read this book

imagine this:  several days before christmas, your only daughter falls ill and lies, unresponsive, in a coma.  you and your husband leave the hospital and sit down to dinner at home.  as you finish mixing the salad, you look over to your husband who is suddenly slumped motionless on the table.  he has suffered a massive, fatal coronary event.

life changes fast.

life changes in an instant.

you sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

so begins the book, the year of magical thinking, by joan didion.  the book chronicals the year following the death of didion’s huband, and the sudden (and ultimately fatal) illness of her only daughter.

we are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves.  as we were.  as we are no longer.  as we will one day not be at all.

grief, sorrow, madness, pain, confusion — they are all among the cast of characters in this tale of loss and healing — sprinkled in somewhere along the way, comfort. i found this book right when i needed it most.

i noticed the other day that the text on the cover of the book is black save for a few letters in blue.  together, those blue letters spell, john, didion’s husband’s name.  a fitting and beautiful tribute to a life shared, lost, and remembered.

it’s the truth (if you think it is)

truth — it’s something i’m constantly seeking.

to me, words are one of the few things that possess some absolute quality of truth.  not spoken words, but written words.  that probably explains why i’m such a collector of words — i have notebooks upon notebooks full of quotes, thoughts, random words that i don’t want to forget.

when i communicate with others, i prefer to do it in two ways — face-to-face or in writing.  of those two, there’s something magical about a written exchange.  i love reading and re-reading the words of others.  i love the text itself, the letters, whether handwritten or in type.  i find beauty in the absoluteness of words — they exist independently, and are not qualified or limited by anything.  words are pure and unconditional.

think about it:  i can write you a lie, but the words will be true.

ask me to recall a conversation, and you get my truth, my impression, which has been filtered through my experience and my lenses of reality.  my version of the exchange might be nothing more than a pale and lifeless rendering of the teller’s original story, long since dissolved into the ether.  but with written words, there is a promise of permanence, that in two months, two years, two decades, the words will remain the same.  sure, the context in which they are read may change, but the words themselves are no different.  the words are safe and untouched — almost like the faces in a photograph.

and it’s there, in that promise, that i find both beauty and truth.

words of another

the god who loves you

it must be troubling for the god who loves you
to ponder how much happier you’d be today
had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
it must be painful for him to watch you on friday evenings
driving home from the office, content with your week—
three fine houses sold to deserving families—
knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
had you gone to your second choice for college,
knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
whose ardent opinions on painting and music
would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
a life thirty points above the life you’re living
on any scale of satisfaction. and every point
a thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
you don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
so she can save her empathy for the children.
and would you want this god to compare your wife
with the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
it hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
you’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
than the conversation you’re used to.
and think how this loving god would feel
knowing that the man next in line for your wife
would have pleased her more than you ever will
even on your best days, when you really try.
can you sleep at night believing a god like that
is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
you’re spared by ignorance? the difference between what is
and what could have been will remain alive for him
even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
running out in the snow for the morning paper,
losing eleven years that the god who loves you
will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
no wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
no closer than the actual friend you made at college,
the one you haven’t written in months. sit down tonight
and write him about the life you can talk about
with a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

(c. dennis)

read this book

it’s amazing how much can be said in just six words.

back in july, i wrote about ernest hemmingway’s story and SMITH magazine’s project to compile six word memoirs.  their second collection, six word memoirs of love and heartbreak, was recently released.  just in time for valentine’s day.

it’s truly worth a read.  here are a few of my favourites:

i loved the idea of you.  (a. adu-appiah)

tomorrow, maybe, i’ll sell the ring. (m. tanner)

everyone’s crazy except you and me. (m. fraunfelder)

it hurts even worse in french. (d. pollard)

we’ll break up before this prints. (p. khakpour)

right people. wrong place. wrong time.  (t. wells)

i thought we had more time.  (j. hill)

hope

i’m filled with hope today as i watch my country welcome a new president.

hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
and sings the tune–without the words,
and never stops at all,

and sweetest in the gale is heard;
and sore must be the storm
that could abash the little bird
that kept so many warm.

i’ve heard it in the chillest land,
and on the strangest sea;
yet, never, in extremity,
it asked a crumb of me.

(e. dickinson)

twenty one

[originally posted on january 06, 2007. one of my favourites from the archives.]

someone i don’t know and will probably never meet wrote something about me. okay, technically, it’s not about me, but, if i were to ask someone to describe me in words, i couldn’t dream of something more perfect than this:

she seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon.

you think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong.

passion flows through her like a river of blood.

she only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell.

all your tomorrows start here. (n. gaiman)

it’s strange when you come across something that cuts you right to the core. something that speaks to that part of you that only wakes for moments of clarity and transcendence. something that is absolutely true.

this much i know: i am a complicated person. i am not easy to define. i am certainly not easy to know. but don’t ever let my quiet nature and cool detachment distract you from the truth. there is a kaleidoscope of things lurking just beneath the surface – things that are constantly in motion, forming and reforming, sometimes fragmented, often fragile, but always beautiful in their potential for greatness.

if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of this when the mask slips.

if you’re patient, i might let the mask slip, just for a moment, just for you.

fifteen

[originially posted on december 15, 2006.  i repost this today as a reminder to never forget the path that has brought me to this day, to this moment, to this breath.  consider this a goodbye and a thank you.]

i think everyone who knows me will agree that i am a very reserved person. if you disagree than you either don’t know me at all, or you know me much too well. i happen to be someone who believes that words are powerful. i don’t feel comfortable slinging them around casually because i’ve come to understand that the echos can go on forever. in an instant i can recall the most hurtful thing that was ever said to me — the tone, the inflection, the words — they are all etched permanently in my mind. once said, something can never be unsaid.

that is why i have so many secrets.

i don’t think i’m the only one. it’s not that i’m purposefully hiding things, it’s just that there are moments in my life that i choose not to share. i choose not to put them into words — some because they are too painful, others because they are too beautiful, and then there are a few that are just too sacred. it’s almost as if assigning words to them would place an artificial limit on the experience itself. the power of some moments is found in the spaces between words, in the things left unsaid, in the telling silences.

*12/15* is one of the days that i cannot put into words. it also happens to be one of the true defining moments of my life. the only person who knows of this day is the person who lived it with me. the real beauty of the experience is that it exists only for us. it is a ‘shared’ secret that remains so through an absolute, unspoken trust. that day transformed, empowered and enlightened me. that day was a turning point in my life.

and just like that, i’ve already said too much.

the words get in the way of the message, which is this: your life can change in a moment. it isn’t important that you know what happened that december, only that i heard what i needed to hear — and the message did not come in words.

sometimes you have to close your eyes to truly see.

*this* is my deepest secret.

ten

every now and then, i’ll come across a song that stops me in my tracks.  cannonball, by damien rice, is such a song.  i include the lyrics here because, on their own, they say so much.  paired with the music, though, this song says so much more. absolutely achingly beautiful.  (many thanks to e.y. for the introduction.)

there’s still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
there’s still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
it’s still a little hard to say what’s going on

there’s still a little bit of your ghost, your witness
there’s still a little bit of your face i haven’t kissed
you step a little closer each day
and i can’t say what’s going on

stones taught me to fly
love, it taught me to lie
life, it taught me to die
so it’s not hard to fall
when you float like a cannonball

there’s still a little bit of your song in my ear
there’s still a little bit of your words i long to hear
you step a little closer to me
so close that i can’t see what’s going on

stones taught me to fly
love taught me to lie
life taught me to die
‘cos its not hard to fall,
and i don’t want to scare her
its not hard to fall
and i don’t want to lose
its not hard to grow old
when you know that you just don’t know