What would I do without coffee shops? I don't know of a less expensive, more comforting, interesting, easily accessible retreat. Whenever I need some alone time and can't stand another second of pacing around my apartment, avoiding the people I live with, I throw some books, my discman, my journal and my camera into my backback and head out the door. I sit for hours, with a black coffee, herbal tea or chai and spend far more time watching other people (loners, first dates, old friends, lonely elderly, trendy socialities, etc.,) than reading. If i poke my nose into my journal then I must jerk my head up after every sentence to see what's going on. In three hours I accomplish thirty minutes worth of art history reading. I recieve glares from the employees. I used to work at a very trendy coffee shop in Halifax and often felt overwhelming envy for those who had time to sit and leisurly sip a cup of tea while picking through the weekend newspaper, while I refilled the brown sugar and rotated the milk for the fiftieth time in a shift. How glorious it is to be on the other side of the counter. Next time I'm bringing my lap top and spending the day.

I just had a long phone conversation with one of my very best friends. We analysed and philosophised and made wisecrack remarks to each other while she made dinner and I soaked in a hot bath. She often stimulates me to think about everything all at once and often when I hang up the phone after talking to her I feel completely satisfied as if I had just eaten a big bowl of stew with homemade rolls and white wine. Completely comforted and satisfied-I guess I would have to say fulfilled. Unless of course we come to some sort of roadblock in our conversation. Then I am frustrated and sad when I hang up. But tonight it was the first sort of conversation.

Really, the conversation is unrelated to what I am about to say. But this thought came out of that conversation. So, this one is for you. You know who you are, although I'm not sure if you read this.

I have considered tonight that perhaps I am not changing in the sense that I am progressing or necessarily going to end up changed for the better. I am not growing, necessarily. People do grow as they experience things, but that is not all. I change. As in, I transform. Over and over. The only comparison that seems to enter my mind is this: A ball of rubber bands grows and expands as more rubber bands are added to it. It necessarily gets bigger. On the other hand, a Jenga tower (I know this is a silly analogy) changes without anything being added to it. You take one from the bottom and you put it on top. I would have to say that I think that I, and people in general, are more like the jenga tower than the ball of rubber bands. It doesn't change, essentially. It changes its form, but it is never different in substance or content. I think that I am essentially "me" by nature, but I transform when I am with new people, in a new environment, etc. New parts of me are revealed as I go through different experiences. I am not progressing to any sort of end. I will just discover new parts of me as I go along and eventually will collapse, like a Jenga tower. I guess the best quote I can think of to add emphasis is one I happened to attribute to myself about a year ago-before I had this specific thought (which is interesting-it seems I understood the thought before I even had it): "I'm just going through a phase right now. Everybody goes through phases and all, don't they?" J.D. Salinger. I will never stop changing-I am capable of taking on infinite shapes and forms. Life is a series of phases, and each phase isn't necessarily built on the last.

p.s. I hate that we can no longer have our conversations over a joint and a glass of wine, sitting cozy on the floor wrapped in blankets somewhere. Soon, though. Although, I feel, not soon enough.

I saw many beautiful things today. First I saw a bleach spot of a sun on a blue denim sky. It was overcast, and the sun insisted on showing itself through the grey clouds. I saw a group of children holding on to a rope, which towed them along the sidewalk. They were like colorful beads or jewels bobbing along on a string. I saw a small grey cat sitting on the shiny hood of a massive black truck. I saw a young boy practising tricks on his skateboard and a man carrying his dog in his arms. I saw all of this, even through my own sun was almost entirely overcast with hangover. These things gave me fuel.

Meg, myself and Martin after a day of surfing on Chesterman beach, Tofino BC. (Nov 15)

Chesterman beach, Tofino BC

Another Martyr Dies

Tufts of tightly woven tresses
Stand vigilant.
The quiet quills possess
sought secrets
That cruel captors covet.

The captor comes
To the silent, silvery space.
Prisoner, plunged into pigment,
Spits and spatters while
Captor tortures tongue for truth.

A magnificent mess!
Stray strands and scarlet hue
Stain the silver, sacred shrine.
Submerged, victim bleeds a crimson cloud
And drowning, martyr dyes.

She waits by the road
For the man who delivers the news;
He is always much too late.
She draws circles in the dust,
Scuffs her shoes against the concrete,
Waves absently at her neighbour.
When he comes she asks
Does he have anything for her today?
He shakes his head,
Says he can give her nothing,
And walks away.

I have found a word for how I'm feeling: Sehnsucht. It describes a feeling of nostalgia, longing, melancholy, wonder and an underlying sense of displacement or alienation from what is desired that cannot be found in any English word...

I would also like to add that if one more person says any of the following I am going to freak out: "it's all in your mind," "You have it so good, why aren't you happy?," "Happiness is a choice," "Cheer up!," "You need to get out more," "A person your age should be having the time of your life," "You want to feel this way," "Just wait a few weeks, it'll be over soon," "You're a writer, aren't you? Just think of all the good material you're getting out of this," "You will be ok, just hang in there, it will pass."

In response to what Ned posted today: I think I know how you feel. I feel so much numbness, indifference, dispassion, uninspiration, deadening of the senses, "peculiar longing for nonbeing." I haven't been writing much either. I feel as if my senses are temporarly paralysed.
Part of this feeling, I think, comes from the amount of drugs I smoke; too much. I also attribute it to the lack of inspiration in my life at this point in time, in particular the very few people in my physical, every day life who inspire me (ie. none). I have been reaching out and finding only air. I dove deep and came up not with jewels and pearls, but with a clump of mud. I just don't have the energy to be strong, to keep reaching out, so I turn inward...there I find so much confusion and so little solace. I have 'surged forward' and find this 'pain of heart' is too much to bear.

I am having a mid pre-quarter life crisis...I just wish I could get a real live hug from someone I know and love...but it is too much to ask right now...

Is it possible to break your own heart?

This is where I went for the weekend: Tofino, Vancouver Island BC. The beach is Chesterman Beach. I went surfing on Saturday for three hours, and it was the most incredible experience.

Bon soir, ma cherie. You are the peppy, benevolent
Amelie! Your appreciation for life and living
creatures mixed with your cleverness, sense of
humour, and overall charisma make for an almost
sickeningly adorable bundle of French joy!


Which Odd-Yet-Strangely-Humourous Movie Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

My roommate, her boyfriend and I have rented a car and we're heading up island to the surfing village of Tofino, Van Island. It is going to rain all weekend, so we'll likely sit either in our tent or in our hostel, drink beer and play cards most of the weekend...but it will be in TOFINO. Tofino is beautiful, paradise I've been told...

I picked up smoking on my train ride across Canada, on my way to my new life into which i casually incorporated the habit. The habit grew like an infectous mould in this brand new, often lonely and unfamiliar environment. Funny enough, the West Coast doesn't breed even close to as many smokers as the East-perhaps I was just being difficult.

I saw the movie Sylvia on Sunday afternoon. In one of the later scenes Sylvia asks her friend for a light for the slender, white cigarette she produces from her handbag. He says "I didn't know you smoked" to which she replies that she is "trying some new things." I sniggered, to the embarrassment of others in the audience (since I was sitting alone). She then goes on to say that along with smoking she is thinking of taking a lover. But that topic I will not venture.

Cigarettes carried me through the lonely train ride, meeting strangers (smokers bond, don't you know), long distance phone calls on the back steps, rainy nights and breaks between classes. They carried me up into euphoria, sometimes nausea, but more often than not provided me with the company I longed for.

Now, after three months of their company, much like an imaginary friend or like an ex I must let cigarettes go. Returning to the ex analogy, this does feel a bit like a break-up. It has been a three month relationship, short by many standards (not necessarily mine), but intense and almost entirely based on desire, not reason. Needless to say, I am having trouble letting go.

Yesterday I spent ten minutes ramsacking the entire apartment looking for a forgotten cigarette, even half of one! It appears that I had already found them all. I am trying hard not to break down and buy another pack. I have stayed away for four days (save the one cigarette I practically had to wrestle from my roomates boyfriend, who eventually gave it to me, ignoring the glares of my roomate, because I am "a big girl").

I am proud of myself-such discipline.
I think I will celebrate with a cigarette, if I can find one...

Now
I know why many men have stopped and wept
Half-way between the loves they leave and seek
And wondered if travel leads them anywhere --
Horizons keep the soft line of your cheek,
The windy sky's a locket for your hair.
Leonard Cohen, "Travel"

I have some newer poetry up on my main site heart of a broken story I in the poems section. These are just scribbles, not revised poems, just snippets from my journals. I haven't been up to much poetry lately, but that is going to change very soon. Expect some better, revised poems within the next few months.

I would give a lot today to be sitting across from you in a booth at the Ardmore tea room or by the street-facing windows of Perks, newspaper scattered across the table, me with the Review and Books sections, you with the Canada and World sections; half-filled coffee cups, yours with cream and mine with milk and honey; a half-finished crossword between us and your warm hand finding mine, a squeeze. Sun spilling across the table or rain streaking the windows, doesn't matter. It never matters where we have to spend the rest of our day, any day that begins with my hand holding yours across a table is a perfect one. All I need is you and me, the Saturday Globe and some coffee- I wish I could begin every day with this simple, blissful combination. The days feel empty without you...

"I make stories. I twist up toys out of anything. A girl sits at a cottage door; she is waiting; for whom? Seduced, or not seduced? The headmaster sees the hole in the carpet. He sighs. His wife, drawing her fingers through the waves of her still abundant hair, reflects - et cetera. Waves of hands, hesitations at street corners, someone dropping a cigarette into the gutter - all are stories. But which is the true story? That I do not know. Hence I keep phrases hung like clothes in a cupboard, waiting for someone to wear them. Thus waiting, thus speculating, making this note and then another, I do not cling to life. I shall be brushed like a bee from a sunflower. My philosophy, always accumulating, welling up moment by moment, runs like quicksilver a dozen ways at once." (Bernard) --- from The Waves by Virginia Woolf

I sit on the stone steps, a blanket wrapped around me, with a mug of Soy milk and a cigarette. The air is crisp and cold. It finally feels like autumn. I am beginning to feel like a monk, of sorts, save the copious amounts of nicotine, cannibis and caffeine I ingest. I spend a lot of time meditating on my solitude. I've started talking to myself, narrating with bits of poetry mostly. The sound of my own voice is startling. In the company of others I either close off, finding their presence oppressive, or burst open with speech, words spilling. When I ate mushrooms last weekend I didn't stop talking for almost five hours-I honestly couldn't stop. It was a disturbing release. I am a bit concerned about my state of mind. I am fine with being alone most of the time. It is when other people are around that I am aware of how odd I feel; as if my world has stopped, and everyone else carries on.

in this world we have become at odds with everything. we are separated from (N)ature, separated from each other. No one can agree on anything except that we are lost. We have lost our way; on our way to greatness we have lost everything. We live in a world of ideas and no concrete faith or spirituality. If everyone dances to the beat of their own drum, are we not all dancing alone? My own ideas echo and fade away in the multitude.

We are all confused, we are all asking 'why?' We have asked this question so many times that all we can do is circle back to it. We will break ourselves down so far that the world will exist only in fragments. We walk the shores of Eliot's wasteland recovering scraps of paper prophesizing hope and faith and truth, barely recognizable sludge. We walk the shores trying not to throw ourselves from the riverbank into the current.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirpool.
T.S. Eliot The Wasteland IV. Death by Water

We spin in the whirpool. From where did we come? Which way is up?

Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief
I. The Buriel of the Dead

A heap of broken images, on which we stand surveying the damage, counting the casualties of hate and power; of waste.

I can't help but spend my time mourning.

the nymphs are departed...
Deaparted, have left no addresses.
By the water of Leaman I sat down and wept...
III. The Fire Sermon

I have read too much moderist literature...But I don't think that the modernist mouvement is dead. The ideas are not new, but they resonate in everything. We are in neo-apocolyptic mode, again. The gyre revolves and history repeats. We have been lost since the beginning of time.

We are in the business of rebuilding empires, only to tear them down.