two new friends…

one very dear friend,  and two new ones….

How life has changed...:)

highs and lows…

                                                   “You’re always free

                                                     to change your mind and

                                                    choose a different future, or

                                                    a different

                                                    past.”

                                                                            -richard bach

 

 

after a rough night, i needed to remember these words….

vancouver pride parade

just a few pics of vancouver pride in august….it was a beautiful sunny day…

thoughts from last friday…

ontario and two friends…

i ran away from home this week. away from the thought of returning to work, or returning to my life. i ran here to toronto, just for a few days, just to take another breath…and i have it. i found it in two special friends…

patti….we see each other only periodically….months and months go by without contact….but she is there….we pick up as if we never left off….

she picked me up fom the airport and we spent a few hours catching up…well, i did most of the talking (she is patient with me)… the next day we sat by her garden, the sun shining, eating the edemame she had grown herself, marvelling at the beauty of the delicate leafbug she happened upon. i met her 2 amazing little girls again….

with no judgement, she listens, she accepts, she celebrates…her love is intense, it is real. i am honured that she is in my life….

damien….a former room-mate…my oldest friend…we are in each others lives for good…no amount of time will change that….he is a part of my past, my present, and my future…

i remember our past as i see him now, and marvel at how he has created his life, the life he shares with his partner and their two sons….

a midnight swim in the pool, cigarellos, a 12 year old bottle of scotch, and a soak in the hot-tub….medicine indeed for a restless soul….

breakfast and coffee in the backyard (thank-you mike), a hug from their 2 sweet boys, and i’m off again…..

tonight i sit here in a beautiful hotel room, glass of red wine, and my thoughts….it’s a friday night in toronto. i had thought to go out to a club or a bar and find some adventure…instead, i chose to order room-service, and have a hot bath….

i’m thinking about patti and damien and their families, and about other friends who choose to be in my life…..like e.b. who writes to reminds me that she’s glad i’m in her life, like e.c. who is as much friend as family….like r.s. who just patiently accepts, and has been there for me when i finally let her….and about the friends that have lost contact..who have floated away….

conversations in a hallway….

He announces, “We’re just conduits for god. God come into us. God comes out through us.”

            I stop for a moment and look at him, not knowing how to being to explain what he obviously does not understand about me. “If by ‘God’, you mean some entity external to ourselves, then there is no ‘God’. It’s not a part of my belief system.

            “But we cannot exist without God. It is what we are.”

“No”, I counter, “we are energy. All that is, all this world, what we can fathom, and what we cannot, is a kind of energy. The wonder of each of us, the wonder of the world, of the universe is energy. Sometimes I call it my spirit, sometimes my soul, but it is all energy that connects us”.

            “Do you believe in love?” he asks.

            “Yes”. 

            “Well, that is God”.

thoughts on an early sunday morning….

many people write about identity, how each of us defines who we are, and what labels to wear for the rest of the world. some people say that they won’t be labelled, that labels are only a way of restricting who we are. i honour that….but, at this moment in my life, i guess i chose to wear one.

 

when i fully understood my love for women, i thought about what that meant for how i defined myself. it’s not the first time i thought about how i am defined, by myself and by others. i am of mixed heritage, a first nations mother, and a father of european descent. i grew up with a mutli-cultural awareness, and live what some people call a “hyphenated reality”, aboriginal-canadian…. some would argue that the hyphenated reality is crap…that we’re all just canadians, that we’re all really the same, with similar wants and needs in life – food, shelter, love, financial security, a place to feel we belong….- and those people are correct to a certain extent.  but i believe that our cultures play a large role in how we view the world, and the people in it…. and by “culture”, i mean more than our ethnic heritage. we all belong to many cultures. i live in a north american culture, am immersed in the popular culture of canada and the united states. i work and interact in the culture of educators (anyone in that culture knows what it’s about). i get to have an almost daily view of teenage culture (which becomes do much more defined to me, the older i get), anyhow, one can get the idea…culture is what we consider normal in the groups we see ourselves as belonging to….

 

so, back to defining myself…..for all of my adult life i defined myself as bi-sexual (but i usually kept that to myself). i was attracted to women, but i was in relationships with men… then, at a point, i realized that my attraction to women was very strong. when i was with a woman i felt “home”…so i defined myself as lesbian or gay. i was completely comfortable doing that, and doing it publicly.

 

but now here i am again….having spent  the last weeks struggling with how i define myself again (due to some recent experiences). some may say that it is not necessary. why even waste time thinking about it? i do it for myself.  the “claiming” of who i am was/is important to me. i do it partly as a political gesture, and partly as a personal one (someone once wrote that the personal is political)….it is a part of honouring myself, and the struggles i’ve gone through to get here…

 

and what had been going on for me is the awareness that i am still attracted to men. so, now i move back to my former self-definition as bi-sexual…but now, i am doing it publicly, and that’s a whole different place to be in. you see, i’ve learned that in both the straight and gay communities, there is often much mis-understanding, and prejudice about people who define themselves as bi-sexual. it is actually easier for me to identify as lesbian than bi, but it is not honest….and i’m through with hiding who i am. i am strongly attracted, both emotionally and sexually, to men and to women. it comes down the individual person, not his or her gender…. as the saying goes…love is love….

 

images…

the quintissential french fashion accessory - the scarf....me on an open air double decker about to see paris by night, then meet a sexy parisian for a drink....could it get any better....?

me in giverny, france...in claude monet

anonymity

i once thought to be anonymous on my blogs…thinking it would provide me with some sense of security. it was a part of a carfully constructed blanket that i wove around myself thinking it would keep me safe in this world….realize now that it blanket was in fact keeping me a part from the world and slowly smothering me…

when i finially put a profile pic of myself on my first blog, i felt at first overwhelming anxiety…i had, after all, moved out of a carefully controlled comfort zone…but i also felt a sense of liberation. i didn’t realize how powerful that sense would become. it built upon the changes that were occurring inside of me…changes that were helped along by the fact that i was putting my words out into the public realm, cracking open my soul and letting people glimpse in to the person i am, the struggles i deal with….

embracing life, for me, means being fully who i am, and not apologizing for or denying any part of me. so i put my pic on this blog (“a little about me” page) because my physical self has defined so much of my life, as any woman who has grown up large in a society that values smaller woman would understand.

I have met so many people in this world who try to deny who they are for the sake of others’ opinions, or dislike themselves so much that they need to hurt others to express their pain….it’s not for me anymore….not anymore….

i celebrate who i am, what i am, good and bad….it’s all in me….and it’s all me….

“perchance to dream”

oh to sleep…
what would i give for a night’s sleep?
for at least 4 hours of uninterrupted, restful sleep….?
i don’t know….

i have insomnia, no more than an hour of sleep at a time…and even that hour is not restful. then i awake…fully… and to the realization that the night will be a long one indeed….
i’ve finally given up. i’ve gone to bed at least three times tonight…and three times after fitful dozing, given up and come into the living room to surf the next, or chat on-line….i’m now up for the day…at 5 am on a morning with a cup of coffee, waiting for the sun to rise…

my latest undertaking….on-line “chatting”….

i never thought i would do that…..”meet” people on-line and chat (aside from getting to know people through my and their blogs) but i have. i took the plunge and even started instant messaging (yes….i am way behind the curve on that one…) and in a phrase…holy fuck!…there are some interesting people in this world. i mean that in the best way, and in the worst way….in order to meet some sane (well, relatively….) people, i’ve had to wade through some muck. and the muck doesn’t always make itself evident at first….

anyhow, i shall continue with the chatting thing for a while, and see where it takes me. the truth is, i am in search of something more than what i have made of my life so far. i have 10 more months to go before i move, but mentally, i’m ready to go now. i want to meet more people….to travel….to have adventures…i’m ready for that now…maybe too ready…

i need somebody to remind me to be patient….that i will be able to make my life what i want of it, but that it might take a little time….

beauty in the small things..

the grandness of a french palace does not eclipse the beauty of this found treasure