I feel as though
I am viewing the world
through a poor staid crystal
which at the moment
blocks out every frequency I can utter.
A block in my mind,
and I feel like you may feel
like I’m being corny
if I tell you I miss you again,
but I cannot think of any way to say it differently.
What is your favorite kind of flower.
I will draw you a picture of it with my kindergarden skills,
and fold it flat as a frog flattened lily.
So stray not from the heights,
for I will enfold you with the stars.
…
From my friends.
Today I spent my lunch hour with my beautiful, brilliant friend and colleague J, walking the streets of downtown Vancouver and trying on pretty things from the various clothiers that lined our route.
We hadn’t seen each other for almost six days, which is an exorbitant length of time what with how closely we work and how much of our work days are spent communicating with one another.
It was really grand to catch up and find out what has been swimming around in her neck of the pond.
I recently purged my closet of a number of pieces that no longer grace the length of my body, and were instead just clogging up my wardrobe and dresser drawers.
Lucky me that my two fabitty-fab sisters are in town visiting (or should I say lucky them?) and they got first pick all of the items that otherwise will be heading over to the nearest Sally Ann.
It is so great to have them here, as becomes increasingly more apparent, as the years press on, that the times when the three of us find ourselves in a room together grow ever more few and far between.
Very difficult to have those much needed late-night gab fests when one of us lives in Vancouver, one lives in Halifax, and one lives in New York.
Tonight I ate dinner with the younger of the two (I hold the much coveted position of middle sister) – at Guu, a Japanese izakaya restaurant I had yet to try out.
My sis is a professionally trained chef who owns a butcher shop and as such has a much more discerning palette than I (I assure you that, unlike yours truly, she doesn’t EVER drink diet coke or eat five cent candy on a regular basis) and as such, was the one making the gastronomic decisions for the both of us.
My other sis will be back on Friday and we – along with our two partners – will enjoy a weekend of Kids in the Hall, beaching, spies, Star Wars references, singing, dancing, and of course an over-arching theme of general bonkerdom.
Just the way we like it.
Summer just seems right with sisters.
I’d like to share with you some pictures from our adventures of late:
Lattes night snacks.
Booksbooksbooks.
Otter.
See food.
Umbrella.
Wedding reception.
Happy Wednesday to you all. I’ll help you get by anyway that I can.
Close your eyes.
I dreamt I met a boy
with deep set eyes
and sand scrubbed skin,
sitting in the grass
that tickled my knees –
while he played hide and seek
with the fishes.
I blinked when he kissed
the pink skin (on my shin)
smooth like a skipped stone.
Looking to the sky,
drinking still-sweet raindrops
whispering and
waking
memories
of windswept walks
and Easter egg Sundays.
Clicking our heels
on the cobblestone streets,
we saw sunshine
stretch its strong arms
across a lake of lace.
And our hearts raced
when we remembered the sensation
we had tore from our
fingertips
and drank from our
lungs.
And when I woke,
I cried
for the boy, with a heart
warmed by the heat of one thousand
dragon sighs
who traced my shadow
with his powdered chalk
from when he was but six
and pebble sandwiches
were all the rage.
What I remember so vividly, was an ivy draped house, cherry blossom biscuits, fresh kissed from the oven; our mosquito wed skin that licked the autumn air so quickly we would itch for days.
My sister, whispering stories, sticky from giggles and jam, of evenings coloured with imaginary characters – men whom we imagined dressed like millionaires, and women who smiled bright pearls.
We listened, between the cracks in the door that we dared not enter.
We attended their parties, solved their mysteries, stole their riches – never so much as dipping our toes in the world outside of the beauty we created.
On afternoons that we breathed quietly, and we would watch the birds in the yard, drinking cool lemonade flavoured with mint, fresh picked from the garden.
Days spent dreaming of loving.
Of loving.
This is what he remembers of his first year in love.
Sticky summer evenings on leftover bicycles
Green grass cuttings and the heather scent of your hair
One legged races and falling down together
And getting up together, everytime.
Knitting words so true that they became laws into themselves
What we writ on paper was our sinews and our bones
Magic promises, and you pulled me into a love of myself
Along with my love of you.
I’d never bought a pair of pants for a girl before
Never walked home at midnight carrying her laundry
Trying to scare her, and myself, with remembrances of
Low mists and Japanese ghost children, and all those things that terrify.
Realising that we were not scared together.
I hiked an island while you wrote and waited
On tables and coffee consumers, and I wrote
And lay in bed, in the warmth, with my phone cards
that were always running out
And my emails, and your emails, and we started a story together
That will never be finished, that we’ll always be writing
Until the end of the world.
…
Rant and Roll 