thief

"old paperwork," it said.
a cardboard treasure chest.
I stole your poems to remember.

new space, new life

Nearly moved in. Potential for impending new kitten. Soon move will be over, unpacking can conclude, new routines can be developed. Just hoping my heart will eventually catch up.

mental playlist

Indulge me.

My Big Nurse - David Byrne & Brian Eno (track 2)
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby - The Smiths
(...and I've just discovered that there's also a cover by the incomparable Kirsty MacColl)
Eden - Hooverphonic
I Love Myself Today - Bif Naked

My Big Nurse
When the lake's on fire
With all the world's desires
When he shakes the stars above
When we lose the ones we love

When the seasons lose their grip
When the tightrope walker slips

I'm counting all the possibilities

When the past becomes the now
When the lost becomes the found
When we fall in love with war
When the angel fucks the whore

When the road we travel on
Takes us back where we came from
A million kinds of possibilities
For dancing on this lazy afternoon

In the comfort of the world
In the arms of my big nurse
From the science of the heart
To each animal and plant

Compact, relaxed, intact - give thanks
I'm counting all the possibilities
For dancing on this lazy afternoon
***
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby
If you're wondering why
All the love that you long for eludes you
And people are rude and cruel to you
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why

You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You just haven't earned it, son
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You must suffer and cry for a longer time
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
And I'm telling you now ...

If you're wondering why
When all I wanted from life was to be famous
I have tried for so long; it's all gone wrong
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why
But you wouldn't believe me

You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You just haven't earned it, son
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You must suffer and cry for a longer time
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
And I'm telling you now ...
I'll tell you why
I'll tell you why

Today I am remembering the time
When they pulled me back
And held me down
And looked me in the eyes and said
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You just haven't earned it, my son
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
You must stay on your own for slightly longer
You just haven't earned it yet baby
And I'm telling you now ...

You just haven't earned it yet, baby
Oh ...
You just haven't earned it yet, baby
***
Eden
Did you ever think of me
As your best friend?

Did I ever think of you?
--I'm not complaining

I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your Eden

Did I ever think of you
As my enemy?

Did you ever think of me?
--I'm complaining

I never tried to feel
I never tried to feel this vibration
I never tried to reach
I never tried to reach your Eden

I Love Myself Today
You left me like a broken doll
In pieces as I took the fall
For you, you dumb chump
You left me free-fallin' like space junk
Burnin' up in the atmosphere of life
Well I sound like a philosopher
But I'm a fool who's off her rocker
'Cause I let you in my heart that one last time
I've had enough, made up my mind
I'm gonna get up, and out, and wild

I love myself today
Not like yesterday
I'm cool, I'm calm, I'm gonna be okay, uh huh
I love myself today
Not like yesterday
Take another look at me now
'Cause it's your last look
Your last look forever.

Well look at you--
You're all puffed up
In a big red truck
But you're out of luck this time
Oh well that's tough
'Cause I'm on fire--too hot to touch
With a chatroom full of lovers
on the line
I'll stand right up
Spit-shine my soul
I'm gonna be proud and loud and outta control...

I'm looking the mirror
And I like what I see
I've lost the fear and the horror
That's been eatin' at me
'Cause bein' with you was like a hangman's noose
I was livin' my life in dead man's shoes
I've had enough, made up my mind
I'm gonna get up, and out, and wild

I love myself today
Not like yesterday
You're dead, and gone, I'm gonna get my way, uh huh
I love myself today
Not like yesterday
Take another look at me now
'Cause it's your last look
Your last look forever
I love myself today

bad dream...

My new life feels completely unreal today, as though I'm going to wake up and things will be back to normal.

I guess it's one of the ways we cope with difficult information that's too big, too much, too overwhelming to take in.

It would obviously be unhealthy for things to go back to the way they were, but it's so hard to accept that it's just over--that he's gone, and that's it. Over three years of our lives, ground into shards under his retreating heels. Unsalvageable. No discussion, no negotiation, no chance to try. It's such a bitter pill to swallow that I don't think I've managed to choke it down yet. I keep staring at it in disbelief, thinking, "I have no choice?"

In the words of Yoda: "Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." There is no try.

Man, people going through breakups are boring. I'm bored with myself. It's only been a month, but I was hoping that I'd start to feel at least a little better. Instead, it's hitting hard all over again. Stupid merry-go-round of pain. Yoda, get me *off* this goddamn thing.

an observation

I've never been a big watcher of t.v. or film. I've always fled from both, instead playing games on my computer.

Since Tom left, I haven't felt very much like doing that, and have been trying to get out, read, write, and do other things.

In the last two days, though, I've watched the whole first season of Sex and the City--two sittings, six episodes per sitting--and I've realised something: If a body does something like that every once in a while, or has a marathon viewing with friends, it can be fun. But if this becomes a habit, a way to fill days, get lost in a fantasy world and not think, then it's no different than endlessly playing on the computer, or drinking, or sleeping too much, or having sex too much with too many people.

I might have spent a lot of time over the last few years numbing out by playing endless casual games on pogo.com, or spending hours running missions in Guild Wars, but I now realise that I wasn't the only one trying not to think.

The revelations continue.

march or die

I'm bemused that, from someone who's suffered from depression herself, my mother's parting words of counsel to me just before hanging up the phone were "march or die".

I really hope there are more choices than that, 'cos I can't hack marching right now.

why is the sky blue?

Who is this woman?
--this bundle of grief and hope and childlike coffee?
Who is that little girl?
Where did she go astray?
Who is this rose in a coffee shop?
What is this bundle of veins and nerves and fatty tissue that constitutes her heart?
Why is it empty? Why is it full? What is it full of?
Shame. Anger. Hope. Love. Blood.
It's an automaton, this body.
Just keeps moving and squishing and forcing continuation.
Is it the body that endures, or the mind?
Or neither?
What endures? Pure love. Selfless love.
Does selfless love hurt? Or does it become further refined through adversity?
Can it be battered and dented, or does a blow glance off it, hitting and severing heartstrings and synapses?
Does it fossilise or crystalise? I think not. It just is.
My new refrain--it just is.

transit on the brain

More questionable poetic musings. They're just spilling out at the moment, imperfect and trite as they are.

Stationary transfer
We entered and exited virtually every station together: I counted.
...King, Queen, Yonge, Coxwell, Broadview...
We stalled somewhere below ground--
lights out; no announcements.
You used an emergency exit.

By the time I got to Union, you'd already gone on,
the rumble of your train dying away down the tunnel
as I swayed numbly on the platform,
an invalid transfer crumpled in my hand.

I hate St. George

I'd have liked him but for the dragon-slaying thing;
He always seemed so holy and noble.
Now he conjures up a Gordian knot:
I hear his name, I see your face.
I search the crowded platform--though I pretend not to--for you.

...and so it goes

Doing a little better. Moving from grief alone to anger mixed in, and a terrified sense of adventure. Apartment-hunting. Contemplating packing. Growing ever-angrier at his cowardice, at being transformed into the unknowing receptacle of everything that's wrong in his life--frustrated creativity, father dying, mother failing, turning 40, being overweight, facing the void--how easy it is to simply run away, to change his environment, rather than do the adult thing and try to face what's in himself.

Everyone's been so generous in their kindness these last few weeks. People I don't know very well have responded when I've reached out, old friends are re-emerging, and I am deeply grateful.

pensing...

Slowly finding my feet. This time, I'll take care of myself first. There is much unfinished. It hurts, it hurts, but I will find a way.

...maybe more like a bungee jump

I'm probably still on the first downward plummet...or have I reached the nadir and been jerked back the other way, falling up?

It's amazing how I can go from feeling relatively fine, to having the sensation of ashes in my mouth, to screaming rage, to a void of grief. At least I'm trying to take better care of myself...if you count smoking too many cloves and not really eating as "taking better care". I'm culling--things I should have given to charity years ago. Five giant garbage bags and counting. At least a shelf's worth of big books. Some of them quite lovely. Maybe I'll give the storybooks to friends.

And all the while it still doesn't seem real. Finding notes from just weeks ago that say "I love you", thinking back to Friday night when he asked about where I thought we should store the air conditioner for the winter...I think that's seared itself into my brain as the emblem of how weird and and sudden and *wrong* this all is.

But I guess it wasn't sudden--not really. But it really was. Unhappiness, spells of feeling down--that's normal. But to think someone's down and so you give them space until they need to talk, as always, and then they become more and more withdrawn, and then you find out they've been mindfucking someone else? ...and can't even contemplate being with you at all because someone else is more "in synch" with them, and they have a lot in common? WTF????

I can't be out, I can't be at the apartment, I can't be in my own skin. I wonder if being able to float like a balloon would help...or would I just float away? Right now, I feel as though there's no firm ground to stand on.

rollercoaster

You might have just barely managed to keep your cock in your pants, but your mind and your heart should've stayed in your pants too. Somehow, the more I think about it, the greater the violation it seems.

Stupid fucking "deep, meaningful" conversations that meant you "connected" with her--you should have been home, trying to connect with me. I had actually finally let myself trust that you really were in this for the long haul. And I fucking had to *ask* if you wanted to break up with me. The longer you stayed and playacted, instead of coming clean, the more nails went into the coffin. And not from my end. I don't fucking want this to happen. Moving out and into our own places I can handle, and I think it's a necessity. But totally gone? After nearly 4 years together and 3 years living together? Because you have "feelings" for someone you've been flirting and talking with more meaningfully for a few weeks? That's not a reason--it's a fucking excuse. You fucking spineless coward. You've left people before, with similar excuses about needing to find yourself and be alone, but *falling* for someone and sabotaging any chance of you being able to try? That's a first, and it's shameful that you're starting to need to find better excuses for ending things so you can carry on with this sad, lonely pattern.

But then maybe we've both been too depressed and sick for this to work. Stupid hindsight. Stupid asshole. I love you, and this dissolution seems so terribly wrong.

this is futile, but...

...all I can do is pace this fast-crumbling floor and cry aloud: PLEASE COME BACK. Pleeeease come back. I know it isn't possible, and it won't happen, but I find myself like so many out there in the universe, vainly hoping that the pleas, the wanting will make it so.

My heart is clawing at my mind, keening and lost and childlike, unable to comprehend what my mind knows: that it's over. You've gone, and you're not coming back. Crying, wanting, and desperately, silently screaming "I'm sorry" for things not-done and things I couldn't be won't bring you home.

The only comfort that would help is yours, and I am alone.

heartbroken.

sometimes people die; sometimes it's relationships.
no more to say than that.

appeal to a worker for the public good

with apologies to Dylan Thomas

Do not fit neatly into that noble plight,
Civil servants should burn and rave in their cubicled way;
Rage, rage against the mindless service of what’s right.

Though wise plebeians often call upon their foresight,
Because their words are drained till dull and grey
They do not fit neatly into that noble plight.

Good minds, they dream and cry, lamenting the height
They might have attained in another way,
Rage, rage against the mindless service of what’s right.

Great leaps of thought, limned ’round with logic bright,
Might fail to make it in by end of day,
Do not fit neatly into that noble plight.

Clear minds, near lost, that can’t see true words from trite,
That’d otherwise command all there is to say,
Rage, rage against the mindless service of what’s right.

And you, pale servant, with th’aspect of a long-dead wight,
Curse, bless me now with your key messages, I pray.
Do not fit neatly into that noble plight.
Rage, rage against the mindless service of what’s right.

...are you there, dad? --it's you, Margaret!!

(...with apologies to Judy Blume)

Mel tells me this little beauty was born on Jan 30th at the Chester Zoo in Merseyside, which is pretty much the same part of the world from which dad hailed. Heck, if you're gonna come back, you might as well be a giraffe, right?

obituary

Thanks to everyone for their kindness - it means a lot to me and my family. Dad's obituary will run in the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, and in Sunday's Star as well.

McKenna, Robert Ivan (“Mac”)

October 4, 1942 - January 29, 2008. Died in hospital after a determined battle with cancer. He gave no quarter—it was taken from him with stunning rapidity by this cruel disease. As was his wish, he was at home almost to the end. Husband of Anne, father of Sosie and Addie, aka Sophia (Tom) and Alexander (Sue). Brother to Anita (Michael) Whelan, brother-in-law to Jennifer, Janet and John. Uncle to Rebecca, Dominic, Samantha, Jason, Josephine, Daniel and Thomas. Dear friend to Tony Barry, Findlay Sleigh, and Denis Clark. Deepest thanks to Robert’s dedicated team of naturopathic doctors, the staff at Sunnybrook, and the staff of the Temmy Latner Centre at Mount Sinai. Your exceptional care and compassion will never be forgotten. Funeral at the Carfrae Chapel, Mount Pleasant Cemetery, on Monday, February 4, 2008, 2 p.m. A wake to have a drink for Robert will be held in the near future (details tba). He loved roses. Donations can be made in Robert’s memory to the Robert Schad Naturopathic Clinic or the Department of Research and Clinical Epidemiology of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. www.ccnm.edu

so long, dad

Robert Ivan McKenna - Actor, writer, and loads of other things
October 4, 1942 - January 29, 2008

I'm so very sorry, but am so glad you're not hurting anymore.

You made your own choices, stuck by what you wanted, called the shots, and fought with every ounce of strength you had. Dylan Thomas would've been proud. You did not go gentle, and you raged right through to the end.

I'll miss you.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.