Sorrow in Springtime

 Every now and then, and more so in the last little while, words well up in me like frantic little bubbles, drift up, and threaten to break on the surface of this all-too-still and stagnant pond once known as my blog. I am returning reluctantly today, but writing proves a wonderful distraction, as today's Saturday shift at work feels like a prison sentence. No services are scheduled, no jarring rings of the telephone annouce the departure of souls into the ether, no grieving families are arriving to collect sad, plastic containers filled with the pulverized bone fragments of their dead loved ones.

I've just returned from the overcast coolness of the cremation garden. Absently, to fill the time, I wandered among the brick walls, examining the plaques affixed to the niche spaces, silently calculating the ages of those entombed therein. I stared wistfully into the raindrops adorning the petals of pale roses and passionately-pink gerbera daisies, the tokens for the dead, seeing my own shadowy, transient reflection revealed a hundred times therein.

I have loved again, since last I wrote, and I have lost again. In many ways, this was the bitterest loss of all. A sweet, gentle musical virtuoso, a man over ten years my junior, and fraught with his own complex issues to which I was never truly privy, but which I only longed to assuage with my kisses. The moments we had together, aside from our musical relationship, were precious few. Despite the ardor of his caresses, and our many intimate conversations, I always felt as though it were all being stolen from someone else, a woman infinitely more virtuous and worthy who waited somewhere for him to find her, while I wasted his time with my unworthiness.

 How foolish to fall in love with a colleague with whom one works closely toward a final creative goal! Now, the fruits of this labor taste only of ash. I cannot bear to listen to recordings of our concert, to hear the painful precision of his fingers on the piano keys, how each note sings out as a perfect pearl spinning on a length of wire. If I catch myself listening, I will remember how these same fingertips pressed languidly against my lips while he eagerly kissed my neck, his hot breath upon my skin, or how he ran a skillful thumb over my teeth, my pointed upper canines, when, with my lips half-parted, I sighed with heady delight and a thick, trembling want of him, pulling him closer to me, wishing to become a part of him.

 Sometimes, now that he is gone, the helplessness I feel about him fills my entire body. My heart thumps dully against it, as though my ribcage were packed with cotton. Words I cannot say press achingly upon my tongue, stream out mutely from the corners of my eyes when I lay in bed at night. But he will hear me no more. His ears are stopped up to me; his eyes are blind.

I can now no longer ignore the jagged and unruly patterns of my life and behavior. The reality of these patterns, paths that I have trod with unrelenting feet until the muddy tracks are worn deep into the earth of my mind, have become glaringly apparent and hideous to behold. I know now that I can never have him back, because I loved him too much, too cloyingly, too desperately, as I did the others. But this loss has changed me more than the others, has ignited some strange motivation for penance within me. I am trying, by any means necessary, to scrub my soul clean.

 I also shun the poison of social intrigue. I avoid the company of most women, and of all men, burying myself deeper than ever in my books: religious histories, the tragedies of British queens, novels set in World War II France. Learning that there is greater sadness in the world than anything I could ever feel.

I think back to days long gone, when I was a neon bulb, a coquette, social and flirtatious, never without companionship, fashioning strings of words into hot lassos of double-meaning, with which I ensnared men's clumsy hearts, only to cast aside the rinds when I had sucked the marrow clean. I was Anne Boleyn, then, a true courtesan. But now, I am repaid for the haughty cruelty of my youth.  I embark instead on painful journey of self-improvement and reflection, away from the dazzling throngs, and I yield the glittering diadem of court life to hearts more fearless.

Moonstruck

Dear, dusty, departed friend! How long it has been since I darkened your threshold, since I turned to you to pour out the surfeit of emotions held within my constantly-overbrimming heart.

 The spectacular neglect into which I have allowed this sacred little space to fall is beyond reproach; and yet, as an emotionless graphic user interface, you possess neither the capacity nor the sentience required for disdain, for judgment or for bitterness. I return, then, quietly, and without shame or supplication, seeking desperately an altar upon which to lay my secret offerings.

Here, again, is the place where I return when fresh wounds have lacerated me, when the vague hope of a true connection with another human being has led me away on a heady chase through an entangled labyrinth of promises, presumptions and presuppositions, only to end at last in an empty, leaf-strewn courtyard where some mystical fountain, some pretty castle, or other shining prize was supposed to be. 

It's a full moon tonight, the first of the new year. I began to pay attention to the cycles of the moon some time ago. I used to believe in them, to think they held great power and magic. I believed that if I just focused my intention enough on the things that I wanted, the full moon would allow me to create a measurable shift in the universe, to effect true sorcery and to move hearts. 

But the moon is much older than any of us. For untold millennia, it has sat in baleful silence, coolly observing our useless machinations and struggles, our desperate kisses and embraces. That celestial body has witnessed us like centuries of tiny ants, playing at love and politics, scrambling frantically for crumbs. Why should my small, spindly movements, my struggles for the crumbs of life, hold any more importance than those of the millions that came before me, or the millions who will come after?

I am sick at the heart from the ways of the world; especially the viciousness of "social media", which, preying upon my communicative nature and overt desire for connection, tantalizes me with chimeras and artificial constructs of closeness, trust and companionship. 

For a while, not so very long ago, I thought that my every dream had come true. I met someone, someone incredible. His every word made my heart sing.  The problem was that, as he lived on the other side of the planet, he was never truly real.

 We talked for hours over social media - a common theme, for me - and once or twice, had a Skype conversation. I saw him in real time in front of me; I heard his silver voice, his witty turn of phrase, the music of his laughter. But for all I wanted to believe in him, I never really knew who he was at all.

Naturally, as each full moon waxes and wanes, life changes. The gentlemen appeared to me briefly, as a cycle of the heavens, but faded from view as the planet carried on its merciless trajectory and he moved on to new experiences and a rekindled old love.

 How hard it is to mourn something that was never really there! All that remains for me - indeed, all that I ever had - is the little antique locket, adorned with sapphires and delicate gold leaves of ivy, that I bought for him, that I intended to give to him some day.

 He told me once that a sapphire can bring about the best or the worst for its owner. If this be true, I would much rather the locket stayed with me forever. It's easy for me to wear curses, to carry sadness  in my heart. I wouldn't wish this burden on anyone else. And never on him, that living anachronism, that gentlemanly soul from the past, who lives a day ahead, in a future unknown to me, who deserves jewels richer than any I could ever hope to afford, who feeds on the milk and honey of life.

The Second Coming

Last night, I went out for dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Kristen. Together, we laughed and commiserated about romantic foibles of the past, (mostly mine). I came to the conclusion, as I looked back through the halcyon years of my serial dating adventures, that a lot of the time, I became involved with dubious men, or accepted invitations for dates with them, purely because I knew that the situation was bound to end either in disaster or hilarity, and thus, would make for an amazing story in years to come.

One such story, which we recounted last night at some length, has to do with a brief and wholly-regrettable romance that occurred betwixt myself and a born-again Christian named Nathan.

It was late in the year 2009, a year which proved to be the hardest one of my life. Following the collapse of the closest thing to a marriage that I'm likely to ever experience, I suffered a phenomenal emotional breakdown, culminating in the loss of my job and apartment, various hospitalizations and myriad meetings with therapists and counselors of all stripes. I was, in a word, fragile. Enter: Nathan, a Bible-thumping, Dudley-Do-Right sort of guy with whom I had been casually acquainted for several years.

 His story was an intriguing one: A tall, affable and handsome lad, Nathan grew up in Nelson, B.C. Like most of his peers, he was a hippie wild child who drank to excess, partied all night at outdoor raves and regularly indulged in psychedelic drugs. He was clever, charming and popular, and never suffered from a shortage of friends or female admirers. One day, presumably in the thick of some sort of acid trip, Nathan was out wandering in a field, when he claims that a light beamed down from the heavens, and that he heard the voice of God, commanding him to renounce his promiscuous, partying ways and seek instead the straight and narrow path of Christ. From that day on, he did just that. He took a vow of celibacy, stopped imbibing in substances of any kind, and joined the church.

Nathan was a good pal of a close family friend, who happened to bring him by my parents house over that Christmas holiday of 2009. During that visit, my woeful nervous condition was apparent to all. I was frail, having had lost almost 30 pounds that year, withdrawn, anxious and ashen. Nathan, Good Samaritan that he was, instantly took pity on me, and we had a brief, private discussion about the challenges I had faced that year.

A prolific and extremely-talented musician, he also asked if I might bring out my guitar. He played a few songs for all of us and then took it upon himself to restring the instrument. I appreciated this kind gesture and Nathan's willingness to lend an ear in a time of darkness.

The next thing I knew, Nathan and I were hanging out a lot. He would call me to see how I was doing; he would offer to pick me up from parties, after I had drank in excess, despite the directives of my psychiatrist to avoid the consumption of all alcohol. This worked out well for me, since he worked graveyard shifts as an orderly at the hospital, and was usually finishing up work at the time I was winding down for the night. I didn't even so much mind his occasional religious diatribes, (although they sometimes strayed dangerously into right-wing propagandistic territory), since the rest of the time, he was incredibly witty and kind.



One January night, after he had collected me from the bar, we went back to his modest apartment to watch a movie. We joked and laughed, and kissed a little bit. Suddenly, I found myself passed out and snuggled under the covers of his bed.

Nathan hadn't had sex in eleven years. Several girls had tried and failed miserably to convince him to break his vow of chastity, so I felt extremely confident that nothing would transpire in that bed, aside from a drunken slumber. How wrong I was.

 Suddenly, and without warning, a completely naked Nathan was in bed beside me, touching and caressing me with an abandon most unfitting for a man of God. Naturally, I went with it, and although not necessarily satisfied by the event, I was at least impressed with the eagerness with which His Holiness approached a performance eleven years in the making.

The Second Coming, indeed.

Immediately after the enthusiastic flailing came to an end, Nathan rolled over onto his side and looked at me with large, brown, limpid eyes. I figured some sort of sweet, post-coital pillow talk was about to ensue.

 "Stef?" he whispered. "Do you mind if I pray?"

My first reaction to this horrifying proposition was laughter. Surely he was just being funny, attempting to break the mildly-uncomfortable silence with levity. However, the stone-cold seriousness in his eyes told me that this was anything but a joke.

The prayer commenced. Nathan sat up in bed, clasped his hands together like St. Francis of Assisi, rolled his eyes heavenward, in beatific adoration, and began thus:

"Dear God. Thank you so much for this beautiful experience that Stephanie and I have just shared..."

Several thoughts flashed through my mind as I lay there, covers drawn up tightly under my chin, petrified and motionless. How far was it to the front door? How quickly could I get there? Would it be worth the humiliation of running naked through his apartment building, if only to escape what seemed to be some sort of impending Baptismal ritual?

As the pontiff droned on, I rolled over, eyes wide as saucers, and caught sight of a large tome on the nightstand, open to a page titled, "The Age of the Antichrist". Indeed, young Nathan. Indeed.

The next day at work, I received a text message:

"Hello, Stephanie. How are you today? Do you think you might be pregnant? If so, I want you to know that I will take full responsibility. There are not enough children in the world who are being raised in God's Holy Way. We must raise our children to walk the Pathway of Christ!"

"Umm.. I think we should see other people?", I responded.

Heartbroken and troubled by his overriding conscience, Nathan immediately sought the sanctuary of his place of worship. He confessed the hideous sins of the flesh I had forced him to commit to his horrified pastor. The holy man told him that I was, without question, a wanton woman, more than likely some sort of succubus from one of the seven layers of Hell, and at the very least, a True Jezebel of the sort that had led unsuspecting men to their fiery and torturous deaths, ever since Eve offered Adam the apple.

A few days later, a small plastic bag appeared in my mailbox. It contained some of my personal effects: Earrings left on Nathan's nightstand; a lighter; a tube of lipstick. The bag was neatly and hermetically-sealed, presumably to avoid any contact with or contamination from my Original Sin. Included along with these items was a small, handwritten note:

"I should have never listened to you. This is what happens when you trust other people, instead of the Word of the Lord. May God bless you."

Ah, men.

Stef's Super Dramatic Teenage Poetry Corner - Volume IV

 Lament

A thousand years the wind has seared

All down the glitt'ring quay;

A thousand more

Shall pass before

My love return to me.

The merry chime doth peal the time

In steeple-bell decree;

But long shall bells

Ring fun'ral knells

Ere he return to me.

O! Ninety days of doleful lays

Shall mete my sorrow's fee,

And ninety years

Of bitter tears,

Ere he come home to me.

Roleplay

 Fresh on the heels of my latest ill-advised dalliance - a tryst which, despite its casual intentions, has nevertheless left a pesky and tenacious residue of sentimentality and mushy girly feelings clinging to the inner walls of my heart - I am thinking again about the life path I have chosen. Or rather, the one that seemingly chose me, and pretty well from birth.

As a toddler and a young child, I displayed an appalling lack of interest in baby dolls, or in "playing house". My preoccupation was chiefly with fantasy, glamour, prettiness, aesthetic perfection: My Little Ponies and assorted fantastical unicorn figurines; Barbie dolls, for which I crudely stitched together specially-designed garments; plastic play jewelry and my own little pink vanity mirror that lit up, and into which I would stare fixedly while combing my reddish-brown, child-thin hair, ( "100 strokes a day," my grandmother once told me. "A woman's crowning glory is her hair").

Being preoccupied with appearances did not prevent me, however, from gradually becoming one of the ugliest children this side of the Rocky Mountains. At my worst, during the early years of elementary school, my thick eyebrows and eyes perpetually ringed with dark shadows betrayed the less-desirable qualities of my Mediterranean pedigree. Not only that, my strange, pointed, lobeless elf ears, which stuck hopelessly out from the sides of my too-narrow skull, were afforded nothing in the way of camouflage, thanks to my mother's concept of a "hair cut" . None of this mattered too much to me, though, since by this point, I was hopelessly entrenched in the world of books.

I read voraciously from the time that I could; even before I could, I would demand that my books be placed in my crib, so that I might sleep beside them. Learning to read came easily to me, and once I had mastered it, I did little else. I lived, thus, in a waking dream, a gauzy veil under which I moved through my childhood world. When I couldn't read, I told myself stories. I lived an entire life as a character known only as "The Princess". I would tell myself these sorts of narratives while walking home from school, or attending to mundane daily tasks -  "The Princess rode her white palfrey through the dappled, late Autumn afternoon", etc. So for the most part, I was happy in my insular, imagined world, and the attention or admiration of others was of no concern.

Suddenly and quite rudely, puberty happened. My heretofore unnoticed nipples became swollen and itchy; I developed two horrific lumps of jiggly flesh on my chest. My forehead and nose shone with the incandescence of a mysterious oil; and surely, most surely, this could not be the hair of which grandmother spoke as a crowning glory. Oddly enough, while my body seemed to be betraying itself, I began, for the first time, to notice that boys were looking at me. Often it was with pained, confused expressions, barely-concealed angst that resulted in insults or playground balls hurled in my direction. But my goodness - they certainly did look! By the eighth grade, the insults ceased, and I found myself, most unexpectedly, with a train of moony-eyed admirers. And for the first time, I felt the heady rush, the hit off the proverbial crack pipe, that came along with being showered by ardent attention from clumsy boys.

It took me some time to realize that the type of attention I was receiving was, for the most part, anything but romantic. I had developed, by several twists and turns, into a nubile and presumably-fertile birthing member of the human race, with all the appropriate features designed to conceive, deliver and suckle infants. Moreover, a potent combination of Russian and Italian heritage combined to create an appearance which was seemingly viewed as exotic, foreign and probably ultimately dangerous. I was no apple-pie, rosy-cheeked approachable girl next door, of the sort who "went steady" and held hands in the park. I was, instead, a dark eyed, black haired temptress with an acerbic wit and an intense emotionality, an intriguing distraction from Kelly or Jennie or Sarah, something to be fanaticized about, something to be indulged in, to be made out with with reckless abandon behind the school, after a mickey of vodka, but ultimately, something to be regretted and abandoned for the safety and predictability of girls with non-threatening, Aryan coloring, pliable personalities, and soft, uncomplicated minds.

And thus, with certain exceptions, I have played this role to its fullest to this very day. I was never meant to be Mrs. So-and-So. the little wifey, or Mommy Dearest. I am, as I have always been destined to be, a Good Time Girl, a Bit of Fun, the Other Woman. Bold colors, sharp edges, a whirlwind of meaningless passion. Distraction, chimera, wet dream, pretty bauble, quickly dropped, probably shattered in the process, but easily swept under the rug. I know this and I play it well. I play it by heart.

Thus, my latest experience, and the sudden sadness and emptiness I feel, is beginning to irk me. I have brought this on myself, because it is the only soliloquy I've ever been suited to reciting. I know how this play ends; I've performed it a thousand times. I was never going to be cast as the ingénue, but I've certainly made for an intriguing plot twist in many a pantomime.

Born Free

It's been an interesting sort of week; albeit, not interesting enough, necessarily, to spark any sort of inspiration for me in terms of tending to this blog. Occasionally, I feel a weird pang of guilt that I have let my writing fall, once again, into a spectacular state of neglect. More and more, though, guilt affects me much less than it once did. This last Tuesday evening, for example, definitely proved this to me. 

After not having seen him for nearly twenty years, I had the pleasure to reconnect with a former school chum from my elementary and high school days. Always and ever the studious brainiac who inhabited the dim Apple II computer lab through most of our elementary school days, the gentlemen in question has grown up to tear the academic world a new one. 

Currently holding several post-secondary degree titles and lecturing at a prominent university in a large American city, my friend has proved himself in every way the sagacious, studious and overachieving adult I always knew he would be. Through the conduit of facebook, we have talked and flirted on and off over the years, and while he is currently here, visiting his parents for a week, he asked me to join him at the local pub in our childhood neighborhood, for libations and reminiscing.

Even as far back as the first grade, his formidable intelligence always made me weak in the knees. What can I say? Does anything else matter, save for grey matter? Now, it seems, the gentlemen also happens to have grown up tall, strapping and decidedly gorgeous, with eyes as beautiful and blue as a shipwreck.

I'm sure you can tell where this is going.

Although initially feeling a little awkward and taken aback by seeing him with facial hair, I quickly relaxed into our conversation, which veered merrily and effervescently around our favourite topics: mood stabilizing pharmaceuticals; WWII Germany; serial killers. We even spent a majority of time picking out bar staff and patrons that we would consider killing and eating. Let's face it: Does it get more magical than that?

  At some point in the interaction, he flashed his pretty blues eyes at me and apologized for not having told me, through the course of our extended facebook flirtation, that he actually has a pretty serious girlfriend. Old Me would have probably been pretty heartbroken, since she would have assumed that this man was destined to be her One True Love. New Me, however, instantly realized that I don't live in an Elizabeth Barrett Browning sonnet, and that, no matter how initially magical a connection seems to be, it's all simply smoke, mirrors and a bit of alcohol for good measure. I simply smiled and said, "Well, that's nice." Besides, there was no actual formality to our proposed hangout, other than simply seeing one another after such a long time.

My friend then confided in me that he had felt "inspired" by a recent facebook status I had posted, in which I gloated that living single and alone meant that I could do whatever I wished at any moment in the day. So many of his friends, he said, were living traditional lives, with wives, children, real estate and other heavy responsibilities, that he often felt as though he needed to do the same. He conceded that it was nice to see someone like me, content at having chosen 'a different life path', and that I was in some ways a positive model of this situation for him. 

I was confused and asked him why, with all his superior intelligence, wit and genetic perfection, he cared at all about models of behaviour. Why couldn't he, as all of us should, simply decide what it is he most wanted, and how he most desired to live his life, and just do it? Although he mumbled something about "pack mentality" and "inherent need to be accepted among our peer groups", I could see the conflict flashing behind his devastating eyes.

Seeing as I felt it vitally important to teach him that we all should live free, the way we want, I later, after six beer for each of us, put my enlightened social theory into practice in his parents' guest bedroom, from which, in an amusing throwback to grade 9, I crept on stealth, breathless tiptoe at 2 a.m., and disappeared into the night.

The Relic - John Donne

Since I'm bored at work, but not bored enough to compose a proper post... And since I'm sitting here, drooling over images of bejeweled saints' relics cloistered away in dim European cathedrals, here is one of my favourite poems:

The Relic

     

When my grave is broke up again

       Some second guest to entertain,

       (For graves have learn'd that woman head,

       To be to more than one a bed)

         And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

       Will he not let us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

         If this fall in a time, or land,

         Where mis-devotion doth command,

         Then he, that digs us up, will bring

         Us to the bishop, and the king,

          To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

      A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

         First, we lov'd well and faithfully,

         Yet knew not what we lov'd, nor why;

         Difference of sex no more we knew

         Than our guardian angels do;

    Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

     Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals

Which nature, injur'd by late law, sets free;

These miracles we did, but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.