when i was just barely able to walk across the carpeted surface of our living room at the front of the trailer, there was a song that i used to listen to over and over again. i would sit cross legged my ear pressed up against the softness of the speaker on the wooden stereo that housed the turntable, the record spinning around and around as tears flowed from my eyes. i stole the record out of my parent’s basement years ago for reasons i still don’t think i completely understand. even now as i write this and listen to the song, tears are rolling down my cheeks.

at three, i had no real comprehension of what death was and yet, i felt it with every ounce of my tiny little body when i listened to this song as though i somehow knew little jeannie. i think i always knew that i was destined to feel the grip of loss tighten around the light in my eyes. i would beg my parents to play it over and over again as i felt the pain deep in my chest, the pain that death brings to those left behind.

i don’t fear my own death. its a weird thing to say and yet as i wrote it, i felt the conviction of truth in that statement. i don’t fear my own death. but. i still fear death in what it brings, the loss, the pain, the absoluteness of it all. i have sat in the room with death and seen the faces of loved ones as they readied themselves. i have viewed the peaceful expression on their faces after they were gone. i have held death in my arms and felt it enter me in the briefest and yet most beautiful warmth i have yet to experience. the darkness is filled with light and yet there is no light at all. its a contradiction i can live with.

live. life. light. dying. death. dark.

these are our destiny, these are our absolutes, the things we have no control over. life and death. and yet within those absolutes, we have so much incredible choice in how we react to the light, how we embrace the dark, how we choose to see and live and cry and laugh and sit in stillness and move in pain.

i have been reading, the long quiet highway, by natalie goldberg. i first discovered natalie’s writing back in university in a creative writing class and i fell deeply in love with her view of writing, with the way she remembers and the way she honors the written word and creates space for it.

and i realized that i have been forever attempting to marry the light and the dark in my creative work, in my photgraphy and in my writing. as i observe this, i realize that i am likely stating the obvious but sometimes the obvious is hard to see when it is right in front of you because the fantastical is so much more interesting.

i don’t think it is so much that i am trying to find myself because i was myself at three, tears rolling down my cheeks, heart pressed up against the skin of me. i think i am just learning and learning and learning again, to be me again. in the light and in the dark.

“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” (morrie schwartz)

even here i find myself
whimsical happy in love
only to turn my head towards the other
reflection
and it all comes back, pressure burnt into my head
wondering where freedom lies
in the drain of needing this and that
an obligation to myself

sometimes i think that life would be so much easier if i didn’t ache so deeply inside, the ache to create, the ache to search for my truth, to lose myself in the art of beauty lashed across my eyelids. have i mentioned here how overwhelmed i have been feeling lately, the simpliest things wearing me thin, toast crunched with a layer of thinly spread marmalade, fragile and easily broken apart. taking a vacation, feeling the fresh lush scent of moist air surrounded by love has helped to sooth my soul but then i linger too long in my thoughts and it all comes crashing back.

i am here
now
and i need to find the peace inside my heart that holds the truth
of how i go forward
with this beautiful life of mine.

i have found more inspiration than i thought possible and conversations have revealed truths i needed to hear. the universe gives us what we need and now i have to find the energy and bravery to move ahead … in finding the peace inside my heart that holds the truth, the truth of me.

in the stretch of a tree branch
i see how it works
spreading itself thin
with deep grounded roots

and i feel love
for that truth
that sits in the heart
bearing witness
to life.

word

i have finally settled on a word in which i want to focus on for 2009, a word that i hope will help define this year for me.  this wasn’t an easy task for me this year because there were a few words, some of them seemingly contradictory that i was focused on but i realized that ‘elegance’ really encompassed the qualities that i am looking for in my life right now.

elegance

as defined by wikipedia, “Elegance is the attribute of being unusually effective and simple. It is frequently used as a standard of tastefulness, particularly in the areas of visual design and decoration. Elegant things exhibit refined grace and dignified propriety.

Visual stimuli are frequently considered elegant if a small number of colors and stimuli are used, emphasizing the remainder.””

I especially like “unusually effective and simple” as this is really how I want to live during this year. There is a lot I want to do and I am learning that if I just breathe and go with it, seemingly magically, I can accomplish a whole lot more than I ever dreamed possible. If I am calm and living in that moment of grace and ease, I find myself happy and content while still managing to do a whole lot with my creativity, my job, my family, my friends, my life. I like it. We have been cleaning out our house, getting rid of all the stuff that accumulates in clutter and making room for all the living we are doing these days. I am enjoying creating space and simplicity and letting the art and lines reveal themselves. Elegance.

weekend highlights

*i attended a funeral and there was a quote that spoke to my heart, if you allow yourself to grieve you learn how to live. so much truth in that statement and so grateful that i have found myself to this other side, this side of the living.

*i art journaled and enjoyed playing with colour and finding my sketching hand again and have decided that i will scan the pages in and share them here once a week so if you are interested in my journal art mess than look for them on wednesday evening.

*the kickass quinney stroller, car seat and bassinet that have been sitting empty in unopened boxes in our basement left the house on saturday evening. i thought it would be a relief to pass them on to my brother and and sister-in-law, a symbol of hope for new life rather than dusty loss but instead it felt sad and hollow somehow. and then the universe revealed her elegance to me as the phone rang. friends of ours invited us over for a last minute dinner and we spent the evening talking and laughing and eating and drinking wine and it was just what we needed as these particular friends have a beautiful 3 year old girl and have also experienced the loss of a baby so we were free to talk about it in a way that we needed. thank you universe for giving me what i need when i need it.

*planning the bathroom remodel. our shower broke at the end of November. we’ve been showering in an ancient scary shower in the basement. yeah. we are putting in a fancy new shower downstairs which makes me happy and then we are beginning the remodel of our upstairs bathroom. it kind of snowballed. in order to fix the shower, we have to cut the tiles and plaster which could very well lead to a plaster wall disintegrating mess. which means we will have to remove all the tiles in the bathroom and if we end up putting up new walls and tile then we might as well replace the very shallow tub with the clawfoot that we really want. the toilet is a disaster so that needs replaced and we might as well do the sink as well. i am happy to get the awful lino out of there and put in the vintage looking tile that we’ve been drooling over. so. yeah. it should be an interesting few months of remodeling. but at the end of it all, i will have an idyllic elegant, functional bathroom.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true” (lyman frank baum)

a brief interlude because while the quiet has been good, sometimes i like words. photos i missed taking this month include,

*the ice foggy world of cold white dance that sits gently outside my window at work reminding me to bundle up before i leave the warm flourescent heat of my cube

*a brilliant orange and pink sunrise viewed over the river as the sky lit up and tears sprang to my eyes

*the laughter of friends, so many different smiles in so many different places as our social calender has remained jam packed full and i often wonder if i am coming, going or being flipped upside down. i am not complaining because it continues to be more fun than i’ve had in many many christmases.

*the relentless darkness as we approach the shortest day. i wait for the bus, my breathe puffing out in ice crystals hovering in the air like a punctuation mark of a thought i missed. the darkness swirls as headlights and streetlamps spill a false sunlight down on the swirling snow. i watch the sun curl colour across the sky as i sit in the warmth of my cubicle and for a brief time, slung low in the sky she quickly moves beams across the clicking of my fingered thought. then i watch as the afternoon sky darkens and headlights reveal the exhaust of a cold commute home stars twinkling sparkles of snow at my crunching feet.

*i notice that in the midst of all the happiness, the laughter, the talking and chattering, chirping of my bird like voice there is something else. a touch of blue perhaps. a sadness that i can’t quite acknowledge. it hovers there like a question mark and i feel lonely surrounded by the love of the living and a part of me sits in sadness missing the laughter of the dead.

*twinkle lights dancing dreams across a snow filled backdrop of poetic trees naked in their vulnerable hope and i see myself.

edited to add: i am completely blown away by the amount of ‘december views’ participants. i am hoping that i can come and visit everyone when my life slows down a bit because what i have seen has been beautiful. i love community and am so thrilled to have opened a little door for some of that connection out there. i am so thankful for all of you, i just wanted you to know that!!

“I don’t have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They’re upstairs in my socks.” (groucho marx)

did you ever imagine yourself surrounded by socks and beautiful giggling girls, throw in some leg warmers, some arm warmers and some dreamy tutus. uh huh. more fun than i ever imagined as i piled my basket high with socks of all sorts. i have socks and that go up to my thighs, socks that colour my legs with warmth, socks that make me smile at the memory of us laughing through sock dreams. i have this incredibly vivid memory of liz and i on the floor of jen’s living room trying on our piled high bundle of socks and she pulled on this beautiful black sexy pair that made me gasp. i commented how i wish i had bought them and she giggled and pulled out both a black and a purple pair out of my pile of socks revealing that in my infinite sock wisdom, i had bought not only one but two pairs.

it was only when i got home and emptied out my suitcases that i fully comprehended how many socks, tights, leg and arm warmers that i had purchased. my boys think i am a little bit crazy i think but honestly, every morning i pull out a beautiful new pair and i smile knowing that not only will i keep my legs warm from the winter chill but i also get to walk around every day with the memory of us four crazy girls having far too much fun in a sock store.

“socks come in so many wonderful shapes and colours and you don’t really think about it until you find those ones that fit so well, that are comfortable and beautiful, that warm you and make you realize that you too are beautiful.” (me)

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” (paul eldridge)

sometimes i lose myself in other people’s realities, its easy to do. i can find myself in the pages of a book, in the words of emotion, in the dream of a character. i can lose myself in the texture of a movie, in the snapshot of a well placed crooked grin, in the opinions of you.

i remember washing dishes, ten year old fingers flicking at the bubbles and wondering if i only lived in my imagination, trapped inside an imaginative vision of a world i created, the crazy thoughts of someone who could get lost in the rainbow colour of a sunlit bubble. aren’t we all a bit narcissistic or is that just me?

today, i noticed that the elevators on my floor had been painted a smoky charcoal gray black, our lobby is being renovated. i mentioned to others and they said, ‘really?’ … no-one i talked to even noticed until i pointed it out and i realized that i notice things all the time that get missed by others. i get lost in the way a sunbeam hits a streetlight, a paint chipped green pecked away by a pigeon with a damaged leg. my world is unique to me, to the way i see, the way i notice and that is a pretty cool reality.

i just finished watching control and joy division love aside, every frame is this incredible photograph and it has me itching to pull out one of my film cameras and shoot black and white for a while. i had forgotten how much i really love the photography of anton corbijin. i can get lost in the way he captures reality.

i have decided that i am going to participate in nablopomo in november for no other reason than i have been doing it for years now and i always find it challenging and somewhat inspiring. maybe i can get lost in my own reality for a while.

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” (george eliot)

good-bye beautiful september full of light and strangely bountiful bloom. interestingly enough, during september, some of the flowers in my garden decided to throw convention to the wind and gave themselves a party, blooming brightly as though it were spring suddenly. it was like a reminder to me that it doesn’t really matter what stage of life you are in, you can bloom any old time you wish and so i shall and so should you, and you and you. it is never too late to discover the brightly coloured joy that starts off as tiny seeds in our consciousness and to throw caution out the window and start showing our soft velvet petal dreams one by one in an explosion of joyous beauty.

i have always been a late bloomer and am absolutely delighted to see that my garden has decided to celebrate that fact with me. mother earth totally rocks my world and the universe be a pretty magical place. i love that.

A secret. October is a magical month for me and I am excited as it enters because beautiful things happen in October, oh so many beautiful things.

“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” (henry miller)

… a car screeches, honking squeal of tires skid across an intersection, black angry marks left behind as shoes tap a quick rhythm down a busy sidewalk jarring music of a cell phone bleeps and coffee sloshes over the rim as the pace quickens, faster, more, now, yesterday, today … breathe … a bird’s song washes over the wind’s soft siren call, soft whispers of quiet sunbeams cushion tiny puffs of feather light fuzz, in the moment, lingering thoughts vanish in the sound of a gentle breath in and out …

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape — the loneliness of it — the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it — the whole story doesn’t show. (andrew wyeth)

today is the first day of autumn and the rain falls wet on leaves gold lining the streets, dark streets slick with the cold low hung clouds grey flannel blanket wrapped around my weary bones. my kitchen smells like apples and cinnamon, pots simmered on the stove as bags of apples were peeled and cored, cooked and frozen. the garden is mostly in and bags of leaves have begun to pile around the composter.

i have so many thoughts and words stretched out like an elastic band, emotions flung around red and ripe, juice dripped down and yet i find myself growing quieter and quieter afraid to give voice to ever changing puzzle pieces fitted and then discarded as the paint colour changes the scene before my eyes.

so i will awkwardly give voice to autumn’s loud whisper of colour, her daring reveal, lifting her skirts, a dervish twirl of brightly coloured petticoats before she lays down her weary head and bares her bone beauty briefly as she snuggles into a warm soft blanket of white cotton wool.

welcome my dear friend … lets whisper long into the night until our words run dry and we find ourselves dreaming soundly.

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” (albert camus)

i remember standing at the bus station, hands swollen and red from the cold wind as my hair whiped itself around my face. i had no winter boots, only ridiculous black leather platforms that gave me a funky edge that even though filled with old wool work socks did nothing to keep me warm. i was cold and tired and worn from working all day and looking forward to an hour long commute to the school to pick up my son and then finally home to rummage the cupboards for some semblance of a balanced meal for him. i was thin because i had no choice.

i dreamed of freedom, the freedom to capture the way the sun danced down on that crystal of snow that hung precariously like a diamond shattered in the stars atop a barren branch of scarred bark.

Buddha says that “the whole secret of existence is to have no fear. never fear what will become of you, depend on no one. only the moment you reject all help are you freed” and i thought about that as i stood there, eyes stung by the beauty, teared by the cold. i thought about friends i knew in search of freedom, rejecting the money dooled out by well meaning parents, as they flew off in a plane to look for the elusive freedom. i thought about how i didn’t have the luxury to be free to search for freedom or even to find it in the capture of last spring’s rosebud.

i decided that freedom was having enough money to not worry about the hunger, the electricity bill, the clothes that covered the warmth of your child. i felt lucky because i had a wall of books, well worn friends that traveled with me over years of time and freedom lived in their words sleeping loudly beside me as i lay back at the end of the day. i have freedom because i am chained in an office, a cubicle that affords me the tools to go home and put in another full day of work at my business and the pounds i have gained in a full pantry swollen and bloated is a price for the freedom that lifts me up and cradles me in this life.

freedom is hard work but so worth it.

“Autumn is a second spring where every leaf is a flower” (albert camus)

it is summer hot outside, the sky is a pale blue made more luminous by the yellow green hues of orange littering the vast array of trees across the city. leaves like blossom petals in spring litter the ground with their dance of colour, line the streets and rain down in the soft breathed wind. energy soaks into skin, drenching me with the warm glow of an autumn moon full in an orange sky begging me to run through scattered leaves and drown myself her warm light. right here, right now, i choose happiness.

“There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.” (carol shields)

i am in nesting mode casting my glance around my home in dismay at how much work i have to do, want to do before the cold of winter darkens my door. the chapter in my life that i don’t talk about is the clutter that constantly threatens to push down on the skull of my mind, tiny bones spread thin. how does one do it really? how does one manage a full time busy career, a husband, a child, a fledgling business which requires every spare second of time and somehow manage the garden, the house and the myriad other mundane details like cooking and paying the bills all the while attempting to carve out time for creative desires and artistic intentions.

i am sure the answer is there hiding in a soft nest of uncluttered organized mess. i am so sure that if i just somehow manage to organize my home that everything will be easier. perhaps i am deluding myself but i have a hazy memory on the corners of my mind of another time, a time before death danced down to hard on me and sent me spiraling into an abyss that took all my time just to find a way to breathe again. there was a time when my house shone with organized gleam, everything had a place and what didn’t found its way out into the world, into another home. i dream about those polished corners of space and wonder how can i find myself back there or if it really matters. I keep thinking that if I was more organized, if surfaces were less sticky with yesterday’s dried jam breadcrumb, if there wasn’t a pile of boots and shoes cluttering the door and a mess of paint cans in the kitchen still waiting to be put away, if clothes actually got folded instead of piling up in baskets … well … somehow, magically, I would be able to get more creative work done. Again, perhaps I am disullisioning myself because somehow, photos are being processed and I am marveling at images of beautiful brides and smiling guests; somehow I am taking photos again, daily, marveling at the way the autumn light sings down from the sky; somehow, I am doodling images that will find their way onto canvas once winter’s dark drives me to brightly coloured art and somehow, I have begun to sketch out a collection of jewelry designs for cozy twisting of silvered light.

I wish a fairy godmother would sprinkle dust down on my nest of brightly coloured magpie finds and magically smooth the surfaces of calm and rest so I could see those creative eggs I am hatching more clearly. I bought new pillow covers for my living room, brightly coloured jewels of silk and I bought beautiful green material to make new curtains and in my mind’s eye, I see the design coming together as snow replaces the leaves that fall outside my window and I sink into the hibernation of creative busyness that winter brings. But first I have to clean out the cobwebs in the closets, spilling out the last remains of grief hidden under piles of comfort’s clutter.

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” (henry david thoreau)

This morning’s bike ride into work was cold, frosty and uncomfortable. Even with gloves and a fleece headwrap over my ears, it took me forever to warm up once I got into the office. I longed instead to be wrapped up in a long sweater, leather wrapped calves and the clicking of boots with a scarf wrapped around my neck.

I cannot deny the fact that it feels like Autumn and big yellow leaves litter our street, our front yard even as I taste the fruit that I grew over the summer, fresh juice dribbled down my chin as my fridge fills with cucumbers, juicy sweet tomatoes, squash, carrots and beets. Bags of freshly picked apples wait for me to peel and cook and freeze and the ever emerging darkness starts to bring a different light to the world that I live in.

The seasons dictate how I live, what I do, my emotions strung into a line of yearly ritual in this land of extremes where my heart dwells. It was only a couple of weeks ago, when I couldn’t find escape from the relentless heat, highs hitting the high thirties (nineties for those on fahrenheit) and now I check the weather ever night to see if I have to cover my roses, my tomatoes because the frozen waver of a frost sits quietly in the air.

My son started school today and I feel myself dreaming of warm fires and pumpkin eyes glittering, walks through corn mazes and leaves crunching as my eyes seek out the brightest leaf in a valley that will soon be covered in hues of orange and yellow as green winks good-bye.

I find myself suddenly tired, weekends of activity and late nights processing photos, droopy eyed and in need of a rest, I actually contemplated taking a blog break but realized that likely a nap would suffice. I suspect that early evening will find me snuggled into the aroma of vanilla scented sheets as I wrap up into a cocoon of sleep, hopeful that I will soon awake from this slumbering dream to find myself rejuvinated by the crisp air of this decaying season, strangely filled with life as my world prepares for a sheet of white sleep.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” (alice, alice in wonderland)

i am finishing up my afternoon of facts and figures, papers of organized mess, the cubicle drone of laughter and typing and the hum of words, ringing telephones and modulated voices filled with perfected smiles and civilized conversation. my breath is filling lungs about to dive into the looking glass, the world outside my mask of normal into dreams of days and nights filled with nothing more than the primal task of living my life of no expectation, no deadline, no schedule of this and that and time spent on something other than my own devices.

am very happy to be going to this place, this place of me that requires no travel only the space of time to look through the looking glass and dive right in.

“A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July –

Ever drifting down the stream –
Lingering in the golden gleam –
Life what is it but a dream?”

–through the looking glass, lewis carroll

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” (dale carnegie)

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two years ago, we moved into our house. we were broken, grieving, lost trying desperately to be hopeful about a future that felt like it had been tossed in the air and shattered on the ground. we moved into a house that wouldn’t hear the laughing cries of our baby boys, with grass that wouldn’t feel their little toes and grasping fingers. we bought a small charming house that was built in 1945 complete with coved ceilings, original sash windows and fir doors and trim and pulled up the ugly green gold rug to reveal lovely maple hardwood floors. we bought a yard that was sorely neglected and filled with weeds and dying grass. our house had been a rental for some twenty years and while the bones were strong and hearty, the neglect showed on her tired face. when i walked in the door, i knew it was the house.

we had flirted with a big old victorian number, two stories and a balcony and room enough for the two of us, a teenager and babies while still giving me an art room / study and a big ol’ veranda to while around the lemonade hours. but in the end, it was this tiny little scrapper of a house which sang to my heart from the moment i entered the little entry way and opened the french door into the living room. it looked battered and bruised and in need of love. much like me. small but open and expansive and just the right size for the two of us and a teenage boy as it turns out.

that summer that we moved in proved a flurry of activity, a mad dash to clean and adjust to our new home, oh my gosh, we had a home. we ripped up carpets, tore down blinds and painted walls bright yellows, greens and blues, with a dash of pink and a blackboard wall. we surveyed our yard and realized that it was out of control and worked at weeding and mowing and attempted to bring our lawn back to life. we got married in our living room, threw an all day, all night party filled with people and music and merry laughter and then we collapsed into ourselves and finally allowed the depression to hit and the grief to leave us comforted in the warmth of bright yellow care.

Its been two years.

The kitchen cupboards still aren’t painted the pretty light blue paint that sits off to the side of the dishwasher and the ceiling needs patched and painted where we put in the beautiful new hanging kitchen light. We have not redone the wood floors like we thought we would have and the trim on the house waits for us this august to sand and paint it a pretty green. But the occupants no longer lay about broken and wounded and much is left in the house for another day as laughter rings out and artwork is hung and basketballs roll across the wooden floor as a bike helmet clatters down and swimsuits soaked in chlorine hang from windows ledge. Sunlight dances in revealing dusty corners smile. And we spend more time outside in the garden poking and prodding the land into something magical.

I had no idea that I would even like gardening but I find myself losing hours in the sunlight as I plant and weed and water and plan. Last summer, we bought a rose bush, not knowing whether it would live or die. We forgot to cover it in the fall as the snow came before we knew what was happening and yet this spring, I was out with clippers pruning a bush that had doubled in size and was sprouting greenery everywhere. The rose bush not only lived, it flourished and this year we added another one to the mix and I can’t wait to see what it does next year. We are eating out of our vegetable garden and our perennials are blooming and budding and the bees are plentiful and the birds chirp and a butterfly landed on my arm yesterday. I am living a dream filled with laughter and joy enjoying the roses that bloom outside my window.

I am home.

“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot; others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” (pablo picasso)

saturday is the longest day of the year over here on the northern hemisphere and i will spending the weekend solstice celebrating the sun even further north than were i currently sit. the land of the midnight sun where it never really sets on that longest day as early morning dusk settles into the air and stays until the sun rises high again. i love this time of year full of yellow light and yellow flowers and yellow dreams of energy and madness of the very best kind. possiblities seem endless as the energy of the sun leaves wakeful dreams dancing in our hearts. a celebration of the sun, of yellow and music and laughter and love.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!” (jack kerouac)

i will be at north country fair as duke has a gig and i like to get my hippy on and i will be spending some time with my parents as the fair is in the land of my childhood home.

have a wonderful weekend everyone and enjoy the sun!

“I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel.” (anne mccaffrey)

i haven’t been writing a lot lately, my words seem to slip through the cracks of my thoughts. i also haven’t been painting or drawing much, my hands prefering to help nature with her colours in my garden. but i have been doodling, a lot. pen and ink stains on bits of paper, sticky notes and work agendas, notebooks and smudges in the sand. i think doodling is a way of relaxing and letting your brain wander around on its own without a push in any direction.

as june smiles down on me and i see a full calender made fuller by my crazy early morning exercise schedule, i suspect there will be more doodles and i am somehow okay with that. i love this time of year when my energy is high as the days get longer and longer and longer still.

happy doodling.

“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.” (t.s. eliot)

we can be burning with happiness and still feel wistful and sad. it is not a contradiction, it is life.

yesterday, i had on one of those empire waist dresses in a bright yellow billowing out in folds of fabric. i ran into someone whom i haven’t seen in a good year and she was all smiles and happy for me and congratulated me on my pregnancy.

yeah. how do you respond to that really. i was ever so gracious and full of smiles and pushed the folds of fabric down revealing that i had no stomach and laughed and said that no, we were starting a photography business and had decided that babies were not in our future. she left, i hope, without feeling badly. i’m sure she didn’t because even those who were with me had no idea how shaken to the core i was inside. i am good at that ~ good at social graces and making other people feel good while pushing down my own feelings. i am a people pleaser.

i made it through the day all laughter and sunshine until about eleven last night when i had a complete meltdown, fighting with my husband in a fight he couldn’t win resulting in me curled up in a ball in the tub, the hot water streaming from our rain shower, steam billowing down on my tears.

i don’t even know why i feel compelled to write all this down but i do. the air is thick with clouds and the air conditioner in my office is leaving me chilled. i am having a hard time concentrating on work, my eyes hurt from crying and in the light of day, i am not even sure how i feel. i deliberately put on form fitting jeans this morning and a tight stretch black and white striped top and everyone in the office was all like wow … all that time spent in the gym is sure paying off. there is no way that anyone could mistake me for being pregnant today.

i am unable to analyze how i even feel. i don’t know. all i know is that for whatever reason, i am hurting inside today and while i have a whole lot to be happy about, i think it is okay to let myself feel sad too. life is simple and yet our emotions are so complicated.

my house and yard is filled with the scent of lilacs, it permeates every ounze of my being. it makes me feel nostalgic, a girl with holes in her jean knees and a brightly coloured tee, streamers dancing off her bike as her pigtails danced in the sunlight. the scent makes me miss my granny who grew up next door to me, her bright yellow house, lilac bushes and white linen blowing in the breeze, the smell of baked bread and wild blueberries, the big jars of brightly coloured buttons and fabrics that still conjur up delight. the scent makes me miss my sister, her long hair shone brown, dancing eyes and giggling wit. the way she smelled, like home and love and that bond of sisterhood that leaves me empty now as i make my way through life filled with people yet somehow alone. bees buzzing on secrets told as the sun baked the earth on the cusp of summer’s freedom.

a tear rolls down my face.

we can be wistful and sad and still be burning with happiness. it is not a contradiction, it is life.

“What to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can’t move, with no hope of rescue. Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won’t be troubling you much longer.” (douglas adams)

i am not stuck in any cracks these days and am finding all the boulders move pretty easily but that wasn’t always the case and i don’t like to take my good luck for granted but i do indeed feel like a pretty lucky girl these days and i get to share it all with my best friend, the man who loves me with every ounce of his heart. its lovely to be loved and to love someone who really sees you and loves all those bits and bytes even the crazy ones.

its always been easy for me to write my pain or write out the angst and confusion but am learning that it is just as important to write out the happy, to document the beauty in my life. on saturday, we spent the morning working together shooting a beautiful loving couple and it was such bliss to do what i love with the man that i love with people who are in love. i will share some of the photos later tonight. afterwards, we heading to the farmer’s market for some lunch and laughter and organic hand-crafted wanders, our cameras still in hand. life is good. i am a lucky girl.

and because every post needs a little madonna … don’t ya think?

“Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.” (oscar wilde)

this morning as i walked from my house to the bus stop, i smelled the damp earth, the verdant green, the lush state of a world awakened and tears sprung to my eyes as my senses took it all in. today there is a mist of rain turning the pavement the same colour as the river as green engulfes the splattering of houses hidden in the dance of new life.

there is so much i have wanted to share and yet i have been finding it somehow easier to pick up the phone and talk to a friend, to giggle at smiles within touching distance.

“i had one of those moments on saturday as i was shooting a wedding, one of those moments where in the midst of incredible busy with cameras and lens hanging off me as i crouched and moved and captured moments of beauty, one of those moments of pure utter bliss. it is so amazing to be doing something that makes you so happy, that gives you insight into the world around you and the world inside of you. it is good to know with absolute certainty that life can feel so amazingly right.”

“we worked hard on the weekend, digging and cleaning and my garden is filled with tomatoes, spinich, lettuce, leeks and onions, squash and zuchinni, pickling cucumbers and brocolli and brussel sprouts, bits of coloured flowers and sprouts of perennials planted last year. i have pots filled with bright colour scattered around my yard and a lawn that has been thatched and seeded and green scent beauty of growth surrounds me. My body is tired and my legs ache but joy fills my heart.”

“the double blossoming plum tree (our forever babies tree) has tiny little blossoms covering her branches and i see henry and eliot smiling down on me. sometimes tears still spring to my eyes seemingly for no reason but not because i have lost so much but rather because i was given so much. i feel blessed that those two little soul babies came into my life and touched my heart and bled the grief and pain from me as they died in my arms. they have given me more of myself than i could have possibly hoped for in this lifetime. they have helped me to discover how to be happy. there is an irony there that i don’t know that i can explain, perhaps that is a post all in its own someday, perhaps not.”

“the moon hangs in the sky, patched with darkness, filling our planet with light and i stand barefoot in the dew wet grass and stare at the sky and feel the earth move through me. so much pain and suffering, anger and desparation, loss and bitterness washed in the blood of someone else’s pain. and yet, so much beauty and love, hope and care, a bursting of emotion washed in the cool breeze of belief. i see the darkness and choose the light. i see the ugly and choose the beauty. i see the anger and choose the pain. i see me and choose hope and love; happiness and joy.”

sunlight and dirt
mothers and sons
flowers and smiles
bright red berries
family and friends
an evening cocktail
a greenhouse infusion
chocolate and hoops

its been a busy weekend, full of laughter and connection. i have a new front porch and stairs and it is beautiful, the smell of new wood, the hard work of love. i have dirt beneath my fingernails and a tiredness in my muscles. i have a smile on my face, a lightness in my heart and an energy that i have missed for years. i am already loving the face of may.

the first time i went to the mountains during the month of may was over 10 years ago. i had went with friends to attend an elac (english language arts council) conference. it was loads of fun and i discovered the charm of jasper national park during the off season. ironically when i was there this year, the elac conference was going on and i felt a longing to go back to the world of teaching.

three years ago in may, duke and i rented a cabin just outside of the town of jasper and tried to find some peace after our worlds had been shattered. it was the perfect place to go and we found it incredibly healing to be surrounded by all that beauty and power.

last year, duke had a gig so we got to revisit that beauty shortly after grieving through april and the anniversary of our loss. last weekend we packed up the drums and headed off to the mountains again to play the same gig a year later. it was a super relaxing trip and we spent some good time sitting around and talking and catching up with some people that i hadn’t seen since last year. we also made sure and to leave ourselves plenty of time to hike around with our cameras and new lens gear. it was a workout because the new lenses are not lightweight but oh so much fun.

i took a ton of photos over the weekend and though i managed to dump them onto my laptop when i got home last night that is pretty much as far as i got before my droopy eyes found me hitting my lovely bed. we stayed at a beautiful hotel lodge paid for by the company who hired the band and were treated to lovely meals, however, i somehow never manage to sleep all that well unless i am in my own bed and i suppose staying up until the wee hours of morning didn’t help the matter, heh heh. last night i slept for a good nine hours and i almost feel like myself again which is good because may is a busy busy month and i need to be rested to get through it.

whenever i go to the mountains, i feel myself growing inside, there is a power in the rock that feeds my soul and an expression in the sound of the wind, the crisp of the air, the way the sky dips down and the waters icy drops refresh and in the spring, there is magic. the snow receeds, tiny bits of colour subtle against the landscape begin to cling to the green. water begins to rush and bubble down across pebbles and boulders and filling bowls of sand. there is an expectant energy that breathes our bodies and our minds.

bliss.

“Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain”

May entered with raindrops and storm clouds hung low dripping life down on this little space of the earth. The air smells fresh and light and fertile and full of life. If April signifies death for me, May signifies life.

Yesterday, I said good-bye to April and enjoyed such an incredibly beautiful day filled with fantastic surprises (I am so thrilled and excited); a work day that danced smoothly and beautifully and an evening spent playing with my new fabulous lenses and talking on the phone to my beautiful friend.

As April turned to May, I snuggled into my husband, my love, my best friend and we talked about how incredibly happy we were; how much has happened in the past five years and how incredibly lucky we are, so very lucky. It may sound strange that we would feel so lucky as we lay in our bedroom, the ashes of our twin boys to the side but as hard as it can be some days to think about, I feel as though their large souls live in our hearts and the joy that we feel for our lives is shared and rejoiced by our family both living and dead. We are lucky to be living this life, to be free to make choices in how we live and to choose to find beauty and joy in a life that is not always giving and caring.

We have made some significant choices lately in how we will move forward in our lives, choices that will affect our future in a big way. We have decided that we are not going to try to have another baby, it is not our path. We have my son who is about to turn fourteen and we have the memory and love of our two little babies who were not meant for this earth and somehow that is enough. We have each other and that is enough. We are putting our energies into other dreams, dreams that include capturing light and beauty; making the music of the earth and stringing words into ideals.

I am happy even when I am sad and that is a beautiful sigh.

devonshire beach, originally uploaded by Uberduke.

my lovely husband posted this photo yesterday and it created such longing inside of me. this is my home, where i was born and raised, this is where i used to go to rage with the waves, cry with the rain, dance with the sun. on moonlit summers, i would shed my clothes and run naked into the warm waters of night. i spent hours laying in my bikini, the sand on my skin, a poetry book in hand, noodling dreams and not realizing that i was living a dream that i couldn’t wait to escape.

i was living a dream that i couldn’t wait to escape.

we have these amazing moments in our life, these moments that we sometimes don’t realize are so incredibly beautiful that they will live in our hearts forever. perhaps that is why it is so important to live with every ounce of our being, to smell the air around us, to feel our environment, to reach out and touch the textures in our spaces. to see the way the air clings to us or floats by us, to notice how each little grain of sand creates a uniform look but in actuality are shaped so very differently, to listen to the hum of life, the water rushing, the rustle of the leaves, the ant walking across the rocks.

if i close my eyes, i am transported backwards. i can feel the heat of my skin, the way the sand dries and scrapes across my calf; the sound of the waves; the buzz of a fly and the far off laughter of children playing. i can hear the birds and the smell of raspberry bushes, sweet in the light; the way the sun bleached my eyes and rose in waves up from the sand distorted the far off figures walking. I remember the way the sand felt beneath my running feet, slapping the water dancing sparkles. laying staring up at the stars as the water gently rocked me in warm thoughts and feeling as thought the earth knew my heartbeat better than I did.

There were a lot of things I didn’t like about where I lived. The oil business, the boom mentality, the transient motion of young rough men that leered at a girl of twelve. The money and the drugs and the poverty that stood alongside the wealth. The anger and the hate.

But …

the beauty that was minutes from my doorstep, the trees that went on forever, the lake that gave peace, the sand dunes and the spongy muskeg ground that smiled at the river that flowed through, that is where my heart grew and lived and learned to love.

Its easy for me to see the ugly in life. I saw a lot of it growing up and could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes. Luckily, it is also easy for me to see the beauty in life because I saw a lot of it growing up and I could tell you stories that would bring tears to your eyes. Its a contradiction that I am learning, ever so slowly, to be comfortable with.

*this is what i love about photography, how a photo can pull a memory and reveal a life inside of ourselves, reveal bits of who we are as it pulls at our emotions.

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” (thich nhat hanh)

my shoes walked through a field of grass, yellow straw-like grass not yet awake, soggy in spots and i was reminded of my elementary schoolyard. sitting in the straw-like grass pulling it with tiny fingers to form a little bird’s nest and tying pieces of grass together to form tiny little eggs to sit quietly in the nest as i laid back and stared at the sky and dreamed of cracking open those eggs and flying towards tomorrow. tomorrow is here. i am still dreaming. remembering that first smell of sunlight hitting the grass melted from winter’s long escape.

when the snow is gone, i think i might sit in my backyard and pull at the grass to form a little bird’s nest and tie pieces of grass together to form tiny little eggs. i think i will carry that little nest down to the river’s edge and let it go as i lay in the grass and stare at the sky and feel the sunlight warm my face as i remember that tomorrow is here.