The compulsion to explain my absence–yet again!!– is upon me like the rash pimpling and prickling my rear end. I will “tell-all” at a later date perhaps, just not in this post. I have many a started and stopped postlette hanging about in my drafts. Months of them, in fact. Tremendous, terrible layers of hostile and disappointed ogres, stacked one atop the other, huffing, puffing, and grumbling. They are trapped in muffled congress, surrounded by seemingly disheartened, disinterested wolves (and all sorts of other dis and non-dis creatures they do not even know about); needless to say, they are afraid to move about, despite the lethargy of the wolves, lest the hunters awaken from their stupor and gobble up the plump ogres instantaneously.
So instead of feasting upon the festering,fabled characters, join me here, in this moment, for a skip and hop through the stubborn keyboard forest. Twirl festively with me in the ankle-deep puddles of possibility–let’s frolic about together for a change of pace. I reserve the right to celebrate this “in the moment” nowness of getting out of bed and the house to an actual destination and event.
I am currently in a delightful land called “Suite Genius”. It is a spacious studio on 3rd Avenue, between Pine and Burrard Streets in my mountainous, oceanous hometown of Vancouver. I say hometown, because it is my chosen one. It is my writer self that brought me here. As a result, it is where my best work has crawled out from beneath and nestled down into the winter’s moss and ferns, under trees so large they seem enchanted. It is here, where the ancient mountains call my eyes up, up and away, even on my worst of days. Without moving, I can travel into a wild world filled with songed stories, whistled by the wind, and the many wooded animals.
It is my place of deep downing, and nearly drowning. It is a place of a medicated psychiatric overnight surrounded by hospital bedded inmates, tagged and cordoned off. It is a place of discharge-ing into the fresh aired start agains. It is a place where raindrops and tear drops are one in the same–where I am gray and green, dead and alive. It is a place of alchemy and swirling wounds and healing leap-frog games. It is a place of youth reborn, again and again–where my little self can dig down in the dirt and revel in the mucky fear and freedom. It is a place to un-cocoon, where the winter body can unfurl into its butterfly mind, it’s ever present spirit, winged across the universe. It is a place tenacious and deep,steeped in a mysterious, unknowing wisdom.
I am surrounded by light and high ceilings. I am connected to earth through this raw wood table, a felled tree that holds up my laptop. I am joined together with 12 other writers for an all-day writing retreat in the city, and it feels utterly sparkly.
I do not know what I am going to write all day and I certainly do not expect brilliance to spring forth from my ruddy and unkempt fingernails. That is quite fine. It is a stupendous event, monumental in truth, that I am even here–that I did not excuse myself for a second time from such a gathering. It is a triumph that I did not, for the millionth time, climb beneath my quilted guilt. I did not succumb to the worst of the incessant whines and wails inside my brain box: “Why aren’t you writing, you lazzzzy little fraud? You’re not a writer, you’re not creative, mother fucker! You’re a sssssimpering little liar(this side of me is like the proverbial snake in the grass).
This brain, despite what it may seem, is usually not so malevolent sounding. “Evil” maniacs cackling “Mwah ha ha!!” and triangling their fingers into diabolical steeples tend to dance about in midnight circles. This type of darkness is comically over the top. More often than not, the chatter is like the dullest, most monotonous university professor/priest/pastor/public speaker type that can be fathomed.
But today, for this time, there are other sounds that kindly embrace all possible viewpoints and gently ask the nattering voices to help out and/or quiet down, as it is time for reflective collection.
Thank you for the time, thank you for the consideration, thank you for seeing eyes that really see, thank you for wading through the weeds and carefully extricating their roots, thank you.
flyingleapwithme 