thistrainride

"End Joy" Rough cuts of an afternoon of improv

2010-06-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

2010-06-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Romance of Rain

2009-10-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

The dark season has arrived. Where I live it rains, a lot, in fact our winters are just monthes and monthes of rain. The air changes, the earth exudes a dampness, and suddenly I wake up to a spectrum of grey instead of the summer sun.
Many people suffer depression in this period, we all seem insular withdrawing all warmth to our core. Even the architecture seems to change, moving activity inside - behind closed blinds, sealed windows; patios are abandoned, porches left dark.
But, I have learnt to love the rain. It provides a mask for those risks you took in the light, a veil that covers the stumbles and rejections of summer's romances. Its floods quench our parched bodies and surge new hopes in our hot beating hearts.
This should be the true season of romance.
We are all exposed in our humanity, we sniffle and scurry, we lose our stilhettos and tans, and we are simplified. The romance of rain comes in drizzles, we shelter one another, feel damp together, and form community under the eaves. It is a romance of modesty.
The rain sliding down my window is almost sensual. I find increased confidence in this darkness, while in summer I timidly stepped out, like a fawn, and found my new legs, in the misty veil of winter I feel powerful and ambitious.
I become the dark lady, the intensity of femininity, I romance the rain.

Lullaby

2009-09-28T16:59:00.000-07:00

The last week of my life has felt like a year.
I worked 12-14 hours of every day, travelled across 1 province and 3 states, and did so with company that 9 days ago were strangers. I have been through a gamut of emotions and feel like a stone that was wrung until water poured out.
I am now lying once again on my own little bed with its familiar lilac comforter, in my new purple sweater, listening to a country lullaby. I am still. I am still for the first time in hundreds of hours.

Still.

The chaos of a busy life rarely affords me these moments -- or rather my choice to live busily offers me a chaos as an excuse to neglecting these moments. But right now I am not afraid of these slow silent minutes to just be. I have cried, strived, and broken these week and I am now not afraid of what may come out if I face the solitude, the stillness, the silence.

Until the sun breaks tomorrow morning, ushering in a new week where hidden flaws may surface, confidence crack, or expectations heighten -- I can just be; silent, still, and listening. Listening to the lullaby that holds and rocks me like a gentle breath.

Leaving the Station

2009-05-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

I was once told that life is like a train ride, and that instead of being worried about the destination I should just focus on the journey -- because in the end that's what life is, the train ride.
Well I've got to be honest, I just think that sounds a little cliche. What about the work and the planning...how the hell are my dreams going to emerge out of staring out the window at the blurry landscape? Half the time I barely feel like my life is moving at all, I need a destination just to believe the wheels are turning and not rusted together.
The truth is I don't want to accept the train proverb because I am afraid. If I can't painstakingly drive the stakes into the ground, carefully measure out the distance to success, and plan my route -- how will I know it will happen? If I am just staring out the window I might not be on the tracks at all I might be a lonely caboose stuck in the middle of the prairies, a mindless blip in the field. Stuck and alone. Its really the fodder of every childhood horror story. But is also the foundation of every fairytale, it reeks of longing and potential, ...and it teeters on the brink of tomorrow, of hope, of possibility.
So here I am, a single girl in her twenties armed with a great pair of shoes, some bad poetry and a remnant of the naivety of youth. I am opening my eyes, staring out from window seat, and watching the train station fade into the distance.