Sleep In Heavenly Peace.

There are simply no words.

If You Run Out Of Paper

I cannot for the life of me get my current prose piece on the go.  I have been editing, adding and deleting, re-arranging but nothing else will come, except for the small piece I've written.  It pains me because I really like the two new characters but something is holding me back, preventing me from telling their story.  I thought I might get to spend some quality time with them on Sunday when I was home alone but once I tinkered with my Christmas tree and a poem, finished a pile of neglected laundry and tidied up, I ran out of steam and out of time.  I'm leaving it up to inspiration now.  I can't have writers block because I've been writing poems like a maniac.  Maybe I was just too please with myself after 'Whistle' and rushed into another idea before it fully formulated.  I rushed into a good thing head first.  No good ever comes of rushing.  I do hope something sparks soon, I really want to share my nwe characters with you.

I polished this puppy off today.  Fussed with it and it's ripe and ready to be sampled:

If You Run Out Of Paper 

if you run out of paper

in the genuine pursuit of truth to

rediscover the beauty of the past

do not despair

it is widely accepted and understood

we often overlook imagined examples

of clarity & brevity for curiosity & inspiration

& how far we can stretch our arms open

to muscle through a path of creative content

if you run out of paper

be at least curious about the moment

you will find the instant suits you

do not protest

art is happiness methodically examined

so great an invention you will never have

to worry if your prose will triumph or your

image rich song is better sung in a folksy drawl

if you run out of paper

be sure to listen for the cheerful melody

that invites you to lose touch with your reservations

write on the walls or write on your hands never be

heartbroken to report you missed a word for lack of 

parchment

if you run out of paper

orchestrate a perilous tango of madness

because obstacles are emphatically verboten

if you run out of paper

you have arrived

**

Of course the premise here is that no matter what, never stop creating.  If you run out of ink, use a crayon.  If you break a pencil, use finger paint.  Just keep going.  And really, if you run out of your creative supplies you must be producing one heck of a piece. That's never wrong.

Think it's time to bundle up and carry myself out for a walk.  Throw in my earbuds and move around a little.  I intended to make today the day I return to the gym.  With daylight savings time, when I'm reading on the commute home I often get lost in my book (in this case my Wallace Stevens poetry volume) and I drove right by.  I promised myself exercise today, I need to get back to good healthy living.  This sitting down and working all day is for the birds, it may be great for writing time which I'd never complain about but my rump is suffering.  I must move.

Happy evening, friendly readers.

In propinquity,

Nic

Cup Of Light

It's a perfect Sunday.  It started with a delicious birthday brunch with my dear friend Sherrie.  We are both December babies so we decided this year to do a brunch together to celebrate being alive and the comforts of friendship over a decadent meal.  We dined at The Vines in Dartmouth, most noted for their Italian fare but also for their Sunday brunch.  The atmosphere was cozy and food was fabulous.  We talked over coffee, laughed while enjoying the ambrosia of culinary delights and posed thankful over a sinful bit of dessert.  We exchanged gifts and gratitude.  So lovely.  My friends truly are my estate.

It is also a perfect Sunday because it is a rare day to be at home alone.  I busied myself with a few domestic tasks and now I am parked next to a sunny window, with a cool breeze sneaking in.  The air around me is full of the sweet sounds of Matt Epp's voice and the fragrance of tea, Santa's Secret from David's Tea, one of the few teas Erica gave to me for my birthday.  And of course, with all of these beautiful elements, I finished editing my latest poetry offering, 'Cup Of Light'.  I also started working on another new piece.  You can't hope for better than days like today.

Cup of Light

when a word is beautiful

written on a piece of paper

folded up inside of a book

effervescent fonts surge in

a gentle stream of grace

from the protective pages

when discovered

& is approximate to a

cup of immaculate light

scribes leave tiny traces

words laid down safely

& some expire without ever

being passionately admired

when a word is bountiful

shrouded in the pall of privacy

secretly stashed away in shelves

full of soldier straight volumes

it longs for unbridled sovereignty

to respire

to delineate

to irradiate

a cup of magnificent illumination

one perfect word

one impeccable light

**

I will spend the rest of my afternoon working in something new, working away at a mountain of laundry I've been ignoring.  And perhaps a little bit of TV for company while I put the finishing touches on the Christmas tree.  It was decorated yesterday afternoon but still needs the icicles.  I have some catching up to do on my favorite shows so it's a possible plan but not before poetry!  Writing comes first.

Wherever your weekend took you, I hope you were among friends and you were smiling.

I'll see you on the flip-side, friendly readers.

In propinquity,

Nic

Distant Love

It’s a Friday, it’s sunny out and I've been stuck in my office all day feeling a migraine headache mounting.  Even with both of my eyeballs throbbing inside if my skull and my head pounding, I still managed to jot down a little poem; something soft and sweet, something secret and something sacred.  You can take from it what you like as is the beauty of all poetry, being open to individual interpretation or simply read for the pleasure of absorbing words.  It was written for a reason, for a certain human who owns a tiny corner of my heart.  And I find that sometimes, the tiniest corners are always the most thoughtful corners, where compassionate love swells.

Something wee tiny today:

Distant Love

distant love

your heart

a mockingbird

you will never

know just how

very close

your smile

is to God

**

I am looking forward to the weekend ahead.  I get to decorate my Christmas tree tomorrow with family, spend the evening with friends, birthday brunch on Sunday (yes the birthday continues!) and maybe a visit to my brother’s house a few hours away.  It’s been good to keep busy and in turn has helped me with the desire to keep writing.  Idle equals disaster for me, as long as I'm moving, the well is constantly full.

Short and sweet today, just like me.

Happy Friday, friendly readers.

You can go your own way.

In propinquity,

Nic

Gracias!

(Me, 24 hours old, 1973)

For the first time in a very long time, my birthday felt like an actual celebration.  In years past, I have had lovely birthdays but for some reason this year felt festive, with renewing qualities.  I felt a surge of pure love and I accepted every once with an open heart and a smile on my face.  This getting older thing isn’t so bad when you have a clear perspective on what matters in life and leaving the refuse in the wasteland where it belongs.  Being free of burden and letting go of things that inflict nothing but pain makes one feel alive.  Feels so nice to be alive and for one day, appreciated just for being here.  I believe everyone deserves a moment to shine and while I have always had an issue in the past with the attention, this year I basked in it, allowed it to wash over me and it restored my faith, especially in myself.

I owe many thanks to my dear friends and my crazy family for a fantastic day.  I woke up to lots of love that led me to a leisurely lunch with my best friend Erica and then some Christmas shopping.  Next, I enjoyed cake with the littles that turned into a bona-fide dance party in the kitchen.  Imagine a handful of elementary age kids breaking it down to LMFAO’s ‘Sexy and I Know It’ and PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ (both songs my request I might add) and you have a barrel of monkeys.  My face is STILL sore from laughing at their antics.  To top off my day, spent with so many people I love, I ventured to my brother’s house to help decorate their Christmas tree.  My sister baked shortbreads while my niece Chelsey and I busied ourselves with the task at hand.  Their tree is so beautiful, white twinkly lights with several of their ornaments red and white or clear.  We laughed our asses off, drank hot chocolate and when everything was done, we all sat back and reminisced which always leads to shenanigans and is cause for my heart to swell with affection.  I can’t declare our family is perfect, nor am I but there is nothing more precious than family, the one we are raised in and the family we make for ourselves with who we choose or perhaps who choose us.  Friends and family are the deepest riches we accumulate.  Nothing compares.

I don’t have any poetry today, just a mere thank you to those who touch my life – those who are blessings and those who were lessons.  It’s all the same thing to me. I am grateful. To those who know me well, you know who you are and to those who lift me up when I need it.  

I’m also a touch sentimental today too because in addition to it being my name day (St Nick’s day – victory for the people!) it’s the 95^th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion where two ships collided in the Halifax harbor and leveled a large portion of the city.  My heart goes out to those who perished, those injured and those who are/were left behind.  As I mentioned earlier today in a Facebook status, this anniversary is a stark reminder of how precious and unpredictable life is so we should appreciate each moment we are allowed.

Be kind to each other.  Be fair and be loving.  Always.

In propinquity,

Nic

Hallelujah

This morning was one of those days where reading the newspaper was more a delight than a stress.  Of course, the first story I saw was unavoidable, Kate Middleton is expecting!  It was only a matter of time.  Before I could read any bad news, and Canadian news outlets seem to be rife with it, innocent children being killed, and political unrest … you get the idea.  But, I didn’t make it to any of those headlines because I came across an article that appealed to my inner geek.  To be truthful, I actually tend to get my good news first because I read the Arts section first.  This morning there was a wonderful article in The Chronicle Herald, ‘Malleable Hallelujah interpreted by many’ a piece that can only refer to one artist and one song, ‘Hallelujah’ by none other than Leonard Cohen.

Author Alan Light wrote a book, The Holy or The Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Assent of Hallelujah.  A song so profound, with such a long illustrious history of performances and renditions required an entire book on the subject.  I must have this.  It will be mine.  It details and deconstructs its genesis, its turbulent beginnings in 1984 when the poignant song was rejected all the way to its world-wide celebration.  Sounds like something I can get behind.  Have you ever heard the version recorded by the late Jeff Buckley?  It’s absolutely stunning, masterful and in his stylistic choir boy melodiousness, conjures emotion right up from the pit of my stomach and tears from my eyes simultaneously.  Of course it could also just be the brilliance of the song.  It matters little who is performing it, it always incites a similar reaction except that when Jeff Buckley’s voice sounds it’s more akin to a spiritual event.

‘Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord

That David played, and it pleased the Lord

But you don’t really care for music, do you?’

Timeless.  Extraordinary.  Poignant.  And can you even comprehend now that this song is so revered, that it was rejected right out of the gate?  Astounding.

Which brings me to this new poem that developed from thinking about Leonard Cohen:

Dirge

Dance me to the end of this poem my love

hold my gaze with your time-worn notions

rent out my battered core for benevolence

I no longer know how to read your thoughts.

We should rejoice at a hand’s light stoke

against a blazing cheek when the urge strikes

but you don’t really care for me, do you?

Writing this is nothing more than my subtle nature

rising to greet your lips when the song goes silent

but madness settled in to postpone the inevitable.

I still hear your voice sometimes when I dream

in full conscience and joy I retrieve you

beyond the periphery of mournful verse.

**

Today is Tuesday and is apparently the day of Nicole’s International Forgetfulness.  I left my house for work this morning without everything essential for me to make it through my allotted hours behind my desk.  In addition, I left my cell on the kitchen table as well as the stack of holiday greetings that needed to be mailed.  I ran back, two separate trips, to collect everything I needed and still managed to make it to where I needed to be on time and deposited the mail safely in the box.  Sheesh.  When your day starts out in a rush it seems to set the tone for the rest of it.  I feel like I have evened myself out a little bit.  If only the program I used for work would cooperate now.  It makes for very frustrating transactions when the tools needed to do your job aren’t sharp, you know?

I look forward to the end of my day, a Zumba class with friends and a good night’s sleep before my vacation day tomorrow.  No one should have to work on their birthday.

So long, Marianne.

In propinquity,

Nic

Turn The Lights On

It was a last minute decision to take in Big Sugar’s Halifax show Friday, a whim that turned out to be one hell of a night.  Returning to the Olympic Hall, the same space where I saw the Sheepdogs felt like déjà vu.  Only two of us this time, we entered the venue, got our Sonic Concert bracelet, grabbed a beer and advanced to the front of the room.  We arrived a bit later than last time so we were just parking ourselves front row center for the opening act, The Balconies.  I think they are an Ontario band but don’t quote me, fronted by a sister/brother duo and backed by a friend.  They delivered a vigorous and earsplitting set of songs to a somewhat older crowd than I remember from the previous show.  Perhaps it has more to do with Big Sugar’s appeal and their longevity?  One can only surmise.

Suffice it to say, due to the ferocious delivery of their set, I had a difficult time deciphering one song from the other not that I’m versed at all when it comes to their discography.  As it was intended, they were loud and brash and unapologetic.  I confess I spent very little time watching the brother and friend contingent of the band because Jacquie Neville was riveting.  Mix the rock ‘n’ roll attitude of Juliette Lewis when she’s on stage with The Kicks, the sex of Peaches and a dash of Katy Perry pretty and you have a potent front woman.  Her antics scream metal, her attire of black shiny tights, a cut off tiger tee and white 80s ankle boots with blood red lips accenting her wide blue eye and jet black hair that she swung expertly as she crunched her guitar bellows girl power and later her cutesy  back-up singing swing softened her demeanor some.

I found the mix of their sound incredibly painful.  It was all high end no vocal.  The sheer volume and the close proximity to the stage may have contributed.  While I was rapt visually, sonically I was not.  It seemed more like indecipherable noise which can be good when you know what you’re listening to but musically it the set didn’t hold a lot of weight for me.  I was secretly pleased when they were finished.

During the quick stage reset I could feel the room fill up behind me without having to look.  The heat was mounting quickly.  I was grateful that I opted to wear a t-shirt despite the freezing temperature and bone numbing wind chill outside.

Tom Bedell took the stage and amped up the ripe crowd to introduce Big Sugar on the second last stop of their ‘Eliminate YA’ tour.  One by one, the band took the stage, the roar of hands pounding together and hoots and whistles brought smiles to their laid back faces.  According to Tom Bedell, Gordie Johnson visited the Q104 Hunger Strike earlier that day in Mic Mac Mall (a fundraiser for the pending holidays) and he saved his voice for the show because he was really sick and was determined to give his all.  He was indeed visibly mill but it didn’t stop him from blowing all of us away with what he does best.

I’m a really big fan of Big Sugar’s unique blend of rock, blues and reggae.   Despite the earthy sounds of dingy blues bars and Jah love, to me, they sound distinctly Canadian.   Let it be noted that Big Sugar are also the loudest band I’ve ever witnessed live.  Not uncomfortable loud like their openers, but rather a massive wall of delicious sound with deep penetrating layers of funky wallpaper.

The two hour show was deluged with popular Big Sugar standards, often bookended by blues breaks, raps and funk.  During the course of the show Gordie was able to show off a parade of loud guitars, the stuff of fan boy’s wet dreams.  They were beautiful and generated sounds that could only be conjured from his adept fingers.

 (Big Sugar rockin' it in Halifax)

I got lost in the show.  Being front row center watching Gordie’s hands play like he does, feeling the kick drum in my teeth, so close to the monitors striped with red, green and yellow duct tape that many of the details absorbed into my skin instead of into my memory.  I loved it so much I literally forgot where I was and felt like the music was an extension of me.  I know it sounds corny but that’s how I felt.

I can share with you, two highlights. 

‘All Hell For a Basement’ is my all-time favorite Big Sugar song.  I’ve heard it covered in bars all over this great city but nothing truly compared to hearing it from its source.  To add more magic to the song, it was one of the ones where the crowd out-sung the band.  Gordie raised his microphone stand and held it over the sea of singing faces, closed his eyes and smiled so contented and mouthed, ‘I love that sound.’  I was overwhelmed by emotion in that moment and felt tears spring to my eyes.  I managed to swallow them down to avoid looking like a nerd but I was awash with emotion.  To me, those are the most profound moments of a live show, when everyone is so connected by music, in unison, such a beautiful thing.

Gordie then shredded his way through a gripping rendition of ‘O Canada’ on 12 string, it doesn’t get any more patriotic than that.  In the last strains of the guitar laden execution, he raised his axe to rest behind his head revealing a proud Canadian flag on the underneath.  The crowd, primarily made up of the band’s male counterparts, thundered with approval.  It’s such an honour to be from such a grand country full of talented kinfolk.

(The Moncton show but you get the idea)

In short, in case you didn’t catch it, Big Sugar were dynamite.  They promoted love, rock ‘n’ roll and the power of positive ahem … smoking.  This all confirmed by the sheer number of weed that showered the stage from fists flinging it forward.  With the smell of incense and marijuana wafting through the air, it was one hell of a high.

The end of the show was something I hadn’t encountered before.  Gordie came down from the stage and graciously accepted accolades from everyone in the front row.  I was content with my fist bump while my concert buddy rallied for the set-list that was being peeled from the stage floor.  I am used to seeing the ladies surging forward grasping for the opportunity to get backstage but this night I was literally crushed against the barricade by a sausage fest trying desperately to catch Gordie’s attention, to be heard, to have a photo taken, to have their moment.  This was unfortunate for me because I’m only small and these guys were full of muscles, testosterone and intention.  I came away with a slight ache and a light bruise across my rib cage.  Oy vey.  Boys.

And again, up until this point, Big Sugar have been the loudest band I’ve seen live.  My ears clogged over to protect themselves and I could still feel the reverb fluttering around in my chest en route home.  Fun level and blissed out range = eleven on a scale of one to ten.

I never wanted them to turn the lights on.  I could have grooved all night.  So glad we went. 

Gordie Johnson is a Canadian treasure.  Big Sugar is da bomb.

It's Monday.  It's also a new month!  I can't believe it's December already.  Whoa.

Go easy.

In propinquity,

Nic