Brilliant.

Brilliant brilliant.



Frida Kahlo--current muse.

Love until your hands bleed--

Sunday, Sunday...day of rest, or at least in all books hypothetical. It has been a full morning thus far. I rose early as a bird (in night-hawk terms) in time to slide in some standing and kneeling and thrashing of my way through hymns. This was followed by a brimming spread of breakfast food...hashbrowns, french toast, black coffee and slivers of fruit all intertwined on the plate balanced between my fingers. Dreamy.
The sun is sweet and heavy today, and my body is aching to soak up whatever warmth and natural light that it can. Of late, my limbs are frail from repeated pilgrimages to hot yoga classes. It is a good ache; the best sort. Like my bones and muscles are cursing and thanking me all in the same breath, but mostly they are adoring it.

I feel like I have been thinking a lot about the frailty and fleetingness of life these past few weeks. Although impersonal, the death of Heath Ledger streaked me with immeasurable sadness. The night following the news of his slipping from life, I saw a film that spiraled me even a little further into this head and heart space of thoughtfulness and borderline-melancholy. It was called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", and it is a stunning story of tragedy and a strange sort of renewal. Maybe it is my own personal slant on the world and all things life-giving right now, but in the space of that slender hour and a half, my innards were stirred. I felt drawn into a degree of sadness and awareness that is new to me; unrecognizable even. It feels alien-esque still. I think it is maybe to do with the fact that the emotions brought forth were so beyond myself--they failed to revolve around me or those in my reality; but, rather, the human condition in general, and our state of absolute unknowing and vulnerability. I continue to find it difficult, impossible even, to grasp the realization that the precious things I take for granted today, right now, in this very moment as my fingers graze the keyboard, are not guaranteed. They fail to be now, and the truth is that they never will be.
My intention is not to make this a reflection drenched in darkness and negativity. On the far-reaching contrary, I feel like collecting these pieces of tragedy and pain in my extended surroundings...picking them up like deadened leaves or water-glazed stones on a beach, internalizing them and living in consciousness of the beauty and sanctity of life--that is inspiring and that is good.
To life in the moment.
RB.

Best is best.

These are a few of my favourite things, January-style:
*grunge breakfast at The Toad.
*2 a.m. faux-fireside yoga sessions.
*blueberry tea.
*soundtrack to "I'm Not There"(magic).
*a fresh scattering of plants throughout our apartment.
*wool socks.
*jewels of thrift store finds. (boots. sunglasses. fur-trimmed coats. to be specific.)
*pristine new journal, asking for words.
*lingering again and again over trip photos. feeling inner warmth.
*tasting and tossing around the prospect of going back to school.
*candles candles.
*scorching baths.
*hair-hacking inspiration.
*cat naps at strange hours.
*embracing hibernation.

It is time to crawl between sheets and lay eyes on my book of the moment.
Here's to hoping you are all warm and curled in your respective burrows as I am.
x.
Rebecca

Element Eden:

Today I took myself on a frosty afternoon walk to the bank. The walk itself was uneventful...my thoughts like fluttering birds, but in a good way...hopeful and smoothened. There is an evenness to things right now that I cannot explain.
(Hang in, I assure you this story is more than a brutal reiteration of me depositing a cheque into my still-anorexic bank account)

I fail to exaggerate when I say that the teller, a bespectacled grandmotherly-type, pounced on me as if I were her own flesh & blood. In her defense, she was quite sweet about it. She also felt compelled to shower me with a torrent of questions about my life et. al., all the while clasping my hand over the counter in both of her own. I am actually laughing now as I realize how strange slash funny we must have looked to the flurry of people all around us...who, more likely than not, thought that I was confessing my sins to her, or some such thing. Anyways. Tears virtually glittered in my now-(apparently)BFF's eyes when she extracted the fact from me that I had just traveled through Europe. And, ridiculous as this may sound, her heartfelt excitement disarmed me. Initially, it weirded me out just a little, but then it hit me like a weapon--she was right. This random person who had known me 8-12 minutes, had a perspective that has eluded me...one of wonder and acknoweldgement of the significance of where I have been these past few months. Ironically, she was a breath of fresh air...this encounter that started with me wondering how I could slide myself away from it ended up turning into something real and necessary for me. I tore myself away from her revived and smiling. Jewel, that one.

And so, continuing the theme of cherished times had and indescribable experiences whilst hanging out all over a continent not my own, here are a few more stills...some of the best that had been evaded in the mess of photo organization. Enjoy, if you will.









My kitchen is dirt-streaked and calling. Pots and pans, broom and rubber gloves await.
I am off to oblige.
Embraces, and such.

Love and some verses...

I am cooking asparagus and yam fries, sipping water, while Emmylou Harris twines her brilliant voice throughout my apartment. It has been a day of the good sort thus far...lunch date with Hilary, phonecall from my brother in the land that is hot, some letter-writing, and snatches of reading slipped all in between. I am a free woman tonight...sans shift at work, or any obligations other than a hangout with Melissa further along in the night. I am whittling away precious solitary hours sifting through photos, piecing through my own writing both past and present, and generally just enjoying the luxury of time at my fingertips.


I came across a gold mine of photos taken by the now-absent Tristan Fast (a la moment, also in the sun-drenched land of Costa Rica with my brother...bitches...!). He is my fakey-roommate, aka Sambeth's lover, and also an amazing photographer. Here is a bit of his magic on the eyes...






My apartment is a keeper, oui?
I think so too.

Current status:
One brother less...


and this petit one remaining...


for the next three months.

I am off to talk a walk in the darkness of this balmy January night.
Out,
R.

The minnow and the trout.

It is the blackest part of night, and I sit curled up against leopard-print pillows, listening to Joni Mitchell and warming my innards with chammomile tea. My skin reeks of pizza twined with Kahlua after a late-reaching night rich with slinging bar-starrish teens obscure shots, etc. The emptiness of my apartment has never felt more heavenly, I think, as it does right now. I am cuddled down in my brother's hooded sweatshirt (stolen), and gitch only. Pants slash dress slash skirt are undeniably and consistantly the first articles to go once stepping through the threshold of home after a string of hours spent in server slaveland.

Our Christmas tree is long-dead, and it wilts from across the living room, a sadly skeletal mess. To do: dispose of all holiday-inspired plants (there is also sickly poinsetta lingering on our coffee table). Also, to do: purge through closet and whittle down the copious amounts of articles in my possession. I do believe I am through with clinging on to miscellanious objects that only my inner eighty-seven year old can rationalize keeping. Gone will be moth-eaten sweaters from ninth grade, birthday cards dating back ten years, and make-up from the mid to late '90s. I am not exaggerating. I hang on to things. It is my wistful and sentimental side, and it is a powerful one.
To do: grit my teeth and thrash my way through to the finish of "Crime and Punishment."
To do: slay the crossword come tomorrow morning.
To do: stop spending money that doesn't even exist in the flesh.
To do: spend some serious face time with myself.
And so on and so forth.

Tonight I discovered that I will be working to shed my Euro-iduced debt into the wee hours of the morning on New Year's Eve. At first I felt a little gutted, but as the black-and-white reality of the penciled schedule before my eyes set in, I became quickly okay with the situation. Inevitably, I have found year after year after ghostily repetitive year, that New Year's extravaganzas fail to deliver the brilliance I expect. To be shimmeringly honest, I usually don a pair of drool-worthy heels (that end up murdering my feet by the night's end), drinking too much crystal-cool vodka, and more often than not, ending up in tears. So the sordid story goes. Needless to say, there is a lackluster theme that prevails. Last year, I spent said oh-so-anticipated night with a lover at a metal show, where I melted into the crowd unnoticed and unrecognized. It was lovely. And so, this year, I will breathe yet another breath of fresh air, shelve my killer Parisian footwear, and shroud myself in head-to-toe black for a quiet night of travail. It is actually a stragely refreshing prospect, void of lofty hope and exprectation. An air of sadness, aloneness and overwhelming disappointment will hopefully, if not surely, elude.

I am feeling already that this winter shall be one of hibernation and softness for me. Books, journals, hot yoga, dinner parties, nights hunched over the Scrabble board, records, tea, wine, films, fakey fireplaces, hot baths and some gritty self-reflection, as it stands, are the tentative lineup. So far, so good.

Be well and happy, all of you whose eyes touch on these words.
You are loved and cherished, know that.
RB

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."--Andy Warhol

Home is home is home is home.

It has been a near-two weeks since our final plane touched ground in an icy Winnipeg. Fourteen days, in the scheme of things, is nothing...and yet it is everything. In this slender frame of time, I have become re-acquainted with my bed, meshed voices with many a friend, embraced Christmas avec la famille (and also a haggard infant tree in mine and Sambo's apartment), flung myself into the throes of a newborn job, coaxed my startled body back into frosty temperatures...and so on and so forth.
It is overwhelmingly good to be back to all that is familiar--back to being able to pluck books at will from my collection; back to 3 a.m. apartment-cleaning sessions; back to brothers and my own sweet computer and my closet and my purple bedroom walls and infinite amounts of music and snow-laden streets, and such. Here is a glimmer of what my days have been looking like of late:







Or something like that.

This afternoon I took myself to the Winnipeg Art Gallery...wandered beautifully alone, and checked out two insane exhibits:


(Warhol)






(PostSecrets)






I'd wanted this to be a shade more inspired...but my eyes are glazed with sleep even as I attempt to write now.
I shall channel creativity...but in the meantime, good night and Happy Christmas and I hope you are all sleeping tighter than tight.

xoxo,
r.b.