Chit Chat, snacks, religion, the oncoming cold

-a Tim Horton's™ chocolate walnut crueller, cut in half, buttered, slathered thickly with cream cheese (a decided improvement);

-a few grains of Nescafe™ instant coffee, because it's better with a whiff of the real thing, in a hot mug of barley, rye, chicory and beetroot Krakus™ instant coffee substitute (it's 9:30pm) with 18% coffee cream;

-under a Sunbeam™ electric throw on the low setting, it's cosy in this cold basement apartment, or probably crucial to survival and not-freezing-to-death this Winter;

-Ruined by Reality by the Internal Medicine Doctor at Mad House Madman leaves my heart thumping in admiration and sadness;

-I'm thinking deeply on how attractive Zen is, the promise of fast enlightenment, and how while I read a number of books on it avidly years ago, I've never felt called to it because of its inherent harshness, preferring a tradition that combines Sufi mysticism, Bhakti yoga, Sikh warrior discipline, and an odd mixuture of esoteric Hinduism and Buddhism, or, perhaps, and this makes me smile, sensual nothingness;

-I believe that we can only be indoctrinated into a system by that system: a person enlightened in the Zen™ tradition is only enlightened in that tradition, they are not individuated in a Jungian™ sense, or a saint in a Catholic™ sense - to be individuated one needs to undergo the long process of Jungian analysis; likewise, to become a Catholic saint, one needs to undergo a long tradition of Catholic prayer and worship. Someone enlightened in the Zen tradition is a master of that tradition, but no other; the same for the Jungian, who can't claim their individuation is akin to Zen enlightenment; and the saint can't claim anything other than Catholic canonization. While I know that mastery in any tradition is wonderful to aspire to, I prefer an eclectic blend that suits my idiosyncratic temperament, being true to the idolization of individuality in my era, though I know advertising has mapped me as a 'type';

-a recipe for slow cooker apple, pear and cranberry crisp sits freshly written from the NET beside me and I keep looking at it, almost tasting the fruit and brown sugar and oats, though I won't make it until tomorrow;

-a photograph from last Summer of a statue with half of a set of arms missing that my friend, Anne, bought at a garage sale; I am sure it is a rendition of the Tibetan Buddha "Chenrezig," the Lord of Love. Please correct me if I'm wrong;

-I am pining for Summer, even as Winter begins its harsh encrustation of snow and ice and frigid wind.

New Year's Eve, 2005

Lights, planets forming, rising, speeding missiles, exploding. They set them on fire and throw them into the park. When the spheres of blue, red, white light erupt loudly and shoot erratically at their feet, they hide behind parked cars. And walk on laughing. It is New Year's Eve.

The streets are snowy, and on the way to a drumming party, I pass groups of raucous students already awash with drunkenness. Women with cleavage in low-cut, short, tight dresses, their thin wool coats wide open, negotiate the slippery, slushy streets in stilettos. They are beautifully made up; I admire their courage and fortitude. In contrast, I am making the snow squeak under my footsteps in boy's size 6 Wal-mart construction-style boots, snowpants, and a faux fur sealskin jacket with the collar pulled up. I cannot bear to be cold, even for glamour. The new year is two hours away, and there is anticipatory shouting on the streets; carloads of kids careen by, honking. It is a strange eruption of public joy. Because it seems forced it has a pallor that usually dissipates once the new year is in actual existence and everybody relaxes.

I find Xing Dance Studio and descend the stairs to the sound of drumming. Inside are about two dozen drummers and as many dancers; the space is large enough, yet intimate. The walls are mirrored and there is a black sprung dancefloor. I haven't danced in a year and feel awkward. I am dressed in a danskin with spaghetti straps, enough cleavage to be presentable, and a long see-through negligee-style black lace dress. As I take off the dress, tie it around my waist, I undo restraints on my hips and let them sway to the music, forgetting whatever self-consciousness I arrived with.

The evening is like a magician's napkin; it looks the same at the end, dark with stars all over it, but unfolded, and shaking starlight on the room. I recognize few people; I've been away 3 years. I dance hard enough to feel sweat trickle inside my danskin, as I pull back my mane of hair, the undersides are damp, and my face bright and rosy with the aerobic movements I cannot help but create with my body to that drumbeat. The woman who captivated the dance floor all evening is in her mid-50s and wears a Middle-Eastern belly dance outfit, her beautiful torso bare and shimmying, her belt jingling to the drums. I shimmy too. Why do I need to synchronize with the other dancers? Around 2am, when the group has thinned, I put my lace dress back on and run, jump, sway, stop, turn, and, shooting somewhere else, continue leaping, stopping, turning, swaying. I kick in the air, my arms above me, and spin and spin. My hair flies everywhere. I'm sure it's lethal and I can't guarantee I didn't whip anyone with it. I let go and sweep around the room like the spheres of light from a firecracker. I run so fast between the dancers and drummers, spinning this way and that, I'm sure I'm dangerous.

By chance in 1997 I ended up at the first New Year's drumming jam put on by Michael Uyttebroek on Richmond Street in a studio on the 2nd floor. It was the best New Year's I had ever been to. There was a black drummer filled with energy and beat; whenever he drummed the entire room literally jumped and danced; it was ecstatic. Michael instituted a Toronto Tam Tam drummer's group after that, and has always put on a New Year's celebration. But the gatherings lost their intimacy when they went to the large space of Dancemakers on Dupont at Ossington. When that closed down, they moved to this smaller studio like a hidden cave in the basement of what was originally a church complex. The drummers didn't form a circle of their own with the dancers dancing outside it; drummers, dancers, hands, drumsticks, feet, twirling bodies, we were all together.

And, collecting all that energy into its multiple peaks, making it shine, was a drummer who rose above the others. His sound bright, his rhythm captivating, his arms powerful; when he played, it was impossible not to dance. What great pleasure he gave me, taking me back to my early childhood in an African jungle and the drumming that I remember so clearly it is part of my soul.

After it was over, surprisingly a number of drummers complimented me on my dancing, saying it was "wild" and "joyful." And I thought my frenzied bursts were hidden in the darkness! Ah, well. I chatted with interesting men and women, including sharing life histories with a man in a long conversation afterwards, walked home alone arriving at 4:30am to a barking dog, and woke nearly 10 hours later. In 2005, yes, I had an outstanding New Year's Eve celebration...

It was the strangest of years...

I'm writing a book on this crazy and unexpected year. It's over a hundred single-spaced pages, and there's more to go. Can I succinctly summarize? No.

Snow floats in delicate dance from a white sky. That I can see from my basement window. Had anyone told me I would be here a year ago, I would have laughed.

This year I packed myself away and started out, like the Tarot Fool, unburdened and fresh. I left Vancouver and returned to Toronto, without a house to move into, without a job. It continues to be a wild ride.

I am reconstructing my life slowly. And differently. Having left and returned gives everything a freshness. But I am not seeing the same way. People are somehow changed. It's like I can see more deeply, and am surprised by what I discover. No wonder he or she was so loyal! No wonder I always felt oddly hurt by him or her! Perhaps I couldn't see below surfaces before, and now I can. I'm negotiating my way through my resurrected life carefully. Christmas with my mother, normally almost more than I can bear, was surprisingly alright. Relationships with certain friends have fallen by the wayside, especially if they were money or status dependent, which I didn't know before, when I had a fairly large trendy house downtown, but which has become clear since. Relationships with other friends have become even closer. And these seem to be with those who have a larger wisdom about life, who truly come from the heart. Even my sense of this city has changed. I am situated differently and walk down into the core from a residential neighbourhood. Everywhere I go I find friendliness. But I'm not as immersed in this culture as I once was. It's like I'm non attached: I've been elsewhere, gained a knowledge of what it's like to leave everthing, of grieving that loss, and then returned to what was left to find it changed too. I'm an older and different woman now. Not as sparkly, I can feel that. My hair is brown, not blonde, and I am more subdued. Gentler. Moving slowly, as I reconstruct who I am in my various communities. I can never go back to the way I was, yet don't know who I am becoming. But I think it's going to be a whole lot better, happier, more trusting and more fragilely beautiful because I undid myself, let go of safety, of possessions, of all my assumptions and approaches to everything, and am in the process of creating a new life even as I am creating a new view of my world.

Many blessings to you all. Many thanks to those of you who have shared in my journey. May you have a most magnificent and happy New Year... xo

Prodigal return...

I had one of the nicest Christmas' ever. Low key, but with my family, my two brothers and my mother, on the 25th, and then my two children, two neices and one nephew, and bothers, and mother, and doggy, she's welcome at my mother's, on the 26th. Two years away, and what was not enjoyable before, family tensions et al, are gone, washed away. Just quiet gratitude. The way it should be. And why is it that sometimes we have to nearly lose everything before we let ourselves in to what's there, appreciate what we have? Or is it that I was gone for 2 years, and they nearly lost me, and so are being appreciative of me? Whatever it might be, it was very nice and has left me feeling, well, happy.

I wrote in The Move: "The prodigal return. When what leaves comes back. We return again and again to our roots in our memories and our dreams. We never truly leave where we have come from. Our past lives on in us."

But it's more than that. When you go back to what you can never fully leave, it's changed, it's not the same. I am extremely lucky: it's much better.

Happy Festivities!

Happy Holidays... and for those of you dreaming of a White Christmas. Whatever your family, &/or friend, rituals, however you celebrate the birth of the light, enjoy!

(borrowed the delightful White Christmas from Ken's site.)

Solstice 2005

encrypted first draft of a prose poem

Receiving is Giving

I discoverd, looking at my sitemeter, that Freecycle Newswire linked to my post, A path of gifts. It was difficult writing, searingly honest- how fragile I am yet strong. But only strong in the sense of knowing that we give much to each other and it is through our love for each other that we blossom. How happy the giver of a gift can be when they see how wonderful what they have given is to the recipient. The art of receiving is as important as the art of giving. Loving kindness, support for each other, caring, helping, giving, receiving, surely this is what makes the world go round. The beauty of us. Finding that people really do care. Such plentitude in our hearts.