The Letting Go (a project of sorts):

LOVE COMES TO ME
---
Without any words, you hand me a leaf. It is brittle enough to splinter immediately at my touch. I avert my eyes down to the cracked sidewalk beneath us, and you lick your lips. They are very dry. You ask me what I am doing tonight and I say "nothing", and then we are sitting by the river and we share a cigarette and I find myself thinking that you are sort of interesting.

STRANGE FORM OF LIFE
---
If the night air reeked of anything, it was possibility. There was no sign of anybody at all nearby, but I felt a strange stirring in my bones. The only sound that tore through the stillness was my own ragged breath, but I sensed that the hour was charged with something rare. All I could smell was deadened rain and it made me feel wickedly drunk.

WAI
---
In Catholic church, we used to reach out our skinny fingers during communion and trace them over the heavy fur coats of women passing by. These women were going forward to receive tiny pieces of stale white bread, along with a shot of stiff red wine. They always seemed to us, crouched back in the rigid pews of wood, impossibly old and even more boring. Instead of being gifted this food and drink, we dragged our feet forward to be blessed instead; a rough hand brushing our foreheads and the barely suppressed laughter shared between us. Week after week after month after a slice of childhood.

CURSED SLEEP
---
The only aspect of my beautiful new apartment that I hated was the fact that I found sleep terrifying. It was continually fitful; drenched with the grime of ghosts (I realize it sounds laughable, but they were absolutely ghosts) that laid their tongues and their fingers of discontent all over me. They held elaborate dinner parties in my dining room, hung like hovering birds over me in the darkness of my bedroom, ran their spiky fingers all over the walls, and generally just fucked my head up. For some reason, they were always female, always long and dishevel-haired, and always tireless.

NO BAD NEWS
---
I regretted only the placement of my body at that point. I was twisted over a haggard park bench, evergreen trees draping on all sides, and a tile of grass beneath me. There was not even so much as a stick within reach, never mind the possibility of anything sharper. Where was the knife; the gun; the rope? I thought that I might throw up, and then I did. When I peel myself back up off the ground wet with my devastation, the supply of potential weapons is looking no better. I call my mother and dissolve into tears.

COLD AND WET
---
The champagne shrieks open and into glasses that are anorexically thin. Voices lift and fall, twining from room to separate room. The crackling liquid snakes its way down my throat with startling ease. I feel my tired limbs shiver and then loosen. We wander down the Crescent, happy and stupid and far beyond the stage of caring about anything. The scent of Fall creeping into the last lingering stretch of August mixes with the lightness of what we are drinking, and all I can taste is release.

BIG FRIDAY
---
It is late, very late, and we sit curled in the corner of an after-hours Thai restaurant. Save for a pair of elderly men arguing over the crossword and two girlishly young waitresses whispering behind the bar, we are alone. We shovel curry slowly between our lips and you ask me if I have ever thought that love is not real. I say that I have, all the time actually. This causes us both to lock eyes and relax into laughter. You hand me a shoddily-wrapped gift (it is my birthday, after all) and it is a book of poetry. All of the poems are about love and most of them are also accompanied by whimsical little drawings. A fresh wave of laughter pulls me into itself and I kiss you across the table.

LAY AND LOVE
---
We stretch out on the living room floor, three bodies untouching yet close enough to still exchange breath. We throw this old record on, and I don't quite know why, but all the lights are completely off. The music seeps over us like a humid wind, catching us vulnerable. Nobody speaks for a very long time, and I am glad.

THE SEEDLING
---
Under a heap of scarves and sweaters stashed in the crevices of your closet (I was cold and looking for a blanket one gray afternoon) I come across a graveyard of photos. They are from a different time, and your happiness in them makes me gasp. I knew I would find these somewhere, at some point, but regardless--their existence, right here in my hands right now, knives me like ice through the heart. I sift through them all, of course, and my head starts to ache and then I throw them back, further than they were before, under the pile of clothing. I swallow the feeling of blood crawling up in my throat, wrap an afghan over my shaky shoulders, and walk back into the living room with a smile curving. I collapse my frame back against yours on the couch, and you pull me more tightly into you as you unpause the movie. I feel an eerie sense of calm.

THEN THE LETTING GO
---
As soon as I lay eyes on the Arctic Ocean, I know that this separation is real. We are on our own individual planets. You take a slender piece of gold from the pocket of your cardigan, turn in over in your fingers a few times with a troubled look flecking your eyes. Without warning (you seem to even catch yourself off guard), you fling the shit out of the small object way, way into the tossing water. I steal a glance as you press your hands against your face for a long, despairing moment, then turn as if ripping yourself away from the scene of what you have just done (just ended) and walk away, a little too quickly, so that i know you are willing yourself not to cry. As I watch you tread away from me against moss and rock, I know that I should care but I don't. This gesture was meant to bring us towards one another, but instead all I want to do is set off running in the opposite direction you have gone.

GOD'S SMALL SONG
---
There was this flimsy nest of sparrows in our back yard in the country. It was this year, this summer. I was (and I am) twenty-five years old. The birds that we found here were hours out of the shell; wet with newness and eyes still painted shut. They screeched soundlessly for food, and I felt this sickening fear because their nest was very very low to the ground; far too low. I stood there watching them in fascination and helplessness for about an hour, or maybe more. When I came back the next morning, the nest was empty. I still think about it sometimes.

I CALLED YOU BACK
---
I licked your hand and it tasted of sweat. I tried my own and it tasted the same.

Good night and good luck,
With love,
RB.

Tan&blue, peach&navy.

...so I woke up and started writing. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote until I began to feel like myself again. It took a few hours or more, but it was worth it. I felt myself coming out of the haze gradually, and it tasted of relief. Alone, like really honestly alone for the first time in a long time, I breathed lightly and loosely and without thinking about it too much. Nothing coursed through my veins except blood, clear and untouched. I thought about all the solitary nights that I could make good and real by removing myself from the crowd...the hectic...the endless movement. Laying there in the sunporch with my pen against paper and my head in a space that could be called disarming, something fused together. I began to re-acquaint myself with myself. It was strange and lovely and actually kind of terrifying all at once. And so, there, with naked feet trailing the cool wooden floor, I consciously started thinking forward, and it was scary and interesting. My mind prowled in so many directions like an animal suddenly uncaged. And yet, I knew that it was right. As unnatural as the ground felt under my feet, it also felt like where I needed to be more than anything else. Strong and slender, I felt my confidence swell and then settle. It folded in around me like something fresh but also something very very old.

/

The air is humid--cool; edible. We drink rum out of teacups, and laughter trails through the dimness. We sit cross-legged, limbs (long and coltish) weaving against one another. Bars of pale light twigging through the open window cut our faces into skinny slivers, jutting weirdly in the darkness. Words come scattered, yet with fluidity. My eyes trace the contours of what once was good, but we both know isn't any longer. Somehow and impossibly, this is okay though. We loop Neil Young's "On the Beach", and it is sad, sort of. I make us a nest out of afghans and pillows while you walk down to the corner and buy us some street curry. Just the smell steaming off of it is almost enough to satiate my hunger. We drape ourselves across the mess of blankets and eat slowly, passing the flimsy bowl back and forth between our fingers, savouring it. We try speaking shoddy Spanish for a while, for fun...maybe in a last, loose effort to make some sort of a connection that saves or salvages or something. It doesn't work, obviously. The disjointedness is there and it is very real. So instead of talking about our hearts that don't care anymore, we talk about our hidden talents (you are double-jointed in your arms; I can throw a perfect football spiral. We both make a killer grilled cheese sandwich.), our dream interview (you: yourself in fifty years; me: Leonard Cohen), unassuming pleasures (yours has something to do with Jameson Whiskey and latenight drives to the lake while mine stems more along the lines of canned wine on train bridges--we smile; sans specifics, they are the same), whether we loved studying Shakespeare plays back in high school (me) or hated (you). And so on, and on and on. We exchange words so as to fill the dense, hazy space between us. From time to time, you peel your fingers through my hair, and from time to time I touch your lips, but only with my hands. After a while, you ask if I will stay. I say no, and that I wish you hadn't asked. I sling an old sweater of yours over my shoulders and leave quickly, somehow defeatedly, through the door out of your basement apartment, winding up the stairs and into the now-night. You don't try to follow me, and I am glad. I walk home alone through empty, gritty streets, cigarette dangling from curved mouth. The moon hangs above like ice and I feel fucking alive.

/

Breakfast: avocado drenched in hot sauce. I tear the buttery greenness off in strips, dragging out the process of eating it as slowly as I can between sips of coffee. The sunporch is dripping morning light--the softest kind. I glance down at my legs slung over the dirty chair's arm and wonder why they are so impossibly white. My hair is wet against the tips of my shoulders, and I imagine for a while that it is black again. Something French drifts from the record player, rooms away (Francoise Hardy, maybe?), It is nice morning music, evening and almost soothing in a light and lazy way. I know that within an hour or probably less, I will no longer be curled like a fox in its warm den, but properly clothed and chasing after a bus crammed with bodies too close. And yet...for now, I will linger here--careless; lost in mazes of thought--keeping the day at arm's length.

Tonight will be tea and toast, skin and bone, tawny and still, rooftops and the setting sun.
Until then,
R.

(Sometimes I get this far-off idea that I wish I knew how to take photos, but really I think that if I ever tried, they would likely just end up words anyways.)

***Note (as an aftertaste): Lauren Dukoff is a lady with very cool taste and incredible skill behind a camera. She has, incidentally just published her first book which is named "Family" and I kind of can't wait to let my eyes all over it. I think that her stuff is real, and that is perhaps its most alluring quality.

This is not a blog about fashion.

However, sometimes someone like MKate looks far too sublime to resist drawing shameless attention to. Here's to being effortlessly cool. Thanks, girl, you put us all to shame.




Prowling photos by the glow of my computer screen is, coincidentally, how I am chipping away at the night. The reality is that I should be working on my piece for the magazine. Instead I am eating Vietnamese with my roommate, drinking lemon tea, researching the steamy past of Fleetwood Mac, and reading a book in bits and pieces.

In addition to hobo-chic at its best, I came across a few other shiver-worthy bites:

(on hearts)
"We don't know anything. We don't know how to cure a cold or what dogs are thinking. We do terrible things, we make wars, we kill people out of greed. So who are we to say how to love."--Miranda July, excerpt from "No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories By Miranda July"

and (courtesy of my current muse of the hour, Truman Capote):

(on writing)

"My life--as an artist, at least--can be charted as precisely as a fever: the highs and lows, the very definite cycles.
I started writing when I was eight--out of the blue, uninspired by any example. I'd never known anyone who wrote; indeed, I knew few people who read. But the fact was, the only four things that interested me were: reading books, going to the movies, tap dancing and drawing pictures. Then one day I started writing, not knowing that I had chained myself for life to a noble but merciless master. When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended solely for self-flagellation.
But of course I didn't know that. I wrote adventure stories, murder mysteries, comedy skits, tales that had been told me by former slaves and Civil War veterans. It was a lot of fun--at first. It stopped being fun when I discovered the difference between good writing and bad, and then made an even more alarming discovery: the the difference between good writing and true art; it is subtle, but savage. And after that, the whip came down!
As certain young people practice the piano or the violin four and five hours a day, so I played with my papers and pens. Yet I never discussed my writing with anyone; if someone asked what I was up to all those hours, I told them I was doing my school homework. My literary tasks kept me fully occupied; my apprenticeship at the altar of technique, craft; the devilish intricacies of paragraphing, punctuation, dialogue placement. Not to mention the grand overall design, the great demanding arc of middle-beginning-end. One had to learn so much, and from so many sources: not only from books, but from music, from painting, and just plain everyday observation.
In fact, the most interesting writing I did during those days was the plain everyday observations that I recorded in my journal. Descriptions of a neighbour. Long verbatim accounts of overheard conversations. Local gossip. A kind of reporting, a style of "seeing" and "hearing" that would later seriously influence me, though I was unaware of it then,..."--Truman Capote, excerpt from preface of "Music For Chameleons"

Gone,
RB.

Magic hours.

The water in the bathtub sighs heat, reeling me into itself. Limbs ache in a way that I am unacquainted with--subtle; searing. I slink my eyelids shut (ice cubes rest, invisible against lashes) and visualize tawny skin and the smell of a thousand waterfalls. If you asked me to teach you this language, I would say no. You aren't ready for it. Neither am I, for that matter. The house washed stone-gray in that field, somewhere in the far reaches of Argentina, grazes my thoughts. I remember its taste; the way the gnarled floor felt beneath my naked feet, and the wet haze that hung like an unseen gauze in the air, twisting down my throat. I am hungry again for that. This water is the same temperature as my sweat-glazed skin, and it tastes like nothing.

Hours ago, I sat folded into a red red booth across from Meg. Angular black glasses framed her face, and our hands played against wine glasses. I read aloud to her from Truman Capote's book called "Music for Chameleons", and all the while she sketched fitfully; beautifully in her brown journal. We decided together that bravery and taking a few skinny chances makes sense for now. Don't you think?

Then I walked to Paris and back. It was quite nice. I took three delicate bites of an almond croissant, listened for a while to a French couple having an argument in the street, took a metro to Montmarte, had a drag of a cigarette, and then walked home. I considered staying indefinitely, but decided against it. For what reason, I can't now quite remember. Back home in my apartment with the dimmest lighting, the dishes lay undone and my cat cried for her dinner. And so, I took my feet back to the collection of rooms and walls that are my own, at least for this evening. I fumbled with the fireplace, heated some soup and turned the pages of a book, softly and slowly. It was not a bad night.

Couldn't/wouldn't.

The words "don't falter" trail off somebody's lips, somewhere, as rain cuts the pavement. I try walking slowly; slower, and then some. Water streaks down wet, white cheekbones--the skinniest rivulets. It cools and also distracts. I focus on the jutting lack of warmth. It is like a salve, taking my mind off the pain that spreads behind my eyes, and the lilacs that fail to blossom, still. It kind of pisses me off, actually--the flowers, that is. They were supposed to have been here weeks ago. Lilacs always take me back to our red brick house in St. Boniface, back to the wild spray of bushes between us and our next-door neighbour's lanky home (we thought she was a witch; in reality she was just a lovely old flight attendant), back to childhood and back to that seamless happiness. Sometimes I pine for those days--almost mourning that fact they they are locked in the confines of all that was, rather than what is. Being on your own is better and also scarier than you envision it when you are a kid, yes? For me, it is. I was listening to this interview with Leonard Cohen the other day, and he made some comment along the lines of "if people go through life thinking that love is going to be easy, then they will be infinitely disappointed, but if they go through life expecting that love will be the most difficult thing, then they will be pleasantly surprised." (Although I am sure that I butchered his words), I like that. It has just the right twist of insight--not at all pretentious, and basically just honest.

Another memory lights--catches, flares and then seeps away and into the dark street. The night is impossibly late and all my body is asking for is air that refreshes. I toss an old sweater over my shoulders, the last splashes of a bottle of wine into a coffee mug (white, chipped, it says "Lover" in weird script across it), blow the cat a kiss goodbye and slip out of my apartment and into the stillness. The moon is a white layer or skin draping down, and the wind tangles itself in my lungs, sharp. I follow the string of streets towards the park, treading lightly and loosely. Up ahead, a couple is extracting their young, sleeping family from a car. They ease three children, heavy with sleep, out one by one, speaking softly to them all throughout. A boy, a girl, and then another girl (all black-haired, all tiny) emerge from the vehicle, bedraggled with tiredness. For a snap moment, the woman's eyes lock with my own, and we exchange a smile, barely there. And yet. I remember soaking in those sorts of nights as a little girl--those rare occasions where we were allowed to stay out past midnight, and I would wake up to the feeling of my dad's steady arms carrying me inside. The low voices of my parents would layer around my brother and I like liquidly warmth, and I would always pretend to still be asleep. So as not to shatter the experience; that pristine interval of seeming magic and security.

Leaving the visual of that family behind me, I continued on my way feeling almost weightless. It was a simple reminder, but a significant one. I sat curled on a park bench, mind wandering and whittling in interesting fashion until my limbs grew stiff and breath steamed white from the cold. I wove my way home dripping gratitude. If only they knew, if only you knew, if only I knew. That night, I felt the blood hot in my veins and the hammer of my chest and the dipping temperature against my skin. Thank God, because those are the times that make me hopeful (and even expectant) that all of this disjointedness actually means something. In the meantime, and in those oceans of in-between space, I will write (even if it scares me sometimes, often) and I will listen and try to find meaning and rest well and choose my words with consciousness and loosen my attitude and drink tea at all hours and read in the sunlight and just fucking know what is good for me. I am beginning to realize how much stems from basing yourself in simplicity and trying to move through everything from that place.


(light me like incense in the night/light me like a candle burning bright)

Bitter end material, for these two have been an inspiration this week (and always):
:




Tired eyes,
Rb.

Lilacs&white.

I had today handed to me in unexpected fashion. After dragging myself from sheets and hectically drinking some coffee, I arrived at my (literally) backyard workplace only find myself stepping back into my apartment moments later. Evidently (and understandably), our city is wrapped in hibernation today. Translation: no lunchers for me to serenade with offers of Pinot Grigio before noon. Thanks, Winter in May--you are kicking my financial ass.

Last night Melissa and Zach hosted a "we're leaving for the bush so come hang out with us" fireside gathering. It was rich with faces familiar and not; an interesting blend. As the night filtered by with a lazy ease, it began to snow. Morale hardly took a beating though; everyone just laughed in disbelief and layered on an extra scarf/sweater/blanket/body against them. Warmth radiated from that whirl of people in the night...from the spitting fire and cigarettes aglow and the branches of conversation that twisted together--lovely. As I kicked my boots to the side, home again in wispy morning light, the lingering bits of snow shed off of me and caused me to think listlessly of another time; a hotter time (because heat is summer and summer, for me, has been like this):

That summer was a charged one. It dripped heat and also complication. The open sky was our backdrop, and the air had never tasted quite that fresh licking down my throat. Stillness settled loosely in around me, and it felt like the way things should be. I swayed, without realizing it, into all things natural; neutral--tossed my naked feet on the dashboard, smoked Blacks for breakfast, and played in ditches. The details I care to remember are all a bit like that. Falling asleep against the river, surrounded by dead leaves and a sun that slung itself down like an offering. Driving down the highway through pools of darkness, contentment on our lips. The barest legs, and the stupidest straw hat dipping low over my forehead. Taking the dog for walks that stretched on for hours, somehow losing her again and over. Wandering through the ashy summer wheat. Morning disappearances to the the lake. Drinking beer in grain trucks. Pouring over a garden for the first flush of colour on pale strawberries. The smell of fire during the dying light of day. Watching the skinny moon. And so on and so forth.

There is more, but I am running dangerously late for a wedding social (gag) so I am pulling this to a pause for now.
Here's to a dreamy Saturday on all counts.
Rlb.

A Thousand Kisses Deep:

I've been grappling for the words to trap my night in the presence of Leonard Cohen in black and white form, but I've concluded that I cannot. At least not yet. I need to keep tasting the experience, again and over, until I can do any sort of justice to it in writing. I was raised on this man. And he as good as had me on my knees all night; much respect, much speechlessness and so much inspiration. I am letting my lips fall together at this point, because (really, who the hell are we kidding) he just says it so much better. Close your eyes and listen to this.

The age of self:

Last night, Meg and I splayed ourselves amidst brown boxes that yawned open (poised for her imminent departure to the bush) and owned the fuck out of a trillion-dollar bottle of wine. Thanks Uncle James; you placed a very posh night straight into our fingers. I do not know the exact value of this liquid brilliance that we slid down our throats....all I know is that it came in a long, skinny box with a blood-red ribbon looped around it. Cool. Our fake boyfriends, Devendra Banhart and Jana Hunter licked our ears on repeat all night long, again and over more times than I became capable of counting. Candlelight flecked the nearly-naked walls of Meg's living room, and blackened chocolate lay broken into bits on the low table between us. A strange blend of sadness and the loosest contentedness settled in around me as I sat there, folded into the blanketed couch, ribs grazing against. It will be weird to see that space go; for some reason that I cannot quite decipher, I have the fiercest attachment to those walls. Or rather, all that has transpired within them...food and drink and records and laughter and friends and photoshoots and meltdowns and secret-spilling and...I could go on. Here, instead, is a glimpse of what expensive alcohol will do to people whose budgets typically accomadate $10 bottles of wine:









On a completely unrelated note, I have been intrigued lately by this artist named Robert Wyatt. He is a wildly interesting musician who I also find a great deal of inspiration in as a writer. I think that he twists words together in a really unique way. Like this...

Sea Song (Wyatt):


You look different every time you come
From the foam-crested brine
Your skin shining softly in the moonlight
Partly fish, partly porpoise, partly baby sperm whale
Am I yours? Are you mine to play with?
Joking apart - when you're drunk you're terrific when you're drunk
I like you mostly late at night you're quite alright
But I can't understand the different you in the morning
When it's time to play at being human for a while please smile!
You'll be different in the spring, I know
You're a seasonal beast like the starfish that drift in with the tide
So until your your blood runs to meet the next full moon
You're madness fits in nicely with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own, my very own
We're not alone






He was a young babe and now he is an old man. Either way, in my opinion he oozes coolness.

Onwards with my Sunday,
RB.

Caliente.

I wake earlier than I should--cat weeping at the edge of my door. My fingers, grapefruit-stained in the dirty light filtering through my window, peel through pages; page after page after another, and so on. Reading the ghost of your own words (especially recent, that is the best and also the hardest) is a strange way to spend a morning. And yet. There are a few stretches, lanky scrawl that dips in at the margins and seems to have little regard for the structure of lines and any any sort of structure, that inject memory like fluid warmth. (Here are a few bites.)
:
--(8th Feb, bus station) Buenos Aires bus station. Afternoon. Feet are dirty and smoke (cigarette) trails into my face from nearby. The speakers shriek announcements in harrowing Spanish, slicing through the hot air. Our white skin draws continual glances; stares even. We are getting used to it. The children are beautiful here; dark dark butter-soft skin and eyes, black that goes on for miles. There are dressed, for the most part, simply and haggardly. Babies abound. It is really almost unbelievable, the amount of new life that is scattered, it seems, everywhere. The mothers are young and tired, but also act almost as if toting fresh children in their arms is not really anything all that significant. I notice, again and again, women walking the streets with a baby (new newNEW) slung casually in one arm. It's like more people than not have babes attached to their bodies from some limb or another, and there is a very casual air surrounding this. I feel like in the setting that I am used to, parents are constantly absorbed fussing and preening and obsessing over their small ones, in a way that seems somehow overwhelming in comparison. I kind of like that children here look perpetually dirt-fringed and disheveled. NOT to minimize at any level the poverty that likely lies behind that visual, but my observation is that I like the fact that these kids don't seem reluctant or at all afraid to get dirty. I have seen countless little bodies already, sprawled out in the middle of a sidewalk, playing hard. I cannot get enough of that. And it seems that in this culture (Buenos Aires at least), everyone is chill with the fact that there may be children rolling underneath your feet as you walk the downtown streets.

--(9th Feb., rooftop terrace) I am reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" in the slowest bites so that it will last. It is so drop-dead good that it almost makes me sort of sick. Here is a taste: "I place my hands over her ears and tip her head back, and kiss her, and try to put my heart into hers, for safekeeping, in case I lose it again."

--(10th Feb., dingy bed) Back at the heart of everything, I drain you off the crevices of my body. You are liquid energy; watery hope. Right now, I still feel the underlayer of trepidation...and so I filter you (reluctantly) off of myself. Where you once may have responded grimly, you seem visibly unaffected by this. I like to think that it is because you know I am near. We are both aware of it; starkly aware. The strange and ironic thing about consequences, though, is our inability to predict them. Like, if I keep him at one hundred arm's lengths and then with time realize that I want him nearer to me than any others...will it have slipped out of my reach? Will he slip away; will you? This is the fear that causes me to fret in my sleep...did I fuck it up too far? I can only stand to believe that the answer to this ugly question is no, adamently no. Even though the past with others has often been unkind...comparisons are ugly; I choose something different.

--(14th Feb, waterside) Just this: "There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross."--Ondaatje, M., "Divisidero". Damnation, soso good.

--(17th Feb., cafe.) I feel an evenness in myself right now. These last weeks have lifted a clinging layer of weight off my chest and shoulders and mind, and that organ that feels so sharply. Perspective is a soothing, cooling thing.

--(18th Feb., night bus) The light thrown from the bus station was pale; grunge-streaked. I peeled wooden limbs from beneath my body and unraveled, stretching so as to feel again. Forehead pressed against the cool window, I noticed his naked back, slick with sweat in the moonlight. He was young, so young, barely more than twelve or even eleven. Amidst the muted tones of whitewashed building and rusted fencing and pavement, the wet sheen of his skin stood out like hot breath against winter air. Running lightly; loosely; with a strange sort of beauty, he reached a long and slender arm down, reeling the stray basketball into his left hand. Hardly faltering, he twisted direction and began to leg his way back to his gang of friends--also shirtless; also sweat-laced. They moved with the restlessness of swarming insects around the nearby field, not pretending to conceal their impatience. I watched as he melted back into their midst, suddenly indecipherable in the thick of twining, darkened bodies. All I was aware of as I averted my eyes was how alive I felt.


--(23rd Feb, bus station) Just a little while back, as I was slouching here forcing myself to eat three lukewarm empanadas, I saw a couple about my age saying goodbye before the girl stepped onto a bus. They pressed their forms together and kissed one another's faces all over, like they meant it--neck, cheekbones, forehead, verging on lips, and finally lips. I wonder how long she is leaving him for...are they in love...is it a smooth or a resentful parting, or rather just the predictable bittersweet. I wonder. They looked like nice people, there was a certain sort of ease in their movements; a happy coolness.

--(24th Feb., in the grass) All words from hereon in stolen from "The History of Love", penned by Nicole Krauss (who fast became my idol ten pages after opening this book).

"Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."
"Her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."
"They collected the world in small handfuls."
"The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it--just to name it--must have been like trying to catch something invisible."
"Having begun to feel, people's desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. It's possible that this is how art was born. New kinds of joy were forged, along with new kinds of sadness..."

--(26th Feb., Bolivian soil) It is hotter; balmier here--that, and also almost frigid. It seems that the air and the sky change often, every few hours or so. Even though we have only left Argentina just behind, already there are significant shifts. This feels barer; simpler and more stripped down. Also more colourful. We are whittling hours away planted outside the train station awaiting our ride to this quaint-looking town called Tupiza. We are draped across a stretch of cracked sidewalk with this Israeli boy who seems to have latched himself onto us. A bit annoying but nevertheless, it is further company. The sky to our East is so ominous right now. The smoky tones are building by the minute, it seems, and it (the sky) has a fierce look about it. I feel as if I want to photograph and/or write about every other person that walks past me on the street--there is so much beauty here. The elderly women especially draw me..their sweeping head wraps and intricately-lined leathery skin. This is the South America that I had envisioned...the one I have been pining for introduction to. I am thankful to be here in the now. Despite how destroyed my body has felt all day, and how frustrating all these legs of transportation have been, there is nowhere else I would rather be.

--(26th Feb., train) Balance. I am interested in balance.

--(6th March, out of doors) Hot hot hot HEAT. I am splayed out, bare-legged and naked-armed on hot stone. It is beginning to hit that time of evening cool, but nevertheless the cement is still throwing insatiable amounts of heat. It feels smooth and lovely. The height of the sun-drenched day is brilliant, but also a bit intolerable. So this fall of evening is always welcomed with a lightened breath.

--(7th March, hammock) My current read is called "What is the What" written by one Dave Eggers. It is heavy as hell, but breath-stopping at the same time. Here you go: "It's odd to say this, but I loved Tabitha most from afar. That is, my love grew for her each time I could watch her from a distance. Perhaps that sounds wrong. I did love her when we were together in my room or on the couch, our legs entwined and her hands in mine, but when I could see her from across a street, or walking toward me, or stepping onto a broken escalator, those are the moments I most remember."

--(9th March, rooftop terrace) It is late Sunday night and I am nursing a (surprisingly delicious) McDonald's coffee. Kate and I are back in Buenos Aires and I am happy, so happy to be here. The last string of days has been seemingly fraught with travel and movement, so a steady stretch of time banked in one place is completely what I have been craving. This is good, yes. My body feels trashed from last night's bus ride, and tonight's installment of vino blanco. Even now as I write, my eyes are falling shut and my fingers are weary; I realize full well that it is time to call it a night. Hello, Rebecca Louise--your body is crying out for some serious sleep. I am off to oblige.

--(14th March, balcony) Saturday morning--heat drips like liquid through the air. It is like a softly knitted web, this heat. It is light and infused with heaviness all at once; it is sensual, almost. You breathe in and it saturates your lungs and down to your limbs like twisting energy...it is extraordinary. It want to hang onto this; the sensation of how it feels. In a week or two, once I am immersed like a shivering creature in Winnipeg wind and ice, I want to draw easily on this memory. I am fairly certain I will be cursing myself for my lack of realization and worship or the warmth and light that is almost a given here. I know that I will dream of it behind lidded eyes, and crave and yearn for it like a woman hungry. It has been a blessing already, though, in so many ways. My body has never felt lighter or smoother...my skin has a sheen to it and my head remains clear. It is refreshing; addicting, almost.


(There are eight hundred thousand more where that came from. I am unemployed, so you will likely find me siphoning them onto here in my endless spare time.)

Amen,
RB.

Emily Haines--Buenos Aires.

For some reason I was incredibly inspired by this.

Feathers of deep black and cool green.

Sunday morning. Stop. Can't leave sheets. Stop. Laughter, my roommate's, drifting from the bedroom down the hall. Sigh, stop. I've chosen this, but I wish it wasn't mine; this starkness. Stop. Sleep, but fitfully. In my state of half-wake, half-dream with an injection of self-pity, my mind wanders wildly. Green, pale, eye contact, water, damp salty hair, incomprehensible words (this is not my language), catching one train then another, rearranging cutlery, tracing the bony line of your back and not knowing why but it feels like perfection. Stop.

The black material against my skin is soft; worn. I don't know where it came from and I don't at all care. It feels like smooth hands and that is all that really matters. I make too much coffee, watch absently while it brews and once a cup coiling heat finds its way into my hands, I wander my apartment, immersed in thought (yet thinking nothing in particular). Sometimes, rather than reflecting or sorting out or analyzing, I find myself identifying emotions. Like, here I am leaning against the side of my hallway that is covered with art: sadness. I trail fingers along the wall, deep red and cool to the touch, and by the time I've transitioned into the living room in one fluid motion, there is also regret. They layer against one another, companions that lend comfort and also unrest. I twist myself into a corner of the couch, the sun-streaked one, drain the last of the black liquid warming my innards, and all I can hear is the softness of my own breath. There it is...confusion. It settles in like an old friend; a ratty t-shirt that you put on and remember its exact folds; how it falls and feels against your body.

My insides bleat for another coffee, and so I peel myself off the couch and slip into the dining room. That is where the fear resides, or at least where it preys on me. My steps falter for a moment; wondering, recognizing. I don't even need to look that one in the eyes to name it and know it. Being afraid is a sensation as familiar as exhaustion or hunger. It's there and I know it. I stand, wordless, as it joins the sadness, regret and confusion. They are an intimidating force, and it seems that they are a united front today. Bastards.

In the kitchen though, there is hope. As I drape the remains of the coffee pot into my mug, I feel it. Compared to the daunting gang of negativity, it is weak, but it is there. It beats like a baby sparrow heart, frail but determined. It strips a layer of the weight off me, and the lightness is a significant change, if only to myself.

It is there, and I know that it is not going anywhere. If anything, it has yet to fully flower and show itself. When it reaches the surface, I am confident that I will know it and embrace with a vengeance.

Until then, bisous.

Dream exorcism, and other endeavours...

The other day I stood in a bus shack listening to Charlotte Gainsbourg and feeling okay. Limber arms and cold breath made for a wait that I didn't at all mind; observation and motionlessness. A little girl with eyes--glassy, large--hovered next to me on the bus, chirping an endless string of questions into my ear, and I loved her for it. I didn't know her name but I pretended that it was Iris. She looked as if it would be.

It seems that lately a blazing topic of inquisition (directed my way) has been children and whether they are in my plan of action. It's strange because up until now, the odd question would snake itself my way, but it seemed cool and manageable, given the long stretches between. For some reason though, these days the mother interrogation ("Do you want to be one?") chases after me like a loaded gun. I don't necessarily mind it, but its frequency is becoming startling. I always feel as if I answer awkwardly and vaguely, which is not what popular demand seems to be looking for. To burn the spotlight on this issue by choice for once, my position is that yes, I think that I do. Want little beans of my own, that is. It just all seems so far off and not really at all relevant to my focus, and the rhythm of my days in the now. The thing is that, unlike a lot of people I trade words over this with, I can envision my life edging in either direction--that is, sans babies or with. When I leap ahead in my mind to the years that have yet to play themselves out, I don't necessarily see a sharp image. I don't see anything all that concrete; recognizable; detailed. I see, rather, warmth and meaning and balance and joy. I see taking pride in what I do, whether it is baby-holding or writing or office-inhabiting, or any other number of motions. If I am living intentionally and with a smile against my lips more often than not, then that is all I really care about.

A few evenings ago, Meg, Kit and myself had a lovely reunion over dinner with our friend Beatrice from Belgium. She is sixty-eight years old and one of the coolest ladies I know. She has skin that is bronzed like pale leather and eyes that radiate light and energy. She has a husband named Raphael, and a slew of dogs, and a gorgeous spread of home in the Belgian coutryside, and a secret garden, and a vocabulary that would make you reel. Her French is smoking and all throughout the evening, she and Meg's Auntie Daryl flipped, smoother than rushing water, from one language to the other. It was amazingly beautiful to listen to. The evening was dominated by the sounds of those two twining languages, but when Lady Bea fround out Kit and I are flinging ourselves onto South American soil in a matter of weeks, she obliged us by layering some boisterous Spanish into the mix. Draped around the dinner table, us five bodies, in the heart of Auntie Daryl's breathtaker of a lanky apartment (I would die to inhabit a space like that at some point in my life, even for the briefest interval), something fell into place. There was a click; a sigh; a distance broached. Two elders and three young, wispy individuals with so much to discover; so much yet to learn...it was like we just relaxed into our respective roles, and it felt right. It felt better than good, actually. We poured over photos from those months spent an ocean across, and we laughed and stories flowed and we all three missed it very much, I think. Long after the warm, delicious arrangement of food was consumed, long after melting wedges of chocolate cake had found its way to our bellies, we lingered there at that table, sipping at the last dregs of red wine and exchanging words. I sincerely hope one day to be with my best girlfriends as these two are, Beatrice and Daryl. They extracted stories of insane love and lust and humour and injustice like plucked blossoms from a source from which I am sure held endless amounts more. These women have had passion and they have had devastation and they have lived abroad and traveled everywhere and cascaded down into despair and been left alone only to be picked up again, whether it be by a kindred spirit or a lover who just knew what to do and how to do it well, or by one another, or most importantly themselves. They inspired me in a unique way that night, and I would want them to know that. Aging gracefully has never taken on such a lighthearted, appealing air as it did for me during those hours, in the presence of those women. I left altered, in a subtle way but also in a permanent way. It was almost as if I was flown back to Europe for a single night, in the company of a lot of wisdom and laughter and good food and it was absolutely perfect.

I passed yesterday afternoon, Sunday afternoon, quietly hidden away in a Bar Italian nook. Both halves of the room were mayhem; apparently the whole of our neighbourhood congregates on the corner of McMillan and Cockburn, in that lovely dingy space, come mid-day Sunday?! It felt somehow nice to be a part of things, yet definably removed. At one point, I glanced over the array of objects littered across my table, and thought to myself, if I were to step away for a few moments, would somebody be able to tell it was me hanging out here just by my belongings? It is an interesting thought. I took inventory my possessions in the present--one coffee (half-drained, second round), one book ("The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon, courtesy of Hilary's intimidating book collection), one issue of British Vogue (outdated; October 2008. but still alluring in every way.), one pen, one folder (containing all four glossy issues of G.Love; a portfolio of sorts I guess), one pair of mittens (green, containing rips, stolen from my brother one season ago) and one heavily-laden snakeskin/paisley tote bag. I would like to think that anybody who knows me well would attach me to this paraphernalia. Any takers? Madge? Drewber? Lopez? Etc. etc. etc.

My dreams in the dark have been haunted as of late. I don't like it; they cause me to sleep fitfully and wake feeling angsty and scattered. These days, the content is always similar and it leaves a wretched taste on my lips. Space and time seem all fucked up by the time that I pull myself into wakefulness, and it takes some intention to feel reality out again. I am learning, though. Lessons weathered and perspective gained, right?

I'll find you after dinner, in that place we call summer.
Time to start the day,
RB

Desire and decay...

I read the other day somewhere that "love is a brittle teacher." I think that I agree. It's not negative; just honest in a refreshing way.
---
brit⋅tle   [brit-l]
adjective, -tler, -tlest, noun, verb, -tled, -tling.
–adjective
1. having hardness and rigidity but little tensile strength; breaking readily with a comparatively smooth fracture, as glass.
2. easily damaged or destroyed; fragile; frail: a brittle marriage.
3. lacking warmth, sensitivity, or compassion; aloof; self-centered: a self-possessed, cool, and rather brittle person.
4. having a sharp, tense quality: a brittle tone of voice.
5. unstable or impermanent; evanescent
---

Yesterday evening found me curled, chin on knees, at Meg's kitchen table. We made dinner; translation: I listened to her banter (always intriguing) and watched her cook. This is the usual scenario when the two of us peel ourselves away from our beds/bars/studios/etc. and break bread together. I sip at my glass of wine and hunker down in perching mode, and Madge whips magic together over a stovetop. Bless her. I think that if I am ever a mother, I will force her to teach me her ways. I know that she will be more than game; gleeful even. Bitch. I'll read aloud to you, poetry and fashion literature, while you coo my babies to sleep and sling cakes and casseroles in and out of my oven, okay lover?

The night was eventless and effortless; it was exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed and she knew it; I knew it. One of my most cherished things about this lady (and there are many) is that I don't have to pretend around her; ever. I can cry or rant or make slim to no sense or say absolutely nothing at all, and it is always okay. She is a tirelessly graceful audience for all of the glaring highs and lows I have pulled, and everything in between. We just mesh in a way that I cannot explain and I carry the mystery of that around like something very dear and rare. Je t'aime, Francie. You are one in a trill.

On a complete subject skip--Argentina count: one month, less three days. I feel so so ready for heat-streaked mornings, and fresh cool nights. Drapey dresses and damp hair and sand against skin and Spanish lilting through the air and water. Water, water, water. I want to walk and write and lay and listen and feel and observe and learn and reflect and be.
I am chasing it and it is near, nearer than I think. Somehow our take-wing date seems a lofty distance away still, but it is creeping like an insect and it is moving with haste.
Going going going gone.
Rab Louise.

PS. Apologies, Demetra, if this wasn't the profound collection of words you were hoping for. I owe you one.