A Palimpsest of Soul and Skin

Once again I am ruminating about the sense of belonging. It seems to me that I've spent a great deal of my life trying to really feel convinced that I belong. But what does that mean, really? As far as I can recall, it had to do with identifying with a group of people, and interacting with those people in a recognizable place. As someone who moved a lot, and as someone whose biological father was not present for the first 17 years, a sense of belonging was not something I had a firm grasp on. That's not to say I didn't ever feel that I belonged; it's just that it was enough of an issue to cause me some definite pain. Did I belong in Toronto with my mother's side of the family? Or out west, near my uncle and cousins and, eventually, my father and sisters? What about my friends? How did I carve out the substance of my identity? All of these questions (and more) generally went unanswered with any lasting measure of satisfaction. I thought I could find that sens...

Fragile moments of temporary vulnerability, parting like curtains in a dark room. On the bus ride home after work today, packed in tight with other droopy bodies, a gangly, pale, red-eyed man got on with his companion, a woman so thin and pale that she was not much more than a whisper. "We don't have any bus fare; she just got out of the hospital and we had to get medication" he said to the driver in a plain-spoken but steady voice. No entitlement or arrogance, but definitely a tone that expressed that he was dealing with troubles far greater than regular conventions could even touch. The bus driver had him pass through quietly, and the pair unsteadily made their way together and sat right across from me. She was thin like a bird, and I could see on her wrist that she still had her hospital identification and a Medic Alert bracelet. She was so thin that I have no idea how she was even standing, let alone out in public on a crowded bus. The woman leaned against the gangl...

I went back to the gym this morning after about a 9 week slump. I've already been through the entire self-hatred cycle about that so I'm not going to even bother picking that apart in this entry. Need to look forward, only forward. I will say, however, that I see a fine line between finding momentum and getting frantic about exercise, and I was getting a bit frantic, methinks. Whatever the reasons (over-ambition, self-defeating patterns, perfectionism, simple laziness), I stopped exercising, and man , did I feel it. Anxiety and inertia crept in like mold and I started to feel immobilized and raw. Sometimes it takes my anxiety and depression to grow intrusive enough to make my skin actually hurt before I listen to it. When it gets like that, my thoughts ring loudly in my head like bad electric guitar feedback, distorting my perceptions and taking up way too much bandwidth. I can't concentrate. I feel  hollow. It takes me to darker places, and with the summer just around ...

In the last two months (since December 7) I've been going to the local YMCA and working on the Couch to 5K program. I fell off the exercise wagon for two and a half weeks in January shortly after my father died because I fell into a slump, but about a week ago I felt really compelled to get back to my program again. The rush of endorphins after a good thirty minutes is the medicine I need to keep from going into a depressive episode or get overtaken by anxiety. Even at the best of times, I need to fight hard to stave those chemicals off. Earlier this week I was rather unfocused on the treadmill. Either my music was all wrong, or it just felt so boring to run on the machine .  This morning I realized that it's getting light enough in time for me to run outdoors, so I ended up running (slowly, of course, it's still pretty new for me) down to Dallas Road from Quadra and Fort. I felt like I really needed to see the ocean today. It was still frosty and a bit dewy in the ear...

I go through phases where I feel positively ravenous for more learning, more creativity, and more activity than time and energy seems to allow. Then I become immobilized and overwhelmed, because I have perfectionist tendencies that end up defeating me before I begin. I often just give up before I've started.  At other times, I will start with a bang, only to fizzle out. I'm  still  beating myself up for what I call "my Garden of Shame”. 1  Now, to be fair, we'd only  just  moved into a new rental house in February of this year, so starting a new garden (as an absolute beginner) was quite ambitious. Additionally, we were decompressing from a cross-country move a few months previously, as well as reeling from Warren's unexpected unemployment, not to mention acrimonious court shenanigans over the Christmas holidays involving my ex-husband and his impulsive and ill-advised plans to relocate  both  of my kids from Qualicum Beach to Fort McMurray w...

19 Sept 11 A fresh cake of soap In a newly-scrubbed shower On Monday morning.

The Earth is drowsy And the sun's light has shifted To Fall's wistful slant.

Tears in the morning Makes for an exhausting day, But this too shall pass.

I've big plans for labouring around the house today. I've been terribly negligent about housekeeping this summer. Warren's new freelance status and Daniel's return to school is inspiring that autumnal nesting instinct, however. Still working through Writing the Natural Way , but finding it a bit strenuous (in a positive way). I'm still going with my Haiku a day for September: 04 Sept 11 Dredged-up sediment In my mind's deeper waters Ruined a good night's sleep. 05 Sept 11 French toast and coffee Being made by my husband Brightens the morning.

Seems I've begun a new habit without consciously meaning to: 01Sept11 First of September  and there's a hint of color blushing in the leaves 02Sept11 In one squished accord Claustrophobic commuters Endure one more day. 03Sept11 Spider's silken web Placed softly on pine needles Gleams with morning's light.

It's the day before a full moon, and I find myself rather feeling a bit introspective and somewhat restless. Also, for the last two weeks, I've been experiencing repeated moments of synchronicity, too mundane to relate, but significant to me in their precision. Today, I received an email from a new friend, with whom I had occasion to share the following excerpt (from Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale ). She told me that only an hour before speaking with me yesterday, someone that she'd just met had encouraged her to read this very same book. Her enthusiasm about this synchronicity was a tremendous encouragement to me this morning. I am pleased that, despite my relative distraction and introspection about my upcoming wedding, I am inexplicably plugged-in on some other level. Comforting. The following words were shared with me a number of years ago while I was in a tempestuous relationship that ended up completely falling apart...and quite contentiously, at that. It n...

Obligatory blog entry. Since my last post, I secured a position with a local magazine that was, well, a mutually poor fit. It afforded me some local credibility and publishing experience and a segueway into a much more suitable position in the self-publishing industry. Warren, too, found a job as a writer/editor/researcher with an SEO company and is getting some valuable training. Between the two of us, we're building some marketable skills that are going to be the vehicle for becoming self-employed (ideally), which is something we've been talking about for a few years. Yes, we are so sickeningly into one another that we can't stand being apart for ten hours a day. 4.5 years of being together and we still exchange easily 20 emails a day. Anyways, since my last post (as I said earlier), we've found work and moved into a new abode, a nice, solid little house with a huge deck and backyard near the water. Daniel has moved in with us, and Leah has relocated to Alberta with...

...and as usual, Life is what's happening while we've made other plans. Warren's transfer died on the vine a few days after we arrived here, and I'm still trying to break into the job market here in Victoria. I've done some networking, provided a little bit of design work on a freelance basis, and knocked on hundreds of doors. So, we're here, we're on Vancouver Island, but it seems like there's some...resistance. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I don't want to overlook what it is that's inside me that's holding me back. Doubt has always led me astray. I don't doubt that moving to BC was the best thing to do, and that it was done at the right time. My heart and my gut tell me so. Seeing my kids in the last little bit confirmed that. Being in Montréal while they live in Qualicum was just tearing me apart. Knowing that I'm closer to them now (if even a 2 and a half hour drive away) has knit something together inside of me th...

Two days left until we fly out to B.C. Last night, the movers finally came and took everything that we can't take on the plane. Now we're camping out and will be sleeping on an air mattress for...well, indefinitely. Spartan lifestyle. I like the idea of the minimalism of it, so here's hoping that won't get old too fast. Life flies by way too quickly. I remember walking through the rooms of this apartment before we moved in. I so wanted the kids to be here and I didn't know how that was going to happen. I wanted to build a life with Warren and I was waiting for him to propose. Now, just over three years later, the kids have come and gone back to B.C., Warren and I have been engaged for over two years now, I've lost a job and gained an education, lost a loved one, learned and lived and bickered and laughed and cried, all within these walls and over these creaky floors. We've put out furniture and odds and ends that we were getting rid of out on the street,...

...though I am almost overwhelmed with how much there is to update about. I've been far too busy to blog. Leah and Daniel moved back to BC with their dad. I continued on with school and just graduated a couple of weeks ago, so it seemed a perfect combination of events to relocate closer to where my kids are. Too much distance between Vancouver Island and Montréal for me to feel at ease with. I was spending way too much emotional and psychic energy shoring up against that awful, gaping emptiness that comes with my kids being on the other side of the country. And really, I accomplished what I needed to accomplish by moving here—though, truth be told, the way the world looked when I first made the decision to come here looks almost completely different than what the world looks like now. I was in a different relationship and a different headspace. Looking back at this time four years ago, I know that I was, in all seriousness, functioning with something of a walking nervous breakd...

After a lovely long weekend with Warren (thoughtful gifts, a surprise bed and breakfast trip, a little surprise celebration at my sisters' apartment) I am 40 years old today. I thought I would/should have something incredibly witty, insightful and profound to say about this milestone. In fact, I had very much planned to. I'm sure that I planned my profound Turning Forty journal/blog entry all year long, as a matter of fact. But I do not have those things to say. At all. Curious. For as long as I can recall, I've used occasions like birthdays, Christmas/Solstice and the New Year as starting points for all these fabulous changes and improvements. I've spent most of my life trying to arrive at some elusive point of perfection, where I would be perfectly loved by all, entirely clear and focused and successful (having done everything I have ever said that I wanted to do by the time I was 40, of course). I expected that turning 40 meant that I was going to come i...

I've been reading (in fits and starts) Carl Honoré's In Praise of Slow (when I get the chance, and, er, yes, I know how ironic that is). I'm still quite early in the book, but it's quite readable and it's stoking a fire in my belly. The chapter I'm in right now is about the Slow Food Movement , and how timely it is. I've struggled for years with eating for convenience or compulsion, and increasingly I've realized (when I have lucid moments) how little I'm actually enjoying food. How little thought I put into what I'm snarfing. How terribly rushed it all is. Since moving to Montréal almost three years ago, I've been exposed to a somewhat different approach to gastronomy than I ever experienced in Toronto or anywhere I lived in British Columbia. There's a definite sense of discernment and a pride in the quality of good food and wine—which is absolutely necessary in a city that has such an abundance of restaurants. Happily, we live wit...

I've been having an especially hard time with anxiety over the last number of months. With the impending glorious entry into my Forties (6 weeks from now? Already?) I'm determined not let that demon creep into what I consider to be power years and hang around like a bad smell (I'm not talking about normal fears and worries that all of us deal with. I'm talking about debilitating anxiety that interferes with work, school, relationships and health). (Fear is the mind-killer... ) The things that scare me the most (illness, loss, kids coming to harm, planet implosion, the evil that humans do, etc.) simply will not be staved off with a glib statement of "oh, that probably won't happen me/someone I love". Maybe it will, or maybe it won't. Maybe whether or not it happens is besides the point. Either way, there's something really counterproductive about thinking obsessively on the Maybe. Daily. Repetitively. Intrusively. The only worthwhile answer I ca...

1. I passed my second exam! 2. I registered for my course! On March 25, 2009, I begin a course, 1.5 years in length, that, once completed, will earn me a college certificate in Graphic Design! I'm very, very excited. Because I have had to jump through numerous hoops (due to being on E.I.), I'm left somewhat frayed at the edges. I have one more meeting with the government agent to get the final stamp of approval for the funding, but I was reassured today by the counselor at the school that all would be well - this, she said, is due process for all students on E.I. She telephoned my agent just to be sure that all was in order, so, now that I am passed and registered and paid for, I think, I think, I think I should be able to exhale and actually allow myself to be unreservedly excited about this! Now, for the upcoming weeks: lots of yoga and walks, journalling and reading, a spring cleaning all the way around, and plenty of healing and restorative time with myself. I really fee...

For the last few weeks I've been preparing for the two entry exams for the Graphic Design course that I've been wanting to get into full-time. Between learning completely new material and juggling other demands of the administrative, official and teenagerly sort, I've been increasingly...distracted. I don't know about anyone else but it seems to me that staying centered doesn't come naturally to me. Perhaps it is true, as so many in my life have observed, that I am way too hard on myself. I tend to think that I am not being hard enough . There are things that I want to accomplish and I keep thinking that if I just kick my own ass harder that I'll get those things done. This ends up being counter-productive as I simply end up slapping myself around in ways that I would never, ever think to do to anyone else. Without realizing it, I've slid bit by bit into a mild winter depression. Being unemployed for the last five months while feeling somewhat trapped ...