Cleaning out my room at my parents' house for the final time.
Sure, I've moved away before, but before I always had the option of coming back. My possessions continued to reside here in this cheery pink room, under increasingly thick grey layers of dust and the occasional spiderweb. I never really truly had to move out of this room. I left for years at a time, but it was still my room.
But now I've just gotten married, and my sister is planning to take over my room. This requires me to clean it out for perhaps the first time ever. I've certainly straightened it up once or twice, but never truly deep-cleaned, and I've especially not had to pack it all away into storage at the same time. It's funny how few of my finds truly surprised me (apparently I pretty much knew exactly where everything was, despite some things not seeing the light of day for over a decade), yet when I dusted them off, only then did they bring back memories.
I'm a terribly, terribly sentimental person. I will keep a Staples receipt for pens and paperclips for nostalgic reasons, even though I know I will probably never look at it again. Part of the reason I had never truly cleaned out my room was because I was suffering so much loss already and I knew I couldn't bear to throw anything away. But now I'm forced to, and that, coupled with knowing this room is no longer my safe place anymore, is a very emotional process.
This room was where I cowered in fear from my mother's outbursts and listened to ABBA CDs nonstop on my headphones. This room was where I listened to Oilers hockey games and paced the carpet in the dark as I listened, working out some new plot idea. This room is where I would write all day long and late into the night on my old Windows XP machine with a 20GB hard drive (pretty sure the processor on that thing was measured in megahertz), or simply stare at the screensaver and daydream. This room was where I would sit on the floor after dance class and choreograph to Petra and White Heart, planning all sorts of dance shows with M. This room was where I sketched out revenge stories centering around the youth group that hated me. I've fallen asleep on the grey-pink carpet, I've made endless crochet and cross-stitch projects, I played hours of Polly Pocket with my sister, I've written over half a million words of ideas and prose, I've tap danced, I've even practiced a few ballet steps here. I've done so many self-portrait photoshoots, written so many blog posts, lost myself in so many dreams, cried so many silent but tortured tears. I moved into this room somewhere around 2003/2004, and it's been a home base for me ever since.
I found cards with greetings in both M's and Brittney's handwriting. I found a bear that my late grandfather gave me when I got baptised. I found mementos from a 2004 trip to see my now-deceased great-uncle and his wife in B.C. I found bookmarks my sister had made me, story ideas I'd sketched out on the back of church bulletins, and tickets for shows I'd performed in as a child. I even found a folder with all my work and costume designs and very early choreography for a book/dance company idea I had nursed for some three or four years in my early teens before joining the real world and realising that that exact particular idea was simply not feasible (it's not completely dead, though, the dream of a dance team and even some sections of choreography from that period still live on in my present work).
These are things that you never know the value of when you first receive them. This is another part of why I can't throw anything out. How could I have known on my 20th birthday when I received that card from M that she would be dead barely five years later? If I had thrown that card out two weeks later like I'm told 'normal people' always do, I would now have nothing left of the fierce woman who so often inspired and encouraged me. No-one else will ever exist with that exact handwriting, that exact way of wording things. And even if someone could forge it, they could never forge her personality, her essence, her spirit, her -- the things that all who knew her fell in love with.
Brittney was one of the very few people who was capable of being encouraging in writing. Sometimes her birthday cards to me were the only source of encouragement I would get for that entire year. This words-of-affirmation person had to scrape together all the encouragement she could, and sometimes it was contained only in the left-handed script of this one dear friend.
How could I know that my grandfather would only give me two gifts in the entire twenty-three years he knew me? Yes, I will never play with that stuffed bear, but my grandfather was a hardened, bitter man who rarely showed approval, let alone affection. That bear showed me what his gruff voice and distant actions never managed to do. I would rather remember that than simply replay the fading memory of his critical voice over and over in my head.
Memories fade. And these people meant far too much to me for me to justify callously tossing aside the things that remind me of them and their huge, huge impacts on my life. And because I never know which bright young life will disappear next, I can't afford to lose any of those memories. I learned when M died that just because something is statistically improbable (losing TWO best friends at age 22 in three years?), DOES NOT mean it's impossible. Especially if it's something bad. You know, like losing SEVEN people to death in four years; all but one under the age of 27. What's to say there won't be an eighth? Statistically, there should have been no more deaths in my life after Brittney for a good fifteen years, save maybe my grandfather due to his age and health. Yet there were five more in 1,461 days. Improbable, you say -- but it happened. It happened in real life, in my life. You truly never know. You can 'be positive' and 'not think about it now' and believe in the health and wealth of your friends all you want, but you truly. never. know. Nobody escapes the death of the ones they love the most. Nobody. (Except the ones who die young.)
(Side note: I am literally not even joking, iTunes just started playing Memories Fade by Tears For Fears. I did not plan this, and I am not making this up. I just started playing TFF and I had completely forgotten that song even existed.)
This room has been my safe haven through a lot of things, when there was no-one to talk to and no-one to go to. The golden light, amplified by the pink walls, seemed to bring a modicum of hope even on the darkest days of suicidal depression. The lone incandescent bulb that hung from the 2x10s that made up the upper floor above me lit the way to many a late-night story idea -- the spaceships that allowed me to travel through time and space, away from the pain of whatever situation I was in.
To not have even the option of spending a day alone in this room again -- it steals the breath from my chest. This room was one of my few constants in a world that insisted on dying away around me. It was always there, even after Brittney died and M died. It was my sanctuary when the world was against me (and let's be honest, it still is in many ways). I feel untethered without it, but it is time...
Another goodbye. It never gets easier.
Thank you, big pink room with the tree-dappled southern sunlight and the desks lining the walls, for all the good times and for sheltering me through all the bad times. Thank you for all the memories. Thank you for the safety and protection and inspiration you provided. I'll miss you something awful.
Showing posts with label stream of consciousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stream of consciousness. Show all posts
02 September 2020
07 April 2020
Death
Written 27 January 2020, 10.22pm.
All trauma can be escaped, on some level.
All trauma except the trauma of death.
And that is the one that consistently dogs me.
With divorce or family splits, both parties are alive and there is always hope (however unlikely) that there might just be reconciliation one day. With abuse, one can escape the abuser. It's not easy, but it's doable. With health issues (including mental illness), you are again still alive and there is the hope that one day a treatment will be found that can help you. With unemployment, there is always a way to beg, borrow, or even steal what you need to live. Your moral code may protest it, but it's there. Plus there is always a thin hope of economic improvement.
There is always hope -- even the thinnest strand of it -- if you can just hold on to it. There is always the hope of escape, one day.
Except in death.
Death comes and cannot be escaped. When someone close to you dies, you can't undo it. You can't go back and say sorry and ask forgiveness. You can't re-see them one last time. You can't send them an email with all the words you wanted to say.
Death causes trauma. Traumatic situations can be escaped... except for death. Death is the one that we cannot choose and we cannot run away from. We can't control it. It comes for our loved us and we are powerless in the face of it. You can throw money or hugs or kind words at literally anything else and it helps, even the tiniest bit. It may not fix the problem, but it provides even the most fleeting of respites.
I have spent so many years trying to build up walls against things that will cause me harm. I don't get close enough to people for them to abuse me anymore. I live on $60 a week to offset my unemployment and I literally beg for that amount from those lucky enough to still have jobs. I sleep most days, waiting in a half-dreamt haze for the day when there is a treatment for my depression. I have distanced myself from my family to avoid the fallout when they -- inevitably, it seems -- split.
But I can't shelter myself from death. The old and sick live, the young and healthy die. It traumatises me every single time, and I can't cushion it and I can't get away from it and there is no hope. There is no hope that they will suddenly come around and start breathing again. There is no hope that suddenly their heart will start up again. Christians will insist that 'death is NOT the end!!!!!!!! *8 million sickeningly sugary happy emojis and heart-eyes*' but the fact is that once a person dies, all hope is gone. Even if they are in heaven -- the fact remains that there is no hope here. There is nothing to cushion the blow to my staggering heart. You never know who's next, and you never know when it will be. There is no preparation. There is no going back. There is no making the best of it. They are gone, and you are broken. You are at the mercy of God, or Death, or Fate, or whatever the hell you want to call it. And Death has no mercy. There are days when it seems God doesn't either. They call Him a merciful God, but then why doesn't He stop the never-ending parade of meaningless deaths when I plead and beg for Him to stop it and let my heart breathe for just one day?
We can't control God and we can't control Death. Both seem hell-bent on destroying me, burying me alive under the shards of my shattered heart. I breathe them in and they pierce my lungs.
Even on days when nobody close to you actually dies, the trauma is there now. It never goes away. Your heart rate jumps at the sound of every text alert, wondering who it was this time. You constantly run through every person you've ever met in your mind, freaking out most over those who seem fine and are happy and healthy because those are always the ones that go first and those are always the hardest ones to predict and 'recover' from. Every time someone posts something on Facebook or Instagram, you think 'is this their last post?' There is no hope that everyone will be safe and alive at the end of today. You can only hold onto what remains of your tattered heart with whitened knuckles and beg the sky for mercy today... and hope that God cares enough about you to give you one day off.
But even then, that's not a sure thing. You hope He gives you rest, like He promised, but rest is not a sure thing when death is involved. It's never a certainty. And somehow death still blindsides you every time. There's always one person you forgot to worry about, and it's always that person who dies unexpectedly.
There is no escape. There is no hope of escape. There is no choice. And it's so stupid and it's so unfair. Why do I have to endure seven deaths in four years and other people go to maybe three funerals in their entire lives? Why aren't the numbers more even? Why is it always the people that I know and love, seemingly at the exclusion of all others?
When I was a young teen, I used to think I was God's punching bag. That's literally how I referred to myself in my writings from that time. In my late teens and early twenties, I began to see that label as somewhat melodramatic. But now I'm starting to wonder if eleven-year-old Kate wasn't on to something after all. After all, if God is a God of mercy, and I beg for mercy, for respite from everyone around me dying, and the dying doesn't stop, does it mean God has been misrepresented and painted as merciful when He is not, or does it mean I am just the 'chosen one' -- the punching bag, the one who absorbs His anger at everyone else whether I like it or not so that He might show them His famous mercy?
This is enough. I am not only crying uncle, I am screaming uncle at the top of my shredded lungs. Mercy, mercy.
Please.
All trauma can be escaped, on some level.
All trauma except the trauma of death.
And that is the one that consistently dogs me.
With divorce or family splits, both parties are alive and there is always hope (however unlikely) that there might just be reconciliation one day. With abuse, one can escape the abuser. It's not easy, but it's doable. With health issues (including mental illness), you are again still alive and there is the hope that one day a treatment will be found that can help you. With unemployment, there is always a way to beg, borrow, or even steal what you need to live. Your moral code may protest it, but it's there. Plus there is always a thin hope of economic improvement.
There is always hope -- even the thinnest strand of it -- if you can just hold on to it. There is always the hope of escape, one day.
Except in death.
Death comes and cannot be escaped. When someone close to you dies, you can't undo it. You can't go back and say sorry and ask forgiveness. You can't re-see them one last time. You can't send them an email with all the words you wanted to say.
Death causes trauma. Traumatic situations can be escaped... except for death. Death is the one that we cannot choose and we cannot run away from. We can't control it. It comes for our loved us and we are powerless in the face of it. You can throw money or hugs or kind words at literally anything else and it helps, even the tiniest bit. It may not fix the problem, but it provides even the most fleeting of respites.
I have spent so many years trying to build up walls against things that will cause me harm. I don't get close enough to people for them to abuse me anymore. I live on $60 a week to offset my unemployment and I literally beg for that amount from those lucky enough to still have jobs. I sleep most days, waiting in a half-dreamt haze for the day when there is a treatment for my depression. I have distanced myself from my family to avoid the fallout when they -- inevitably, it seems -- split.
But I can't shelter myself from death. The old and sick live, the young and healthy die. It traumatises me every single time, and I can't cushion it and I can't get away from it and there is no hope. There is no hope that they will suddenly come around and start breathing again. There is no hope that suddenly their heart will start up again. Christians will insist that 'death is NOT the end!!!!!!!! *8 million sickeningly sugary happy emojis and heart-eyes*' but the fact is that once a person dies, all hope is gone. Even if they are in heaven -- the fact remains that there is no hope here. There is nothing to cushion the blow to my staggering heart. You never know who's next, and you never know when it will be. There is no preparation. There is no going back. There is no making the best of it. They are gone, and you are broken. You are at the mercy of God, or Death, or Fate, or whatever the hell you want to call it. And Death has no mercy. There are days when it seems God doesn't either. They call Him a merciful God, but then why doesn't He stop the never-ending parade of meaningless deaths when I plead and beg for Him to stop it and let my heart breathe for just one day?
We can't control God and we can't control Death. Both seem hell-bent on destroying me, burying me alive under the shards of my shattered heart. I breathe them in and they pierce my lungs.
Even on days when nobody close to you actually dies, the trauma is there now. It never goes away. Your heart rate jumps at the sound of every text alert, wondering who it was this time. You constantly run through every person you've ever met in your mind, freaking out most over those who seem fine and are happy and healthy because those are always the ones that go first and those are always the hardest ones to predict and 'recover' from. Every time someone posts something on Facebook or Instagram, you think 'is this their last post?' There is no hope that everyone will be safe and alive at the end of today. You can only hold onto what remains of your tattered heart with whitened knuckles and beg the sky for mercy today... and hope that God cares enough about you to give you one day off.
But even then, that's not a sure thing. You hope He gives you rest, like He promised, but rest is not a sure thing when death is involved. It's never a certainty. And somehow death still blindsides you every time. There's always one person you forgot to worry about, and it's always that person who dies unexpectedly.
There is no escape. There is no hope of escape. There is no choice. And it's so stupid and it's so unfair. Why do I have to endure seven deaths in four years and other people go to maybe three funerals in their entire lives? Why aren't the numbers more even? Why is it always the people that I know and love, seemingly at the exclusion of all others?
When I was a young teen, I used to think I was God's punching bag. That's literally how I referred to myself in my writings from that time. In my late teens and early twenties, I began to see that label as somewhat melodramatic. But now I'm starting to wonder if eleven-year-old Kate wasn't on to something after all. After all, if God is a God of mercy, and I beg for mercy, for respite from everyone around me dying, and the dying doesn't stop, does it mean God has been misrepresented and painted as merciful when He is not, or does it mean I am just the 'chosen one' -- the punching bag, the one who absorbs His anger at everyone else whether I like it or not so that He might show them His famous mercy?
This is enough. I am not only crying uncle, I am screaming uncle at the top of my shredded lungs. Mercy, mercy.
Please.
30 April 2016
Thought Bubble
Maybe I am crazy. What will this life give me in the end? Not money, that's for sure. Does love and passion outweigh money? Maybe I should stay here. Maybe I should move to the city. Can I really be happy doing a nine-to-five? How much long can I last in dance with my ankles the way they are? I should have picked up a second job. I'm chasing a pot of gold that doesn't exist. Now I won't be able to finish my degree. This degree won't pay for itself. I won't make that money back. Where will it come from? God funds the things that are of Him, right? Is this of Him? How do I know? Will He tell me? Do I just guess? How can I prove it? How much stock do I put in those tiny little signs? Am I spinning everything my way? Where is the money going to come from? Maybe I am stupid for trying to pursue this. Is art really needed? Does art really touch other people as much as it does me? Is it my place to try to encourage people who refuse to be? Why am I doing this, trying to help people if I can't even keep myself above despair? Who am I to say I have hope when I don't believe it? Why is money so freaking important? Why can't I enjoy my life without having to field these money questions? Should I get a student loan so I can continue college without having to take a second year off? But the degree won't pay for itself... Why do my thoughts never resolve, just keep running in circles? Why would God put this love for the stage in my heart if nothing could be done with it? What's the point? Was it to mock me? Was it to make other people feel better about their stupid ridiculous dreams? If I died everyone would bend over backwards trying to fulfil their interpretation of my dream without me but they don't give a rip about it now when I'm alive. Life would be easier if I was dead. I wouldn't constantly have to make these decisions and work my butt off for a dream that doesn't make money and a job to fund the dream. Although isn't that what people do anyway? They work their job to fund the American dream. All those hours and there's no money at the end of it and there's no strength left for the dream. Why is the world so stupid? You kill what you need. Or don't you need art? Is that a lie that I've believed in my desperation to avoid the nine-to-five? Is that all this is? Would the pressure be off if I gave up and worked as a secretary? Or would that be a denial of my soul and my God-given calling? But was it even given by God in the first place? How do I know? I should have applied for scholarships sooner. I should have... I should have... I should have... I don't know what I should have done. What is right? Is it right only for me or is it right for the plan of God to be fulfilled? Why do I have this burning need to avoid the nine-to-five? Am I just lazy and justifying it with art? Am I stupid? I must be or I would have applied for scholarships sooner... or given up this dream. Is it just that? Is it just a dream, a cautionary tale for my future self?
Round, round we go...
Another day, another 5600 revolutions of this circle, this thought bubble, this hamster wheel of the mind, spinning its tires and rehashing these questions to death, adding other more complicated questions when I'm least mentally prepared for it?
Welcome to my life.
Welcome to my life.
01 February 2016
Hold On - Courage As A Perfectionist
I'm sitting here stressing out -- again. About my family, about my friends, about my job. Last year was notoriously difficult and while things have leveled out some (the death rate has slowed down if nothing else), there's still plenty to freak out about -- my future. My family's future. The paths my friends are taking. All of those choices that I have to make and that the people around me are making. Now more than ever I understand the sentiment behind Randy Stonehill's classic Stop The World ("stop the world, I want to get off...").
Three years ago -- it seems like this was a completely different person then -- I had a dream and though I knew it would be difficult and I may not succeed, I went after it. The other day I was going through some papers and I found an article I had printed off of the Daniel Amos website because it was so inspiring. Terry Taylor was talking about the high road of artistry, how great art inspires and ennobles... that's who I wanted to be. That's still who I want to be. But now, having faced some of the very worst that the world has to offer (relationally), I despair if I can be that encouragement that I wanted to be. I can't even get myself out of this rut, how in the world can I possibly help anybody else? It's to the point where I'm too afraid to start anything creative. This has stymied all of my artistic output for more or less a year now. And it's the fear of everything -- fear that I won't be able to touch anybody, or be competent in my art, or even be able to pay for my own food and lodging. Probably the only fear that isn't a huge deal is the fear of people not taking me seriously -- I'm used to that, and I've had a while to acquaint myself with the idea that nobody likes an artist as a person.
I can't fix the world. I can't fix the world around me that's falling apart and I hate myself for it.
I'm a perfectionist. I always have been. For years I actually thought it was a good thing -- it was always trumped up as a virtue by the people around me. I nurtured it until I realised it was killing me and then I began to realise (slowly) that there were times I could (and should) loosen my hold on it. And I did -- rather successfully, in fact. Until everybody started dying.
And now it's back. Everything's back. All that self-blame, all the 'what if I had been here instead of there?' 'what if I had done things differently?' 'maybe it's my fault.' They say the greatest art comes from artists who battle the strongest demons of the heart, the mind, and the soul -- I touched on this in Kyrie -- but at what cost? Even the artist in Kyrie committed suicide. I knew the life of an artist was hard, but thought that somehow my love of creating art would pull me through it and help me to process it. Instead, I've become so scared of ruining this life that's already falling apart that I'm avoiding the very thing that, by all accounts, should help me. Isn't this where the greatest art comes from? ...from the depths of despair and anger and fear? Am I missing out on a huge treasure trove of art just beneath the surface?
What courage it must take for the artist to continue to wake up every single morning and commit to creating something even if he feels it will go absolutely nowhere. I know the failed projects are still learning opportunities -- I've experienced this myself. If it wasn't for the gong show that was my tenth NaNoWriMo novel, I wouldn't know what not to do nearly as well as I do now. The novels that came after that novel showed a marked jump up in quality, even for rough drafts. But for the artist to look at the families falling apart around him, to feel the pressure of a life of poverty that isn't always escapable, to see all the darkness consuming those he loves more than his own life, and to still try to capture the glimmer of light that he cannot see but hopes to heaven still exists is perhaps one of the greatest and most Herculean acts of courage a human being can attempt. And right now, I seriously doubt that I have that kind of courage -- the courage that whispers, hold on.
It's not about success. Or even about touching people's souls (yet). It's the courage to wake up every single morning and face a day in which somebody may die. Or leave their spouse. Or get cancer. And still try to create art to encourage people when your own soul despairs of ever being happy again.
Three years ago -- it seems like this was a completely different person then -- I had a dream and though I knew it would be difficult and I may not succeed, I went after it. The other day I was going through some papers and I found an article I had printed off of the Daniel Amos website because it was so inspiring. Terry Taylor was talking about the high road of artistry, how great art inspires and ennobles... that's who I wanted to be. That's still who I want to be. But now, having faced some of the very worst that the world has to offer (relationally), I despair if I can be that encouragement that I wanted to be. I can't even get myself out of this rut, how in the world can I possibly help anybody else? It's to the point where I'm too afraid to start anything creative. This has stymied all of my artistic output for more or less a year now. And it's the fear of everything -- fear that I won't be able to touch anybody, or be competent in my art, or even be able to pay for my own food and lodging. Probably the only fear that isn't a huge deal is the fear of people not taking me seriously -- I'm used to that, and I've had a while to acquaint myself with the idea that nobody likes an artist as a person.
I can't fix the world. I can't fix the world around me that's falling apart and I hate myself for it.
I'm a perfectionist. I always have been. For years I actually thought it was a good thing -- it was always trumped up as a virtue by the people around me. I nurtured it until I realised it was killing me and then I began to realise (slowly) that there were times I could (and should) loosen my hold on it. And I did -- rather successfully, in fact. Until everybody started dying.
And now it's back. Everything's back. All that self-blame, all the 'what if I had been here instead of there?' 'what if I had done things differently?' 'maybe it's my fault.' They say the greatest art comes from artists who battle the strongest demons of the heart, the mind, and the soul -- I touched on this in Kyrie -- but at what cost? Even the artist in Kyrie committed suicide. I knew the life of an artist was hard, but thought that somehow my love of creating art would pull me through it and help me to process it. Instead, I've become so scared of ruining this life that's already falling apart that I'm avoiding the very thing that, by all accounts, should help me. Isn't this where the greatest art comes from? ...from the depths of despair and anger and fear? Am I missing out on a huge treasure trove of art just beneath the surface?
What courage it must take for the artist to continue to wake up every single morning and commit to creating something even if he feels it will go absolutely nowhere. I know the failed projects are still learning opportunities -- I've experienced this myself. If it wasn't for the gong show that was my tenth NaNoWriMo novel, I wouldn't know what not to do nearly as well as I do now. The novels that came after that novel showed a marked jump up in quality, even for rough drafts. But for the artist to look at the families falling apart around him, to feel the pressure of a life of poverty that isn't always escapable, to see all the darkness consuming those he loves more than his own life, and to still try to capture the glimmer of light that he cannot see but hopes to heaven still exists is perhaps one of the greatest and most Herculean acts of courage a human being can attempt. And right now, I seriously doubt that I have that kind of courage -- the courage that whispers, hold on.
It's not about success. Or even about touching people's souls (yet). It's the courage to wake up every single morning and face a day in which somebody may die. Or leave their spouse. Or get cancer. And still try to create art to encourage people when your own soul despairs of ever being happy again.
19 February 2015
Of Children, Death, and Healing
A little boy died in Ontario today.
He had wandered out of his grandparents' apartment in the middle of the night into a twenty-below-Celsius night in a t-shirt and boots. They found him six hours later, still alive but not in good shape. And tonight he died. A little three-year-old boy died. It's heartbreaking to think that twenty-four hours ago, his parents and grandparents thought he had another seventy or eighty years left in his life -- his whole life stretching out before him -- and now it's gone. And he died alone, lost, probably frightened, freezing in the snow in a minus-thirty windchill. No-one to hug him and tell him they loved him and he was safe. And yet he had two loving parents and two loving grandparents. How awful this must be for them. How truly horrible. Twenty-four hours ago they were a normal family with a normal little boy.
Tonight I was at a voice recital at the college and as much as I tried to focus on the singers, my attention kept drifting to the director of my program sitting across the seating area from me, holding his little girl on his lap. He had his arms around her, rocking her in time to the music, dropping kisses on her blond head at regular intervals. She was resting her head on his shoulder and I tried to remember when I was her age and size, sitting on my own dad's lap like that and suddenly I thought, Enjoy it while you can; don't forget this moment, and I almost burst into tears right there. I could not remember specifically ever sitting on my dad's lap. I was never really a sit-on-a-lap kind of kid. I was too busy doing something -- playing a story or dancing. I don't remember being little enough for that and I don't actually remember the feel of my head on my dad's shoulder and his arms around me, rocking me. I'm sure all those things happened. I've seen it with my younger siblings. But I don't remember it for me.
They provide translations for the songs in the program. There was one, some German piece from Brahms, and the translation talked about names fading on old gravestones. The gravestones read 'we were.' So final, so dismal, so full of sadness and regret for things that could not be regained or recaptured or relived. We were, but we are no longer. It is over. It is gone. And then something poetic happened and then the gravestones read 'we were healed' and I could only think of my friend Brittney.
Grieving her death is a funny thing. I miss her. I hate knowing I will never see her or talk to her again before I myself die. But I know her breathing was tortured here -- to what extent I don't know, but I do know it was labourious -- and now for the first time she can breathe easily. She died, but it was death that finally healed her. Yet that healing came at the expense of furthering our collective relationships with her as her friends and family. I'm glad that she is healed, but I miss her so much.
He had wandered out of his grandparents' apartment in the middle of the night into a twenty-below-Celsius night in a t-shirt and boots. They found him six hours later, still alive but not in good shape. And tonight he died. A little three-year-old boy died. It's heartbreaking to think that twenty-four hours ago, his parents and grandparents thought he had another seventy or eighty years left in his life -- his whole life stretching out before him -- and now it's gone. And he died alone, lost, probably frightened, freezing in the snow in a minus-thirty windchill. No-one to hug him and tell him they loved him and he was safe. And yet he had two loving parents and two loving grandparents. How awful this must be for them. How truly horrible. Twenty-four hours ago they were a normal family with a normal little boy.
Tonight I was at a voice recital at the college and as much as I tried to focus on the singers, my attention kept drifting to the director of my program sitting across the seating area from me, holding his little girl on his lap. He had his arms around her, rocking her in time to the music, dropping kisses on her blond head at regular intervals. She was resting her head on his shoulder and I tried to remember when I was her age and size, sitting on my own dad's lap like that and suddenly I thought, Enjoy it while you can; don't forget this moment, and I almost burst into tears right there. I could not remember specifically ever sitting on my dad's lap. I was never really a sit-on-a-lap kind of kid. I was too busy doing something -- playing a story or dancing. I don't remember being little enough for that and I don't actually remember the feel of my head on my dad's shoulder and his arms around me, rocking me. I'm sure all those things happened. I've seen it with my younger siblings. But I don't remember it for me.
They provide translations for the songs in the program. There was one, some German piece from Brahms, and the translation talked about names fading on old gravestones. The gravestones read 'we were.' So final, so dismal, so full of sadness and regret for things that could not be regained or recaptured or relived. We were, but we are no longer. It is over. It is gone. And then something poetic happened and then the gravestones read 'we were healed' and I could only think of my friend Brittney.
Grieving her death is a funny thing. I miss her. I hate knowing I will never see her or talk to her again before I myself die. But I know her breathing was tortured here -- to what extent I don't know, but I do know it was labourious -- and now for the first time she can breathe easily. She died, but it was death that finally healed her. Yet that healing came at the expense of furthering our collective relationships with her as her friends and family. I'm glad that she is healed, but I miss her so much.
27 July 2012
Stream Of Consciousness -- The London 2012 Opening Ceremonies
(If I was on Twitter, my updates during the ceremony this afternoon might have gone something like this...)
~ Okay, the Rona commercials are officially the best of the Olympics. (I still miss Frank and Gordon though -- remember them from Torino 2006 on CBC?)
~ The music at the end of the opening bit, when they'd just forged the ring -- that was beautiful. I don't remember it anymore, but I remember thinking it was beautiful.
~ Can you fathom how many people were just dancing? And then how many people were technicians, working the lights and giving direction? How crazy organised was this? More crazy -- how much time did the choreographer spend on this? I'm sure he had assistants, but still -- I have trouble keeping track of a sixteen-person formation in my head. I can't even wrap my head around several thousand.
~ I seriously almost got my camera so I could take a picture of the rings against the darkening sky, even though it was on the TV screen. Stunning. The colour was fantastic.
~ OHMYGOODNESS IT'S MR BEAN!!!
~ Wow, Mr Bean got old... still just as funny though.
~ Holy man that's a lot of spandex... I mean, I wasn't around in the seventies so I don't know, but that still seems excessive...
~ That dance to Abide With Me was so cool! Though I wouldn't have put it to such a solemn song.
~ I would so love to be a part of something like this. It doesn't matter where or how or in what position -- I just want to be on that stage.
~ Ha, look at all those iPhones in the parade of nations.
~ Are you freaking kidding me? Am I seriously going to have to listen to that crappy I Believe song every hour for seventeen days -- again? No. No. Just -- no. (And to make this worse, I think this is a network decision, meaning we Canadians are the only ones who have to suffer... come on CTV, really? Really? There haven't been any half-decent songs recorded since Vancouver 2010 that you could play ad nauseum?)
~ I hope nobody in London planned on getting a 'decent' nights' sleep tonight. That light show would wake anybody.
~ I wonder just how many human beings there are in that place. You have all the athletes from all the countries, you have the spectators, you have everyone who shows up on the stage at some point in the show, you have all the technicians and the cameramen from who knows how many networks...
~ GO CANADA GO!!!
~ I so want to pull off something even a fraction of this magnitude.
~ Did you see the ceremony? Did you see how many people where there, giving their all for this? How much effort and detail and practice went into this? And Heaven will be something like this, only more so -- all the people praising God with this intensity and passion and exuberance. And it won't be over in four hours -- it'll go on for eternity.
Awesome.
~ Okay, the Rona commercials are officially the best of the Olympics. (I still miss Frank and Gordon though -- remember them from Torino 2006 on CBC?)
~ The music at the end of the opening bit, when they'd just forged the ring -- that was beautiful. I don't remember it anymore, but I remember thinking it was beautiful.
~ Can you fathom how many people were just dancing? And then how many people were technicians, working the lights and giving direction? How crazy organised was this? More crazy -- how much time did the choreographer spend on this? I'm sure he had assistants, but still -- I have trouble keeping track of a sixteen-person formation in my head. I can't even wrap my head around several thousand.
~ I seriously almost got my camera so I could take a picture of the rings against the darkening sky, even though it was on the TV screen. Stunning. The colour was fantastic.
~ OHMYGOODNESS IT'S MR BEAN!!!
~ Wow, Mr Bean got old... still just as funny though.
~ Holy man that's a lot of spandex... I mean, I wasn't around in the seventies so I don't know, but that still seems excessive...
~ That dance to Abide With Me was so cool! Though I wouldn't have put it to such a solemn song.
~ I would so love to be a part of something like this. It doesn't matter where or how or in what position -- I just want to be on that stage.
~ Ha, look at all those iPhones in the parade of nations.
~ Are you freaking kidding me? Am I seriously going to have to listen to that crappy I Believe song every hour for seventeen days -- again? No. No. Just -- no. (And to make this worse, I think this is a network decision, meaning we Canadians are the only ones who have to suffer... come on CTV, really? Really? There haven't been any half-decent songs recorded since Vancouver 2010 that you could play ad nauseum?)
~ I hope nobody in London planned on getting a 'decent' nights' sleep tonight. That light show would wake anybody.
~ I wonder just how many human beings there are in that place. You have all the athletes from all the countries, you have the spectators, you have everyone who shows up on the stage at some point in the show, you have all the technicians and the cameramen from who knows how many networks...
~ GO CANADA GO!!!
~ I so want to pull off something even a fraction of this magnitude.
~ Did you see the ceremony? Did you see how many people where there, giving their all for this? How much effort and detail and practice went into this? And Heaven will be something like this, only more so -- all the people praising God with this intensity and passion and exuberance. And it won't be over in four hours -- it'll go on for eternity.
Awesome.
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