crazyadventuresofcrazygirl

What do a tall, handsome, charming, polyamorous man, two hippies living on the fringes of society, a too young poet with some serious personal issues, and a slightly less young poet with slightly fewer issues and a girlfriend he wasn’t mentioning have in common?

All of them were entirely unsuitable for me as long term partners, which made them safe to get involved with.

My current romantic fantasy involves falling in love with a nice man in Mexico, and what could be safer than having an entire extra country between us? So probably I’m still not really interested.

Dreamy Newfoundland boys are also fun to think about. That’s a little closer to home. Progress, maybe.

I dunno. Boys are scary. And they take your freedom away, and superimpose their skewed vision of who you are on top of your own identity, turning you into some warped, semi-dimensional kind of comic book sidekick, erasing your backstory and overlooking your motivations and reducing you to the negative sum of your parts plus their own fears and desires.

Hey lady. Don’t look now, but I think your frayed edges are showing.

I’d been hoping for a weekend of solitude, but it can be difficult to make those happen, or pick and choose when they’ll occur. Life is rather insistent, with its assortment of Things That Need Attending To. Which is okay. I had a wonderful time on the tournaments desk at CanGames, being silly and causing trouble, ummmmmm, I mean helping make sure people were able to register for the games they wanted to play. Between shifts, I ran home and thrilled in the emptiness of my Technicolor Cottage.

But it dawned on me this weekend, that if I had a romantic partner, said partner would most likely want a significant amount of my attention. This could be a problem. Turns out, I like to be alone. A lot. I like going places alone. I like poking through bookstores and vintage shops and wandering streets taking pictures, alone. I love sitting in a great big window in a coffee shop, by myself, watching the world go by. I don’t much care for having to worry about which direction someone else wants to take. I love waking up in an empty house; the extravagant pleasure of doing anything I wish, uninterrupted, being able to eat what I please, nap when I want, and lose myself in whatever acts of magic or mayhem I can dream up.

Even worse, a romantic partner might eventually want to live with me!!! Definitely a problem. I’m not taking down my butterflies, or toning down my technicolor decorating scheme, for anyone. My wall full of dresses remains where it is. And there is really not enough room for anyone else’s books around here. I don’t want to have to contemplate the fair division of housework or worry about someone who expects a proper meal when I just want to eat corn chips and peanut butter.

Soooo … maybe there’s a lover out there who would like to go out and play, and share my wonder (or at the very least appreciate it!), now and then come over to watch movies and have living room picnics and occasional nights that stretch into long, leisurely brunches …. and then happily goes away when I want a break?

This, my friends, is what happens when a girl goes and figures out how she wants things for herself.

in a good way. probably. I think?

Right. So. I’ve signed up for doula training and certification. Registered for the summer term in first year Spanish. Maybe completely changed my intended focus from sociolinguistics to human rights and the status of women in developing countries.

This doesn’t make me flaky and unfocussed, does it? And what if I fail everything?! What am I doing?!

Cookies. I should bake some cookies. I’m good at that.

Every now and then it still induces a sudden flip flop lurching of the stomach, a queer tilting of the floor tossing me into the crazy house mirror of my life; I am here, not there, not where I thought I would be was meant to go and where is this here, if not my intended destination?

The time travelling expectations of my body, as the house eases into stillness with the night, and my spine can feel the absence pressing empty down my length, the vast nowhere curling into me in the space of former belonging,

blank walls once enveloped.

me.

She told me I had to make sense and my senses, numb, only laughed.

my newest new life plan:

read write travel write take pictures write read find some way to contribute to and participate in prenatal and early postnatal care for women in marginalized communities, provide nutrition support and education, and finally, find some way to apply my study of sociolinguistics in a social activist setting, supporting linguistic diversity, honouring the link between language and culture. in mexico. while running a bookstore/cafe/drop in centre on the side. oh, and keeping bees. don’t forget the bees!

No really. It’s all coming together in my head, I swear.

Except what’s supposed to be coming together in my head is further reports of the trip I just took. Or more importantly, coming out of my head. But you get what you get and this is what’s now.

Also feeling more than ever so inadequate, not hearing back from the Mothercraft program I wishhopewanted to be a part of. Interviews should have happened in March, with training to begin in April. I held my breath and let days whisper past. I know I should have sent a follow up message when I didn’t hear, but some of my confidence is still bravado and I worried. Now nothing and I waver between suspecting I was passed over in favour of candidates with more to offer, and wondering if perhaps the program was abruptly cut … as many social programs are these days.

My soap bubble hopes are some days fragile, but the lovely thing is there are always more and I thinkknowbelieve I will find a way to do this.

One of the things I keep having to learn, and learn again, in this new Life That Is All My Own, is that I can do anything. All the things. Every time I think I’ve figured it out, the bigness of it gets bigger. Travelling to Mexico, it finally finally dawned I could Be elsewhere in this bigsmall world.

Delays and delays and delays at Ottawa airport. Apparently someone on the flight we were meeting had a medical emergency after leaving Montreal. No further details given, I still wonder and fret about the stranger who missed their vacation.

So it was nearly 1AM when finally we landed, making our way through an empty airport in Cancun. Customs was not the lengthy, stressful ordeal I was prepared for it to be. I imagined stern faced men with firearms asking pointed questions, and luggage being searched … no more Hollywood for me.

We zipped right through and out into a fragrant Mexican night. The air was lush, damp and warm, not the wall of heat I’d been told to expect. The highway from the airport is studded with colourful billboards celebrating local attractions: Xcaret, Delphinus Adventures, Rio Secreto, Xel-Ha. The Xel-Ha were my favourite, joyful splashes of tropical fish darting across the landscape.

It was past 2AM by the time we were deposited at our resort, still bright and lively even at that time. There was a rowdy gaggle of college students partying in the lobby bar. One of them had been dared – or maybe just challenged? – to run laps around the bar while the others chanted encouragement. Maybe it was a drinking game? I wondered at the patience of the bar staff.

The lobby was all columns and ceiling, open everywhere, the walls almost not there, carefully arranged not to trap heat, but to allow for cool breezes. Christine checked us in while I spun in slow circles, spellbound taking in the newness. It wasn’t the last time my generous travel partner managed the details while I was caught up in the shade of blossoms or the texture of foliage or the salt kiss of sea spray.

Silhouettes of palm trees against the dark, moist air hanging exotic around us as we made our way down a gently lit path to our room. Sleepy enough to drop straight into bed, in spite of the excitement.

There were moments, endless, frozen moments, just 18 months ago, give or take a day, where I really felt maybe I just couldn’t keep living. Understand me: I wasn’t suicidal, I had no wish to end my life. I just wasn’t sure my heart could survive the tearing. I felt like I was walking through days with no hope, no possibility, no capacity for joy remaining. I woke up for my kids. They were all the will, all the purpose I had left. My spirit was grey and silent.

But pleasure is always there, waiting to seep in through spaces unattended. There is magic just in being. We grow, even with branches severed, when it seems our roots are dead. In spite of ourselves, we dance again, in a world where Grandfathers are lost and husbands betray.

We survive. Because there is a bottom to our pain. There really is a point where we can’t feel anymore. We can reach that point, and we do keep going. But there is no ceiling to the joy we can experience, the awestruck wonder we can feel when we’re ready to look outward again.

It’s the lesson I’ve been learning since my life fell apart, but in Mexico, that truth hit home with particular clarity.

Riding back from a day spent swimming against the tide, clear out into the open ocean, crystal bright and blue drenched, heart quenched with the gratitude of living, side by side in a world of powder soft sand, salt water crystals against my lips, with giant turtles swirling peaceful quiet under the surf.

Glowing joyful with the magic found stepping lightly through jungle paths, spotting butterflies and wee pineapples and enormous banana flowers and tiny black bees. The immense black hush of a secret underground river and the gentle new friend who sweetly shared his own favourite places and treasures.

The delight of an old friend who became a fun and fabulous travel companion, encouraging me and guiding me through places I couldn’t have dreamed of visiting, holding my hand as we swam together in the ocean, and laughing and dreaming of doing it all again. Soon.

Life hurts some of the time. But it is always, always beautiful.