Powerless

I love and loathe power outages. The thing I love the most about them is the quietness. Everything goes quiet, everything goes dark, (why do they mostly happen at night?) dark that is, except for the snow. That’s the other thing that usually comes with power outages although around here that isn’t necessarily so. We get the big storms during the winter months…with big winds and big rains; sometimes they come with huge snowfalls. I always feel very small during these times, small and vulnerable. I’ve spent most of my life alone and been quite comfortable with it. I have even sought out solitude from living alone. I have chosen to be alone and be without creature comforts, hiking into the mountains with nothing but what a backpack can bring, and even then being ascetic about it…little food, no pillow, just the absolute essentials. I have loved it.

I have loved getting up in the middle of the night, daring to bounce into bears and found moonlight: big, beautiful moonlight shining overhead so bright it casts shadows in the open spaces; shadows of me, alive and protected by that moon and some God I don’t understand. Knowing that I am top of the food chain and I am blessed, knowing that the bears and cougars are near and may even be my audience and so I perform for them. I dance and move in big arcs just to see my shadow dance, just because I am completely free. I don’t have to worry about being attacked, or being judged or being anything but what I am. What I am is a free girl living in the Grace of God, all alone, in the middle of the night on top of the mountains.

It’s where the elders live, on top of mountains and sometimes you can hear them meeting and talking, on sunny afternoons with white clouds spread in thin strips over the sky, like banners on top of turrets announcing a very important gathering within castle walls. You can hear them whispering and talking in hushed tones. Their voices carry on the winds and I sit small underneath them, crouched over with my knees under my chin and my feet naked and resting on the cool, smooth granite beside the lake at the base of the cliffs where the elders meet.

Hugging my knees I look into the green glacial waters and look for life, look for my reflection, look for the clouds overhead and see nothing but green water so I look deeper into the silt, into the ancient dust that’s accumulated there and look to see the faces, the secrets of the mountains, of the elders, of the glaciers; and it is all hidden to me. It is green and white, it has an edge where it meets the shore and that is all I know about it. I cannot see the depth of it, or little minnows skittering within it, among pebbles and weeds. There are no crabs or crayfish, even when I turn over a stone there is no one home there. They are deeper, bigger and hidden behind veils living within the icy water, just like they are whispers over my head among the crags and cliffs on the shoulder of the mountain. I am an intruder here, I want to go higher to the other edge of the glacier that is a creamy knitted scarf made from unfinished, unprocessed wool, wrapping around the neck of the mountain. I want to walk to it, I want to be close to the ear of the old colonel and whisper, I am Here too, but it isn’t right. It isn’t my time. It isn’t my place. I am small. I am just visiting. I am allowed to rest.

My feet ache, I put them into the edge of the water. No big arm lurches out to grab me, no soft ground tries to swallow me. I have passage here. The icy water burns my feet. Again, I want to stay, my brain tells me it is good to cool them off, ice the muscles, and deflate them. It tells me to stick with it, stay the course, which is what I am supposed to do but my feet, my body screams back that this isn’t the place; this isn’t where it should happen. I still have miles and miles to go. I will have other places to cool my feet I tell myself. I rationalize that getting this cold half way through the day could lead to danger, hypothermia. What if I can’t recover from the shock of the cold, what if I can’t warm up? My brain has recovered its pride; it allows me to leave the water where I don’t belong.

All of this is with me when I get up to greet the moon in the middle of the night. I have descended from those particular heights. I am back among the trees but the elders on the mountain have not forgotten their guest, they have not neglected the celebration of the meetings, the gathering they have had, and so they send the moon to create party lights for dancers in clearings and disco balls of light for runners in trees. And because I have eaten, pasta and beans in tomato paste, garlic and water, because I have slept for a few hours and rested, I dance and pray to the elders and to God who looks out for me, who brought me here, to all who have given me safe passage in the mountains this September season. I rejoice and thank them; I am alive and I love my life. This is what it feels like to have no power when the weather is good, when I have embraced my humility and when there is no one there to prescribe to me how to be or what to be. When there is no one there to hurt me.

When the weather isn’t good, when it is angry and turbulent, when the winds rip at the trees -- I cower. I am a little girl again hiding behind her closet doors, only now I don’t cry and I don’t scream…these were the only attempts I made at stopping them. Stop the beating, the sound of fist against flesh, of crashing, tables collapsing, dishes smashing, the snorting of the boxer as he delivers his blows, the groans of his wife sucking them up. Now I just feel powerless and alone. I don’t shake, and tremble. I don’t gasp for air like I did then, but I feel like I felt then. To me when the power is out everyone elsewhere is home and together. They have candles lit; they are talking and playing games. In the shadows and the flickering light they are playing ‘I spy’ and telling ghost stories. I try to ignore that there is no light. I use the hot water that is just sitting in the tank getting cool. I draw myself a bath, a bath by candlelight where I am soothed and enveloped in a warm, caressing hug. Then I go to bed and sleep because it doesn’t matter that you have no power when you are asleep. I take cover in the oblivion of sleep and try not to think of the roof and the integrity of the tiles, try not to think of the poor trees, especially the ones nearby. Will they hold their ground or will they come crashing down, maybe on top of me? I tell myself all of this could happen, and if it does, I will deal with it then, for now I am taking cover in the den of sleep and hoping for a new day tomorrow.

National Novel Writing Month - Content

National Novel Writing Month - Content

Trying to be Good

I have been trying to be good…it’s all a reaction to being certifiably bad, although I don’t know who signed the certificate. Technically, there wasn’t a certificate of badness. There was just being washed up on the shores of life, broken. No job, no home, no friends, family three thousand miles behind me and lost in their own chaos of living. My health was spread out on the sidewalk like puke drying in the morning sun, everyone stepping around it, holding their noses. My liver and thyroid were swollen, ulcers bleeding, severe tremors. It was all the work of the bastard inside me, no not that bastard, there was no pregnancy. Just a bitter, mean spit of a person who used to have the oval office inside my head, now just has a closet. He beat me to a thread of an existence. Hated me so much, he brought me within a sniff of death but wouldn’t let me go over, plunging head long into its abyss; he made me dangle on the edge of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that he isn’t good, he’s merely misinformed, misguided and I am misunderstood. Well, not these days, now I’m a Ms., but then, I was amiss, a misstep, a mistake.

I once found a pickup truck abandoned in the middle of an intersection. The engine was off, the street was quiet. It was just coming on dawn in the late spring. Except for the carcass of a skinned dog in the back of that truck, it was empty. I was struck dumb and motionless, my mouth gaping like a fish’s out of water. I was overcome with vulnerability, I was exposed. The sun, just over the horizon, was a spotlight. Whoever did this was watching me, was laughing. They were enjoying it. And, if they could do this to a dog, then what would they do to a young woman, a woman like me? Dogs were valuable, more so than girls, I knew that. They still got beat, but nobody fucked them, nobody hated them. They were useful. But this bastard, he skinned a dog. It was unthinkable. I fled to the door of the twenty-four hour convenience store. It was locked. The clerk inside was sleeping, head down on the counter. “Show no fear, show no fear” I repeated to myself and walked swiftly out of the area.

That was just the start of it, my opinion of myself steadily decreased for another seven years after that. My isolation steadily grew. That’s when I came to the edge of death, the sweet smell of permanent oblivion tantalizing my senses, but I couldn’t let go. It was as if my foot was trapped behind me and another twenty years of bleak, grey, life, lingering stench of existence was closing in to envelop me. I couldn’t stand it. I said help, knowing I wasn’t deserving of help, knowing the door to help was closed, slammed on me years before when all I wanted was a moment of elusive peace, but I was too disgusting for even God to look upon. It was in that moment, that second of hopeless help pleading that it happened. God, the Holy Spirit, the wing of an angel, swept me up, wrapped me in a warm blanket and carried me to recovery. Then I wanted to be good. I wanted to be worth it. I wanted to be deserving of God’s love, of his compassion. Still ignoring the fact that I already was.

Time Travel

Triage at catastrophic events or just plain everyday nastiness, elicits questions from the helpers to those bent and bewildered, “Can you tell me your name? Do you know what day it is?” Presumably, this is to determine their state of consciousness. Is there an unseen head injury? I always want to be the one asking the questions, never answering. Well, wouldn’t we all. But, if I was asked the question about what day it is, I would fail, without ever being bonked on the head. It’s one of those shameful secrets I keep close to me. When I go to work, I have to write the calendar date and the day of the week down on my notepad and go over it about three times, just to drive into my brain some time awareness; it’s relevant to the work I do. Even with this practice, I have been caught obviously confused regarding expiry dates and the present dates, being out entire seasons, not just months or days. Perhaps I was dropped on my head as a baby, although my parents deny it.

I still manage okay. I show up for work on time and on the correct day. I hit people’s birthdays like a dart in the range of a number as opposed to the bull’s-eye, and I seldom miss a meal. But, that’s a time schedule independent of any manmade schemes, isn’t it? Well, it is for me. Much like my sleep patterns. Work demands that I keep a twenty-four hour clock so it isn’t unusual for me to be wide awake when the world sleeps and sound asleep (or trying to be) when bulldozers and weed eaters are chalking up the decibels.

I don’t wear a watch and for most of my life have resisted societal conformity to putting one on. I’d like to say that that’s out of a great rebellion, or independent spirit. In truth though, it is because I’m seldom in the present moment anyway. I’m usually wishing for a different past while waiting for the future to get here. It’s all such a waste of …you guessed it, time. Now that I’ve collected some time in my bones and passed the half way mark of my life expectancy, I’ve moved from dabbling in time frames that aren’t here and cleverly come up with time shifting. It’s not really original. In fact, it’s a take on the old adage, “if I knew then what I know now…”

I spent my youth not appreciating myself and my beauty. Like a puppet on a marketer’s string, I was always dissatisfied with my looks. So, I was either losing weight or contorting myself into strange costumes just to look like someone else. I was forever in a tug of war with my body: hating it, loving it, hating it. But of course, twenty years later I look back and see what a beautiful young woman I was. Which makes me think that twenty years from now, I’ll look back and see what a beautiful woman I am now. So rather than wait a couple decades to appreciate myself, I’m acting as if I am twenty years older than I am, and am looking back at myself and loving me for the beauty I hold today. It’s time travel in an instant. I call that a superpower.

Elijah being fed by Ravens

Inspired by the painting: “Elijah being fed by Ravens” (1921) By Christian Rohlfs

A naked brown man sits straight in a hard chair; the bones of his square shoulders prominent. Straight arms end in his lap with hands folded over one another. He leans forward, waiting for the raven before him to share his food. Is he a well mannered pet of the bird?
Native beliefs pin the raven as a very clever trickster. Perhaps he has convinced the man that he is not a raven at all, but a thunderbird, a creator. Man waits expectantly to be fed by the mouth of God.

Man With a Quarter

Gifts from Strangers

Val checks her face in the small mirror from her soft leather purse as I pull the car up in front of her house, a two story with white siding, green trim and matching shingle roof. She folds the mirror back together and smacks her lips in time with the click it makes when it finds its latch. I’m surprised to see her checking her face because it doesn’t appear to me like she wears much make up at all. Round blue eyes set in smooth, peachy skin and lips the colour of pale plums. Then again, I notice there’s a manicure kit beside her make up bag in her purse, so maybe I am wrong. She’s telling me about the gift with purchase event coming up at Sears as we cross the front lawn.

“You do use Clinique, don’t you?” The question has bubbled out amid a torrent of chatter and catches me by surprise. I’m fumbling for my answer, self conscious that my choice in face cream doesn’t come with a label, when she turns the handle on the front door and I am saved by a roar of greeting from inside. The men have arrived here before us and have already served themselves drinks. A bottle of rye is open on the counter with a couple of inches missing from it. Fred, the neighbour is holding a beer at the top of the stairs. He makes a crack about the girls being fashionably late. Of course we’re late I muse, we were working, they were playing hockey. Val’s husband Don bounds up from the basement ambushing us on the landing.

“Do we have any of those things to eat…you know, shrimp and stuff, frozen, baked, but it’s like they’re fried?” He hangs there waiting for an answer.

“Let me think…we had some when your sister came, and…Yes. They’re in the bottom of the downstairs freezer on the right hand side. I got lots because”

He takes off and in three bounds he’s on the basement floor and disappearing around the corner, “because you never know when you’re going to need them.” She smiles at me and continues, “And look, I was right.” We share a chuckle as we ascend the ten steps to the main floor where the living space is.

Off to the right there’s a tall, thin man taking up nearly half of the couch with his arms and legs angling out in six different directions. He’s holding a glass with amber liquid and ice on his right knee. He gives us a sloppy wave and announces his name is Dave.

Gracious as ever, Val walks a smile over to him and introduces us. He stays seated, grinning and swallows the last of his drink. Val offers to refill it and disappears through the adjoining dining room and into the kitchen. Her husband joins her there and I can hear the clang of baking sheets being pulled from cupboards. I sit on the ledge in front of the fireplace, at right angles to Dave on the couch.

“So whose team were you playing on?” I ask.

“No, I wasn’t playing”, he says. Then offers, “old knee injury” and pats the inside of his left leg.

An awkward moment passes. I want to enquire further about how he fits in with the oldtimers team, but I don’t want to appear like an interrogator. Val returns with his glass and a coke for me. She’s just turned to go back to the kitchen when a small voice from down the hall speaks.

“Mommy, is that you home?” Round blues eyes under a cap of shoulder length blond hair have lassoed Val from the edge of the room. Val immediately goes to her and sweeps her up from the floor where she was standing like a blinking doll. A small smile replaces the pout on the young face aand she wraps her arms around her mother’s neck.

“I missed you Mommy” and by reflex Val responds with a squeeze and says she missed her too.

Then Val turns around and announces, “Hey everybody, this is Georgia. Georgia, you know Mr. Johnson, and this is Ms. Adams from my work.”

The little girl, of about six years and dressed in a nightdress with red daisies on it, sits in the crook of her mother’s arm, hanging one hand around her neck. She says, “Mrs. Sites made me eat creamed corn for dinner, Mommy. I don’t like it.”

Val’s in the process of switching her bundle from one arm to the other and consoling her when Dave speaks. Because my attention was so focused on little Georgia, I hadn’t noticed he’d risen from the couch and approached the mother and child. He now stood near the top of the landing, a few feet from where the little girl entered the room. “Well, hello Georgia. You are a beautiful little thing aren’t you?”

Georgia stuck two fingers from her free hand into her mouth and blinked at him. He stood there grinning at them and swaying on his feet. A moment passed until his face lit up with an idea. He stuck his hands into his pocket and produced a shiny coin.

“In fact, I have a present for the prettiest girl in the room.” He crouched down with one hand on the top of the railing leading up from the landing and the other holding the money out like bait. “Wouldn’t you like to have this?”

Georgia stuck her face into her mother’s neck. Val gave her daughter a little bounce and whispered something to her. Georgia picked her face up and gave the man a shy smile.

“Do you know what this is? This is a quarter and it’s all for you. Aren’t you going to take this nice present from me?” Dave’s smile wavered a little, just like his balance but he recovered both. A tinge of red was creeping across his face.

Don, Georgia’s Dad, was watching from the kitchen, leaning on the fridge with an open bottle of beer in his hand. He said, “Put her down Val, let her get it.”

Val bent over until her daughter’s feet found the floor then slipped out of the little girl’s hold on her neck. “You go to the man, Georgia, and don’t forget to say thank you.”

Georgia stood for a second then turned and buried her face into her mother’s leg whining, “No, I don’t want to.”

Her mother’s voice becomes firm as she explains that it's rude not to take the present from the man. Meanwhile, her father was getting impatient so he urged her from the kitchen, “Go on Georgia, don’t be scaredecat. It’s only a quarter.”

Georgia pulled her face away from her mother’s pant leg, looked at her dad and then over at the stranger. She took the few steps to his outstretched arm and retrieved the quarter. Scrambling back to her mother’s side, Val reminded her to say thank you which she did once her Mom collected her in her arms again.

With an announcement that it was way past Georgia’s bedtime, Val turned and retreated down the hall with her daughter in her arms. Don laughed and rebalanced himself back on his two feet again, while making a comment about kids and how funny they were. “She’s always looking for change. Harvests the bloody couch anytime I take a little nap.” He bends over to look through the window in the oven door.

Dave stands up and watches the girls go down the hall. When they’ve entered a bedroom he turns to find the drink he left beside the couch.

I am Entitled a Work in Progress

I am entitled a work in progress.
I am different than I was yesterday.
I will not be the same tomorrow, if there is such a thing. So even if I am faced with the same situation two days in a row I will not approach it in the same way twice. How could I, as I am never in the same place twice,
not as I was,
not as I am,
not as I will be;
because I am entitled a work in progress.

I am entitled a mother, as in nature; it is my nature to mother,
to coddle and form
with love
those that will let me and those
that won’t.
Those that won’t deny my nature
and theirs
which is to love and to be loved otherwise
how would they have come to be if not coddled and formed
by a mother through her nature?
So you cannot keep love from my mothering nature and
you cannot keep my nature from mothering
so let me mother as I am entitled.

I am entitled a lover
Of men,
of music and literature
gardens and food
children’s laughter and
weathered faces.
These things and more I am a lover of and
they need do nothing
but be for me
to love them
because that is what I am entitled to do
as I am entitled a lover.

I am entitled a writer
A voice of our souls, our lives, our foolishnesses.
Whispers within tell me what to think and see and say.
As I look for whispers in what you say and do
when yelling drones have let a whisper slip through
your walls of oppression.
I take this space for my whispers
which seek out the whispers within you
to let our whispers
whisper together
until there is no whispering left to do.
and the yelling drones have moved on to puppets
who have never heard a whisper wisp
and never penned a written word of
souls and lives and foolishness.
My whispers are free upon the page, the page
I am entitled a writer.

I am entitled a servant, a helper, a calm voice in calamity.
Your crisis is her and his history
There are no new cries
Just as there are no new lies
To justify
what you have done.
You cannot scare me
Make me hate you or judge you
You needn’t be afraid of me
But it’s okay that you are.
We are neighbours and souls in a forest play
It is my job to see you through
As a servant, a helper and a calm voice
where there is no calamity
Just life as you are, and I am
entitled.

My Old Toad

My old toad tastes of salt and fresh air after early morning bike rides. In the evenings, his skin is cool, reclined beside me on top of the bed, together unraveling riddles layered inside crossword puzzles.

On the chin of his oval face there’s a curious bump which is bigger than a wart, not discoloured like a mole and firm to the touch so it can’t be pushed into the skin to vanish even for a moment. It’s a mysterious pebble taken from a beach and treasured as a gem is in a child’s secret tin box. There are contour lines between the tangle of eyebrows and high cheekbones which bring you to the heights of his rich, dark, almond eyes. Moving and shifting with every expression and every emotion, they can be like molten lava folding over granite or water dancing in sunlight in a woodland stream. Ridges form like parentheses around his mouth and chin and like an aside in a sentence, they lead me to secret conspiracies and inside jokes.

My old toad has persistent warts that withstand his constant efforts to either annihilate or conceal them. Under his direct assaults they slip from the surface for a short time then re-emerge elsewhere like guerilla fighters in the forests of hair that cover his legs and arms. His strong hands and thick fingers have patterns of lines, x’s and y’s enveloping them like residual math equations haunting a classroom chalkboard. And the textured linen of the skin covering his chest and shoulders has shanties woven into it’s pattern, all taken from thousands and thousands of nautical miles in the salt and sun of the sea.

My old toad also has the scars of a warrior: inky dots tattooed on three sides of his hips which technicians used as laser beam targets to assault and kill his mutinous prostate. It was a battle lost, but a war won and he lives on, ten years afterward.

My old toad is the cover on the book I call my husband.