Counting My Blessings

I'm having a count-my-blessings sort of day, I think. Last night I spoke with a lover I'd been angrily, stubbornly hoping I could improve things with, and told them that I thought I was starting to give up on them. They said they weren't surprised. Somewhat sad, but didn't feel they had the resources to do anything about it and it was somewhat predictable.

I felt restless for a while, but waking up today, I find myself at a turning of chapters. Bittersweet and refreshing. I don't like letting go of the past, but the idea that I really don't know what the future will be and have a fair amount of choice in the matter is... A good thing to come back to like this.

I am being still, so far today. I have spent some time appreciating that my bed is very comfortable and my blankets, when I use all of them, comfortably weighty to snuggle up under. I like this cozy little room in this cozy little house, with queer roommates who, even if I am in conflict with them, do to an appreciable amount of effort not to unduly take it out on me. They aren't perfect of course, but have done a magnificent job of being reasonable roommates who although they're somewhat messy don't make my life needlessly difficult.

I'm grateful for my friends, and the food banks and free meal systems in my city. I know this feeling isn't going to last, I'll come back around to thinking the world sees me as scum and only ever takes care of me out of a sense of reluctant obligation, but right now it seems like quite a few people really are putting some effort into making sure that poor folks like me have good food to eat, even if they don't see how they could ensure anything else for us.

The Man

There is a man.

The man comes home from work. He is tired.

The man takes off his shoes. He takes off his jacket. He greets his wife with a smile and a little kiss.

The man calls his children to dinner, and they eat together and ask each other about the events of the day. The man complains casually about his boss. His wife complains affectionately about messes. The children complain about their homework. The family tells itself that it's going to be okay, and this is how life is.

The man puts on slippers, and picks up a drink, and picks up a newspaper, and sits down on the most comfortable chair in the living room, and reads about events in the world beyond his house and his neighbourhood. He reads in order to be up to date on what to talk about with his co-workers during breaks, and what to avoid talking about because it may be awkward in light of something which has happened. He reads in order to know who to be annoyed at for what recent indiscretion. He frowns at indulgent politicians. He smiles at progress in public works. He pauses to wonder at the pace of technological advancement.

The man is comfortable.

The man is sometimes worried, especially when looking at construction projects, and newspaper headlines, and stressed people whose problems he does not know how to solve.

The man is sometimes happy, especially when he thinks about his wife, and his kids, and his friends, and his home.

The man doesn't know what to do about the politicians, or how to feel about fluctuations in immigration.

But the man knows he works hard and does well enough by his boss and co-workers.

He takes care of his wife and his kids.

He looks back on his day and he feels he is doing his best. He can relax into that thought, like a warm bath; or an old, well-worn pair of shoes. He does not feel compelled to question it. He could, but it would only leave him more worried than happy, so why would he?

He settles into his chair, and keeps reading.

 

Take It With You

I have no patience for hollow compliments.

If I am worth listening to, listen, even when what I say is hard to hear.

If I am a great philosopher, embrace my ways - use them.

If I am a cunning pathfinder, walk with me through hidden and treacherous ways.

If I am a good cook, then come by my table and eat of my food.

 

If you would give me kind and complimentary words, and then walk away from me unchanged, taking nothing with you...

Then please, spare me.

Spare me the awkward obligation to pretend gratitude and praise you for your shallow, meaningless roleplaying as somebody who gives a fuck.

Oh, and if this leaves you full of awkward silences you don't know what to do with... I have something for you. Forsaking hollow signalling does not mean you must be left without any tricks.

Here is a sentence of great arcane power. It can be pronounced many different ways, to transform an awkward silence into a meaningful one and give you more time to think. It is almost always true when you need it, and it is almost never impolite:

"I don't know what to say."

On the Subject of Gods

 

We-mortals, we are stories.
The Gods are tropes.

 

This too is an oversimplification, of course; I just think it strikes closer to the marrow than most on the subject.

To suggest that the Gods exist independently of ourselves is just as ridiculous as to suggest that tropes exist independently of stories.
Not a bit less ridiculous than that.
... And not a bit *more* either.

To suggest that the Gods do not exist *at all* is just as ridiculous as to suggest that tropes *are not real* at all, that there is nothing there to *talk* about.
Not any less ridiculous than that. Nor any more.

 

Advice and Resentment: All Over Again

I come here for a change not presenting my own writing about my experiences, but the words of a friend who felt inspired to write about my experiences after hearing me relate a part of them.

A dear friend of mine shared a disappointing experience with a counselor just now, and I feel the urge to say something about this. The profession of counseling is naturally one of providing advice, one of giving counsel to clients. It’s entirely expected that a counselor will have opinions on how to improve a client’s behavior. And yet. 

There are people who have been talked over, who have been pressed down upon with the opinions of others throughout their lives. These people have spent a great deal of time treated as though they couldn’t possibly know what they’re doing. They have been imposed upon with well-meaning advice, time and again, to the point that they begin to lose their own voices. Their own agency becomes forfeit to the crush of external narration, telling their stories for them. 

It’s a counseling instinct to want to correct a client’s poor choices. A client’s working through reclaiming their agency and voice doesn’t mean the counselor is relegated to observation alone, or that all sharing of advice is harmful. It does however mean that counsel must be given with care. Someone going through this process, such as my friend, is very likely to set boundaries on being given advice, and is very likely to frown on advice being wrapped in polite disguises. Responding here by rejecting being relegated to observation is a false dichotomy, a trap of black-and-white thinking just like counselors everywhere try to guide clients out of. That negativity and accusation only refreshes those old hurts, no matter the counselor’s intentions. 

There is a middle path that I’ve learned to walk — one that should have been obvious to my friend’s counselor — though I still stumble from time to time myself. Offer. It is so easy to assume the privilege of being the expert, to throw advice out like people are blessed to hear it, and people all too often forget the simplicity of offering first. It is a habit that must be trained, but a very compassionate one, full of respect for a client’s agency and intelligence. 

"That sounds stressful. I have advice on how to handle it, when

you’re ready for it." 

"That’s a good start. Would you like to hear a way to improve

that, either now or in a bit?" 

Those are just two examples off the top of my head of how to offer, rather than impose. As a counselor, you have the luxury of patience, the luxury of writing your suggestion down and holding onto it, for when the pressure has been vented, for when the concerns have been validated, for when the urgency has faded. To give in to the dichotomy, and assume the privilege of the expert, is such a common kind of weakness. I know we can all do better, counselors and friends alike. 

In loving and hopeful defiance, 

Sable Seylerius

How to Maintain a Healthy Relationship With Your Dark Side

I was asked for advice by a friend of mine about how to make peace with and come to accept their own darker aspects. Here is what I told them.

Things that I think might help:

• Taking some time to sit down and have a serious discussion about it. If you know someone you can trust with the information, you can tell them what you know, or suspect, about the experiences that caused whatever misshapen-ness or scarring of social and emotional growth your dark side stems from. Talking about the causes of our problems can help us understand and forgive ourselves and each other.

• Finding safe ways to indulge in dark tastes that suit you. Sometimes I love dark metal music and appreciate watching or reading visceral horror media. Guess why. Drawing, writing poetry or fiction, playing harsh music on an instrument or finding some other way to give it symbolic expression can be a way to let the shadows out without hurting anybody.

• Personally, I love going for long walks in the evening or at night and listening to a variety of music including things that are metal, gloomy, express alienation, doubt, pain or experiences of having inner demons, and/or include sound clips from dark situations.
  
  And just letting my mind roll and wander and visualize. Wear the horns and claws, or wings, or open wounds and showing bones and rotting flesh, or the metal parts and eldritch symbols, as part of my shifting self-image. When no-one is around me to hear, sometimes I let myself snarl aloud. Sometimes I sprint just to feel my muscles moving and feel physically powerful and predatory.
  
  That is a way that I use to "walk with my demons", and it helps me feel whole and in touch with the full range of myself.

Forgiving Mentors, Relentless Longing

It is the second day of classes resuming, and much of the miserable doubt and worry of the empty time during the faculty strike is lifting surely as our professors reassure us, cut out small pieces of the courses, and focus the first week largely on review. Every gesture shows understanding and mediation for the difficulties of resuming after such a long interruption. My intermediate accounting professor, having read an email I sent him telling him that my morale and confidence had been very low trying to navigate his online course with the textbook alone, thanked me for my refreshingly candid words and invited me to sit in on classes in person. It is all a soothing balm to my troubles.

Sadly, the professors themselves may have had little relief from theirs. The strike's disputes were not resolved, and there is some worry that this might all repeat in another four years, after the new contracts expire again, and they must meet to agree on terms of renewal again.

My spirits are higher, and I look forward to moving into a very nice house directly across from the campus, the nicest I have lived in... Looking back, and looking back further, it may be fair to say that it is the nicest looking and most modernly appointed house I have ever lived in in Canada. My parents' houses were a welcome home to me, but simple. My new room will have an ensuite bathroom, and the kitchen has a central island and two big fridges to accomodate I think five female tenants.

Through all that, though, my thoughts remain restlessly and inexorably drawn back to Eoin and distant Éire. It feels to me as though the memory of him stands always behind my shoulder. When my mind wanders, it wanders to dreams of return, and meeting with him again, with much tear and hope and fear, desperate to know what his answer will be...

It has been three weeks since our last goodbye, and since the law of silence has been set between us. These last few days have tested my will to adhere to that law. I felt that I was doing fair well, for a little while, at looking to my own life alone, although it was a miserably empty stretch of life indeed with neither love nor work nor school to sustain me. I took up to make a game to run for friends, which I have nicknamed the SCDP game, a Super Casual Drop-in Pick-up game of Pathfinder such that I can run it and invite people to play it without a set group or a set schedule. I finally finished writing all the stats for available player characters to the website I'll be using just a day or two before the return to classes, and I have not played it yet. I am not certain I will even get the chance, but the project was something with which I might hope to enjoy the social attentions of friends.

At some point, perhaps a week ago... I lost track of the empty days for a while, so I am not sure... I was re-watching a bunch of video reviews, and one of them ambushed me with the high, haunting and familiar voice of Loreena McKennitt and the sweet melancholy violins of Irish tradition behind her. I knew the song, The Old Ways, I had heard it and loved it and felt magnificently drawn by it from my early youth. It hit me like a hammer blow, and broke open yet again any thought that I could deny my desperate want to go back there, back over the bounding waves to the distant shore of a land I have always loved, in music and legend, and the man I loved who lives there.

Eoin could not promise me any answer. It has been three weeks since I last heard his voice, and now at last doubt begins to creep back, and I begin to worry and wonder. We knew each other scant three months, and it is already past that long ago. Even if I do make my way back to that great isle, and see his face again... If it is a year, if it is several, how could I expect him to look on me as other than a sad and obsessed woman whose storms and ferocity he may have been glad to be rid of?

But. I know with enough confidence to say that I know... whatever may happen in the coming years, at the time three weeks ago when he bid me leave him be, Eoin was yet undecided. If he had in his mind any certain answer, I know with confidence he is too good and honest a man not to have given it. When last he spoke to me, there was love enough in him, and perhaps also longing of his own, that he was not set against seeing me again someday. He was not sure what he would feel. If it had been more honest to tell me he would rather never see me again, for all the pain it may have cost him, I am sure he would have said it anyway.

So. What his answer will be, I cannot know until I have heard it from his own lips. I cannot hear it until I go there, for until I am there, he cannot know himself whether he will be willing to bring me close again. As I walk out from my house into the cold, bare young-winter, gazing up at the steely light where the sun shines through the thinnest parts of the grey clouds, returning at long last to my studies with the weight of my work things at my back... As I walk the cold and formal halls of my college, which now seems too large and too impersonal... I know that Eoin is not the only or the first man for whom I have felt this utter determination, the deep and aching sense that I would be willing to do nearly anything to see him smile at me again. I feel rather as though I will set my determination to heading there, but do it all with a sheepish apology to him, and hope he will not feel my devotion cheap because he has not been the only one to inspire it.

I know my will, though mighty, is shifting. I know I may look back on these words with embarrassment and a shake of the head that I was so caught up in love and grief. Still, from here, as of now, I am determined by all the madness of my heart and a relentless longing in my bones to go back to Ireland, to distant Éire, and find out what his answer will be. I know that to do any different while I feel as I do would be to rend apart my nature, to bury my desire and smash my compass, and live as someone I am not. It would not be a story worth telling. Better to go, full of all my courage and wild strength, and profess myself to him as simply and as gently as I can, even if the answer I find is to be turned away as a nuisance, and go back to the rocky path of lonesomeness, to stalk on like a restless ghost and seek on anew for someone who will at long last stand and travel by my side.

So every day, whether I resist it or not, my thoughts wander back again when I am not looking, and I imagine living in love with him again; or I imagine troubles there might be in trying to get in touch after I land; or I imagine cautiously studying his eyes when he first sees me again, asking how things have changed, what shape his life has taken, and trying to learn whether there is room for me in it; Or of being greeted with a kiss and falling into desperate tears, begging to know if he meant by it that I would be given a chance to stay this time. Sometimes I imagine talking to a border guard of my intent to immigrate. Sometimes I imagine talking to a representative of an accounting firm for which I intend to work in Ireland in an interview about my reasons for coming. But it is always something, and it always pulls my view East, across the ocean, with the call of the bounding sea.

Drifting in Snow; The Season of the Scavenger

Eoin weighed particularly heavy on my mind today. I went walking in the first snow of the year that I have seen. It was beautiful, and I was happy to stay out in the cold until some areas of my skin began to feel slightly numb.
I had wanted to send him pictures when the real snows came.
Pictures of winter as it is in Canada.

There was a particular street, where streetlamps positioned between pairs of trees offered a gorgeous image that I felt, if I had the materials, I should like to paint. The bare, arching branches curled over the top of the sidewalk, giving it the beautiful natural-tunnel look of paths between trees, but the light cast the trees against one another in alternating light and shadow; the light in front of every second tree so that its part was cast in beige, and behind the others, so that their trunks and branches were dark silhouettes, and layered like that; light, dark, light, dark, light... Giving the path's length gorgeous texture in contrast.

A friend asked me what was my favourite part of winter.

I don't think I have a favourite part, per se. I prefer cooler temperatures, and so I appreciate that winter is a season in which I am not likely to feel overheated. I often tend to see seasons, much as I see other things, in the things they symbolise. Winter is endings, death and rebirth, rest and repose, the elegance of the lifeless and the dangerous beauty of unforgiving forces of nature, such as ice and snow.
It may also stand for austerity, the time when nothing grows being a natural time of scarcity, but humankind in this country is now divorced from such things.
I suppose I see it as the difficult season, and that appeals to my need to be challenged and face adventure.
In much the same way, spring represents birth and renewal, autumn represents change and shares the motif of endings with winter, and the motif of plenty and harvest with late summer.
Spiritual symbolism. I do it.

Winter speaks to me of wandering, which touches me more and seems to me less obvious.
But it is an ancestral symbol, too. When nothing grows, predators hunt and prowl, wandering farther from their homes to find sustenance.
Humankind are predators, and do so as well.
It is the time when scarcity may force conflict, and unwelcomeness shows its ugliest face; some may be cast out to freeze or starve if they cannot make their own way.
For both of these reasons, perhaps, it feels like the season of the wanderer and the outsider, that one who must always seek and cannot be satisfied for long with what it finds, for even as today's hunger is satisfied, there is always again tomorrow's empty belly to fill as well.
Of course, this time of difficulty is marked with revelry and defiance once we make it through a significant enough chunk to feel we have some measure of victory.
Hardship brings joy at overcoming it.

I certainly identify with the symbols of the wanderer and the scavenger, so in a way I feel that this is my season. The cold is a welcome discomfort to me, a connection to the sense that this cold North land is my home, and a little challenge which makes weathering it more satisfying...
There is nothing quite like coming in out of a harsh cold.

October; Natural Cyclical Endings

A chill rides on the quiet wind, what some old friend of mine once called a "culting cold". The ground is littered with leaves in yellow and red, although many yet remain green on the branch.
The temperature is just the way I like it most. It has an edge of cold that might grow uncomfortable if I were tired and had no protection against it, the better to hide in a comfy sweater or a warm blanket. The sky grows dusky around six, and grey with cloud. It is not bright enough to hurt my eyes, though I still see clearly and in colour. Meandering through the campus grounds, I take in the beauty, alone. I allow myself to meta-think about my heartbreak, still not fully healed, and to notice and embrace that I am capable of enjoying this autumnal atmosphere, the beauty of cyclic endings, alone. It is not too much to bear that no-one stands with me. Perhaps it would be too much if there were no way for me to share my appreciation of it with... But I can write it here. I can mention it to friends in passing.
Alone, I can walk across paths laden with fallen leaves.
Alone, I can feel the chill of coming winter foretold on the breeze, but not, as yet, here.
Alone, I can walk away from those things I must leave behind, without knowing in any certainty whether I will ever see them again. This is life and mortality.

I remember the similar chill of mild Irish winter, and smile fondly. In the coming months, that mildness will make way for the harsh and savage ice winds. I will walk through paths carved in deep snow... probably, anyway. I wonder if I will feel more or less lonely then. I wonder if I will spend my time with new friends. I wonder if I will build a snow sculpture on some day when the snow comes plentiful and wet enough to inspire it. I wonder if I will take an opportunity to slide down hills as I did when I was still a small child.

I have a test today. I know the fact, acknowledge, accept, and then hold it at some distance, although I do not push it away so that I might forget. I walk through the chill air, admire the campus clad in autumn. This is one of my favourite times of year, and it is good to relax before a test.

I feel well. Parts of me are certainly still grieving, but overall, I feel well. I am beginning to imagine ways that the future might be acceptable even if I never see that person again, although I should hope I will. I am beginning to imagine that I may be happy in other places, with other romances. I reflect on age and maturity, on the continual process of growing up. I consider that I seem to have a much better time meeting and keeping friends than I used to. I consider that my radical views have, to a large degree, mellowed out. I tend to give more credit to those I disagree with these days. My mind wanders, philosophical, serene, reverent. I write half from memory and half as a lucid stream of consciousness. I feel I have written enough, for now.

Double Negatives and the Philosophy of Overthinking

Yesterday, I sent an email to a lecturer at my college asking about a quiz question on an online testing resource my course uses on which I was marked wrong. I thought the question may have a mistake in it, because of a double-negative in the wording of the question and the "correct" answer. Today, I received an email back praising my understanding of the content, and suggesting that the publisher might think I was overthinking the question. This is an excerpt of my response.

I stand firm by a belief that if thinking about a question obscures the answer, it is probably a bad or poorly worded question. Getting distracted by minutia is one thing, and a personal foible it's fair to test resistance to. Thinking, however, should never be an enemy in an academic subject. I would argue that a double-negative in the core structure of a question is not minutia, as they are frequently used intentionally to ensure a student is reading the question thoroughly. If the correct answer isn't actually correct because whoever wrote the question forgot the double-negative, that is a problem with the question, not with me, and I hope others will understand if I object to being docked marks for a mistake someone else made.

If on the other hand there's something I'm not seeing that explains why the answer the publisher registers as correct is actually the most correct answer to the question as posed, I want to know, for the sake of my own understanding.

Regarding "overthinking"...

People have often accused me of thinking too much. I have come to resent it. It does not tell me how, or whether, my conclusion was wrong, which I think ought to be, generally speaking, the measure against which my thinking is judged.
I also find it is frequently used as an excuse to dismiss constructive criticism or complaints I attempt to make, to save someone else the effort of updating a flawed system, habit or stance.
On the other hand, sometimes people are only trying to advise me not to waste my time on something they don't think is worth it. Well-intentioned, but I would usually prefer they didn't do that.
If I 'over-think' quiz questions, it is not likely that I fail to think when deciding how to spend my minutes and my effort. Besides that, how I spend my time and effort is my business.
The quality of study and testing materials in a school I attend is also my business, as well as the business of every other student in the course, and the school itself. I think it justifies a little bit of time and effort giving feedback if I notice a flaw, and there is even a small chance that it might be improved on for later years. Every change must start somewhere, with someone noticing something that could be better and doing something about it. Student engagement is often criticised as dangerously low, and generally I agree. I do my best to compensate in what small ways I can.

Common or Garden Heartbreak

If you've had any romance in your life, you probably know all the symptoms. An obsessive compulsion to listen to songs that remind you of Them; the mind turning irresistibly toward Them in every idle moment; the transformation on the context of every song you hear; the feeling of guilty wrongness upon seeking the company of other people which may be pleasantly distracting, but doesn't fit the craving for Their company.

Every part of it is predictable, as reliable as the tide; what fills me with joy leaves me with sorrow. I've certainly been through it before. This iteration is better in a number of ways. We did not part angrily, but honestly and with respect. There is no other new partner to blame, only distance. The spirals are looser, less clinging. All the questions about self-worth have easy answers, because our parting did not reflect badly on me.

But there's no dulling the sting of that core blade. Whenever my mind is idle, songs and memories and a desperate hope that I will see Them again fill it up. I cry silently in public, and wait, patiently and impatiently, until the tears will finally run out. How many months will it take? And more importantly, what I actually fear... Will I be able to get over this heartache without letting go of the hope that I will see Them again? All sense tells me there is no reason I can't. Desire is the partner of sorrow, but if I can make that desire light enough not to crush me, that doesn't immediately mean it will fly out of my head altogether, and what could possibly convince me that going back to such a fine thing, if and when it becomes possible, would not be wonderful?

But still I am afraid to let go too readily.

Life Across the Sea

The Irish winter is mild compared to Canada. It was particularly mild when I arrived and for a few days then, and felt like spring, but now it's quite bitterly cold enough to be irritating. Being outside and moving is really not a problem in winter clothes, but inside, my apartment is not heated efficiently enough to cope well at all.

Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.

I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.

For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.

In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.

I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.

The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.

At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.

Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.

Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.

An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.

I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.

Hey.

I thought since I've been thinking about trying to blow the cover way off of my unintended internet secrecy, maybe I should write a greeting to anyone who clicks in search of more information.

I grew up in poverty in rural Ontario to a narcissistic mother and a father who was, and remains, a resourceful practitioner of simple sciences (heating, plumbing, welding, building makeshift insulated chicken shelters for winter out of old freezers and other junk, you name it) and a natural hermit. They've been split up and lived in two different places since I was, I think, two years old.

For most of my childhood, I split my time between their two households: one an old house on a hill on the outskirts of a village of 700 people, at least according to the sign; and the other a farm of sorts in a swampy wood - or a wooded swamp, whichever you prefer to think of it as, 10 km outside of that town.

I was bullied horribly through elementary school and high school, and grew up longing to travel and tell stories, to inspire and to educate. As soon as I graduated high school, I left home on an airplane and went overseas in search of love.

Since then I've traveled around quite a lot. I've hitch-hiked, and I've also taken a week long bus trip that stretched a great big diagonal line across Canada including a two day layover in Winnipeg, where I spent the night on the roof of a multi-level car park with a drunken hobo sleeping on my clothes.

For the last few years, I've settled a little bit in London. I guess I'm trying to find some sanity and repair the broken parts of myself so that the next time I head out, I won't be running away so much as charging out into the fray. This time, I hope I'll be leaving behind a safe, happy home base that I'll feel comfortable coming back to.

I know what it means not to have an established place to go, and I can tell you that having no place is better than being trapped in a terrible place. I know how it is to scavenge and scrounge, to keep a supply of water bottled from public fountains and bathroom sinks, get food only where I can get it for free, and I can tell you that you might be surprised the good food and respect you can get for nothing more than a little humility and the willingness to ask for help.

I have never begged strangers for anything, except directions, change to use a payphone and a token to ride a bus or a train.

I have sat with an instrument on a sidewalk and played for tips, though.

As my day job, I work in a thrift store operated by Goodwill.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with my life yet. Hopefully, whatever it ends up being, it will involve a lot of poetry.

Pubic Hair

written on August 7th, 2014
& inspired by Ani DiFranco

When I'm in the bathroom
I have a way of wiping myself
that has a habit of plucking out pubic hairs on
just one side of my groin
And I could probably learn to change it
if I could see what I was doing
but for now I guess I'll live with it;
It's not important,
It's just annoying.


When something is pulled away
Oh time will ease the pain
When something is pulled away
Oh time will ease the pain


Ain't it funny how the little things
in life just get passed by
like the hangnails you pull off sometimes
and the crusty stuff that gets in your eye
There are some things we don't talk about
Things we would rather not discuss
And the silence just fades into the background
-until somebody has to die
!

Then suddenly all of the silence
comes crashing down around your ears
and you can scream and wail all you want to but
Nobody wants to hear
There are some things you don't mention
except alone and in quiet prayer
While lives get plucked from the human race like
Just so many pubic hairs


And every time we do not speak
We fill our world with silence
And every time we turn away
We fill our world with silence
And every thing we don't discuss
We fill our world with silence
And the silence will cover our graves


So when I'm in a dark room
I have a way of crying to myself
that has a habit of making the skin
around my eyes feel raw and burned
And I think we could learn to change this
If we could see enough to care
I just hope to god we learn
that some things are more important
than a hair


When something is pulled away,
(Every time we do not speak)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
When something is pulled away,
(Every time we turn away)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
When something is pulled away
(Every thing we don't discuss)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
And the silence will cover our graves


And suddenly all of the silence
comes crashing down around your ears
and you can scream and wail all you want to but
Nobody wants to hear you 'cuz
There are some things you don't question,
except alone and in quiet prayer
while screams are brushed aside
like so many stray pubes on our underwear


Ain't it funny how the little things
in life just get passed by
like the hangnails I pull off sometimes and the
rash that crying leaves 'round my eyes
There are some things we don't talk about
Things we'd all rather not discuss
No matter how much or how little
they quietly affect all of us
And the silence just fades into the background
along with the best of us


When something is pulled away
Ah time will ease the pain
When something is pulled away
Ah time will ease the pain

~~~P.S: My own thoughts on presentation...

The parts in purple should be sung or spoken more quietly, more like a whisper,
and ideally blend into a sort of musical break between the sections in black.

Would like to have guest backup voice/s for
"We fill our world with silence" and possibly for all of the parts in purple,
while still singing/speaking solo the parts in black. Or white, as it generally appears on my blog.

An Empathetic Wish

That I could care for all mankind
as though they were my darkened sons
that lit the day and cast such light
to guide my sight through lonely storms

That I could dream as children may
of peace on earth and guileless trade
through age until my dying day
though naivety is born to fade

That I could live a life unfeard
the scorching brace of hate avoid
and suffer not the shyness
painful memories employ

That I could in my kin inspire
a love that from no heart would turn
Yet failing me, I close my eye
and live in shadows crisp and stern

inspired by the style and themes of Emily Dickenson;
with perspective and wisdom kindly shared with me by The RSA and CrashCourse