Suggestible Minds

Suggestible Minds

allow me to welcome you

to stark minimalist staging

for composed ambiguity

& deceitful aural textures

whatever you do

do not look down

do not brave heavily armed

acquisitions with indifference

at least not of

your own volition

obey to expectations

willfully accept truths

allow me to address you

amply kept audience

on the acquired habits

of conscious conformity

suggestible minds

do not think for yourself

premise of absolutes

attempts to isolate

empirical measurements

are impossible to forecast

when you cannot deliberate

with your own private apathies

suggestible minds

orchestrated purposefully

suggestible minds

manipulated willfully

resonant frequency likely

**

As it always happens, the weekend flew by.  After a particularly rough Friday I arrived home to a pot of stew and Hannah overnight and a visit with Erica.  All, delights that eased my stressful noodle.  I slept like a log too because I knew I didn't have to wake up to an alarm.  Instead, I woke up organically, to the sun streaming in my window and ventured out for the day with Erica, enjoying a lunch and some retail therapy but I was mostly just happy to be in her company.  That was followed by a girls night of sorts at my eldest sister's abode.  Against my better judgement, I drank wine and I knew I shouldn't have because I was battling a headache I've had since early Thursday morning.  Because I indulged, I ruined my Sunday.  I mapped out a perfect artist date for myself.  Halifax in the sunshine with writing and browsing and peacefulness.  Instead I woke up with a migraine and wasted a whole gorgeous sunny day resting so my raging headache would subside.  Disappointed in myself for not heeding my noodle's needs prior to the wine consumption.  Lesson learned.

I'm feeling much better now but still have a dull ache hovering around the eyebrow area.  Just enough to be annoying.  I bought a new tea yesterday, Sleepytime Vanilla.  I just made myself a cup after finishing my laundry and preparing my lunch for tomorrow.  I found enough energy to tweak this poem  I started scribbling mid-week so I could at least feel like I was somewhat productive.  The tea is yummy and perfect for bedtime.  It's my new favorite thing.

Other delights of the weekend:  coming home from work on Friday to a swanky postcard from Haley and my amazon order that included the new David Sedaris book and the book about the song 'Hallelujah' I've been eyeing since Christmas.  I'm armed now with tons of reading material to get me through the next little bit.  I've read a few pages of each book already and I can't wait to get through both of them.  I plan to savor each though because David's stuff is SO good that when I'm done I'm always sad.  His stuff is incredibly smart and funny, so much so that sometimes I make a fool of myself if I'm reading it on my commute home.  I often take to laughing out-loud on the Metro.  Books, good books, rule.

As I prepare to retire for the evening I realize that while I am already missing Hannah being here, her silliness, our 5 minute dance parties and snuggles, I have so much to look forward to in the next while.  A lot of it is music, shows by Old Crow Medicine Show, The Stanfields at the Casino, Matt Mays on the waterfront which also coincides with Kiersten's visit and then Matt Epp at The Carleton come the end of June.  There's even an engagement party in there too.  I also have to get photos done for my passport application for next year's trip.  That time won't come soon enough.  I need out of dodge.

My goal for this week is to complete my current short story, eat better (because I've been bad again), exercise at least 30 minutes each day and try to get enough sleep.  Attainable goals, yes?  I think so.

My headache and I bid you a good night and successful, sunny week ahead.

Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream ...

In propinquity,

Nic

PS - Poem's moral?  Think for yourself and be mindful that when you use your words, choose them wisely.  Sometimes they hurt even when you don't mean for them to.

A Thousand Kisses Deep - An Evening with Leonard Cohen

My bucket list is one item shorter.  Leonard Cohen played a sold out show last night in Halifax, almost four hours of his best work accompanied by a band and their gorgeous talents collected from all over the world.

The stage was set like a European dream.  Lush Persian-style rugs, red velvet chairs for the musicians and long white curtains cascading down and throughout the show turned all sorts of colors by the ambient and precise lighting.  He also had two large video screens for those far away from the stage.  Where we were sitting, in the nosebleeds, the show was projected on the white walls so we could see.  My seats may have been high up but we were next to the stage so I could see just fine, he was just a bit smaller.  It didn't matter much to me because I was sharing air with a literary hero and it served as a defining moment for me.  I've seen hundreds of shows but this one was miraculously different - it was life changing.  The pristine sound of a finely tuned band, Cohen's sub-baritone husk and his words, that poetry.

I was submerged in a quiet ecstacy while my lovely childhood friend struggled to keep her eyes open.  I commend her for going with me to something that wasn't quite her cup of tea for me to be blessed by the presence of a hero.  That's a good friend.

The show had so many incredible moments but they all blended seamlessly together with ease quelling any anxieties that raced through my body from my daily life.  In those soft hours, nothing else truly mattered except for Leonard's deep crooning and the intricate design of his poetics.

He is a tremendous performer.  Grateful for his audience he refers to as 'friends', respectful of his handsome band and dedicated to his extensive and extraordinary body of work.  He opened his almost four hour show with 'Dance Me To The End Of Love' and built an impressive tower of song until intermission.  The defining moment of the show for me, when the tears came streaming down, was his stunning spoken word delivery of  'A Thousand Kisses Deep'.  His band exited the stage, Cohen stood in a bright white spotlight and whispered the lines.  And of course, his launch into the universally beloved 'Hallelujah' was another emotional moment.  Perhaps one of the most iconic and celebrated songs every written.  The only other thing next to the perfection of Jeff Buckley's heartbreaking cover of the song that could ever compare is hearing Leonard Cohen perform it live.  A single moment really can alter your person, re-align your soul. cleanse your spirit.  

Cohen treated the Halifax audience to three encores and if he'd been allowed he probably would have played on.  It was a beautiful night and I not only walked away richer in spirit but with my arms full of amazing merch.  I rarely buy merchandise at concerts but last night I bought the program, a coffee mug and a limited edition Moleskine notebook with Cohen embossed on the front in gold and the quote 'stop writing everything down'.  The notebook was a bit pricey but I didn't just want it, I needed it.  I needed it because it is akin in a sweet way to the first few lines of my new short story denote a Moleskine notebook and its importance to my character.  In a silly way that only I would associate, it seemed like a sign.  I have learned hard lessons about following and not following signs over the past three years and this one was a sign worth following.  I can't wait to start a new story and start using my book to fill up with notes and ideas, some old and some new.  Maybe even a few borrowed.

I also was in love with his audience.  I bantered with several concert-goers and they shared their Cohen stories of their youth and mused about him and Joni Mitchell and other music that peppered the soundtrack of their lives.  And I loved seeing small kids with their parents taking their seats.  What an incredibly profound and culturally rich experience for them.  I recall one little girl holding her Mom's hand, wearing a pretty dress, black paten leather shoes and leotards carrying a long-stemmed red carnation in her hand.  It moved me.  The whole night, from the fun dinner Colleen and I shared at Midtown Tavern before filing into the Metro Center to the pure power of the show, was perfect.  

Cohen mused he hopes this one isn't a farewell tour and I also hope for the same.  I would do that all over again in a heartbeat.  I hope he returns.

My bucket list is one item shorter but I feel like my humanness has deepened and I left the venue vastly different than when I entered.  For the better.

Thank you Leonard Cohen, for being my man last night.  A gentleman.  You are absolutely everything a hero is made of.

In propinquity,

Nic

My loot.

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