Friday, May 26, 2017

Sea Glass: There's No Place Like

He’s sprawled on the couch, watching his latest favourite show while I am sprawled upside down, head on his lap and feet up on the back of the couch. Ostensibly reading, but really at this moment I am watching him from under my eyelashes, watching him upside down. It is a favourite place to be for me: not just there beside him or head on his lap but upside down, too. There is a infinite realism to experiencing the world this way, head over heels, or heels over head (...).

Life, I find, is sometimes too often experienced the way physics and biology, allegedly, designated us to do. But then if we didn’t let ourselves break rules, break hearts, break and fall over, trip, tumble, somersault or even get stuck when turned inside out and upside down, maybe we couldn’t really appreciate all there is to experience.

I can hear his heartbeat, the slow, steady and solid rhythm that’s often put me to sleep, has calmed me on nights when I’m wide awake and blinking in the dark. Same rhythm that has lulled me into a slow, lazy and content slumber. His face is a mask of ferocious grimace as he stares at the screen, inscrutable.

And yet, I watch and read so much. Not watchful as maybe an older, albeit younger, me would have done. There’s a peace in this place. Sometimes it is quiet, and not a word needs to pass. Sometimes, it is full of chatter, of giggles, hiccups, murmurs and sighs. A lot of times the peace of pure friendship, companionship, is cut through with a lightning bolt of electrical frisson as hairs spark on fire and emotions rage. This, to me, is the calmest place. This rocking ball of fire, topically rearranged as sensitivity, despair, uneasiness and anger, is sanctuary.

There once was a time and place when I wouldn’t have thought so. But edges of things broken have smoothed away. Sometimes it was time that did that smoothing, and sometimes I had to sequester myself in a dark closet armed with a nail file to metaphorically chisel away at those sharp broken edges to make them easier to live with. There once was a time when this left me bleeding and in puddles, ponds, oceans of tears. But a broken shard of glass lost in the sea returns to the shore as a smooth gemstone reflecting a million colours.

Now when we rage, I feel at home. Because that is the security of unconditional love. No matter how much you lambast the other, no matter how much you throw plates, books or grenades, you know that this is a safety net, an ever-expanding sanctuary that can contain all of that, can withstand all the flames and blasts. Boundaries of a certain brand of companionship that is far more elastic and accommodating than that of any other. That is home.

Even when we go quiet for days. Me in my place, he in his. Even when time just keeps going on its journey, the sanctuary of home exists.

It is this peace, this quintessence of love, that permeates the space of infinity. A place I continue to poke and prod, questioning its existence.  Sometimes it whispers back an inscrutable answer: I don’t need to understand it for it to happen.





Wednesday, May 24, 2017

How To Break Up

I've been reading quite a bit lately, catching up on the last eight months, one might say. Anyways, I'm currently reading three and a half books and the latest one I picked up is written by one of my once-upon-a-time favourite fiction writers, only this time it is non-fiction. I haven't been too happy with what I have been reading and a thorough review will be forthcoming, but I'm sitting on my bed cross-legged in my shorts after my shower and reading when I came across the following passage,which, upon reading I burst out laughing with a belly-aching laugh and fell off my bed.

"If I had wanted to end my marriage it would have been easier. I'd say, 'We need to talk.' Then, 'It's not you, it's me.' Or, 'I just cant do this any more' (the current favourite phrase from relationship-enders), and that would be it. I'd be free!"
- Making It Up As I Go Along, Marian Keyes

Friday, May 19, 2017

Love Story in a Cemetary

 She stopped, and we set down the water. She looked over to a grave. 

"He died last year," she said. In front of his grave was a lush flower garden. She bent down to pull a few weeds. 

"We lived in a small apartment nearby," She said. "He always wanted to give me a garden." I told her I was sorry for her loss. 

"Don't be, dear," she said. "I loved him enough to want him to go first. I was always better at handling the difficulties." 

She smiled wide. "He was better at the lighter side of life. He may be gone but not everything is gone. He left me with enough good memories to see me through until it's my time."

— Paris Letters, Macleod