Greenstorm's Journal

Hi you,

It's been awhile.

Did you know that "hi, you" is one of my dad's greetings? It's so laden with tenderness and familiarity, though, despite all my dad stuff. It's like 'punkin' is what mom called me, and 'kidlet', and so those get passed on.

I've missed you. I think of you sometimes but it's never convenient to get together with you. I was going to borrow Elwood's iphone keyboard to see how I like it. That might help. Still, there are only so many hours and so many thought cycles in a day.

I've been a busy girl. I've been thinking about a lot of things. Much has happened, little shifts: I'm back to change in my life, away from that curious stability I'd achieved during my first term of school. It's slow shifting, somewhat controlled so far, almost more an exploration than a change-- but when you travel along a road even just for curiosity's sake, well, you end up further along the road.

What's been changing? Well.

School's been getting more intense. There's been more homework and it's been harder to retain things-- there are no plants courses currently, just fish & wildlife courses, and my brain isn't as fresh as it was when I started this thing. I'm working harder for less result-- but it's okay. There's the fire control course, which is fun, and there are some neat things in some of the other classes. It is, however, wearing me down.

My learning-joy is mostly concentrated in the Latin course right now. The Rosetta Stone stuff is so well done, it's as addictive as a video game, plus the language is a complete joy. It sounds right, I'm not sure how to convey that. English doesn't spring from Latin, there's not much in the way of directly transferable knowledge, but Latin floats in our cultural background so that a lot of it is familiar like old music you haven't heard for awhile. Sometimes a connection will come up, either in the learning process or a cross-connection to something I know in English or plants, and my whole brain lights up light a Christmas tree all at once, like a mental orgasm. I haven't had that feeling since my plants course at BCIT, basically, and then not really so often as all that. Plus, Michael is doing it too-- he is one of the very few people in the world who I think can work his way through or around my competitive/perfectionist thing so I'll actually be able to start speaking with him. It's lovely.

Dipping a tiptoe back in poly waters in a very low-key way; keeping an eye on Michael and Angus as I do it, because more people means much more potential for complication. Decisions are based almost entirely on practicality here; my heart is full, at least for now, and so I'm looking for fun play and low drama and low investment. I have hopes in this regard.

Speaking of dipping toes back in things, I've been hanging out with Kynnin, well, it's been four times in the last month at this point. While it doesn't look like it'll be a once-a-week routine, it may just not fizzle out and fade. I'm monitoring my buy-in and his return investment, I'm not afraid to talk about that if something feels like it's going sideways for me, and I don't intend to sit around feeling bad if we don't regain some sort of ....renewed friendship or whatever you call it. Having said all that, it's a soft and lovely thing to be able to talk to someone about our shared past, to be able to draw a line from there to here and wander the distance between, and to see just how he has unfolded in that time. It's also amazing to me to be with him, to care for him so much my flesh could shred itself on the feeling, but not to love him. Last night I had dinner with him and then visited with Michael and the contrast between those two feelings was stark, intense, and perfectly clear. Who knew that such a thing was possible?

I am coming, still and again, to realise how important routine is to me. I like things to be steady, predictable; a good life for me is full of routine like a cage to contain my chaos. I like weekly visits; I like predictable activities; I like repeated patterns. I do not like things ducking in and out; I do not like juggling things around at last minute (though it's sometimes worth it).

I'm hoping that these changes don't make everything fall apart. I need to devote some time and energy to things: taxes, planning next year (I WILL need to figure out how to get through next year while working less), little life housekeeping things like that. I really like my life now, with just enough change to keep me from getting bored-- though I do admit that it's enough to keep me scared stiff sometimes --and I'd like to to more-or-less continue as it is.

Well, time to eat dinner. Be well, all y'all.

Cowboy Junkies Anniversary Song

Have you ever seen a sight as beautiful
as that of the rain-soaked purple
of the white birch in spring?
Have you ever felt more fresh or wonderful
than on a warm fall night
under a Mackerel sky,
the smell of grapes on the wind?
Well I have known all these things
and the joys that they can bring
And I'll share them all for a cup of coffee
and to wear your ring
( Read more... )

I'm wearing my necklace again. My life is full of circles in circles in circles.

This is the necklace that was my father's, my biological father's and not my dad's. It came to me when I was fourteen, and I didn't take it off for a year or two after I got it. Then Kynnin went to France, and I put it on him then. He didn't take it off for a very long time. It traded back and forth between us, an amulet of protection, and there is protective power in it for travellers. I had set it aside; he gave it back to me a time after the split, and I wore it for a few weeks then as I laid my ghosts to rest. Now I'm travelling again, and it's needed.

In my plaster body casts from the time, it's there-- I wouldn't take it off even for that.

He gave me the lyrics from this song, too, on a piece of paper, with a poem he'd written on the back. When I speak of being emotionally unsafe, of implied promises that aren't spoken but that are still *there*, this is the sort of thing I'm speaking of. Afterwards we said, 'it was our intention, but we never promised'. We'd promised, though, in our own beginning, awkward, subtle ways. I try very hard not to make promises like that now, the little secret ones that creep in by implication. It doesn't seem fair to me. If I can't say something up front, I shouldn't say it at all, and those are big promises to even hint at.

So then one day in the winter, Bob plays a song out of the blue and it's that song. This was one of my favourites he says. I lost it for a little while.

The next day, I see, is a post about Juggler and I breaking up. Circles on circles.

I would give you two Van Morrison songs, Jackie Wilson and Coem Running To Me, but Bob's mouse has died and I'm not going to start up my computer at 3am just to post songs. This is a more-or-les shappy interlude, though (I haven't been up to do midnight computering for a long time) and I don't want to leave an icky taste.

I'll go back to bed now and see you at the farmer's market tomorrow, or wherever we end up.

One for greatpoets. I didn't know he'd written anything like this. I really like Donne's turns of phrase, even though normally I'd find this sort of rhyme and meter way too trite and neat-sounding-- especially given the subject matter.

Confined Love

Some man unworthy to be possessor
Of old or new love, himself being false or weak,
Thought his pain and shame would be lesser,
If on womankind he might his anger wreak,
And thence a law did grow,
One should but one man know;
But are other creatures so?

Are sun, moon, or stars by law forbidden,
To smile where they list, or lend away their light?
Are birds divorced, or are they chidden
If they leave their mate, or lie abroad a-night?
Beasts do no jointures lose
Though they new lovers choose,
But we are made worse than those.

Who e'er rigged fair ship to lie in harbors
And not to seek new lands, or not to deal withal?
Or built fair houses, set trees, and arbours,
Only to lock up, or lese to let them fall?
Good is not good, unless
A thousand it possess,
But doth waste with greediness.

John Donne - 1572-1631

Which reminds me about something I've been meaning to record for a bit. Y'see, last weekend I made a venture into something very slightly almost-kinda monogamy-or-at-least-closed-relationship-like and it triggered some self-reflection.( Read more... )

I started bleeding Thursday

I dreamed about Kynnin last night. He was about thirty and had a tan.

Note: the bottom part of this post is important to me. If you don't want to read th ewhole thing, I recommend going from the ninth paragraph down or so, rather than from the top

It's been a very odd week, all told. Shifts in my lifestyle are a-happenin'. Some of the changes I like, some I don't like, but I think they're probably all related, pushing each other along in a ball of consequences. These are the changes I initiated in the move to Tillie's.

Before last night, I'd slept at home for something like four nights in a row. I may well have not done that for just over a year and a half. It's an odd thing to think about, because right now I'm sharing the little one-bedroom apartment with Tillie, all my stuff is packed, it's the time I could realistically be expected to be away a lot. Instead I make choices which involve me staying at home rather than, say, going to Graham's or Juggler's overnight so often.

Part of this choice stems from a bit of a pickup in the stuff I need to do in my four-day work-week. Things have become more cleanly compressed into those days, so they're very busy, and I need to get so sleep and wake up early on them-- not prime date evenings, and close to pointless with Juggler sometimes because of how late he gets home from work. So, it just makes sense to stay at home and get the sleep I need.

Part of it comes from my attempts to eat more reasonably-- home is where the not-eating-out food is.

Part of it is because of assorted rat stuff-- I want to see my babies more, because I love them, and I also need to do more rat maintenance for the whole allergy situation.

All of the above is compounded by the fact that I can get home every day, so I end up there to do that stuff, and I also go through and feel homey there and choose, often, to cancel things and stay in.

I'm not sure I like some of the consequences-- namely, I'm really not getting much time to slow down and talk to Juggler or Graham. Hopefully this is a temporary thing, caused by Graham's allergies, my weirdness to scheduling, and my busy work-week instead of some sort of "the habit has been broken so it ain't happening anymore" sort of thing. I figure, in two weeks I'll worry a bit, and more after the move, if I still need to worry.

Anyways, this whole thing looks like it's turning into the reason I moved: I want to spend more time at home with my babies I said, and now, after an adjustment period, I am. It's good. It's definite change. It's a shift in th elifestyle I've had for a very, very long time. If it keeps shifting this way, I might be breaking ten-year records. If it keeps shifting this way, I might throw out the phrase distributed living and be some sort of a normal person in this regard.

On an intensely related but hard to link verbally note, I spent a lot of yesterday with Bevan. We walked around downtown and Stanley Park in the rain, getting wet, while I was dressed like a rock start and wearing my contacts. We talked. We then headed back to his place. Now, Bevan is the oldest of four boys. I have three younger brothers who are in approximately the same age range (mine are about two years younger than his). They live in a graciously laid-out house with a dog who is very like the dog I grew up with, and two parents.

I have trouble conveying the way this felt properly. We sat at the big wooden kitchen table by the windows (it's always a big wooden kitchen table, they're harder to destroy) and I drank tea to warm my fingers. Boys thudded down the staircase, thumpthumpthump as they jumped the landings. Bevan did this too. They drifted through the kitchen moodily or grandstanded through as the case may be and chatted. They spoke in brother-speak to each other, where no words were mistaken because these people has learned language together and had so much shared background. His mom made me tea. His dad showed him how to put pizza in the oven.

I remember that for a lot of my life I lived in this, and it was love. Dad wasn't always crazy, mom wasn't always depressed, there were days and times like this when I felt held to the world as if by the thickest glue and I never wanted to struggle. At one point I said to Bevan, if this were my home I'd be sitting here with a book. Do you know how many times I did that, going up and sitting at the big wooden table and reading when supper was being prepared, and the boys would congregate as they got hungry, and the dogs would be under the table, and there was just that sense of people who belonged there? I usually read during dinner, or dad would tell me to put the book away and I'd do it reluctantly for the first five minutes. Our stairs were better than Bevan's, the landings were spaced so you could jump from landing to landing and never touch the stairs once. We had two dogs with nails to click on the floor.

And right now I just sit here typing with my eyes blurred and try to fit words to the situation, and I feel this overwhelming urge to violence, to shoving these memories into your head so that you'll understand, because they're too real and too big and too intense to convey any other way. I don't want to delicately choose words to evoke. I want you to have been there.

Because of this, because of yesterday, an enormous part of my life has been given back to me. Kynnin, I don't know if you read this, but you're the only person outside my family who remembers what my home was like, and that was only after the divorce when we rattled around like peas in that huge house. My own family has burned it out, the bad parts tainting our memoried so that we never go back there and we lose the memories in the shunning.

Bevan's been very good for me in this way twice now. He reminds me a lot of Kynnin, intellectually and physically, and I've rediscovered my enjoyment of abstract talk with him without being too shadowed by memories. Now there's my family.

I'm feeling intensely grateful right now for all the people in my life. I think I have a Big Six now instead of a Big Four: Bevan (as above), Tillie (take the bedroom tonight), Juggler (OMFG a trustworthy boy), Trevor (just liking someone is enough for years and years of friendship), CrazyChris (ironically, reminding me how to be sane with the emotions I'm given), and Graham (for emotional entanglement baybee).

These people are my friends, and also the edges of my soul; they're responsible for my being a part of that vast(ly cliched but real and true) current of humanity.

So there.

Love y'all.