Nervous and excited - a little bit of news!

I remember still to this day what she was wearing – black dress that was just above her knee, stripey long socks and heavy black shoes. Her hair was a short bob and dyed a gorgeous reddish colour – she was beaming into the lens. Who knows what her name was – but she was profiled in the teen magazine I was reading, training as an assistant hairdresser and I was hooked – hooked to her style and hooked to the details of the start of her career and the journey she made to get there. I wanted to be a writer for a magazine one-day I decided, I want to meet funky people like that and tell their story. So that’s what I told them when anyone asked. I’m going to be a journalist I said and that was that.

Well actually that wasn’t really that. Isn’t it funny how wonky life can get. When did this clear path and dream get so murky? Who knows, one step there as I chicken out of the journalism course I am all signed up for after my school exams and stay at the same school to do courses I have no real interest in. A family upheaval as we all learn how to live without my wonderful father, limping my way to a university that I generally lacked any enthusiasm for and spent a good deal of my time drinking whiskey and hiding in bed. Then what happened after? Who knows, one job to another in my hometown once I had finished my travelling, hopping from one lame idea to another never really sure what I wanted to do and losing any confidence in my abilities anyway. In the beginning of my journey I let fear of the unknown get in my way and then somewhere I lost all faith in my ability. I had lost my shine and I was completely lost.

Isn’t it interesting though how we come back to ourselves one-day. Actually it isn’t one day; it is in fact 23 years later. 23 years on and I am living “The Alchemist”, I am back at the tree and all my wonky moves have led me to this point, have brought me back to remembering that article of the girl in the black dress and stripey socks. I am saying to myself once more, I want to be a writer. I needed to meet a husband the other side of the world who doesn’t get weathered by storms, I needed to find my place in Canada where you talk about your dreams and people say “yeah you should do that!”, I needed to build up my friends who show me real life stories everyday, I needed a child who would push me to the limits of myself for me to learn what was important in life and what I really needed to hold onto, I needed my writing buddy to tell me – this job is “totally doable for you” and I needed my local paper’s editor to say “I have made up my mind already, I would love you to write for our Island Style section.”

A Walk, the moon and a 6 year old boy.

Tonight I took the dog for a walk. There has been a real shift in the season from summer to fall. One minute I am playing in the sun with the kids, talking about walking the dog. I get my shoes on and fetch the lead only to find we are leaving in the dark. The air has a cool breath to it, which feels refreshing after a hot day at the fair. Peace surrounds me as I close the door on the shrieks of the children having their bath. Mumma loves this time. I wander down the street with dog, who loves to sniff. I’m not in a hurry so this doesn’t annoy me tonight, there is time, all is good. I look up to the sky and there is the moon in its glory. It is a striking sight and I wonder to myself “how on earth would you describe that moon?” “How do you try to capture that very moon on a page?” Doubt starts to rear its ever-present head, yes how would YOU describe that moon Caroline? You don’t have a vocabulary anywhere near extensive enough to capture what you see and there’s you wanting to write, ha! Pah!

There is, thankfully, another little voice that resides in my head. She starts to speak ever so quietly in my ear as my mean voice bangs on. “What would Jack say about that moon?” she asks, “How would a child describe it?” The voice is right, I don’t have to be a master of words, a professor of sentence structure I just need some words and a feeling, it will come.

I remember my boy this weekend, pulling up onto my lap as he was still in the process of waking up. He sits and inhales deeply. The boy has something to say, but he is 6 and still has to process it. There is a hold on the room. No point in helping or coaxing him, it will just drive him nuts. So I wait and I wait. His body jerks a bit as the words and the need to talk come before the air can reach his throat. His arms extend like a composer waiting for silence. Jack closes his eyes to speak and moving his hand on each word as they are punched out from his throat he says:

Christmas Lights
On
Fire
Lit
People outside

That is what
I saw
From my window
Last night

I don’t speak – but I smile. In just a few words he is sharing with me his delicious secret of spying on the neighbor’s party when he should’ve been fast asleep. He conjures up my own memories of doing exactly the same thing when I was a child and how much fun it was. I am thinking, I am remembering and I am realizing that my boy just made a poem!

Often jack will explain something he sees and I am gob smacked by the poetry of it. I need to write them down, I need to steal them, but I never have the pen and paper at the ready. I always hope I will remember, but like colic and learning to walk (well maybe not the colic), you never really do. So this was my son’s first poem and just the support I needed to carry on, plug away and write what I want to say, in the way I need to say it. I can’t let false pride and assumptions stop me from just keeping on doing, doing, doing. So ladies and gentlemen:

Tonight I walked the dog, as the moon burnt a hole in the dark night sky.

The Creative Process

I don't know about you, but this creative process thing that people talk about is pretty slow and painful for me. I am a a goldfish looking for it's castle. This is how my weeks tend to go! I think it's name is Resistance.


Ate a rack of ribs
So I didn’t have to write
Drank a bottle of wine
So I didn’t have to write
Just had a nap
So I didn’t have to write
Binge watched Mad Men
So I didn’t have to write
Got angry at Facebook
So I didn’t have to write
Read a book on writing
So I didn’t have to write

I

Just

Sat

Down

And

Wrote

It

Feels

Good


Oh No!
Here we go again
Ate a rack of ribs ...

I'd like to tell you a love story - if I may?

I’d like to tell you
A story of love
Do you have the time?
It won’t take long
I promise
Just a simple tale
Of boy meets girl
Well, boy met girl
Girl liked boy
Boy wanted more
She needed time
They laughed
A lot
I mean
A LOT
They took separate routes
As you do
With people
They probably shouldn’t
That is life
But at a friend’s urge
She returned
She saw boy
This time she gasped
I know!
Cliché
But it happened
He’d never forgotten
So it was easy
They laughed still
But they had this other thing
This other thing called
LOVE
I kid you not
I know!
It does!
I’m telling you it does
EXIST

What?
Yes they are.
17 years on
Still together
Still laughing
Not as much
Life gets like that
Life can really
Get in the way
What?
No!
The love’s still there
Just hidden sometimes
In the day
In bills
In house
In work
Hidden – yes
Gone?
You must be joking.
Who else would laugh?
At the nonsense of
Life as this
If not for
Boy and
Girl
Who met
Then met again
And that time
Fell
In
Love

x

A Patchwork of People

Lying in bed at night
I sometimes feel alone

I close my eyes
And there I see
A patchwork of people
Smiling at me

I have a patchwork of people
To catch me if I fall
And a patchwork of people
Can make a strong wall

People all around me
People young and old
A patchwork of people
Blanket me from cold

So if you ever feel alone
Or too cold in your bed
Simply close your sweet, sad eyes
Patchwork’s waiting in your head

Inspired by all my friends who got together to make my escape to San Francisco last week possible. I am too guilty of not recognizing all the wonderful people in my life who support me, make me belly laugh and tell me to put my big, girl pants on when necessary. You are everywhere - you have all played such a role in my life and my children's' lives - family, friends and people memories all stitched together for me to snuggle into! Thank you, thank you EVERYONE.

Mirror, Mirror on the wall

Mum you are just beautiful
I don’t know…. what’s “fat”?
I think you are beautiful,
don’t pinch your face like that.
To me you are so beautiful
What did the mirror do?
You’re looking very sad you see
You don’t like the view?
Who’s in there?
Who upset you?
I only see my mum
I want to go and play with you,
But you’re looking at your bum.
Mum your sighs aren’t happy.
You don’t like what you see.
Mum you don’t look happy,
They say you look like me.
I thought you were beautiful,
Was I wrong to think like that?
Are we not beautiful people?
Mum, do I look fat?

Sketch number one - The Beginning

Flying into Calgary seeing the natural and farmer made patterns of the land
Pencil, Acrylic and Watercolour

All I know is i need to draw.
I need to draw each day.
It may not be good.
It may indeed suck.
It just needs to be done.
To become better,
i must practise,
not hide,
nor ignore.
Just do
I have a need to draw,
not a need to be good.
This much is all i know.

In 8 years i will be the same age as my father when he died. My father gave me a gift to want to draw when i was too young to realize what it was. The not "good enough"s and the "other people are better than me"s made me forget what he intended to give - the need. 8 years until I am the age he left us - how many drawings is that? I dedicate each one to him and his gift - of books, art materials and of making drawing matter. I found that gift of need today and each sketch Dad is in memory of you XXXX