I love lazy lay-in mornings, cuddling and talking and giggling. I can't wait until this can happen every morning, and not just once in a while.
I can still smell him on my skin.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Sometimes
Sometimes I feel like I am standing on the precipice of a great catastrophe, on the edge of a not-so-dormant volcano that is rumbling menacingly just beneath the earth's surface, or that I am gingerly, softly, sliding my fingers along the wet maw of a starving lion...if I can hear the coming storm, see the swirling dark clouds in the distance, I can't avert my eyes nor direct my steps to escape, like I have some terrible fascination in impending doom. I stare and think: there is fate; that is destiny. Whatever it brings it comes without mercy and without remorse. It knows no emotion nor offers no reprieve. It just is.
Sometimes...I dream of infants with adult voices, their sardonic puckered pink faces cajoling, mocking, words cruelly reminding me of years tumbling down beyond my power to grasp them. I have conversations with these too-wise children, plead ignorance, diversion or disinterest, but they accept no excuse, they trade no barter, they forgive no wasted time. They know how stealthy the years can creep while we wait for better circumstance.
I amaze myself with my ease at cruelty, how with a turn of phrase, a flick of a wrist, and I have made my painful mark. I watch it like a captive audience in disbelief, and replay it again and again, multiplying the cruelty with a punishment of mine and all my own.
Sometimes I know I am self-destructing, I know I am sabotaging my life, I know the arms that are holding up a facade are weakening and I let them weaken. Sometimes I love the sound of the crash and the fury and the temporary calm of the eye of my own storm.
I lash out, anger redirected. I am not angry at you. I am angry at myself, disgusted with myself, afraid of myself and what I am capable of destroying. And before I destroy this fragile thing we’ve created, I sacrifice it, hold it up and point out its flaws and weaknesses to you so you can say the words I am afraid to say and you can bear the weight of the stigma, the title of murderer, the Knight whose sword missed its aim and slew me instead of the dragon. Or perhaps I am the dragon and your aim was unconsciously true.
Sometimes...I dream of infants with adult voices, their sardonic puckered pink faces cajoling, mocking, words cruelly reminding me of years tumbling down beyond my power to grasp them. I have conversations with these too-wise children, plead ignorance, diversion or disinterest, but they accept no excuse, they trade no barter, they forgive no wasted time. They know how stealthy the years can creep while we wait for better circumstance.
I amaze myself with my ease at cruelty, how with a turn of phrase, a flick of a wrist, and I have made my painful mark. I watch it like a captive audience in disbelief, and replay it again and again, multiplying the cruelty with a punishment of mine and all my own.
Sometimes I know I am self-destructing, I know I am sabotaging my life, I know the arms that are holding up a facade are weakening and I let them weaken. Sometimes I love the sound of the crash and the fury and the temporary calm of the eye of my own storm.
I lash out, anger redirected. I am not angry at you. I am angry at myself, disgusted with myself, afraid of myself and what I am capable of destroying. And before I destroy this fragile thing we’ve created, I sacrifice it, hold it up and point out its flaws and weaknesses to you so you can say the words I am afraid to say and you can bear the weight of the stigma, the title of murderer, the Knight whose sword missed its aim and slew me instead of the dragon. Or perhaps I am the dragon and your aim was unconsciously true.
"Cuba Libre" (in the style of a SATC monologue)
With the sun shining like a promise of things to come for me on my vaction to Cuba next week, I walked back to work from a lunch meeting with a woman ridiculously in love. She contacted me through Facebook asking if I could take a letter and gift to her boyfriend working at the resort I'll be staying at next week.
She is 38 and vibrant, fresh of face and attitude and from Toronto, as unlikely as that seems to a jaded Torontonian. And despite a language barrier and an age difference (he's 26) and being in vastly different and far-away countries they have fallen in love. It is a kind of love that shuts my mouth when it wants to speak words of realism, of logic, of typical Canadian coolness to the mere idea of love at first sight.
She tells me how they met, how they communicate, how she painstakenly translates her love letters from English to gramatically-correct Spanish for him, how he is saving money to buy his mother a refrigerator, how he is sweet and kind and how she loves having something and someone to look forward to after so many years of "living in a cinderblock room" here. She is not naive. She knows long distant relationships have the shelf-life appeal of tacky touristy trinkets. But she is willing to risk it. It amazes me. She is willing to go so far, to Cuba for another 6 months next time to be with the one she loves, whereas I'm not willing to make the move to Scarborough, or Mississauga or anywhere else for that matter.
I cannot help but wonder...was it ever possible in this city to be so romantically optimistic, so free with affection and feeling and willing to take an ultimate risk with our heart, or are we just too cynical for that kind of freedom in Cuba, or anywhere else? Do we need to go all the way to Cuba to learn how to be free?
She is 38 and vibrant, fresh of face and attitude and from Toronto, as unlikely as that seems to a jaded Torontonian. And despite a language barrier and an age difference (he's 26) and being in vastly different and far-away countries they have fallen in love. It is a kind of love that shuts my mouth when it wants to speak words of realism, of logic, of typical Canadian coolness to the mere idea of love at first sight.
She tells me how they met, how they communicate, how she painstakenly translates her love letters from English to gramatically-correct Spanish for him, how he is saving money to buy his mother a refrigerator, how he is sweet and kind and how she loves having something and someone to look forward to after so many years of "living in a cinderblock room" here. She is not naive. She knows long distant relationships have the shelf-life appeal of tacky touristy trinkets. But she is willing to risk it. It amazes me. She is willing to go so far, to Cuba for another 6 months next time to be with the one she loves, whereas I'm not willing to make the move to Scarborough, or Mississauga or anywhere else for that matter.
I cannot help but wonder...was it ever possible in this city to be so romantically optimistic, so free with affection and feeling and willing to take an ultimate risk with our heart, or are we just too cynical for that kind of freedom in Cuba, or anywhere else? Do we need to go all the way to Cuba to learn how to be free?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)