Writer's Room

(the newest 'rock wall' instillation - in progress)

I have a space.  A writing space.  And while it is currently without a working computer for all of my creative pursuits, it is my space.  My writing space is littered with things.  With books, music, photos, trinkets and momentos.  It's the museum of my life.  There is a little bit of everyone I love in this room, all of the things that have introduced me to joy, inspired me, elevated me and let me down.  This is my space, it is primarily where I create and where my most precious collections are.  Yes, of late I've been writing at work but it's more about finding the best use of my down time than it is about ignoring my safe, creative haven.

When I am in this room (that is currently without curtains but gives me a great view of a brand new window where a protective pewter dragonfly hang) I think, I sing and pace and sulk and cry.  I laugh in here, I make a mess sometimes and other times it's so pristine that I beam with pride.  When I am in this room I am safe and creative and I am my true self.  I know to some it looks like a hot mess but it somewhere I truly breathe and brainstorm.  There is so much to catch my eye, to cull ideas and the comforts of those who make me happiest and those times we shared, shows, parties, weddings, births and break-ups - it is my artist's home.

Tonight is a bucket list event.  I'll be seeing Leonard Cohen in concert.  He's a literary hero and I am beside myself with excitement even though I'll be in the nosebleed section.  I can't wait to absorb all of that energy and then come home in an inspired haze and add his ticket stub to my wall.  Today is momentous.  It is happy.  It is something that means a great deal to me.  I strong-armed one of my oldest and dearest friends to accompany me.  Perhaps a little of that old-school charm and grace will seep into her skin and she'll come away a fan. ;)

If you should find yourself on my wall, know you are loved.  If you don't see yourself chances are you are somewhere on the other side of the room.  That wall is almost full but still needs work.  If you want me to love you, let me know.  There's always room in my heart.

Happy Leonard Cohen day to ME!  Happy Saturday to you all.  Wherever you end up, enjoy.  Don't forget to love your people and offer kindness into the universe so that it comes back to you.  That, is poetry.

In propinquity,

Nic

You Would Stay

My weekend was full.  I had a vacation day on Friday so it was a three day weekend for me.  I woke up on Friday to gorgeous weather, threw on a hoodie and jeans and went out into the sunny world.  I did some errands and parked myself at Emma's Eatery for brunch, a pot of tea and some quiet so I could sit and write a long glowing letter in favor of her dynamite short story she sent to me in the mail.  That was peaceful and such a lovely way to spend my first day off.  

I received sad news the evening before that a sweet friend passed after a long battle with a terrible condition and being an American, an inhumane war with health insurance.  No one in this world will ever convince me that the Canadian way is wrong.  I believe all human beings have the right to quality health-care, not just those who can afford it.  It's criminal and wrong.  It isn't socialist.  It is right and just and it pains me to know that if her health care situation had been better, she may have survived her affliction.  It makes me angry, so if you ever plan to argue that the American healthcare system is superior to ours, you will lose.

Friday evening was a blessing.  I had reservations for Yuk Yuks Comedy Club with Erica, we purchased tickets weeks ago in support of a friend's kid's hockey team.  I was grateful for the laughter and time spent, it eased the ache and some of the sad.  Laughter is good medicine.

Saturday was a family day.  My nephew is moving west for his job, climbing power lines so a good portion of my big immediate family gathered at my brother's house for beer, chowder and socializing.  It was lovely even more-so, feeling sad, to spend time surrounded by my people.

It was hard to stay up late last night but in honour of our friend, a group of us all across the globe, even as far down to New Zealand, all tuned in online for the Retro-Redeye Express radio show.  My amazing friend Sunshine does this show on KKFI in Kansas, public radio at its finest. Weekly she spins a great cross section of new wave, alternative etc music that I love.  She's great at it and last night she had Harold in studio with her, another friend from LA who joined her for a guest DJ spot.  It's like we were all holding hands, holding hearts and laughing together, in honour of Becki and in kinship.  They are all such tremendous humans, I'm so lucky to know them and have them in my corner.  It was a welcome circle.  Always is.  I was dead tired when I crawled into my bed but it was well worth it to spend time among family and know we are all thinking, feeling and depending on the collective spirit to  wade through the heartbreak.  Sunshine and Harold were excellent together, was great to hear their voices and the songs they played, one hour of covers and rest of the show, a stellar selection.  Any show featuring Annie Lennox in the soundtrack is good for me.

It's windy and rainy here today.  I made pancakes and tea for myself and planted myself in this chair for a quick blog.  I have little desire to return to my 6am alarm tomorrow but such is life.  Today is made for laundry and lazing.  I plan on doing little else.  Bit of daydreaming perhaps, a little TV and a great deal of folding things.

I leave you this Sunday with a poem I finished tinkering with this morning:

You Would Stay

you

would stay one of the wandering forever

my friend who still believes in Heaven

it is a mystery how much of your heart

still hunts for someone to listen to you

still aims for someone to be amazed you

were fed by a dream too big to breathe in

you

would stay one of the lonely people always

my friend who often hides from kindness

it remains your biggest secret buried deep

in the frozen tundra of your human hinterland

unaware that one instant of joy contains

the invisible sum of pure love plus all time

you

would stay one of the vagrant pulled threads

my friend who still hangs rose patterned curtains

it is known your story is so much longer than most

a thousand pages of preemptive commentary with

anonymous changes endorsed by a wily saboteur

shutting out your voice dimming your lightness

you

would stay hidden in a mournful shroud of sadness

my friend who still secretly longs for human heartsong

to protect those peopling the center of your universe

to accommodate them with possibilities already present

a common height aligning shadows in expensive grammar

a fortuitous elegance bestowed on every star that falls

you

who would stay one of the wandering for all time

sacrifices too many flowers for the duplicitous weeds

you are prefaced by greatness

rise

**

Just a quick reminder to you, love your people with all your might.  Life is so precious, unpredictable and fleeting.  Don't waste it being angry, holding grudges or being whiny and negative.  Search always for the best of what you have and who you have.  Celebrate that goodness, their cheerfulness.  Our time  here is too short to resist happiness, to be too cool to care about anything, to be aloof and crass.  Start everyday with love, with kindness.  It'll return to you tenfold.  I promise.

In propinquity,
Nic

Rest in Heavenly peace, Becki. <3

Letter To A Lost Love From A Tiny Knotted Heart

I was reading Irving Layton’s love poems, listening to a Leonard Cohen you-tube video ‘Come Healing’ drinking a steamy cup of double bergamot Earl Grey tea when this poem materialized.  The title came to me, equally inspired by a title of one of Layton’s poems and a small lyrics from The Hip’s ‘Fiddler’s Green’.  I mashed them together and started to write and I almost felt like it was impossible to stop but it had to end somewhere.  Interestingly enough, I started out peacefully and the more I wrote the angrier I got.  Perhaps there were some residual remnants of lost love I hadn’t considered when I put all of that away?  Nevertheless, it was an intense writing experience, to feel myself go from zero to angry, feeling it mounting, aching in my bones, spreading through my organs and flushing my flesh.  I went from a woman sipping tea to a gladiator ready to destroy but then with the mention of soup and the possibility of dessert soothed the rage and I retired the poem at just the right time.  It’s raw and unedited and out in the universe how.  It isn’t meant to be karmic or boastful or begrudging, just cathartic, serving as a reminder that I moved through some heart trauma and came out on the best side of a bad situation.  And while I will never fully understand the past, I wholeheartedly acknowledge that this moment is all that truly matters and the things that are to come.  Good things. 

 Letter To A Lost Love From A Tiny Knotted Heart

Irving Layton urged me to write to you

I was reluctant to cash in on old love’s dividends

I am just a timeworn poor poet whose only wealth

is the weight of words and I fear that I have

expended plenty of them in your precious name

for love for leaving for anger for sadness for forgiveness

words equivalent to the number of tears pooled on my pillow

undeserved exultation inexcusable passion unjustified umbrage

I am only writing to you because Irving Layton was adamant about it

I no longer wish for you or understand the unbridled attraction

I refuse to recall the fire of your lips nor the heat of your instinctive touch

nor the taste of your tongue and the few warm moments  composed

of madness or fever amplified by wine by denial by inflamed reason

Leonard Cohen mentioned we were nothing more than tenderness and irony

divided by naiveté plus deceit your trickery ensnaring me into your web

without the intention to love me feed me keep me safe from harm

in many ways now you are nothing more than an elapsed rhyme a cartoon

character a figment of my overactive imagination a pipe dream a ghost

Leonard Cohen told me that you would turn me away shun me when you were

finished toying with me sneering if you pass me by you are talented at

passing me over especially now that you read the book and did your research

to determine how Venus and Mars co-exist you can’t commit to anything

without reading how do it first or without a protective nudge you lack guts

you lack courage you lack freedom to be to live to rejoice without instruction

you are a boy full of fear held back by maternity by obligation to God by insecurity

I lack the desire to accept garnished affection I reject the notion that you broke

my heart into a million little pieces and scattered them so easily in one fell swoop

Irving Layton reminded me that my work has been praised by international critics,

acclaimed writers and has one prizes accolades stronger than your hatred for me

I cannot say how you came to loathe someone who loved you so sweetly

someone who would move Heaven and Earth to prevent you from slipping away

Leonard Cohen said if you ever came near me again I should push you off the

balcony of my high-rise and watch you fall in slow slow motion down down down

where you belong with the bugs and the snakes and the worms and the bottom feeders

from above looking down I will pose framed with a sense of purpose and audacity

and I will feel victorious just like you did looking down at me while I wept

Irving Layton said he would buy me a hot beverage and a hearty meal when I am finished

writing you this letter after I fold it slip it into an envelope seal it and send it off

I am going to sip a fragrant pot of earl grey tea and devour a bowlful of potato leek soup

laugh and write and live a full life and if I’m lucky Leonard Cohen will buy me dessert.

**

For the rest of my Wednesday afternoon, I plan to drink more tea, work and in my down time, peck away a little more at my new story that I can now reveal the title of, ‘Half Windsor Knot’.  I’m excited to see where it takes me.  I’m three and a half pages in and I know my stories don’t tend to be long and I don’t put any expectations or caps on word count. I just like to see where they go and who I meet.  I will keep you updated on my progress.

Dinner tonight with some friends I haven’t seen in a really long time.  I so look forward to sitting with them and catching up.

Today’s kindness challenge, get in touch with someone you haven’t seen in a long time, give them a call, text them or drop a line.  However it is best for you.  You’ll be glad you did and it will delight them to know you thought of them today for no other reason than just to say hello.

In propinquity,

Nic