Dear Friend

 

“All the unhappiness of man stems from one thing only: that he is incapable of staying quietly in his room.” - Pascal

Dear Friend -

I am going to come home. 

I don't know when and I don't know how yet but I'm going to make my way back to nature, to myself.  I want to at least inch a little closer to what I thought I was on my way to when I left this town before. 

I think part of why I felt so in love again - despite everything that was happening with my dad - was that I felt like me again.  Maybe that's all love really is: feeling as YOU as is humanly possible, no matter the distractions – for better or worse.  I read somewhere that when people say they just 'know'' that they are in love, it's because they can see their best self reflected in their partner’s eyes.  That they are really just seeing themselves the way they want to be seen (and vice versa).  That is exactly what I've felt both times I've felt 'madly in love' and felt the opposite when I was uncertain of my feelings.  In love I felt beautiful and good and that someone could actually see it and that felt amazing.  When there was doubt I felt ugly, of no consequence, certainly not worthy of any man’s love.  In love I felt appreciated and that his pedestal was my rightful home.  But once I had taken enough hits, once I’d reached my breaking point – and I did several times over in the past few years - I felt myself shrivel up into something that was worthy of no one's pedestal.  And I knew everyone else saw in me what I saw in my own reflection.  The ugly abandon of hope and faith.  Hence the anxiety attacks around other people.  Hence the hermit in the woods.  It all makes perfect sense now for some reason.  Weird.  And I couldn’t know it then but running away and hiding was just exactly what I needed to face my worst fears.  Because they never left my side.  And instead of drowning them in other peoples’ dramas, I’d essentially locked myself up with them until there was no place to run.  And there, in the dark, I was forced to face my worst enemy.  It was Me.

Maybe all the unhappiness in isolation stems from what we already know for certain: it is not life when you do not feel like your best self.  Often times in the past couple of years, I’ve woken up in the morning and I am uncertain that I care whether tomorrow comes or not.  It is not wallowing in pain or craving death so much, just nothingness, total ambivalence.  And it’s the first time I’ve ever known this feeling.  Those moments do not belong in any story.  And if they do, they ought to be shortened, condensed phrases 'the next few years where very hard on J' (and then quickly get back to the exciting parts if you actually want the reader to turn the page and not put down the book, never to pick it up again)  No one wants to read about endless hours of suffering and submission – especially not me.  No one wants to hear the story of a loser, especially not one who’s lost her own thread.

And right now, we're in an important part of our stories, both of us, but I have no doubt in my mind today that it is only a condensed amount of shit - because what heroes can emerge from anything short of a disaster?  And we've both been through disaster.  A disaster that has shaken our faith and made us feel like we've been ripped out of our own stories.  But soon, we'll forget any of the particular pains and we'll shorten that bit.  “Remember that time.  Man, they were the worst of times.”. Because we’re heroes and the only thing keeping us from happiness is the worry that how we feel now will never change, that the story won’t get better.  But it will.  If only because we’re too  in touch with life’s comedy to be tragic heroes.

I remember coming home because I was traumatized by the lady jumping out the window.  And it felt like the only thing to do and nothing in the universe made me as happy as that trip.  It was perfect.  I felt at home.  Not because of Toronto.  But just because I felt like I was living my life.  Surrounded by the characters who's endings I gave a damn about.  Me being a part off their lives felt good too.  Or maybe I'm full of shit.  Maybe my presence meant nothing to them.  But I think of you, of new beginnings and that silly writing group and it made no difference what we did or if any of it worked out, only that we were doing it.  Because the sun was shining and there was beer and music and tomorrow.  In no way was I living the success I'd hoped for but I was living.  And that was enough.

And this year in Paris, it's been horrible.  I have never been so alone and yet have never needed support as much as now.  What's stranger still is that I have experienced more instances of enlightenment and spiritual peace during these awful times than at any other happier moment in my life.  Horrible does bring about positive.  Because in being conscious of the horrors you are equally confronted with the good you've already known, maybe even the good that is still yet to come – there is balance in everything.  Otherwise we'd just kill ourselves.  It's not really hope that keeps us holding on.  It's the certainty that there is more to come even when it feels like things might not ever get better.  They always change.  And life always goes on.

I read a book by Paul Auster while I was here in the Alps called The Invention of Solitude.  As usual, when you need a friend the most and you find yourself all alone, all it takes is to open a book to see that the person you needed to talk to, more than anything, was in your living room, right beside you the whole time.  But you were too vain, too blinded by your hardships to notice.  Books are the one constant in life that always reminded us that I am not really alone.  People you cannot always count on but books are infinitely loyal friends.  It is like having a friend with you, since essentially, they are meant to show us that everything we are feeling, someone has felt before us, perhaps not the exact scenarios we are living but he has the same emotions, the same questions.  And while they're telling us their stories (if you are reading the right ones), we slowly begin to identify with humanity again.  Because when we are suffering, we must be able to know how that suffering compares to others'.  Everybody needs confirmation that they aren't a hypochondriac.  And everybody also needs to hear that the hero's pain did not last forever.  Things changed.  Always have.  Always will.  Not necessarily for the better.  But they changed.  And why couldn't we remember that?  Take comfort in it.  Why NOW did everything feel so much heavier?  And he described it perfectly.  Missing magic.  And the structure of the story.  The thread.  The solitude.

We feel we are living when our life feels in line with our surroundings and circumstances.  That’s when we feel truly infinite.  Not when we feel normal, average, when we are just getting through, even just learning who we are - we feel depressed then, or maybe incomplete would be a better word.  Void.  You do, that is, if you READ.  If you are someone who values a good story, then you must look at your own life in a similar manner, judging it the way you might judge a book.  Do I like the main character?  What are his best and worst traits?  Was he right or wrong when he... what other literary characters does he bear similarities to?  It’s not a choice to suffer but a reflex.  Either you are the kind of person who cares about their thread, their life, their story, its analysis, or else you have simpler wants: dinner and endless hours of stupid television or meaningless movies.  Passive and ignorant.

In a novel, it would be perfectly normal to witness a metaphor that puts the main character so in touch with his own story, or else so deeply connected to what the narrator has designed that what happens to him is impossibly beautiful.  In literature, nature: the rest of the world, their hopes and desires and actions, the weather – they are all there as devices to prove the hero’s story is rightly his, and more, that it is a good story.  That is what makes literary imagery so wonderful.  Orchestrated magic being revealed carefully by the author, slowly, only tidbits at a time, just so, making sure the reader feels as though he is the only one truly able to follow the whole thread.  Life can feel like that too.  But not if you’re too busy or too crowded to see it.    In my experience, only solitude has permitted me to follow my own thread.  It is only in solitude that I see how magical and beautiful my life is.  While I am busy living the human dramas, I forget that I am not the narrator.  I can only see as far as a two dimensional character.  That is, unless I see the signs.  Unless something puts me in touch with the greater story at play: its subtle meanings, archetypes, metaphors, symbols, devices.  Alas, only omniscience can tell us if our traits are flawed, if our actions are correct, if .  Only the narrator can tell us if we're living a tragedy or a comedy.  Only the narrator is privy to that information, until the story's over that is.  And it's already been widely confirmed that the narrator remains shroud in mystery and therefore no means to communicate directly.  We cannot see the Wizard.  We have only the signs to link us.  Metaphoric Moments.  Take them or leave them.  As far as I am concerned, however, without them we are only secondary characters.  I don't know about you but I'm not interested in being a device in someone else's story.

Friend, our stories have been full of metaphors in the past - in the good parts anyhow - and yet this year, I'm not really cool with any of these tragic ones becoming part of the larger picture: hardships, death, winter, desolation, impossible goals, cancer, secrets, old lovers, broken friendships - they're all heavy - and I want more than just heavy, I want relief.  But there's no light at the end of the tunnel.  Where is it?  Where is the light?  How do you go forward into the darkness?  How do you accept yourself as a tragic character and go on?

I've been trying to find a way because this whole time it's felt like things might really not get better.  And then it occurred to me: I don't go forward into the darkness.  I refuse.  I remain patient.  I do what I have to do to get through and then, when the storm has passed, I stand up and I do it better and I end up thanking myself for all that I learned through the horrors.  Heroes are boring anyway if they haven’t suffered and survived.

And that's when nature comes back into play.  It's here and it’s messy.  Dark.  We've been in a never ending storm.  But lucky for us, weather is about as unstable as life.  Nothing lasts forever, that's true and it’s a little sad.  But then, if it DID, this feeling might last forever too.  But it can't.  There will be rain and there will be sun.  And chances are, once a year, we'll be drowning in snow and it'll be fucking cold and everything'll be shit and that someone we know'll probably die of cancer but we're older now  and we finally understand that impermanence, shaking things up, starting over, losing and getting back up, endings, beginnings, firsts and lasts -  it is actually a great part of the story.  It's the only way to make a happy ending, actually.  If things don't suck, if they don't REALLY REALLY suck for you at some point, then you're never really equipped to see the beautiful moments that take you out of it, that fill you with will and desire and good.  You need those crises to remind you of the story you were writing.  And maybe even all the rest too, to give your story the fine balance pathetic fallacy it needs to be half decent. This, after all, is precisely what gives the character depth.  Thank God.  Thank FUCKING GOD.

 Yesterday afternoon, I stood at the top of a mountain and I saw exactly the same image that used to be on the wall of my living room when I was a kid.  It was a painting my dad brought home from Europe - I think it might have actually been what would eventually become just a small square of a much larger wallpaper design.  I imagined, dreamt about that painting all the time: who each of the people were, what they did, who they loved, the secrets they kept which houses were theirs, what job they did in the village.  You could never really make out the faces of the people and I loved that because it was a permanent mystery and the story was ever changing.  Just blurry colours in a beautiful backdrop.  Even the setting wasn't clear if you stood too close but when you took a step back, it looked like the most perfect place in the world.  It looked exactly like the villages down below from here.  The sun is lighting up the two villages below amidst the green and the rock face, and it is simply perfect and the same.  It's hard to explain in words.  It’s not just that it is beautiful (and it is, which is refreshing because not much has seemed beautiful to me of late) but it’s also that it has flooded me memories - good ones - different states of mind when I remembered my story being different.  Back when I had the will to write the kind of story, with my life and with my pen that even I would want to read.   I remembered thinking that I could face anything back then.  I had no fear.  Because you can be fearless when you're not alone.  And finishing that book on The Invention of Solitude this week, it also reminded me why I came here in the first place (to write) and how I am suddenly armed with a shitload of things to write about and the total freedom from distractions to be able to do it.  And I didn't feel sad or lonely for the first time in I cannot tell you how long.  This morning, I set my alarm for 7 am and I was writing with fervour.  And the story, now matter how self indulgent it felt, had enough metaphors to make me feel like it might be one worth writing. 

 

So keep your eyes open for a thread.  There's bound to be one.  Even in the solitude.  Maybe only in the solitude are you able to find it.  And maybe the writing itself will be shit and it will only ever mean anything to me but at least I have that feeling back.  At least my eyes are open again.  And I like who I see in the mirror.  She’s beautiful and good.  I think I am in love.  I wish you the same dear Friend.  And I hope to see you very soon but even if I do not, we will be okay.

Venez les beaux jours.  Faites de moi ce qu’il faut.  Je suis forte et maintenant je le sais.  Je suis une héroine à la recherche d’un happy end pour ma jolie histoire.  Venez les beaux jours, venez avec vos sophismes pathétiques et Je te suivrai partout où tu iras.

So take those long, painful, horrible years of shit and condense them now.  “They were terrible years.  The worst of times.". For me it will be shorter still:  Bad men.  Bad decisions.  Bad luck.   But the times, they are a changin.  And if Bob says so.....

So get to your room!

It’s time to turn the page. 

Love Julie
xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

Paris Is Like A Whore.

In a year's time, I've barely found any words to describe the way this town looks to me now.  It has changed.  Again.  There are not words, only faces and places that come and go.  And a lot of soul searching.  Equal parts suffering and pleasure.

So click on the link below to see the weather in My Tropic of Cancer.  No matter how hard I try to describe it in words, I think you have to see for yourself. 

Bisous.


https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0ROjz8IeEKjMkpaOUxEQ1NTMjg/edit

LA VIE C'EST PAS DU GATEAU

This summer I saw a grief counselor. I spent a lot of time in high school raising money for a cancer support centre in Oshawa (Hearth Place...for anyone who after reading this is looking for help!) The place was headed up by a friend's Mom who struggled with cancer for years before succumbing to the terrible monster while we were in high school.  By that point, only a few close friends had been personally touched by cancer.  It was somewhat rare. Now it seems every other person is dealing with cancer.  Six degrees of separation is down to only one or two these days.

Anyway, I decided to take advantage of some of the services the place had to offer since it was in town and I knew that it had provided a lot of help to a lot of people over the years. I believed in the place from the start but I wasn't really going for me.  I was going to see what options there were for my Dad and also hoped that I could contribute something of value to my family to help them deal with everything.  I thought maybe even just being around other people who had a clue what it was I was going through might help everyone cope a bit better.  My father had not yet passed away but I had accepted by this point that he was going to die.  It took some of the rest of the people in his life a little longer to accept.  That's the funny thing about cancer.  It's never a sure thing: there are so many treatments now and it's so darn rampant, that it's almost become a right of passage.  But it's also this stressful thing that lurks in the darkness.  Every time you close your eyes you wonder if this is it.

The doctors were pretty clear about what my Dad's short future held, as much as the brain tumour guide they sent us home with after St. Mike's anyway but because so many people we'd know had been struck and made it out alive, after watching the battle first hand last a decade in some cases,  it was easy to hold false hope too.   While the surgeries were happening, I was busy on the internet trying to get as may clear answers as possible: what to expect, at what kind of pace he was expected to degrade, how we could minimize his suffering, what different dosages of certain medications could tell us, how much time he had left.  On top of it all, during this time, we were still in the phase where we had to pretend that wasn't the case.  Not in a repressed, 'He can't be dying!' kind of way; which of course we all felt as well but the doctors had warned us that the stress of imminent death would likely worsen his condition and in the case of the brain, if we wanted to make the most of the time we had left with him we literally had to live in the moment.  In other words, we couldn't tell my Dad he was going to die.  We had to walk into the room with a smiles on our faces, not get upset and pretend as though he was only sick but that in the end, he'd be just fine.  Obviously, this wasn't an easy thing to do knowing in a few days time we were going to walk out the door and take Dad home to die in his bed.  All of this was especially difficult as my father had already transformed into another person: he was childlike now, had very little balance and a particular sense of humour: no sense whatsoever of the 'inappropriate'.  Traces of himself but not the real deal.  Of course, there were funny moments here and there.  One afternoon, my brother took him for a ride in his cruiser.  Walking back towards the help, impatient as ever and feeling 'FINE', he fell and my brother luckily broke his fall (he just about cracked his head open on the cement walkway leading to the house) with his foot.  'So Dad, how was your day?!  How was the drive?'  'Well, it was great.  But it would have been better if your brother didn't kick me in the head on the way into the house!!!'  We were much the same, playing along with his temperament, encouraging him to eat more if he wanted to, to fish to play golf to do anything and everything he wanted while he could, but, in the meantime, we were all holding back the tears and the words we wanted to say, the questions we wanted to ask, the undying love we wanted to impart and we just went on pretending it was any other Tuesday: everything was hunky dorey.  Eventually, it all became a little more than I could handle on my own.  It became too much for anyone to deal with on their own.  Each of us took turns having breakdowns.  Mine hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'd seen a counselor a couple of times before but wasn't wowed by the process of it and it didn't make me better in and of itself.  I remember it easing the conscience of a lot of the people I was leaning on for support. Because the truth about grieving is there as much guilt to the process as there is sadness.  You feel guilty that you aren't letting people in.  You feel guilty for asking too much, for being a downer.  You feel guilty about being weak.

The first time for me was after a couple of my friends died rather young.  I was twenty two at the time and found myself in lecture halls writing their names over and over on my notebooks because I couldn't hear anymore. I couldn't listen to anyone talk about anything, it didn't make sense.  This was all that mattered anymore.  They were dead.  We would all die too.  What was the point?  Suddenly talking about existentialism and international relations felt masturbatory and I wasn't in the mood for it. Anyway, I didn't have any ambition left, no appetite, no sex drive or even a life drive at that point.  I wanted absolutely nothing and getting out of bed in the morning was becoming increasingly difficult.

I was pretty messed up about it all, seeing both of them everywhere. Not in a scary ghost way but in the kind of way where I couldn't accept that they were gone. Deep down I already knew what I needed to do and was unconvinced that going to see some university counselor was going to make it any clearer.  I studied psychology and philosophy: I had the tools and the know-how to talk myself down from the ledge but somehow when real life is happening to you, all of that goes out the window.  Before I knew it, I wasn't me anymore and I could feel the Julie in me slipping away into that black hole of depression. I didn't care anymore about love or friends or family or enlightenment or anything. How could I? We were all going to die. And sooner than we think. And having been so sick for so long as a kid I partly felt guilty that life had taken these two great 22 year old friends of mine in such horrific ways. Should have taken me instead. But, you can't go on living that way - I'd done my share of reading about depression already by that point - one foot in front of the other, day-to-day -to-day. So, I caved and made an appointment at the University and I spoke to a psych student, only a few years older than me for a couple of hours a couple of weeks in a row.

Going into the appointment, I half expected the black leather sofa, mohogany cabinets full of books, framed diplomas from this school or that, and paisley curtains. Maybe even a particularly beautiful area rug.  I expected him to have thick rimmed glasses and a  beard and to ask me questions and YES, to answer yours: I've obviously seen too many movies! Instead, we were in a white room that looked a lot like the reading rooms in the library. Plastic and metal chairs and a fake wood desk with a desktop computer and a grey telephone. The man asked me nothing. He told me to talk about what I've been going through, what had happened. What I expected to get out of counselling sessions with him.  The first time I didn't cry. I told the story matter of factly: my friend died. I was fucked up about it. I couldn't concentrate. I was ruining my personal relationships and thinking about dropping out of school or at least taking a year off. Then another friend was in a horrible car crash and escaped as the only survivor, including the three other passengers in her vehicle and the truck driver who struck them. She was in a coma for a month and then died too on the operating table. We weren't extremely close but we were starting to be. I felt lost. I felt that life was unfair and I wasn't sure I wanted any part of it anymore. What was the point? I was reading way too much philosophy and only weeks prior had conditionned myself to see the world in a very different way than before: fearlessly it all fell to pieces quite literally. Particles of matter moving around aimlessly – nothing mattered any more than anything else and everything was suddenly simple and clear to me. We were one, all of us. Every experience, every breath, every life, every death. And then death knocked at my door and my feet slammed back on the ground and I felt like a pretentious bullshitter chasing down my own kind of God so that I could have something to believe in. The church had never done it for me. And believe me, I'd tried that too. At the time, I couldn't see the comedy in this ultimate test of faith. I should have and a few weeks before, I probably would have but once Ian was gone and the funeral was over and done and I was back in Vancouver where no one knew my old friend and no one could undestand how sad I was that I'd never see him again (it happened very suddenly in a swimming pool and he was cremated before I got back home) I was just a scared child, feeling alone and little crazy.  What did I expect to get out of counselling?  Fuck all.  And I expected about as much out of life itself.

Eventually, I allowed the counselling to be what it should be: an outlet for talking to oneself.   Permission to be selfish. No one really goes in looking for advice, they just need to hear themselves tell their story out loud.  It permits you to distance yourself from your own inner pain and brings you back to the bigger picture.  You don't have to feel guilty about suffering.  Until you're talking about it aloud, until you can describe to someone who you once were and the fear you're feeling now over losing some big part of yourself, you can't get better.  You need to get it out of you.  And as long as it's there, locked up inside, you can't get better.  It'll eat the rest of you alive too if you go about it that way.

Truth be told, I probably should have been talking to a therapist for a large part of my life with all the crap I've been through. Sometimes the people you're with make you feel strong enough to deal with anything that comes your way.  Friends can be magnificent for that and yet, it's also an unfair facet of the relationship between two people to lean too much on their supporters.  It's not what you want to share with people you love.  Of course, yes, people who love you will always be there for you but no, friends are NOT for leaning on when times are tough.  They are only reminders of the things to look forward to later.  They are the people you CHOOSE to LIVE WITH. Family is different.  And friends can be like family sometimes,it's true, but in my opinion anyway, there is something all-together mean about dragging your friends into your depression.  It's hard not to feel for deeply when your friends are down and out.  It's hard not to sympathize and want to help but we all know that there is nothing to do but get through the feelings.  We all know that the battle is within us and that no matter how many times we hash the same awful  stories to our friends over and over again, they still won't be able to do anything to help apart from reminding you that they exist and that they're there to have fun with whenever you're ready.  Anything more than that evokes that 'guilt' thing I spoke of earlier and a breach of trust.  Both parties feel guilty.  One for making their friends feel so bad, the other for being unable to solve the problem for you (because a true friend will WANT to do that!)  

There is also a weakness associated with asking for help, especially from the people hat you love and trust and respect that I've never been partial to. I'm kind of a boy that way. I don't like to cry in front of people. I don't like to talk about feelings. I make jokes so that nobody ever digs any deeper, I make light of the serious because if I don't, I'll drown in the suffering. It's not phony and I don't even think it's a defense mechanism (Freud might disagree, who knows...) for me, it's a choice. I used to call myself the ETERNAL OPTIMIST.  My goal in life was to make people happier. To do good. To love well. To understand. To laugh.

Then, out of nowhere, I wasn't able to laugh at my life at all anymore, I was losing my father and a lot of other things too simultaneously (we're friends...I'll spare you the details!) but mainly, I was losing the last of my faith that there would ever be a happy ending.  And I didn't want to bother my friends anymore, they'd already been at my side through piles and piles of other crap leading up to the cancer.  I didn't want to drag them down with me and I could tell that's where this was going.

Things were bubbling up and bubbling over inside of me and I'd already exploded on a couple friends over minor infractions (as though anything whatsoever was their fault) and as soon as I saw myself putting my stuff their shoulders, rather than dealing with my baggage, I sought professional help. It wasn't so much for me but it was to be a better person.  I was smart enough this time around to not repeat the same mistakes.  I also wanted to be able to ask questions for how I could help my own family get through this impossibly difficult time.  Anna Sapershteyn told me something years ago: 'People need to learn to own their own shit'. But the brain is a funny thing. It tricks us into all manners of madness and folly. It fools us with the notion that we are right when often we're wrong. It has a self-destruct button that is so easily set off by the slightest disappointment. Mine does, anyhow. But I had surpassed all that. I was already done with living. Tired. Exhausted. Too much bad. No good. And I felt like a homeless orphan because my family had too much to deal with to be there for ME and of course I wasn't expecting them to. There were bigger things happening but I was also going through some pretty heavy stuff and I didn't know where to turn.

So I called, made an appointment, sucked up my pride and saw Ted one morning at ten o'clock.  I was going to own my own shit, even if it killed me.  I knew I probably wasn't ready to talk about any of it yet, it was all too fresh.  My father was still at home.  Still upright.  Still eating.   He asked me why I'd come to see him and I told him the truth. This happened. Then this. And this and this and this and this and this...he sat there with his jaw dropped and I felt guilty for complaining but only for a few minutes, impossible to feel unlike a whiner when you've got so many complaints and so little gratitude.  I knew the cliches applied: 'La vie c'est pas du gateau' (Life isn't a piece of cake). I already knew all of that and I was naive anymore.  I also knew people who were going through things a Hell of a lot harder than what I was dealing with but I couldn't shake the cursed feeling inside of me. For the first time in a long time, I felt like a victim. Like it wasn't fair. People were unkind.

How did some end up with far simpler existences? Happy families. Love. Profound friendships and careers they reveled in. Mine was the kind of solitary story you write tragic books about (and for that I was grateful, of course) but I didn't want to be ME in my story anymore. I couldn't take one more bit of bad news. When I finally got around to talking about what it was like for me going through all of this stuff I started to cry uncontrollably. Not out of sadness. Not even out of pain, really. It was more overwhelming and inexplicable than that. For the first time, maybe ever in my life, I was listening to myself tell a stranger who I was, where I came from and where I was going and it was too much to hold in any longer.  And by the end of the hour, I knew I'd made the right decision by calling.

Ted let me cry. And he said everything I was feeling was perfectly normal. More than normal. Sometimes we need to hear that from someone that we don't love (because our friends and families can't be trusted in those circumstances!) It's not even about being 'normal' perse, because you don't feel normal when you're going through all of these things; you feel isolated and separate from the rest of humanity and truth be told, you're probably NOT normal while you're going through them.  You become effectively crazy.  But we all need to hear that it's okay to be feeling all that you're feeling while you're feeling it.  That you're not alone in feeling empty - the whole damn world feels the void - why do you think counselling is such big business!?  Ted proceeded to tell me a story about his own life. He lost his father and his brother in the span of a week: à la Joan Didion. He talked about how awful it was, how alone he felt.  How there seemed to be no purpose to go on living without them.  How he almost lost everything in the process.  Somehow it put things into perspective for me in a way that I knew I could only do in my own head.  He made me feel less alone.  He didn't make it better.  He didn't make any of it better but he made that light in my head go on reminding me that 'this too shall pass'.  And while you're in it, you feel like you might drown in there.  You certainly don't see an end in sight.

Everyone has their own bag of shit to deal with.  Full of madness even the Brothers Grimm didn't bother to teach us as children: I'm not talking murder and betrayal, I'm talking about those 'life' things that happen to everyone eventually: the human traumas that makes you question the point of anything at all. For some people it's just loneliness for others, it's evil for some it's just the plain lack of justice in any of it.  There are days when optimism seems impossible, futile and plain foolish.

There's always a reason to be sad and there's always going to be. If they'd have just said that from the beginning, I'd probably feel a lot less dissappointed now than I did in the beginning. But it's enlightening all the same. And that's because of the way I feel today. I feel alive. I wouldn't say good or bad or even alright but I feel alive.  I feel like I'm fighting my way through.  I feel older.  I wouldn't call myself an optimist anymore but I'm shedding a bit of the cynism.  Enough to remember the things that I love.  The people that I love.  Enough to taste my dinner and wash it down with a nice glass of wine.

Ted told me one other thing that stayed with me throughout the time my father was ill and again following his death: 'You'll be surprised at the people who are there for you through all of this and those that aren't. I couldn't believe it. And be ready, the ones you think are going to be there, they're going to be the first to disappear. And it's not because they don't love you but some people just don't know how to deal with death.  These types of things make you realize who your friends are.'

He was absolutely right and it wasn't all a negative experience. In a way, I was happy of the people that weren't around and glad of the people that were. Friendships were solidified in some cases and idealism was negated in others. I saw the best and worst in people. I sometimes felt at home just being in the presence of the right person at the right time - occasionally that person was someone I didn't know very well prior to any of the 'crazy' and going through that together has cleared a space for them in my life that didn't exist before.  There were other moments, I couldn't be around anyone but myself (hence the house in the woods...). Anything more seemed too intense.  There was a long period this year where I'd tested the hypothesis: if you don't have human relationships, then you've only got your own pain and suffering to deal with. If you're alright with yourself, you should still be able to realize a pretty satisfying life: I tried with writing and guitar and piano and cooking.  I was right and being alone was necessary to the healing process and it took forcing myself to do those selfish things just for me to remember who I was.  But there was also an element of humanity that integral in regaining some element of faith.  There was also a time where I needed to clear the cobwebs and tell people what I thought.  Sometimes I didn't have the nicest things to say.  Other times, it was just to say 'I love you' when I had the epiphanies of knowing who I did and didn't love.  Life is short, after all.  And we are all connected whether we want to be or not.

Which of course brings me to the end of this meandering journey through my brain: death. It's always present. It's on everyone's minds a lot of the time. Sometimes we push it out because we're afraid of it, other times we long for it because anything else seems too much or not worth the trouble. Death's going to follow us around for a long time, part of the family. It's not going anywhere no matter how much living we do. Apart from birth, it's one of the few experiences we've got in common universally. You're born and you die. And everything in between is a whole lot of emotional wonder. Wonderful because of it's beauty and heaviness and ability to move us to the poles of pleasure and pain with the flick of a switch. In one year I have felt love more profoundly than I've ever felt in my life and I have felt it's equal share of horror and pain. The best and the worst of it all. And the rôle of death has taken on a different meaning. It's just the end of the story. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not something to fear or chase or even avoid. It's just there and when it's ready for ya, it'll get ya.

I think there are two different parts to living. One where we're alone a lot, reflective, looking at the world we're in, where we've come from, where we're going, where you're going and where you've already been. There's the personal struggle with the universe that we all share: the reasons we look for love and the reasons we seek out the pain and suffering too. And then, there's the debauchery part. The living part of the program. Above, we wouldn't consider 'living'. Thinking somehow gets shoved to the sidelines in today's society. There's just too much to do to wonder why things are the way they are.

Those of us who take the time to look in once in a while, generally fair better in the scheme of things.  So let me be  the stranger that tells you you owe it to yourself to be selfish.  You owe it to the people you love too.  You've got to sit down and look at your story.  And it might be a horrible story at points.  Tragic.  Bloody awful but it's yours.  If it's not bad, you probably haven't done enough living yet.  And until you're ready to look at it front to back, to read it out loud and to analyze yourself as a main character, you just can't get better, plain and simple.

That's what I think.


Don't lose all your faith. There's always a little to hang onto if you put your mind to work. And don't deny anything that you're feeling ever. It doesn't give you a licence to be a dick but it ought to take away a bit of the judgment that we're beaten over the head with as children.  And if more people felt okay to express what was really going on inside of them without the fear of what 'others' might think of them if they say or do this or that, we'd be getting somewhere.

So true.  La vie c'est pas du gateau.  Life's just slightly more complicated than that.   Life's not covered in sparklers and icing.  It's not there just for weddings and birthday parties and first communions.  You could never make one with so few ingredients as cakes...an egg, some flour and sugar and oil just won't do.  Life's a lot harder to digest too.  Sometimes it can take years, decades even.  It's sole purpose is not only to be eaten or even shared.  And yet, sometimes we all wish it were a little closer to cake.  At least then we'd always know that at some point, we'll get yet another shot at having our wishes come true.  No.  Life just ain't that easy and it sure ain't a piece of cake, but then, no one said it would be easy...and anyway, easy usually means 'too good to be true.'

L'Etrangère à Paris

 Back to Paris.

Unpacking again. I'm always unpacking, it seems. Nesting and re-nesting. There's less stuff every time I do it and I wonder where it's all gone to.

It's Sunday so that means Bastille Market. Men yelling, old women budding-in, young farmers in charge. I love it. I want to see my Egg Guy and my Shallot Guy and my Hummous Guy and of course my Italian guy. I've missed the fresh mozzarella and confit tomatoes and artichokes. I fill my bag quickly now, not like before. I buy two bunches of tulips for 10 euros instead of 2 for 14 what most of the florists are charging today. I don't feel like a tourist at all here. I feel like I know my way around. Paris was always the place to come to get lost. Now, here I am: giving the taxi driver directions and talking back in French to anyone who tries to mess with me.

Yesterday there was wine and music in the streets. A bottle Coteaux du Lyonnais with two glasses, half drunk at the sardine-can-Sunday place I adore most in Paris.   If you're smart, you rush to the bar, try to score a spot leaning on the aluminum to get a good look at the menu and most importantly the bartender's attention.

Surrounded by old French men - with gold-rimmed glasses and wool hats drinking varieties of whites and reds, washing down their charcuterie and aged cheeses - we chat about this and that and guard our spots from the throngs of folks desperate to sit or at least lean. The rest of Paris, it seems is waiting outside eating oysters off window ledges and garbage cans, anywhere they can get a spot, trying to breathe the air outside a little and they can: the Aligre Market is quiet today, everyone is at the Bastille.  There's a kid's park just at the corner.  Only in Paris...

We took our wine to the park and smoked cigarettes and watched children in Argyle sweaters play while a young man jumped rope and an old man did Thai-Chi. Mostly, we were just shooting the shit and waiting on the rain. It was a nice afternoon. But it didn't end there. There was frip shopping but it felt so much more leisurely than before too knowing which places were open and closed on Sundays. I know which stores I want to see and I know which roads to avoid all-together. And, sometimes on a Sunday, if you're really lucky, you'll get a free concert in this walkway or that, ours with an old lady with flowers in her hat jancing a jig while the singer, an old man chimed along with a perfect English accent and a band full of horns to back them both up I want to fill their guitar case full of all my euros but I've barely got any to spare. Anyway, I have a rule when it comes to musicians: I'll give them a coin if they play one of three songs.  Most do and you can't please everybody all the time. 

When the bottle's done and our bladders are full, we push through the stampede to get to the washroom.  You need to take the back exit, go outside. Yes, that hole in the floor out in the courtyard with the closet door, that's it.  Men are putting down their glasses and zipping up their flies and girls are doing everything they can not to pee on their shoes.  There is something charming about the toilets here - maybe because it's a challenge - like the first time you finally figure out what 'chasse-d'eau' means and why there is a warning about it above the basin.  This time, I know enough to dive out of there as quickly as possible to avoid the involuntary shower.  I carry toilet paper just in case and I know that I will find no soap.  No towels.  Just a bunch of happy Parisians getting back to their meat-spreads and cheese trays.

I felt comfortable at the bar later on too. Comfortable enough to drink my supper and push my way to the toilets. I should have had lunch or something but the day's gone and I'm full on vintage clothes and macarons from Carrette, on coffee and wandering through cobblestone streets and empty churches. The first drink goes down easy. The second and third and fourth do too with laughter and tears and good conversation in a couple different languages.

By eleven, I'm drunkenly reversing my path, knowing that this is to become my usual commute: Gentilly Bus to RER.  RER to Chatelet. Chatelet to the 1, careful not to bump into anyone on the crowded rolling walkways of shoppers and students. The 1 to St. Paul. St. Paul to Place Des Vosges by foote. I'm becoming conscious of how the days are going to play out. Who I'll see and what I'll do. What's important now. The quiet of having no television and a computer that barely works. Books. And of course the piano. I think my neighbours hate me already. Every time I play there's a knock on the door and I just don't answer. I can play if I want to. All I've ever wanted while I was here was a piano. From the very start, it was the thing I missed the most.

I'll have to find a new place come June or July – they're rennovating the whole place and moving everyone to the 13^th. I wonder where I'll be then. But for now, I'm here and I've got a fridge full of groceries and my kitchen smells like basil and thyme and coffee. It's grey out there so I'm staying in today to hang my laundry dry and make a savoury Tarte Julie with all the goodies I got from my favourite guys at the market. I have an oven for the first time since I've been in Paris so the sky is the limit. Well, that and eleven hours of straight drinking with old friends in old places...

Better than Baskin Robbins

A lot of things have happened this year that I want to talk about but can’t.  Not because they’re embarrassing - I don’t care about that - but because people will get hurt.  I’m not a secretive person and I like to write about real life.  I don't typically hide details about my life from anyone.  In the short life I’ve had so far, I’ve learned that secrets don’t do us  much good – they’re just our way of trying to preserve some phony ideal about who we’d like to be.  At the same time, I've also learned that it’s not my place to out people who want to keep their private lives private.  Not everybody wants to live the way I do, not everybody has to, either.  Not everybody wants their dirty laundry out there in the open for everyone to see – some people still feel shame and judgment and guilt, three emotions I had to shed fairly early in life.  Not everybody can laugh about their own misfortunes the way I’ve learned how.

So, what’s new that I can talk about?  I made it through the holidays with a red dress and a smile on my face but the anxiety attacks caught up with me again just after Christmas.  The season was a lot harder than I anticipated.  I had to quit my job because the thought of any responsibility in that moment was more than I could bear.  I had a lot of out-of-nowhere nervous breakdowns, mostly in the car or at the cabin, mostly private.  There is thing that kept happening.  I could feel the tension bubbling up in my belly, it would move to the right side of my neck rather quickly.  Tears came and went the way hunger pangs sometimes come and go.  If you weren’t paying attention, you might miss them all together – if you let them take hold, you might eat yourself alive.

There was one afternoon where I felt as though life was pushing me over the edge while laughing at me.  I lost it on a few people I shouldn't have.  It happens.  Do I feel bad?  Not so bad in hindsight.  I think I’ve held it together pretty well until now, considering.  Do I wish I would have acted differently?  No.  I’m done wishing that.  We act how we act and as long as we are doing our best, that’s all we can ask of anyone.  We do what we do.  Life is not the projected fantasy in our heads of what we ‘might have’ done and the players aren’t the people we ‘dream of’ being with.  Life is what it is and the people in your life are there for a reason.  Period.  If they aren’t there, they aren’t part of your life.  What’s important is how we treat them, how we act and how we love one another.  I’m more sure of this now than ever.

But try telling that to a romantic.  It’s tough and somehow, I suppose because my parents were so different, I ended up with both traits.  I have dreams of people on occasion, of how easy everything could be, would be, should be. The sad part is that the ‘what-you-want-out-of-life’ bits and the ‘who-you-want-to-spend-your-life-with’ bits aren’t always complimentary.  Friends can do unforgivable things.  Romance can get lost in expectations.  And even though sometimes it can all seem so easy, so clear, life’ll always find a way of making a big mess out of your happiness if you forget for even a moment to appreciate all you’ve got, all that you’ve had, all that’s to come. 

A friend once told me that love is the most selfless thing in the world, I argued with him at the time but it turns out he was right about that and after this trip, I now truly understand what he meant. It wasn’t so long ago I was writing a love letter to my friends.  Toronto had taught me so much about so many people.  It taught me that I was surrounded by heroes and superstars and even a little magic.  It taught me that everything would be alright.  I wouldn't write that letter today.  Not because my friends aren't still wonderful people (they are) but because I don't feel a lot of love anymore.  I just don't.

So many bad things have happened – death, heartbreak, car accidents, lies, family feuds, logistics gone awry and I've found myself giving up on everything I've ever believed in, feeling hopeless and alone and like there was no point to anything.  I’ve since looked up the definition of depression in the dictionary and I have exhibited not one but all the signs this year, voluntarily self-destructing.  I smoke more.  When I drink (which albeit is rare) I drink in excess.  I lead a generally unhealthy lifestyle and why?  Because I've stopped caring.  I can vividly remember the last time I felt this way – ready to trade it all in for Nozick’s Time Machine.  I was fifteen and I wanted to die.

I was in and out of the hospital a lot.  My medication wasn’t working and I couldn’t make it up a flight of stairs at school without having debilitating attacks.  My doctors were telling me and my family that there was no chance for me and that I wouldn’t likely survive until my eighteenth birthday.  You can’t imagine how fucked up this is for a fifteen year old.  Most kids at this age are looking forward to the boys they’re going to kiss, the parties they're going to crash and the friends they’re going to make.  Not me.  I was busy planning my own funeral and wishing there was some way of separating the mind and body so that I didn’t have to go but didn’t have to stay chained to this malfunction of a vessel either.  What was the point?  I’d have chosen the dream over reality if given the choice, hands down.

A few months later, there was a mistake made at our pharmacy.  I opened my usual bag of medication at the kitchen table and noticed that the colour of my inhaler was a slightly different shade than I’d remembered.  Upon careful checking, we learned it was.  Turns out for the past 2+ years, I’d only been on an infant’s dosage of the stuff.  No wonder it wasn’t working and everyone thought I stood no chance.  In the meantime, because of the downward spiral in my health, doctors also had me on a lot of steroids for my asthma.  My face puffed out like a blowfish from the moonface.  I put on weight everywhere, not because of food consumption but because of swelling.  I felt more emotional and irrational and than your typical teenager and I was constantly shaky: had trouble sleeping or relaxing or sitting still.  At least a dozen times a day, every day, I wanted to die.  But it was an illusion – it was human error that put me here, not fate.  I wasn’t going to die.  I was going to live and this would make me stronger.

Lately I’ve had that same feeling again.  I understand a bit more what it is that gets to me - it's not friends letting me down.  It's not loneliness.  It's not relationship trouble.  It’s this lack of control.  It's being forced to bear the grunt of the responsibility for the things we do (both positive and negative) while somehow pretending to ourselves and others that we could have done differently but the truth is, most of the things that I’m upset about this year I haven’t been able to control one bit.  I know that I shouldn’t let them get to me so much because I haven’t done anything regrettable: I’ve quite literally done my very best.  This is not to say I haven’t made any stupid mistakes – I have made those too, mostly in those random moments of inebriation – and like a normal year, there are moments where I simply should have known better and acted differently.  But I’ve never been one for regrets and in my experience, we are who we are because we make errors in judgement.  If we never made them, we’d have no opinions about anything and we’d learn nothing at all.  Seriously, though, the major ones – the ones that give me that shoulder crunching, heart palpitation, crawling out of my skin feeling – those are the moments I’ve got no control over and they’re the same moments that are pushing me to self-destruction.  But why?  How could I be so weak to lose myself in things I couldn’t control?  Leaving this week, I've finally come to understand why.  Judgmental people.  And I don't need any more of them in my life, period.  I don't need to be 'shamed' and I don't need to be criticized for my decisions - for the same reason I don't need praise for my accomplishments.  Because I am an adult now and I am doing my best.  And no, I'm not perfect but Holy Christ - you're one to talk.  From now on, I'm going to laugh like a hyeena when someone judges.  I'm going to walk away.

A while ago, I was talking to a good friend with whom I have somewhat of a complicated history.  He’d been through a fair amount of the same type of stuff – doubt in oneself, betrayal, frustration, reality looking a little more like a Jerry Springer episode than the dream he’d once imagined.  He was drinking more these days and generally just unhappy with his life.  But he was surviving and successful in what he'd set out to do and I was proud of him for that.  I asked him what exactly he had done to get to that point of being beyond it all.   He told me that I was the person who made him feel better about everything.  That I made him smile and that even if he couldn’t piece it together to see me, he thought about me often.  He told me not to forget who I was in all of it and to have faith.  It was the best letter I’d ever had from anyone and it made me feel like a million bucks when I didn’t have a centime to spare.  Some might argue that things only got worse from this point forward.  That’s because they did.  And thinking of that person believing in me, that I had somehow made his life better, it helped a bit.  It made me feel less alone on the planet.  The way I've felt when the kids I've looked after have learned the word 'love' (all words for that matter) and have found their own ways of expressing theirs for me. 

In one of my father’s lucid moments, he asked me to ‘take care of everybody’ for him as though there was some way I’d end up being stronger than the rest of them, more wealthy, more able.  I held it together for as long as I could but the more out-of-control things got, the less I believed in myself.  It made me think of that mother on the airplane needing to put on her own mask first before she could help her kids as her plane was going down.  For a while there, I think I’d lost myself all-together in all the bad news and I really couldn't help myself, let alone my family or friends or co-workers or anybody. 

I’m leaving for France in a few days.  I’m somewhat excited to go back.  There are things and people that I miss.  There are places that I want to touch again.  There is something powerful about standing in the same place your ancestors stood.  There is something even more powerful about standing in the Musee d'Orsay Thursday nights in the wintertime when there are hardly any other people around.  There are things that I know now that I didn’t know the last time I was in Paris that will change the place for me, yet again.  Some details that will make it easier to go on, others make it incredibly tough to imagine tomorrow.  Mostly, I’m just scared and I feel like I’m letting my father down so far.  I want to give him what he asked for.  But I'm not doing that here.  Not yet, anyway.  Not like this.

Saying goodbye to a few friends last week with absolutely zero control over my emotions, I quite literally burst into tears a couple times.  It came out of nowhere.  It was partly heartbreak, I think.  It came also out of a fear of never seeing these people again – that this goodbye was the goodbye that would last because sometimes you know that you can’t go back.  I wasn’t entirely sure that I had reached that point yet but something in me had definitely changed.  Toronto had changed.  The place that had once been a ‘new beginning’ had its own bad habits and reasons to flee now.  I felt terror that I’d hurt any one of those people that I loved unintentionally because of my circumstance and/or anxiety attacks.  And most of all, I knew that these tears came out of a sincere gratitude and appreciation for having the kind of people in my life that could make me want to hold on to anything at all.  I was scared to say goodbye to that because I’ve never felt this kind of love before for anyone but my own parents.  And then it occurred to me – I’m so darn upset because these people are my family.  Because like brothers and sisters we might bicker and gossip about each other, we might yell and scream and act like total imbeciles but there is love there and a lot of it.  We might even take out all of our anger out on one another but that’s only because we know we can.  Sometimes we do it for the attention, other times we do it because we're so angry at the way things are that we need to blame it on someone.  A true friend understands that and lets you.  He/she forgives the next day with a hug or a beer or even just a laugh.

So, to my Father, I’d like to say, I’ve done my best and I’m going to keep doing my best but I can’t promise anything until I learn to look after myself again and I miss you so much that sometimes it’s awfully hard to focus on me.  I once felt untouchable, indestructible, tough as nails.  I’m going to get that feeling back because it reminds me of you and the way you lived your life – unapologetically, confidently, fearlessly.  It reminds me of feeling protected and cared for; like a daughter should feel.  And if I can’t keep you in my life, I’d at least like to keep that feeling so that one day, I can give it to someone myself.

Friends and Family, I’m working on finding a way to be strong without having to lean on you.  You sure do make excellent support systems but that’s not what I want to share with any of you and although I know ‘that’s what friends are for’; really they’re not for that at all.  They’re people to share and enjoy living with.  I had this weird thought earlier this winter in the woods.  I was standing in a forest and looking up at the trees.  The snow had fallen and everything was so calm and beautiful, I was overwhelmed with a lust for life for just a moment.  And then I recalled a discussion from a first year philosophy course; that cliché we all know: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"  I was a big fan of Berkeley at the time and this question hit home.  Well, standing there alone in the forest, I realized that no one I cared about was seeing this tree.  If I didn’t tell someone about it, no one would even know that I had this epiphany out there in the woods on my own and while maybe that shouldn’t matter, it did matter.  I felt like I didn’t even exist.  Without you – I was nothing.  And that’s when I realized that no matter how far I pushed everybody away in hopes that minimizing the social would bring about some calm inside of me, it just wasn’t living if I couldn’t share it with you.

Knowing you exist should be (and will once again be) enough to hold me up straight and I need to be able to stand up on my own to be able to share with you anything of substance in this lifetime and you all deserve it all.  Thank you for never letting me fall.  I trust you all.  I love you all.  I’m thankful for every one of you – strengths and faults and all.

Future, I’m not expecting much here.  I’m not asking to win the lottery or have a million kids.  I’m not asking for a white knight or true love or anything perfect.  I’m not asking for a big house and a lifetime of travel.  I’m just asking for what I need.  And like Mick Jagger said way back when: ‘You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you might get what you need’.  Well, that’s all I’m after and I'm going to keep trying my best.  I’d like to get what I need and to suffer less so that I might appreciate more often all that I do have.  My Grandmother taught me how important it was to appreciate the little things and it's kept me happy this long.  Time to get it back again.

Past, I’ve tried to ditch you, suffocate you, ignore you, replace you, forget you, erase you.  It hasn’t worked.  You follow me around like a lost puppy and you re-appear at the most peculiar of times.  Often it makes me wonder if chronology isn’t simply an illusion, if it’s not at all like you just ‘feel’ real in my present; maybe you are still there.  Maybe time doesn’t move only forward.  Maybe it really can move backwards and sideways too.  I carry you with me everywhere I go.  I’ve tried to learn something from you and I’ve also tried to put you behind me.  I’m going to try to be more conscious of you, more thankful, more understanding of your place in my life.  Put it in a book.  Or two.  Or three.

Present: Alice Morse Earle probably said it best.  "The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present."  I remember hearing someone pull out this quote from their back pocket at a fundraiser I’d organized back in 97/98 for cancer research and support services and thinking it was a little corny but a little true.  Usually the things that are corny are that way for a reason…because there’s a little more truth to them than we’d like to admit or because they give us that fuzzy feeling that makes us feel like everything’s going to be okay and we all know that’s not really the case. 

But sometimes it is the case.  Sometimes we can just feel in the pits of our stomachs like everything is going to be okay.  Like we’ll survive.  Like we’ve had something worth suffering over – love, for instance.  If we never felt it in the first place, we’d never feel loss or anger or pain.  No human emotion exists without its counterpart. 

There is no fear without courage. 

There is no pain without pleasure.

There is no hatred without love.

There are no friends without enemies.

There would be nothing to lose if I didn’t have you in the first place.

So, to answer my Doctor’s question: no.  I would not like to take anti-depressants because I think I’ve got a pretty solid head on my shoulders and I think I’ve just been dealing with a rough hand here, truly.  I’ve got a little faith left that things will get better again, even soon.  I'm going to try different methods first: solitude, meeting new people, having my eyes open, st. john's wort, melatonin, literature, music and being true to myself.  Sounds like a solid recipe to me.  Better than something that's going to permanently fuck with my brain chemistry.

A good friend of mine came up to see me in the woods and had a word of advice for me from a Vipassna Meditation that changed her life: ‘This too will change,” she said.  “Because everything changes always and that’s one constant that we do have.”  I was both frightened and comforted at the same time by this thought and knew instantly that depending on whether you’re in the good parts or the bad parts – even this meditation could change value.  But what it is, always, is true.  This is the nature of human existence.  Impermanence, fluctuation, struggle, uncertainty.

I'm not a religious person but there is something about religion that makes sense to me.  It's the faith quotient, I think.  So while I can't promise to give myself over to the Bible or to Jesus or the Greater Good - I can and will try to be more conscious, to have more faith in the experience itself, to feel comfort when it's there for the taking and to be less shocked and dissappointed when life is so much harder than I believed it would be.  I'm going to make myself a new Sunday ritual.  And it's going to be better than Ice Cream.

In my book, the hero struggles for ten years because he is obsessed with knowing the answers to life’s greatest questions.  Towards the end of the book, he gets those answers and it doesn’t change a damn thing in his ‘story’.  Life is what it is.  It’s a pile of things that don’t make any sense while we’re living them and although we try to put our faith in the hope that one day, we’ll find those answers, that things will make sense and be easy, we’re missing the point and forgetting what makes it all so precious in the first place.  Why is it so hard to think of this when times are tough?  I don't know.  But that's part of the puzzle too.  Human drama.

Yes.  Today is a gift.  And I’m not going to try to open it and spoil its magic and possibilities because I have a hunch that those two things are the whole point of it all anyhow.  I’m going to hold that wrapped box under my arm and just live for a while, conscious to put a little less hope into what might be inside and be comforted, if only by my discipline and strength in being less hasty, in making it last, savouring it all.  I’m going to be thankful that I’ve got a present at all.  Anyway, I’m certain that there’s something great in there but I think I’m finally smart enough to know that it doesn’t really matter what’s inside. 

After all, it’s the thought that counts.  

My Stations of Solitude

Many of you have been politely asking why I haven't been writing much on this thing anymore. You want to know what the Hell I do up there when I leave Toronto with groceries and Baileys and say 'I'll see you next week'? Well, I'll tell you.

But first I need some Diesel. This car is amazing, I can't thank my Dad enough. I can do several return trips with only half a tank: $20. I'd need at least twice that for a couple of hours of stop and Go downtown. I put the Balsam Lake Mix in the CD player: a perfect compilation of country-themed tunes, part bluegrass and part my own past. I stop for a coffee with two raw sugars and I light a cigarette when the speed limit changes from 60 to 80. I'm crusing at 100 and there's no one in front of me or behind me. I've got just over an hour's drive and I'll be home.

It's dark by the time I arrive. The house is cold and the pump and hot water are off so it takes a while to warm the place up. At the moment I'm still breaking off pieces of wood that we broke to bits ourselves in the forest when some of you were up with me before my father passed away. I twist up old copies of the Globe and Mail and build a mini teepee out of sticks and light the fire with the door open. The flew open too if I can remember which side it goes to before the living room fills with smoke. If not, it's not such a big deal. I like the smell. It reminds me of camp, of cooking a turkey underground, of little girls dreaming of up what they'll be and who they'll be it with, carrying love letters in their camp uniforms beneath the makings of friendship bracelets. It reminds me of happier times.

Then I head for the records. Bob. Neil. EmmyLou, John, Louis, The Last Waltz of the Band. Depends on the day. Depends on the dishes I left in the sink the last time. While the fire's burning and the speakers are booming, I unpack the car and move back in. There are things that need to go in the refrigerator, there's another pound of coffee, there's a lot that's got to be frozen.

If I can avoid it, I wait to use the loo. There's nothing worse than washing your hands with icy water when it's cold outside and you haven't warmed up yet. I pull out my furry slippers. The ones that help me forget that I've forgotten my socks. I put my clothes back in the drawers I stole them from, always just enough to get through one weekend of city life. I sigh as I take off my pantyhose or my blue jeans that in a couple of days, I'll have to forsake the jogging pants again and wear something more 'street appropriate'. In the meantime, I'm alternating five sweatsuits and I love them equally. The one that says 'Trojans' on the ass could never really be worn in Toronto and yet, at 10 AM at the Kirkfield LCBO, I didn't even get so much as a funny look. I turn the heat to 50, just to get the place cozy again and then I'll cut it and live off the eco fan that blows hot air into my living room from the blaze inside the wood stove for as long as I can stand it. I think about how I need a cord of wood yesterday but I can't reach The Wood Guy.

Once everything is unpacked and I'm warm and the pine needles have disappeared from the living room floor, I'll either pour myself a manhattan or I'll bake myself some cookies. Depends on the spirit of the evening. Lately, it's been a lot more of the latter. I pull out my secret tin box that says 'Cough Drops' on top of the television set and its accompanying ZigZags and I disassemble a Belmont and get rolling. I'm not supposed to smoke on the terrace. Most days it's raining anyway so I opt out but tonight, it's a clear one. I strap on my head lamp and venture out onto the lawn to activate the sensor lights with no manual switch so that I can see at least in front of me, to either side and behind. Still, sitting out there is a bit like smoking in a tiny black box. Apart from the noises, I haven't got a clue what is beyond the shadows on any side of me. It's scary but apart from one unfortunate encounter with a raccoon and some squirrels who seem to like the guitar, most of the rest of my neighbours: the skunks, the deer, the chipmunks and the black bears seem to respect my space.

The first night is usually the same. With a collection of recent films from a variety store on Roncey, I cuddle up on the couch with my favourite cushions and a good drink and sink further and further into the futon, into the 1970s crochet blanket and the smell of the fire behind me and I watch for as long as I can take it.

Most first nights, I wake up somewhere around 1 or 2 in the morning and literally drag myself off the couch and into my enormous, comfortable, pleasure centre of a bed. 600 thread count sheets, great down duvet and a heated queen blanket in between that I usually leave off until after my morning pee. When you crawl out of the warm duvet and remember that December is just around the corner and that it's windy out there and that the kitchen floor is freezing.

Goodnight.

The second day is exciting. I wake up when the sun decides it's going to make its way into my room. I don't generally close the blinds. The leaves look electric in the wind and I feel so lucky to see trees through my window rather than tall buildings or speeding cars. What a change this is from the city. It's so nice that the phone hasn't rung. That I can stay here or get up and it doesn't matter. That I can curl up with a book and fall back asleep if I feel like it. I'm so excited by the thought of no responsibilities I can't possibly stay in bed a minute longer. Anything is possible.

No later than 8, I am up. I scoop out the coffee from the antique tin I bought when I arrived and get it brewing while I pull back the dining table in the living room and set my yoga mat by the fire. In no way am I am shining example of excercise but it feels nice to stretch in the morning again. I had forgotten what it was like to take the time to feel good before leaving the house. I do the Sun Salutation 3 or 4 times with the crackling of the fire behind me and the lake lapping at the road in front of me. I'd like to do it on the dock. There is nothing more relaxing than the sound of water first thing in the morning. Before too many minds are a flutter, poisoining the day with things to do and places to go, before too many cars and buses come to take people away from Paradise and back to where they 'have' to be.

When the yoga's done, I take my medication with a big glass of water. For the first time in my life, I am faithful to the ritual of it. It does not end up forgotten, like it might when I had only 3 minutes to catch a bus so I could be here or there or anywhere. I see it in the bathroom, like I see my toothbrush, my towel and my New Yorker magazine. It's one of the only things I have to do today and it is important. And now, now it's time for coffee.

I began a rule at the house when I first moved in. Morning coffee should be Irish. Because it can be. I love Baileys and don't drink much but there is nothing so warm and sweet as a fresh cup of beautifully strong coffee with a hefty shot of Baileys. The smell fills the whole house and I get excited for the day. So far, visitors have been mostly amenable to joining me in my sins. There has only been one instance where a culture divide let to a French man almost spitting his coffee across the room saying 'This isn't coffee! What is this?!' From that point forth, even said French man understood the value, the luxury of being able to spike your coffee at 8 AM. Because you've got no place to go. No place to be. I'll be damned, we said, we're finally free!

It is a different kind of house, this is, when the guest rooms are empty and it's only me. For one, I like to go to the bathroom with the door open. I always have and here, it's like a paradise. I can almost see the lake if I lean properly and to my right I've got a big leafy tree to keep me happy. Not to mention a big basket of old New Yorkers to keep me occupied. No shame in taking a few extra minutes. I'm in no hurry. I've got no place to be. I wonder what I'll do with the day, apart from the 'quotidien' of the Cow Shed (that's the name of this place...it used to be an actual cow shed). There are certain things that are done every day. And they don't feel a thing like those 'quotidiens' that exist in the city. I don't have to go to work. I don't have to take the subway or the streetcar or the DVP. I don't have to meet anyone for anything. I don't have to pay bills or find parking or find a solution to this or that problem. Unless of course this or that problem is that I'd like to go for a walk in the woods and I need to decide between the whistle and the bear bell and the risk of taking that walk at all, given it's hunting season and all!

My phone will not ring today.

No matter if I turn it off or not. It will not ring. People have stopped calling because they just don't know what to say anymore and that suits me fine. I don't know what to say to them, either. Some have let me down too much, others have warmed my heart to the point of bursting open but I sure don't want to torture any of them with another speck of my wounded heart either.  I'm thrilled at the moment with being rid of the stress of what I'm supposed to be for other people.  That seems to be a bigger part of grief than I expected.  You almost feel like you need to console everybody for feeling so sorry for you.  For some, just the sight of me makes them cry.  Seriously, it's happened on numerous occasions.  I know this won't last forever.  And maybe that's what is so perfect about this place.  It's not leading me anywhere.  It's just a shelter from the storm and for now, there is something freeing about knowing there isn't a single thing I have to do next.  Not one.  And maybe here, I'll figure out a way to get to where I want to get to.  Just when it's heating up again, the owners will come back for their summer home and I'll have to take a choice.  In the meantime, I'm on a really long working holiday in another strange place, maybe stranger than Paris.  I'm going to enjoy it until I find a place I can call 'home', - finally - either here or in Paris or some other place in this gigantic world.

There used to be a guest room. It was empty until just a couple weeks ago but I have since moved my writing materials in. My typewriter. My laptop. My books and notes and research on owl species throughout North America and Europe. It has become a bit of a shrine to my book and I'm guessing the next person who comes to stay will feel slighted that I have all but evicted the 'guest' room but I can because it's mine. Because it's all mine. I can leave private notes all over the place and no one will be there to read them. I could leave a porno on the dresser and feel no panic to conceal the truth. I am alone. And if a tree were to fall in the woods, I'd be the only one to hear it. 

I generally like to get some writing done in the morning. The writing room is colder than the living room so I wrap myself up with a blanket or a poncho or something, coffee sitting close by, desk lamp on, though there is probably enough natural light in the room not to bother. Still, it feels a little warmer with the soft glow of the pompom lamp. My desk is filled out perfectly. I adore being able to see the trees through the window and being surrounded by wood. My writing desk is beautiful, perfect. I've got a bed beside me if I get tired and if there's a good book around, I just might take a break.

For a cigarette. I want one. I still want one. I do until I get it to my mouth, anyhow. But, out there in the wind, its importance is downgraded a percent with every inhale. There is something unnatural about smoking tobacco in the great outdoors. It's a bit like that feeling I got smoking indoors in Paris. It feels dirtier than usual. Wrong. A destruction of beauty. But until I figure out a way to keep my mind calm enough not to need it, I'm keeping my butts in an old red coffee tin from the 50s and hoping tomorrow will be the day I stop. In any event, with the snow on its way and no covered place to puff puff puff, I'll be forced to re-think my bad habits any day now.

I love breakfast. I haven't always taken the time to make one but here, meal time is pretty well the only organized event of the day, I buy pastries half baked and finish them off in the oven. I snack on peanuts and sunflower seeds, raisins and bananas. I drink water.  I can't remember the last time I was conscious of drinking enough water. I pull the bacon out of its package and lay it on the wrought iron pan, letting the house fill with the smokey scent of crispy fat and pumpernickle bread. More coffee. Runny eggs. And a movie. Or two. Or three. I answer to nobody.

I don't have internet here. There are no emails to go through, no distractions, I couldn't give less of a shit about facebook status or tweets on a good day but here it seems comical. I'm not getting any instant messages and I couldn't even call someone if I wanted to, apart from 911, I've been reassured. My cell phone doesn't work out here and I love that. I do, however, have the largest television I've ever had in my life. It's not a big screen, really, it's not flat or modern and the picture's a little off but it's all mine and I've re-arranged the furniture to suit my needs. I can see the lake and re-runs of Party of Five and Six Feet Under all at the same time. There are no commercials and I've got a fire crackling just behind me. Life is good. It's really good.

And did I mention I can go to the bathroom with the door open?

The other afternoon, I sat down to lunch only to find twenty-two, yes I counted them and yes, it happens to be my favourite number, turkey vultures on my front lawn, doing their best with the rotting apples all over the property. The wind has retired the orchard for the season but here in God's Country (that's how the locals refer to it), there are all kinds of surprises in store for the winter. The dock will come in tomorrow and soon the snow will fall and my kayaking terrain will become a skating rink and the woods will get quieter. And I'll need snowshoes to get out to the street if I don't find a plowman soon.

And then, what will I do? Probably the same thing. Play more music, I'm enjoying the guitar finally and have somehow, through the quiet, have found in myself the ability to play and sing at the same time. It isn't any good but it feels great and I'm writing songs and sure beats singing along in the shower to the sound of the garbage truck stuck in a line of honking cars on rue St. Maur. And it most definitely beats paying $900 to live in Toronto.

Do I miss it? Not one bit.

I eat a late lunch. I relax. I nap. I wake up and I fiddle around, write letters I'll never send. I read pages of The Stations of Solitude slowly, trying to make it last as long as possible or I read a novel front to back. It's been a long time since I have been free enough to do that.  This book remaining partial to me.  I found it by accident in a used bookstore in the West End.  The man at the store was more than surprised when I brought it to the counter.  For me, it was a no brainer.  A book about a female writer who moves to the woods by herself (well, she's got a dog) to write, to be alone.  Well, it's not a very famous book and the coincidence was that someone else had just dropped off a hard cover, leather-bound copy that they had had specially made because they loved it so much.  I bought the soft cover version for $10 but I think I might go back for the real one soon.

I look forward to human contact again. I don't miss it yet but I long for it. Before, all I wanted was for it all to stop. And now I want to see my friends again and hug them and have them up for a weekend with too much wine and bad board games.

I don't need the anxiety medication anymore and I can hear myself think. I suppose that could be it too.

All in all, things are getting better. I think I am healing. Thank you for asking.  You should come up sometime.

Gotta run.  Time to get wood.

See you next week.

-Julie

Moving Day

Today I am leaving the City and moving to the Country.

Here is my horoscope:

Sometimes things appear to be wrong when in fact they are right and with the benefit of hindsight you will realize that what looked like a setback a few days ago was actually a very good break.  Lucky you.

Fingers crossed I am turning my setbacks into benefits but moreso that I'll be happy (or at least more content) all by my lonesome up North.

Take care, Toronto.  It's been real.