The things you took away
the ways you emptied me
I didn’t know it, but
you were simply clearing space
clearing me
and now I have room for
something new.
Sometimes the world is a chatterbox. Won’t shut up. Always telling me things, showing me things, taking me places. Blah blah blah I’m the world and I’m gorgeous. Look at me! Listen to me! I try to tell it to slow down but it’s bent on talking a mile a minute. I don’t really mind; it’s just a lot of Interesting to take in at once.
Other times, I can’t get it to speak to me at all. We stare at each other, a contest that lasts a hundred years, with me whispering speak to me, speak to me, don’t be shy and the world–without a blink–mouthing back you first.
it’s the way she walks in bookstores
like tip-toe
but heel-toe
timid, balanced
on a tightrope
touching air
feeling spines
not falling
not falling
yes falling
into nothing
into
heels-toe over head
love
with all the nothing that is something
Ever since we got our driver’s licenses six years ago, my friend Lissa and I have gone out for coffee. Back in high school and even through my freshman year of university, we each had our usuals: she with her large double-double, I with my medium hot chocolate. We’ve grown up since then and our usuals have changed to an extra-large triple-triple for her, a medium cafe mocha for me (I’ve only recently graduated to that from a myriad of teas). Apparently life gets more stressful once you’re out of your teens and you need more caffeine.
Our conversation has grown up a little too. Back then, we used to gossip, gush about boys, and complain about teachers. Nowadays we still gossip, but the boy-gushing has muted a little and the complaints about teachers have shifted to work and money. We also study and discuss paint swatches. And gardens. And other grown-up-and-on-our-own topics.
It’s odd, really. Lissa’s in a completely different life-stage than I am. Here I am, graduating university in six months—my god!—and getting ready to throw my darts at a map or two to “start my life.” Lissa’s started hers. We’re the same age, but she’s been a homeowner with her boyfriend Joe for nearly two years now. They have a mortgage, household projects and a dog. I have student loans, homework and an ego.
But the wonderful thing about Lissa and I is how we always have something to talk about. It doesn’t matter where our lives are at the moment or if it’s been a week/month/year since we last talked. We always pick up where we left off. We approach our friendship in the same way and it’s so relaxing and refreshing. Neither one of us expects much of the other except a phone call, letter, or a visit once in a while. There’s no pressure because we each know how important we are to the other. We have an understanding.
I love it. I love that we still go out for coffee, and that I can still make Lissa cry with laughter by saying the word “penis” and pretending to be cool. I love that I will always find her obsession with browns and neutrals to be boring yet tasteful, and she will always find my obsession with colour crazy (but not tasteful, unfortunately). I love that we can change and grow in our lives and still fit with each other. It’s one of those friendships that I know I will always be able to return to, no matter how much our lives have changed or how much time has passed.
To quote myself (because I’m one of those egotistical bastards who quote themselves) from a few years ago when I was writing about this same topic:
The people you’ve known your entire life begin to grow at amazing rates after graduation. They move in with boyfriends, get engaged, look at houses to buy; get new jobs, new hair, new faces, and yet, once you peel off all the new (to be examined later over a cup of coffee), you can look at their cores and foundations exclaiming, “I know you! I love you! That part will never change!”
This is part of what makes home home.
Maybe I’ll write more about this later. Usually when I say that I don’t, though.
I realized yesterday that if I’m reading a book with a female main character, I hesitate to recommend it to guys. No matter how good the book is.
Right now I’m trying to figure out why. I read books with male main characters all the time and feel things from them. Why, then, do I feel differently about how a guy would read a female character? Am I assuming a lack of feeling/caring/understanding/relation? So very odd.
Strange “feminist” issues have been on my mind lately, and this just added to it. I think that’s what I want to write about, to develop into a real post. And I’ve rarely written about such a thing, so it’ll be new territory for me.
Also, on an unrelated note, I realized that if I want a blogging community again, I’m going to have to go to it. It’s not coming to me. And I’m always so bad at making first moves. Ai ya!
I realized tonight as I was speaking that I’m not so much afraid of failure as I am mediocrity. I’m not a failure. I’m just not great.
More than anything in the world I want to be a good writer, and no amount of praise will make me one. I want to not write shit.
I don’t write nearly as much as I want to and I can’t convince myself to change. Just a dry spell? How do I fix it?
I feel the world just as intensely as I used to, I’m just not motivated to WORK anymore. And that scares me. That, Sharla, is why you’re scared. You want to be something but you’ve lost your drive.
I want to show you the great and wonderful things that go on in my heart and my brain but I just don’t feel like working for it. I’m lazy.
This is likely why I’m so angry at my brother lately.
Feeling that tiptoe feeling. The one that’s either a warning of a storm or the readying of my mind for a burst of light. It could go either way at this point. Fragile moments. It’s behind my eyes and in my chest, trying to decide which way to throw itself.
I’ll wait and see where it takes me because the things I can create here are worth the risk of cracking.
It’s not you honey
she says
it’s the tests
the tests are the problem.
But still I’m tired of it.
Tired of the messages:
“inconclusive,
abnormal cells,
please come back
again.
We need to know.”
Tired of the waiting
wrapped in her
sterile white paper
waiting for the
cold metal and
dry cotton
and the pain (pain?
but it’s not supposed to hurt you
honey)
But it does hurt
as she scrapes out my insides
from right behind my belly button
she burns what she can’t get out
and I don’t trust her
or my body anymore
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