Trisha’s posterous

Those trapeze artists are still leaping, swinging, in my mind.  They are located in my mind, or maybe in my chest where the proverbial heart resides, but not really in my heart.

Everything must necessarily be linked to a geography, however small that geography might be.  If it doesn't reside in a particular geography, however small, then that thing doesn't yet exist.  But there's nothing to say that one day it won't exist.  Everything eventually does.

I saw Dr. V today.  Felt invigorated right after the session, but plummeted so quickly afterward.

I'm hungry but feeling heavy these days.

My eyes are itchy from allergies, and I think I need glasses.

Must go to the dentist.

So, see eye doctor (paradox intended) and make that shameful dentist's appointment, shame for not having been in sooo long, and so prepare yourself for hygienist scrutiny and contempt of the plaque build-up on my teeth, and 'no, I do not floss regularly...'  I mean, I don't even cook, like, almost never.

Alison, do you really think I could publish these journals one day?  Thanks for saying that anyway...that was nice of you...I sort of have this dream of finishing my non-fiction collection (the subject matter of which is fully echoed in these blog entries, or maybe it's these journals that inspire sort of co-dependently the book).  And yeah, the dream is to then compile these journals together as a kind of appendix to the book.

Anyway...hope you are doing well...Really, seriously, I would love to see you sometime before a long time...

I'm back after a short departure, after another ducking-out of this cyberworld.

I miss the medium too much, feel compelled to write on walls and inside bathroom stalls, on metal, or on hard wooden surfaces, scratches across the skin, the wrists, chalk on sidewalks, paint on canvass.

Exacto knives and oil paint.  Paper cuts and charcoal.

Horror and bliss.

It's all right here.

It's all right here under the circus tent, the blue night sky. 

I have a trapeze painting in mind, a series of three, little white stick people flying through the air on a dark background, stick people swinging between fear and freedom, between despair and delight, stick people leaping across a universe of stellar collisions, blackness, sunlight, through rain, leaping and swinging high above an ocean, a garden, a sidewalk, a lake, a river.

It's just air.

Oh this holy mind.

Oh this holy heart.

In secret I really love myself.

Implicit in being a bright light is the snuffing of it out...

I will not be snuffed out anymore.

Will not be 'guilted' into sex or relationships or marriage anymore.

I miss love.

(Thanks Dr. V).

I believe I have been 'buffered.'  That is...o---k.

I get it.

But still, I'm turning down the volume, turning it down low.

But I do feel stupid, as stupid as that Valentine's Night back in 1993, when I was a kid really, and had a crush on Greg Meldrum, Centre for the Vike's Men's Varsity basketball team, and I secretly left for him that poem by E.E. Cummings along with the chocolate yellow rose...and he (and his really beautiful girlfriend) both snickered at me the next day in the dormitory cafeteria.

I am nothing if not passionate (or do I mean stupid?)  I suck the marrow out of life..and choke on the bone.

"What is there to do but this, to descant on the various properties of a bit of stone..." -A. Rodger. 

I read the above inscription while sitting cross-legged on my cot in the psyche ward, staring out at the three steel cranes gleaming in moonlight, feeling seized, crushed, by some force that I could not define or locate, lungs squeezed, felt like throwing up.  My wrists were stinging.

There is code, code for everything.

Language in itself is--code...code for what it can never fully mean.

(Where is The Artist formerly Known As Prince?)

I am buffered into oblivion.

I do understand though.  I get it, I get it.

But none the less, I am signing off, bugging out.  You will not see me, or hear from me...for a long long while.

I have given too much of myself away.

Yes, RVC, I have given my medicine away...and...what were you thinking?

This is me in retreat.

I am the Artist formerly known as Nothing.

It is not enough to erase me.  I need to have never existed.

And hey, I have also published extensively and won national writing awards...more than one. 

Here I go.  I'm leaving on a jet place don't know when I'll be back again...

And Maverick says, "Remaining migs are bugging out and going home..." (Yeehaw).

Going.

Going.

Gone.

Mailed off 4 copies of The Pavilion today.

So, it's been sent to:

The Walrus
AGNI Magazine (based out of Boston USA)
Event (even though they've never given me the time of day)
and sub-Terrain (who has often given me the time of day, hey, thanks you guys you're cool)

And sent some poetry to ARC.

Have about 4 submissions, other essays, pending, haven't yet heard back.

Have applied for the big grant; we'll see.  That grant, if they give me the grant, will change my life, will be able to move on into my own place, or to Montreal I that's the route I choose, could live comfortably focusing on writing for about 6 months (but I'd work too).

So, now that I lay it out this way, I guess I have a few things going right now.  Maybe something good will come of it.  Gotta try.

Now, at Serious Coffee in the Village, am procrastinating, but will in a moment begin work on the Basho integrated poems, for the CBC Lit deadline.  (gotta try, yeah, again).

Paper cut on corner of my mouth from yesterday has healed; the sting is gone.

Note to self, things to do, because I must retain good behavioural habit, along with (what did he say?), oh, Realistic thinking and Problem Solving.  I find the realistic thinking the most difficult, tend to amplify both ends of the spectrum, utterly idealistic and impossible self-expectations at one end, setting out accordingly...I actually believe I can do anything....then the plummet at the other end of the spectrum, when I cannot meet my own ridiculous standards, and so I fall and fall into that pit of pain, self-loathing, depression, and paralysis.

So yeah, things to do:

-Water the purple heather, tulips and those other flowers I can't remember the name of, the ones I planted along the side of the house, up from my door.

-Vacuum (borrow Ss vacuum)

-hang that fruit basket and the other basket

-fold the laundry I grabbed out of the drier and tossed on the bed this morning

-look up NYC Writing retreats etc, or Virginia Center for the Arts (contact George)

-eat something

-Indulge in my own precarious fantasies about the good doctor...but remember the neighbourhood.

Hands are dry from gel sanitizer.

Feeling down.  Reality is setting in, and I don't like it.  Whichever path I imagine seems impossible.  Maybe Montreal.  I think maybe that would work.  I need to get far far far away.

Crushed, smothered,  Unfairly judged, always someone's new psyche 'case.'  Fuck this.  I wish I'd never let anyone in on anything that was ever happening to me.  That was the worst thing I could have done, going into the hospital and the events that followed.  I should have lied and said I was away on a writing retreat or something.

I need to get far far away. walk in snow, listen to a water heater tick in a drafty Montreal apartment.

Start over.

Become anonymous.

Speak that Montreal language.  Leonard Cohen's nude.

I have it in me to drop off the radar.  I drop off the radar, isolate, because the more isolated I am, the fewer people there are out there to mirror myself back to me.  When alone, I am unaccountable, unknown.

For someone who can't stand the terror of being on my own, I contradict myself by seeking it out at every turn, only to run back with my heart thumping in my throat.

Platonic and not platonic.

I draw him in close then push him away.  It's so neurotic.

I love him.

I'm confused, really torn, not knowing if I should move on or go back.

I'm in limbo, the woman, that pillar of salt, frozen in time.

Could we ever really work together, be good together, and if not, is it entirely because of me, or is it because we are incompatible, because with him I may never be living my own life.

Terrified of being alone.  I feel hollow when I'm alone, like I don't exist, insubstantial, like a see-through person, gauze, you could slice a samurai sward through me as you might wave a bubble wand, and I would fall apart, divided.

We had an argument tonight, won't get into it here online.

I'm afraid, feel guilty, don't want to let him go, not sure what to do.

What if I am incapable of making a decision?

Is it just me?  Am I fundamentally crazy?

I need someone to just tell me what to do.

I have actually hand-written many of the subsequent places of residence after # 5, on napkins and on the backs of parking tickets, and on the backs of receipts.

I'll insert those here on the blog sometime soon.

But as a point of reference for me I thought I'd simply make a list (to the best of my memory) of all the places I've lived.  I will likely forget one or two, but hopefully they'll come back to me at some point.

Here they are:

1. Grandma's house on 14th avenue, my first home.  We were living with Grandma at the time.

2. Baker Estates Apartments.  I have very little memory of this.

3. The green duplex on 3rd street.

4. the condominium complex across the street from the green duplex. (fell from Hilda Magus' 2-story window and broke my arm, smashed in my teeth.  I was two years old.

5. house on 5th avenue with the cool attic bedrooms, and the onion patch in the backyard.

(How old was I now?  I don't know, maybe five or six?)

6. My step-dad's (not yet my step-dad) house on King Street across the tracks.  5 acres and bears and velvety purple flowers I thought were that thing called poison ivy.  I made necklaces out of the dandelion stems in the yard.

7. House on 3A street (a block up from the green duplex and condominums)

(ten years old to 14 years old)

8. Moved to Prince George BC.  (there for two years)

9. Moved back to Cranbrook, into my Grandma's trailer in Highcrest Trailer Court (not the house she had when I was first born).  We were in the forest, on the fringe, out of town.  Loved the wilderness but was so fucking depressed for two solid years (grade 11 and 12) I wanted to die.

(18 years old now)

10. Left home for university, moved to Victoria, lived in the dorms for two years (Margaret Newton 107 where I lost my virginity....and second year in one of the cool townhouses that were made for the athletes during the Commonwealth Games the year before).

(I feel like I'm jumbling places now, memory gets sketchy)

11, House on Mackenzie Avenue a block from the liquor store which was bad news.  Shared it with K and a couple of her PG buddies.  I was always cleaning up after them.

12. Allenby House with landlord Rich who drove a classic model something nineteen-sixty something porche, which I found pretentious etc.  But he was hot and so was Corey, and Majou the super hot model from Montreal who spoke decent English.  I got particularly bulimic here, burned a hot butter knife held over a flame, pressed it upon my tummy above the butterfly tattoo and the scar still remains.  Shot cocaine on the docks (yeah what a cliche) with a homelss long-red-haired-guy named Leo who smelled like tin and roses when I wrapped my arms around him after the shot took hold, but before the cops came, arrested him, and took me away in an ambulance because my heart was racing way too fast.  I felt bad for Leo.

(21 years old now)

13. Gordon Head Townhouses with the Bob Marley poster in the living room and the pot-smoking girls.  I wrote Theresa's mid-term essay on Aphra Behn's Oroonoko for which she paid me $100.  She went on to be a teacher.

14. Basement bachelor suite on Tovido Lane.

15. Suite in James Bay on Oscar Street I think where I got into Fiona Apple.  The place was so awesome, shared it with a horticulturalist named Jody.  She told me, asked me, to leave a month in because her boyfriend was suddenly coming back from working up north as a horticulturalist also.  Got screwed over by a couple of horticulturalists in love.  In retrospect I should have told her to leave, not me, but I was young and gutless.

16. House on Synod Street up from the church (hence, Synod), a communal style house with this guy, Noel, who lurched around in the rose bushes late at night squeezing the aphids off the leaves.  That guy sure hated aphids.  Poor aphids.

17. Basement suite on (can't remember the name of the street) off Shelbourne, near Hillside.  Not much to say about this place...uneventful but filled with pain.

18. Basement suite on Richmond Avenue up from Camosun College.  Mrs. Rogers was my landlady and lived upstairs, kept opening the door to my place, shouting down that she smelled smoke and what was I doing and what's that noise.  Started drinking mickies of spiced rum, straight up, all night long.

19. Ultra swanky condo on south end of North Park, downtown, a kind of Melrose Place environment, condo owned by Lisa's Mom, Lisa who had her car and living expenses and condo paid for.

20. Moved in with Rob to be my boyfriend for 3 + years, into his place in the house on Caledonia Avenue, across the street from the crack house, the house with the beautiful cherry tree in the backyard.

21. Moved up north to William's Lake to be with Rob who I never saw because he was always out putting out forest fires etc.  Lived in an ok apartment in the apartment building owned by his parents.  His mom who told me I was fat.

(23 years old now?)

22. Rob and I moved back to Vic, into a basement suite off Cedar Hill Road (I think), which my sister found for us before she went to Europe for two months to live on the farm outside of Rome.  Turns out the place was infested with flees.

(24 years old?  Rob goes up north again in Spring, and returns again in early autumn...the distance kills me).

23.  Rob and I live in a little apartment across the street from the Vacuum Cleaner Repair shop on Cedar Hill Road.

(Rob goes up north again to fight fires, but this time I don't follow.  The distance kills me).

24. I move into the apartment on Bowker Avenue.  Rob returns from fighting fires up north, early in autumn, moves in with me and stays up late looking at porn on his computer.

(Second or third? year together, Rob and I, I'm 25 years old and working as an office clerk at UVic finishing up my second undergraduate degree in English Lit, working in Housing for my boss and future husband.  Rob and I break up).

25. Cool apartment with hardwood floors and alcove ceilings and a cool retro kitchen, but it's on Esquimalt Road and I sort of fear for my life when I walk home at night, because I should.

(I start seeing my boss future husband...we almost get 'caught' in my old dorm room, MN 107...oh my god that was funny).

26. Lord Simcoe apartment in James Bay.  Plush carpet.  View of Parliament Buildings and Inner Harbour.  Got robbed in this apartment, in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping.

27. Caddy Bay apartment across from Oak Bay High (move in with my future husband) on the ground floor...a year or so passes...I start drinking Neo Citran DM to relax, wake up with panic attacks.

(26 years old now)

28. After a year or so, my boss future husband and I move to another apartment (#29) on the 3rd floor, which we have to leave after a year or so because the building caught on fire...one cat died.

30. I move to Vancouver for my MFA at UBC, into the apartment on West 5th in Kits, live directly underneath the landlady who is crazy and has like a hundred porcelain jesuss (jesuses?  jesus's? jesus's?) on display around her apartment, and her husband is old and wears an oxygen mask so crazy jesus lady has a big sign on her apartment door that says "No flames allowed, Oxygen Present!)

31. A couple of months later I move into one of the graduate student housing condos on campus.

32. Move back to Vic after my first fall semester in Van cuz my student loan money falls through...back in with boss future husband, months of hell cuz I am only going to school full time! and commuting back and forth now between Vic and Van...and my boss future husband hates me for not bringing money into the 'home.'

(28 years old)

33. Boss and I move into the cool upper suite in the heritage house on Roseberry Avenue in Fernwood, the suite from which I could see the spire of the Belfry, where I wrote and wrote and completed my MFA.

(30 years old)

34. We move into upper level of house on 5th Street up from the 5th street Bar and Grill.  Hate it and move out a month later.

35. We move into the old heritage house on Beechwood Avenue, best place ever, stay there together for 3 + years.

(Boss and I get married in Cuba, Cayo Ensenachos, January 26th, three days before my 33rd birthday).

36. Six months after getting married, I leave boss now my husband, move back to Vancouver, little basement suite with bright yellow kitchen on West 13th, spiral into a stupor of DXM (Neo Citran DM), stay up all night every night, sleep all day or go without sleep entirely.  Streets feel shifty.  I'm losing it.

37. Six months later and I move back to Vic, to my husband, back into Beechwood place.

(34 years old)

38. We move into new house on Foul Bay Road, great place but lacks heart and I feel alone, really alone, live in the basement with my rabbits getting high, while husband and two step-sons (who are now living with us) commune upstairs.  Everything falls apart, really falls apart.  I'm nowhere, oblivious, probably dying down there.  No one, my husband, no one really knows or they don't care.  I want to die but I'm afraid to do it, my greatest worry...who will take care of my rabbits?

39. Brief period 'residing' in the psyche ward, for about a month.  Boss now husband and I break up while I'm in there.  He is "done with me."

(35 years old, present time)

40. After getting out of the hospital I go to NYC, then Minnesota, then live in a camper for two weeks on Island View Road.

41. Where I live now, basement suite in my sister's new house on Prior, where I feel like a bit of a loser but I'm working hard, trying to get my shit together...

I hope I hope I hope....

(I think that's it).

I can't seem to stop eating these gummy bears. 

They now come in a whole new spectrum of colours: red, green, yellow, orange, blue, lighter blue, champagne coloured, and so on.

I like the flavour, but really it's the texture I love.  Soft and squishy, but not too squishy, you know, gummy.

When I was a kid I loved gummy bears.  I've always loved gummy bears.  But the new spectrum is invigorating.  These new bears enhance my life minutely, but powerfully.

Small pleasures.  Life is comprised of small pleasures.  Life is short.  I am bound by nothing.  I refuse to be.

It's like my greatest joy these days is gummy bears.

Also, I think the bears are my compensation for the nervousness, my anxiety, my wanting more, more, more.  Never feeling solid, at home.  Everything feels loose.  It nags at me.

Also, well, sex.

It's the connection I'm missing, my hand tracing a man's skin, a man's body.to be crushed tenderly under the weight of him, to feel so carefully pinned to whatever lies beneath me. 

The sheets are crisp and cool.

Thread count: 800.

I love fine linen, though I'm not high maintenance.

I just love heavy weighty things, good thread count, grand furniture (my old red bordello style couch from Chintz my husband has in his home, in my old life), ornately carved dining room chairs, a big oak table, those two antique green wing back chairs we never did re-upholster.  I love heavy things that are pinned to the earth.

Like me: I want to be pinned down, kissed and loved, never let go of.

Solid things.

I want a solid man.  He has to be older.  I have never once been attracted to a guy my own age; they never seem solid enough, they seem like they're still growing, like they are looking for someone to complete them.

I can't complete anyone.

No one will have me at hello.

I am sort of perpetually unavailable, emotionally.  Nothing gets through.  I want to let it through.

I miss feeling kept and crushed, pinned and moved upon, rhythmic.  And after, soft kisses, me on my side facing him, he's facing me, it's dark in the room, the window's open, raining outside, smells like wet leaves.

I'm happy.

And he touches my face, my lips, then down the line of my body, stops at my waist, where I curve inward, the small of me, touches my soft belly, then rests his hand in the hollow.

I miss that.

I'm getting calls from 'the government' about my late late student loan payments.  I am unable to make payments now, can't yet work, so there's nothing I can do except turn the ringer off, slide the phone back in my pocket, and try not to believe that this is another bit of evidence, proof of my status as a loser.

But I'm not a loser, I know it.  I could be, but I'm not.  I haven't given up yet.

This is hard, the evenings in particular.  This swine flu is still hanging on.  The cold air is hard on my lungs.  Every time I inhale I cough.

I'm trying to figure out how to quell the nightly anxiety.

Came up with a strategy, something I'm going to try.

It sounds stupid, but here it is:

I'm going to breathe.
I'm going to tell myself where I am is where I'm supposed to be.
I'm going to tell myself, it's alright.

Say it out loud: It's alright.

I'm going to write hard every day, like I did today, three solid hours revising The Pavilion.  It's much tighter now.  Have to write two more short sections.  Once I've finished the last two sections, going to re-read it, again, and then again, revise some more, then read it again, and again (because I am a perfectionist, because my work is never completed to my satisfaction, which is probably why I'm sitting on what, three books right now, because they don't feel 'right.'

I'm going to keep telling myself:

It's okay.  It's alright.  You are exactly where you are supposed to be. 

God just turn it off, let go.

Shut off my mind and turn on my heart.

I want to kiss you softly all over.

I want to move to Montreal and work on a PhD.

If I am in Montreal, and you stay here, maybe that will be enough distance to make it ok.

Maybe I'm just dreaming.

Whenever I think of Montreal, I think of that Leonard Cohen poem I read when I was nineteen years old, back when all of this began.

That poem about the nude in his Montreal hotel room, three levels up.  He says it's snowing outside.  It's night.  He watches her pull back her long blond hair and light a smoke.  I so wanted to be that nude.  I wanted to be Leonard Cohen's nude girl lighting a smoke in a Montreal hotel room.  But I knew I could never be her.  I knew this way down deep in a place that shattered me, that hurt me, because I could never be any man's nude.  I was just never that beautiful.

Snow is falling.
There is a nude in my room.
She surveys the wine-coloured carpet.

She is eighteen.
She has straight hair.
She speaks no Montreal language.

etc.

I love that.