i need... i need to write. something. anything. this constant refrain today, pushing, pressing, pulsing against my teeth. but the words are just out of reach... floating somewhere in my throat, caught beneath my tongue. they can't come out. they won't come out. they're not here. i'm not here.

a look through four years of journal entries has shown me how little i've changed.. how i keep falling into the same holes; keep clawing myself out, breaking the same nails; how my opinion of myself hasn't changed a molecule; how surprised i am, still, by the cruelty of the world

thoroughly inspired by last night's Open Floor event to write a spoken word piece
...
getting over my performance terror will be quite another matter

on the strength of olfactory memory

a hazelnut-flavoured coffee threw me back to classes at Sidney Smith with ferocious nostalgia; with the heartache of a lost love; with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life

i'm often told, now, that i "don't seem myself." which self do they mean? the self who socializes? the self whose face doesn't betray every painful/unhappy thought? the cheerful self who spreads cheer?

sometimes that self can't do it.

זיכרונו לברכה

may your memory be blessed. i'm writing these words for the second time in less than a week... a refuge in what feels like a truer expression of grief, of condolence. may your memory be a blessing.

for years, i thought of this day.. how we would take the loss--how we would feel his passing. i never imagined that it would be in such a world; that he would leave us in such a world.

there are no better words.. none more beautiful, none more elegant, none sharper, none finer, none more acute, more suspended in time and memory and life and love than your own

let's not talk of love or chains 
and things we can't untie
your eyes are soft with sorrow 
hey, that's no way to say goodbye...

we will miss you more than you could ever have known.

rest in peace, L. Cohen.

someone once told me, long ago, that deseeding a pomegranate is an expression of love.

yesterday

when i was supposed to be the strong one

when sonata told me that she thinks.. she thinks she was prepared; and i thought it was a good idea to sit down for this phone call

when i prayed that she didn't hear my voice shake

when i realized that it was the first lunch hour i need not call

when my manager was shocked at how quickly the burial took place... when i thought it's better this way--isn't waiting somehow heartless; somehow cruel

....

when my mom told me how the death of her father didn't truly hit her until much, much later. when i wished that i had not been so young; that i could remember more than his smile

when i wished, under and around my guilt, that i had been there for my father's parents

זיכרונה לברכה

Эмма наша дорогая
may your memory be blessed.. may your memory always be blessed with the warmth and kindness of your life

lay your head where my heart used to be ... you'll never be free of me

the conscious process of letting go--of a thought, an idea, a hope, a person, your understanding of things, your idea of yourself--while sad and uncomfortable and searingly painful, at first, should be empowering.

can i accept the fact that i may never be published? maybe.
will this stop me from writing? no.
if i don't have the talent to edit professionally, will i be ok with doing something else? i have to be.
if i'm not effective in any way--about anything--will i keep trying? probably; i'm a terrible idealist.

will i ever learn to be a calmer, more detached, more graceful person? probably not.
does any of this really matter? probably not.

just live. find a way to live.