If the moon exploded would it look like this?

Sometimes the universe, she who I have at times called a bitch chooses a kind of benevolence and lays something in the path.

subtle
(look at this she whispers)

all one has to do is pick it up and not be afraid.
(the only thing I fear is my heart I whisper back)

silly girl she says
drifting away on a wind
pay attention

Tonight is a full moon night
full of whispers and suggestions

I look down at my cupped hands where she has placed something
unexpected
unsought

but given anyhow

and I smile down
and into
the possibility and hope of her gift.

The other day
the other day
I saw a bear
i saw a bear
away up there


There is not much writing in me these says. There are many words, but not much ability to string them together in much coherence for the likes of y'all.

I.am.tired.

I am also very much awake.

The kindnesses given to me in the months that have past astound me. Today.

Just today. A co worker came and gave me a gift.

just because. we have a history her and I. we worked together in the restaurant business 20 years ago, and here I am in the same office with her.

she is protective.

and the woman, my friend who walks Knight a couple of times a week, brought me in a cinnamon bun. because.

she said, just because.

And last night. one of closest nearest and dearest. She made me a beautiful meal. And I ate enough for ten because these days I do not eat much unless it is put in front of me.

how she puts up with me.

The past week has been full of surprises.
I walk with my dog and a bear comes snuffling gently and kindly out of the woods.

surprises everywhere.

Any post that starts with a sepia tinted profile shot of the author is going to be on one of Those posts of the heart and the soul and the this and the that.

I remain staunchly unapologetic.

The light was incredible today in the park. Both on the morning walk and the afternoon walk. Cicadas gone, all I could hear were crickets and the sound of my boots hitting firmly packed earth and my hound running ahead and around and in back and ahead again

Breath

hanging

on

air

He would turn to me and look back and on his face I read what? Isn't it enough you have me and this trail and the smell of everything in the air? Can you not be like me and find a simplicity in this doggy love I give to you which is more love than you will ever receive?

Lovely hound

heart of my heart.

Were it only so simple for us complex yet obviously massively stupid humans.

I walked and walked and looked up at the beauty of

a sun coming through branches slowly being revealed by fall.

And I realized my weakness.

I miss being loved.

And i know that the rule is that one should love oneself and find the beauty within and strength will come and.

yeah and.

I miss being loved by him.

By someone so familiar who knows me so well.

And my heart is in that place

enough so that I went to visit my younger at lunch today

and held her in my arms and smelled her smell for 15 delicious minutes.

she chattered. And it was bliss.

I tucked my tears away and walked back to work reciting to myself that I must be strong for them. I must hold it together and not cry, and find my own strength, my own self love.

But there is that other part of me that wants to sabotage all of these things.

Exploding peace with a growl and fuck you at what is right.

(But I don't.)

And tonight I folded their socks while they are with their dad, fourth night in a row.

And I think with a deep and profound ache

that this is what my life has become.

Times divided by being with, or being without the two people I love most in the world.

I look inside.

The winding park trail of my heart.

And I do see through thicket, and thin.

Light. Beautiful light. And crickets.

and deep somewhere.

me waving back.

I may have

to give

him up.

Because all I can afford is a condo without a yard and I will be working full time and I cannot see my way to paying a dog walker every day.

My heart is completely broken right now.

A Dream

In this dream I kept on going down into the earth and coming out in other countries and places.

Every time I came out, one of two men would be behind me and say in a sing song voice AAAAnne. I would turn, see him, and duck back down.

I came back up in a desert after about my fourth try.
(Alice from the rabbit hole.)

And you know how it is in dreams, it becomes cinematic, like someone is holding a camera and you end up watching yourself.

Well, over the ridge of a sand dune I came, on the heels of another woman, who was just slightly larger than life. She had a huge hound, same breed as mine but brown not black.

I walked beside her, as she (only just slightly) led the way.

July, 2009, Installation in Elora. (Thicket)

This feels strange, my new skin.

But aside from the small fears that poke me with twigs in the middle of the night I can honestly say I am fairly happy.

(hopeful even.)

The girls are settled into school. Younger has shifted over to english stream thank god. Elder has a cell phone from her dad, so now according to her she has joined the human race, 'cause times are different mummaaay...like from when you were my age...

I have a part time job (I know I know I am that fantastic to find one so soon but what the hell am I going to wear?) Toolbelts and jeans will not cut it, and shopping for that kind of clothing is confusing at best.

There are many kind people out there and wheels are spinning and opportunities are presenting themselves.

Interest rates are low but bidding wars are fierce.

My hair needs a trim and my keyboard is sticky.

The paper pile gets taller and my to do lists (note the plural) get longer.

I meet people everywhere I go and it seems everyone knows each other or has a point of connection or reference with someone else I know.

The world, this world is so small you could set it on the head of a pin.

My life holds a comfortable wonderful dirty kind of chaos.

The dog whines at the back door constantly and despite my efforts to rid him of that habit (because who knows maybe I will be in a sixth floor walk up months hence), I still let him out so he can bound across the yard and bark at squirrels he cannot catch. And two minutes later he is whining to be let back in so he can snuffle my lap before he goes off and wags hopefully at the back door again.

The cat meows and scatters her food and I track her making sure that in her mild dementia she does not pee somewhere. And oh my god I better check the hamster's water and feed the fish so the girls do not come back from their dad's and find their beloved yet neglected pets dead.

I open cupboards and realize I need to shift the girls clothes from summer to fall, dig out boots and mitts in preparation for that first cold morning.

A very long time ago I wrote to another blogger about how I saw her as this person who was standing on the white line of a highway, but nothing could knock her down from any direction.

I see myself as that now. Eyes closed and buffeted by the wind from oncoming traffic, arms outstretched not in some kind of supplication, but more of an embrace.

Bring it on.

And I turn slowly with the seasons, making sure all the bases are covered.

Another single mother in a sea of single mothers making it happen.

I was out looking at properties yesterday.
The plan is to buy a new home and move from here so my ex can move back into what he now owns by himself.

The matrimonial home is in one of the most beautiful and expensive neighbourhoods in the city. It is vast, and it is full of one hundred year old wood. It is stunning and I will miss it. I will miss my garden (sadly neglected this year), I will miss it's ramble, how it just goes on and on in an old and creaky way.

I saw many places yesterday, some were just houses, others were homes. And they border the area of wealth I now live in.

My hope is to find something close enough that my girls are safe, that elder can walk confidently back and forth from the subway, and that without use of a car, I can get younger back and forth from school.

To do this will take most of what I now have as a settlement.

There is one home I am interested in. An estate sale. Old and tired, fridge weeping onto the floor, the basement a damp little dungeon. It reminds me of our first home, down to the hideous and peeling wallpaper in one room.

It will require immediate work on the main things, electrical and plumbing, the rest, the cosmetics I can chip away at over the years.
Because the home is where the heart is right? I do not have to have a grand old home full of gorgeous wood detailing to make my home lovely for my family correct?

Elder is away for the weekend and younger is with her dad.
But they stopped by yesterday to pick up her bike helmet.

mummy? mummy? she asked. What house is bigger? she asked. This house or the other house? (where my ex is now staying until I move).

I sat on our steps and thought about the sheer footage of both homes. The ridiculous grand beauty they both hold.

And I compared them very quickly in my head to the shabby tired little thing I had looked at earlier. I told her to ask her dad as he was probably more aware of these things, and he told her that this one was.

And I felt anger. And I felt jealousy.
Because not only do I have to find a home, a lesser house.
I also have to find a career that will see me through to retirement after twelve years of stay at home parenting.

These days I fall asleep exhausted by the spinning in my head.
And I wake at 4, with the wheels still turning.

And I toss and turn and thrash until my hound jumps onto the bed and sticks his nose into my neck. I curl up to him, and take solace from his size, from his animal smell and breath.

How am I going to do this dog? I mutter into his back how the hell am I going to do it?

I wish he could bark away my fears.