i am at a pinnacle, and it feels like i am at the centre of a whirpool. I see everything going up all around me, and i can't stop it, but i am removed, not caught up in it. and at the centre there is you. and in you i can achieve balance.

I feel like i've stumbled into some sort of alternate paradisal universe in which spring cannot contain itself after february. This is the most beautiful March I have ever seen. Victoria feels even more so like Mr. Roger's neighbourhood right now. The postman whistles as he does his rounds, students and commuters peddle by on their bikes, ringing bells and wearing shorts, children play under the trees that rain white and pink cherry blossoms on the grass and the streets, like sweet, soft snow. My street is lined with bursting cherry trees, that bring sweet currents of warm, fragrant wind. My morning coffee is hot and rich, grabbed from the cafe up in sunny Fernwood square, and I have fresh picked forthysia and cherry blossoms in a mason jar on my desk. Last night, on the walk home from my Hatha yoga class, the blossoms glistened under the waning moon and the night air was warm and moist and reminiscent of pleasant summer nights by the ocean.

Now, if only I could get my mind off of spring and remember that it is only March and notice that my work is piling up around me...

I really believe in my title: the heart of a broken story. It isn't random, although, I must admit, I decided on it before I actually read the Salinger short story.

My life is not the story of a broken heart, although it could be twisted around to seem that way. My heart is full of broken stories, not love tragedies.

Essential ingredients in a good story are a beginning, middle, and an end. Just as when the end of a very good story comes upon me, and I sometimes hesitate, put the book down on the second to last page, or even throw it across the room, I also have trouble accepting the end of a good relationship (or a bad one, while i'm on the subject.) But, like a story, every relationship must, as a rule, have these ingredients.

"But so much more could have happened."

Alas-the ending is inevitable, and we can never know everything.

To tell you the truth, in relationships I have more trouble with beginnings than endings most of the time.

I often come upon good stories by accident, when i'm in the middle of something else. I find myself squatting somewhere slightly uncomfortable for longer than I mean to, completely caught up in a story I happened to pick up. I just can't put down a story that I may potentially love. I simply must find out what happens. When a story ends, i take a moment for a 'wow,' and then go about doing whatever had been inturrupted before. I sometimes put off the ending, because I know it will leave me feeling a bit unsatisfied, but generally I enjoy endings that hang off, just a little.

I know that this sounds like a pretty forced analogy, but it is not contrived in any way. I really do feel the same way about love as I do about good writing.

Maybe it would make more sense to choose where I when I read stories, to think about priorities, get comfortable and sit down to read them start to finish. But this is so predictable, so boring, so unadventurous, so seperate from life. The other way is just my style. And sometimes, in both writing and relationships, one must sacrifice rules for style.

Finding myself caught up in something new, again, has led me to consider the above things. I began reading what I thought was an acecdote, but which has turned out to be only an intro to something...longer. Here I am, squatting, immersed, and wondering how will it end?

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

here are a few poems i wrote for class last term...i'm not happy with them, but i can't get feedback without posting them:

grave waiting

In November my father cuts into the
earth a wide dark hole
for our dog, who barks at
ghosts, not yet dead.

The ground freezes,
the hole waits
like a cold dark eye.

Sledding in January I drop
into the grave
and disappear.
I think this must be what
death is like, an empty, icy cavity.
Lumps of musty brown earth fall
and cover my pink rubber boots.

In April the dog looks heavy
when my father's soiled gloves
lay him down.

We pretend we don't notice when
the shovel drops a rock
and the dog's white body trembles.
He looks almost
alive.


In the World he Hears a Symphony

Beside the window
is a Sony 1973 turntable, covered by a pink sheet.
He stands beside it on a wool, red rug
and once unveiling its thin disguise
lifts the lid and moves the heavy, black needle.

He slips a record from under his arm,
pulls it from its sleeve and
holds the black, grooved disc to his eyes.

From the ridges tiny whining hums,
a rhythm builds and peaks with
a scream of sound. He conducts
a private symphony, swivels
his wrists like mechanical spinning tops.

The world hears not
this time and tempo, but sees
only mechanical limbs thrusting,
startling, a teetering body and an exaggerated smile.

The needle falls and
notes rise
sending shrill unsympathetic sound
into space and time. Eyes closed,
he continues his dance until the record spins and
stops.

Well, here I am. Sometimes I can't believe that I have come this far in my life. I feel like I have lived one hundred years, while at the same time I feel like I haven't lived at all. Wax wax wax. Sentimentality is not my desired forte. Yet, in the last few weeks I have been waxing poetic and waning cliche enough to move the ocean.

An entire life of transitions has exhausted me. I applaud myself when I am able to get out of my own head and into the world, and I think thats alright. Perhaps I should be putting higher demands on myself, but, when I do, it feels like severe punishment. It may not immediatly appear this way even to those who know me well, but I need a break, and I think I deserve one. Unfortunately, finances are blocking the way. Aren't they always, and won't they always. Just when I need a break more than ever, I am forced to work harder.