I am drifting numbly through the days, spending most of my time alone.

My son is working through massive issues and I want to support him in that process in any and all ways I can.

The 'ex' or 'father' is being inexplicably, oh, can I say it, cruel, refusing to speak, even hanging up on me, not paying child support for our daughter who lives with me and is returning at last to school to take a night course that may help her get back on course.

I have employment worries as my employment insurance is coming to an end, and while I have a good independent business idea have not been able to afford the courses I need to prepare myself for marketing my services.

I continue to look for work while feeling caught in a nethersphere of possibilities all of which are indistinct like balloons you can't quite catch and which you're not sure if you could whether they could carry you to a place of security.

Of course I worry continually about my son in the midst of his bifurcated family that is warring with itself continually, if that metaphor is apt.

One of the main reasons I moved to Vancouver, a move that only lasted two years, was to remove my children from this situation in the hopes that they might regain their inner strength and happiness and energy to forge their lives. It didn't happen - I wasn't able to find full-time work and so we returned to Ontario. Where the worst things happened. Everything I feared with the 'other' household came to pass. The effects have been disastrous. In retrospect, I wonder if we should have remained on the other side of the country because we would have become used to West Coast life eventually and it might have been much healthier for all of us. My kids would never agree to this vision of what life 'could have been like' of mine, but I wonder if I'd just 'stuck it out' in Vancouver if somehow we could have bypassed the breakdowns both of my children have experienced since returning and once again spending all or a large part of their time in the other household (and I would include the total and irrational rejection of my son for an entire year by his father/the other household as part of the 'problems' generated by that household).

With no answers, but many ruminations, I drift humbly through the days, spending most of my time alone in intense meditation.

Perhaps it is life that is the poetic itself: the 'messiness of reality,' the chaotic undercurrents.

The Great Bliss Queen's Mansion of Flaming Bliss

Back-dated a post of the The Great Bliss Queen's Mansion of Flaming Bliss as the first entry of this blog in 2003 (when I wrote the poem). It's a birthday gift, I suppose.

It's also a celebration of finally being able to copy everything from my old 2003 iMac - OSX 10.2.8 - (which still runs like a charm) onto a storage hard drive successfully. I found the poem and its image among the documents from the old iMac and was able to post it along with an embedded link to a reading of the poem (my first poetry recording).

Which feels good.

While I should have sent "Bliss Queen" out to literary journals (I have read it at a few university conferences, and at various poetry readings and received postitive feedback from the academic crowd -being taken aside for private commendations afterwards), my blog is my journal and having it here starting this writerly enterprise seems right.

Direct url: http://brendaclews.blogspot.com/2004/10/great-bliss-queens-mansion-of-flaming.html

bon vivant dog walk, melting neighbourhood, passersby smiling at each other, slushy lakes sloshed through joyfully in waterproof boots

bruised tailbone is sore, but it's okay and the point is not to focus on it, not on such an afternoon of thick blue presided over by a winter sun

spoke to my son by phone and he seems to be recuperating, says he feels physically alright although perhaps not quite so emotionally but things are fine

I'll see him during the week, when we can talk more

I've woken with a different understanding of the last two decades with my son. In the pre-dawn darkness, I make notes, trace underlying connections, am open to what patterns are emerging.

The patterns are like deep ocean currents and not what the current weather is.

Do thoughts of accidents create those accidents?

Do you have these experiences? This afternoon I went to a mall to buy some groceries and on my return decided to walk the dog to free up the evening, when I had hoped to go dancing. Normally I wear snow pants to dog walk, but had leggings on under my jeans and that seemed warm enough. I undid a back button and slid my cell phone in, an HTC Touch I've had about a year. Doing the button up, I thought,

'What if I fall? The phone will smash.'

So I undid the button, took the phone out and slid it into a front pocket.

'That's safer.'

I can't remember if I've ever had 'a thought' travel through my mind of a potential fall before, not one where I've taken a precaution 'just in case.'

I did fall. I haven't fallen so harshly on my tail bone since my daughter was a baby, and that was skating on ice and it took a full season to heal. Eighteen years ago. Today I was playing with the dog in the snow and slid on a path that was snow-packed and icy. I lay in the snow for long minutes not sure if I had seriously hurt myself, no-one nearby. As the pain dimmed I carefully rose, on my feet, knees bent then straight, bent at the waist, then slowly lifting myself upright. Seemed okay.

Though sore. So I took Ibuprofen and stayed home and watched The Squid and the Whale, which was an emotional experience since my children also have lived/are living a bifurcated life between two households.

Back to the topic of this post. It happens. Falls in Winter. That's not the point. The point is that I moved my touch screen cell phone out of the back pocket for an event that I've never thought about before and which did happen. An accident - at the angle of the snow path to the sidewalk I'd gotten my dog way too excited and she raced towards me, careening into me and causing me to lose my balance.

Is it that we must immediately cross 'negative' thoughts with 'that won't happen' when we think them, otherwise... they happen?

My cell is safe, my tail bone perhaps a little bruised, and, yeah, lucky, but. Should I have dismissed 'the thought' of a possible fall when I had it?

Was it a premonition, or did the thought create the event?

If you've had these sorts of experiences, I'd love to hear.

Gradually I am coming back to the life that I live. My son has moved to his Dad's and except for a few short calls or times he's been by to pick up clothing and journals, there's been no contact between us. I feel bereft. Of course I do. But I understand his need to break with where he broke down is paramount at present. I trust him. He knows I love him, and that I am here for him, and that he always has a home with me. Unconditionally and without reservation, this love, this home.

Because I haven't any addiction patterns or problems in my background, I didn't recognize what was happening to him, nor was I much help, I'm afraid.

All I had to give was what I hoped was sustaining love, and through his being able to count on that steady love, the strength that he needed.

And who knows in the way of the mystery of things if his being here for a year, despite the difficulties, didn't also help to give him the courage to make the changes he needs to make.

I also hope his father is repairing their relationship, for that is very necessary for this young man.

He needs all the support that those who love him can give.

An 87 year old woman doing the Salsa

I found this at Phil Bolsta's site. An 87 year old woman doing the salsa. She is amazing, at that age or any other. It's breath-holding to watch her turns and flips and dives. This is a woman with rhythm! She certainly resuscitates 'old age' and wow, is she inspiring. Indeed she is.

Even in the midst of the bare aftermath of the crisis my family is still going through, there is still wonderment and so I wanted to share the joy of this video.