Thoughts – Page 3 – Rant and Roll

Waking up to a sleepy sun

This morning I caught the sun before it went back to bed.

I often have the privilege of witnessing the early dawn sky.

Unfortunately, the reason that I am this lucky is because I struggle with anxiety, and the majority of the time it manifests itself in early morning heat attacks.

Seriously, it’s like my whole body is engulfed in flames.

Often times it’s very difficult to fall back asleep, so I instead just get up, and get a really early start to things.

So this morning, instead of subjecting Marc to my sauna-inspired tossing and turning, I slipped out of bed and tiptoed downstairs.

I sat quietly on the sofa, with a cup of coffee in one hand, and watched as the sun got up, stretched, and then lay back down to sleep, in (what I can only presume to be) its bed of rest, located just behind the Fraser River.

As someone who finds this sort of thing practically impossible (falling back asleep after getting up), I was more than a little jealous. If I only I could learn its secrets!

So knowing full well that there was no way I could possibly go back to bed (even if my life depended on it!), I decided instead to lace up my runners and go out for a fast 4.5km run.

I managed to complete my route in eighteen minutes, which is a good time for the number of hills that populate the course, and it made me think that maybe (just maybe!) I will be able to run a sub-40 10km at the Fall Classic on November 19^th.

The weather was just perfect – the air was cool, but not so much to make the insides of my ears burn, or make my lungs ache. A slight breeze to bring bounce to my ponytail and pink to my cheeks; fallen leaves crunchy underfoot, while the balding trees overhead presented a delirious kaleidoscope of greens, yellows, and browns.

I could smell the magic aroma of coffee and other miscellaneous breakfast delights, drifting from the different houses that mark my path to the park and back.

Sprinting the last four hundred, a lone tear slid from the corner of my left eye.

It’s funny.

I can’t for the life of me remember what I thought about while I ran.

I’m certain there must have been a few musings about Halloween, and the party Marc and I are attending tonight.

The lovely dinner we had with friends last night.

Michael Chabon’s latest novel, currently taking up real estate on my bedside table.

My stride length, and whether or not I was landing on the balls of my feet.

A series of short vignettes, starring a sleepy sunrise.

I remember when I was a little girl, I would always try and wake up as early as possible on the weekends, because Saturday and Sunday mornings were the only times my sisters and I were allowed to watch TV.

The earlier we woke, the more episodes of Inspector Gadget, or Rescue Rangers, or Duck Tales, we could watch.

I don’t know when exactly I stopped racing out of bed, and started sleeping in, but I feel as though I have now come full circle.

I am back to being that girl, that pre-sunrise child.

I just need to make sure this is due to my love of cartoons and not the heat of a worry that’s setting my alarm.

We are all travelers here

I daydream a lot.

I think about the worlds and places that we have yet to visit. How we might fly far and away, up past the moon, beyond our stars; a one-way trip to distant isles, and unexplored realms; unsolved probabilities, and untamed possibilities.

I dream.

I close my eyes and breathe.

This past month I haven’t been reading much.

I’ve been too busy with different things – comedy, writing, work, running, volunteering. Things that I love, but things that take time.

On the metro in the mornings I wake my brain with crosswords.

The repetition.

Of synonyms.

Of puns.

I miss the feel of bound paper between my fingers.

At daybreak, my quiet commute, punctuated by the flipflipflip of pages, chapters, worlds.

At nightfall, crisp, cool sheets, and the sweet scent of sleep. My heavy eyelids and my frantic panic to read just one more (just one more) paragraph, before giving in to rest.

I miss this.

So tonight I will not daydream,

I will sit swaddled in blankets, surrounded by text, exploring a distant, but (not-so) long ago land.

And I will feel my fingers burn with envy. With passion. With zeal.

To create.

Break.

Participate.

To write. Read. Believe.

I think Ray Bradbury said it right:

And so to all of you, goodnight.

Safe flight.

Just me, lost in thought

I feel like it has been raining for years.

And I will wake up tomorrow, webbed and gilled, a green-skinned lily-pad.

My eyes slick sliver, like salmon skin.

I sit here, watching the skies melt, with a kitten wrapped around herself. She is unaware of this other wet world; this place without food, without fires; warm beds, and sleepy heads.

Myself, well, I am drawn to the grey.

The strange semi-stillness of a night drawing near.

Mischief realized.

Heartbreak thwarted.

Coming home with a grocery bag filled with potential.

Potential?

Or adventure?

Mugs of piping chai, thick woolen blankets, and the tap, tapping of a lost-lover’s knock on my window panes.

The SOS of ten thousand teardrops.

And I see the lights across the river, blinking.

Like an old man, lost in thought.

You can’t handle the truth!

Everybody lies.

At least so quoth the ever enigmatic, and exceptionally surly Dr. Gregory House who both angered and titillated thirty million North American television viewers at the height of the program’s popularity.

And he was right. Most people, as much as they would like to admit otherwise, distort the truth in one way or another (sometimes even on a daily basis.)

Why, it’s bloody hard not to. Take the classic example:

A: “Hi!”

B: “Hi!”

A: “How are you?”

B: “Good! How are you?”

A: “Good!”

This exchange is the absolute worst. Not only is it shallow and formulaic, but it actually makes me think that we are preconditioned to not tell the truth.

I mean, when talking about fleeting exchanges (picture you and the other person as two ships in the night), I can pretty much guarantee that neither of you actually wants to know how the other is doing when you ask. It is but a mere formality – an extension of the actual greeting.

In fact, hihowareyoudoing is one pretty much one word, the opener, which is expected under normal greeting circumstances, while finegreatgoodokay is the expected answer, the closer.

End of story.

Both parties may walk away satisfied.

I can totally understand why in some cultures you don’t even bother asking this question unless you are prepared to really find out how that person is – because, really, otherwise what’s the point?

Now, I am willing to concede that there is probably at least one of you out there, shaking your head, thinking to yourself, “I always tell the truth no matter how I’m feeling!”

So dear reader, if you manage to actually (sincerely) articulate how you are doing every time someone asks you, I bow down to you and your amazing resolve.

I would also like to meet you.

And your friends.

(KIDDING!)

As for me?

I’ve been known to tell a few porky pies. And not just about how I was feeling.

I’ve told my husband that I have eaten breakfast when I haven’t, just because he likes to eat right away in the morning and I don’t, and I once told the mother of one of the kids I tutored that I got migraines instead of just outright quitting the job.

(That was one strange kid, believe you me.)

I would watch as these little white lies fluttered out of my mouth, like ivory-winged moths escaping the dark, searching for a light. They would burn up, the farther up they fly, and I wondered, as I watched them disappear, what purpose did they serve?

To answer this question, I once spent a ~~week~~ day trying not to lie.

Which I found to be hard. Very hard.

I was unsuccessful on many fronts. But mostly I was incapable of getting over the hihowareyou hurdle. No matter how hard I tried, goodgood seemed to get away from me without my noticing.

Every time I would have to take back my words and try again. But even then I couldn’t successfully complete the task.

What can I say? I’ve been programmed.

And I’m okay with that.

Because otherwise I like to believe that I lead a fairly transparent, truthful life.

And let me tell you this: when I ask you how all you beauty cats are doing, I mean so with the most sincerity.

63194_10150362839625179_6369553_n — This is me asking you, “HOW ARE YA DOING CHAP?”

And that, I promise, is no lie.