzing overhead 
Are causing me to go out of my mind
I need a little warmth
A bit of sunshine
Something that will help me feel
That the world is fine, so fine
I'm scratching lines into the plaster
Covering the concrete wall above my headboard
Because I'm counting down all the days
That lie in front of me before I can find
Just another place to lay my head 
And fill my eyes with something
New... always looking for something shiny
And still glistening in all it's cellophane
The excitement lies in that anticipation
And the hope that lives inside
The crinkle of the plastic before it's torn to reveal
The reality of what lives within
Sometimes it's easy to see that what we pursue
Is not what lies inside the shrink-wrap 
But the idea of the shrink-wrap itself
Something untapped
Undiscovered and untainted by everything 
And anything that could spoil the window dressed
Perfection.

T

The finalizing of my current life (and the creating of the new one)

My recent activities read like a slightly morose checklist...

In the past week, I have:

- Applied for non-residency from Canada
- Filed taxes as a burgeoning non-resident
- Changed the beneficiary on my life insurance
- Made changes to tax assessments from last year
- Decided on the final split of marital assets via email
- Signed the first set of divorce papers

Things I will do in the next week which are FAR less morose:

- Enjoy drinks with friends
- Coach (and judge) students for a regional speech comp
- Catch up on marking
- Rid myself of my hockey hair
- Book hostels for my trip to Xi'an
- Make plans for my adventure to Yunan in July
- Organize my summer trip to see friends back in Janada!
- Check out apartments for life in a much nicer/bigger city
- Contemplate next year's winter holidays (and my big raise)
- Introspectively wonder what life will look like in 2 years time
- Hopefully find time to sleep

As always, I seek balance...

T

Transitions

I know about all that I'm not looking for
I'm still seeking, hoping to find
Everything I wasn't sure about
Remains in the recesses of my mind

I knew you for a moment
Or maybe for a week
You found me when I had just stopped stumbling
But I hadn't learned to speak

Well baby, I'm finding my voice now
I'm figuring a way to shout
The fog is fading, my legs are shaking
And I know I'm nearly out, out, out.

I'm living as a long-distance mystery,
You remain in the shadowed dark
We knew each other for a few short seconds
Before our lives made us depart

It's just the unknown in front of us
Never been a "you and me"
As the path winds on in the distance
I journey on with a memory

T

Easy

I don't know what I expected, or how I got caught up in all of this. I always said that I was never attached to these material things and that I'd never be that guy who needs to take such things with him if/when we had to say goodbye. I guess I'm holding on and I'm fighting back and I'm getting upset because I'm clinging to the possibility of change and of acknowledgement of everything that's gone on within the realm of of dividing up all the things we collected and shared and cherished while we still lived a common life. I'm seeking refuge from the heartbreak and all those old feelings of frustration by expecting that I'd finally have no issues getting what I want or ask for, even if it's simply a bunch of replaceable... stuff. I feel like I've received nothing of what I wanted for a long time, and now, when that possibility seemed to stare me in the face, I'm disappointed again. So I'm saying hurtful things and allowing myself to be openly angry because I mourn the fact that we're at this point.

I'd talked briefly to a good friend about my frustrations, and he asked if I'd been able to rise above it all. The truth is, I haven't been able to. Where I was feeling so much positivity just a few weeks ago with our communications, things have definitely degraded. I feel like I'm giving up. 

I hope this doesn't imply that I have lingering hopes about getting back together or anything like that... I'm satisfied with my decision and I'm excited about the events from the past year and the upcoming potential in my life. But I just thought that we'd finally come to a point where we could forget about it all or at least acknowledge the misery and move past it. But then it happened... the dividing of the possessions began and we went right back into the black hole of disagreement, accusation and words said in frustration and anger. Maybe she's being the bigger person in our communications. And maybe I'm the guilty one who's been the source of the anger. Maybe I should just stop caring. But after having the sense that I've been walked on for the past few years, I can't simply pull myself out of it. I'm in the middle of the muck. Luckily, I think that we're just gonna sign a ridiculous (but sadly necessary) piece of paper saying "This is mine and this is yours and by providing our signatures our lives will no longer intersect". I guess it's time. Just so sad that something like love can devolve so tragically into this. 

Okay... no more of this self-pity party. In other news, I'm running again, I have my job for the fall that I've wanted, I'm going to be able to pay off a big chunk of my loans next year and I've got a world full of adventures ahead. Sometimes I just lose focus of the big picture when I'm wallowing in the rubbish. Brighter days are ahead.

T

In short

It's all music in the background
And papers to be signed
Envelopes lie unsealed
As my will remains resigned
Will the timer on the stove
Remind me what I'm trying to find
Or will the sun streaming in the window
Make me blind, blind, blind

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