daughter of the sea

Small

[note: the image I foundhere in a google search for 'red-haired boy' - it is NOT Drew BUT, when I came across it, I was shocked speechless.... because it is IDENTICAL to how I remember him - and checking with D. he too was pole-axed at the resemblance.]

There is a green sign on the highway to and from Montreal, Route 778 – Moulinette Road, Long Sault.  If you take the long winding road, you will reach a small community nestled just up from the St. Lawrence, a pristine wilderness of tree and flower-studded meadows, rocky beaches with pristine inlets and campgrounds much in demand during the hot, lazy days of summer and into the blazing glory of fall.

A spirit waits for me there, on the green verge at the side of the road, dotted with echenecia and black eyed susans swaying in the breeze from the cars which breathe past with a sigh, blind to the figure which drifts through the thick stand of trees stretching deep into the countryside.  The transport trucks that trundle along the black ribbon of asphalt like lumbering pachyderms, sense not the quiet soul which waits patiently for my frequent journeys past, dreaming of a youth forever suspended in the past. 

His name was Drew.  

His hair was a deep, rich dark red and fell in waves and curls well below his shoulders, thick and the envy of many, a source of merriment between he and I as we vied for the wildest locks.  His eyes were a clear, glacial blue, at times merry, dancing with humour and affection, but could harden into the street-smart realities of his Celtic ancestry and rough upbringing.  But I remember most the soft, limpid kindness of those lovely eyes, compassionate and yearning looking into my own as he once again would blot my tears and cup my face. 

D. filled my soul, my heart, my mind and my attention in those early days; his actions and reactions, his absences and small, careless cruelties, his compelling sexuality against which I was helpless obsessed me.  He was my puppeteer and like a marionette, I danced and cavorted to the tunes he chose and like a broken doll, would lie helpless in the corner when his interest turned elsewhere. 

Often, on those cruel nights when D.’s demons drove him from me with a shrug and a careless wave, it was Drew who would appear beside me, his big hands gentle on my face as he wiped away tears, his voice gentle in my ears as he crooned comfort and reassurance and assured me of my worth.  He called me Treasure; I remember that now, though for a very long time I had forgotten.  He would walk me home after D. abandoned me, his big arm warm around my shoulder, our hair, almost identical, curling in the hot, humid embrace of a Montreal summer night, our thick, red waves twining and dancing as we walked the deserted streets. 

At my home, he would lift my hand to his lips and kiss it gently, and run his fingers along my cheek and take upon the tip, the glistening salt drop of my tears and sip it, gently, into his cruelly beautiful sculpted lips, then sighing, tell me again I was a Treasure and send me in. 

Even while I felt grateful for his comfort and caring, I was blind to what I think now might have been more; so entwined was I with my obsession, compelling and overwhelming, with D. that there existed not even a small space in my soul that recognized trueness of caring, the genuineness of want. 

But I cared for him, my friend and warrior Drew. 

Though somewhat a ‘bad boy’ like many I knew in the day, I felt comfortable and safe around him, relaxed and confident of being accepted and liked.  In hindsight, I was an innocent among a lot of rather bad wolves and often marvel that it must have been that naivety, the freshness of it that stayed their hands and made their fierce grins gentle, the predatory slavering want, quieten. 

Long Sault was a favourite haunt of the crowd among which I mingled, a place where weekend bacchanalias of indulgence played out, maenads and satyrs cavorted and played out their riotous revels against the background of campfire and the blaze of stars in a wine dark sky.  But for me, innocent that I was in those days, Long Sault was off-limits and though I sometimes envied and secretly yearned to experience the wildness of those summer nights, I remained obediently home, D’s secret escape, his to take or not, his property and despite the heartache and the agony, content to be so. 

And one hot, humid summer night, his eyes alight with the dying cry of starlight, with colours weaving and dancing in a moonless sky, his body insubstantial and ethereal, Drew staggered his way to the black river of asphalt and opened his arms and his heart to the glory of light which swept through the hot summer breeze and grasped eternity . 

And I do not pass Exit 778 without thinking of my friend Drew and feeling a poignant sadness for the dreaming spirit which drifts insubstantial along the black-topped highway and dreams of youth and a future never realized. 

Drew, you are not forgotten.

Patterns seem to be an inevitable rut into which the human species is doomed to fall again and again.   It is as if our feet get stuck in the groove of our own making, and without conscious thought or volition, we trudge forward, placing each foot squarely in the same imprint made a thousand... a million times before.

Why do we do so?

I think it gives a spurious comfort to perform repetitive functions, to create in a sense, a ritual which can be enacted and completed without challenge to thought or effort.  For while ritual can provide meaning and focus and encourage one to enter a state wherein you are open to and able to internalize thoughts and emotions not readily quantifiable in our workaday lives, “ritual” performed by rote, without introspection and thought, becomes not insightful but destructive.

Ritual done without intent becomes a pattern and a pattern is, when all is said and done, a predictable sequence of behaviours. 

Predictability has its place in every life, but when it permeates every facet of existence it becomes stifling, destroys creativity, smothers possibilities and leaches colour from your existence.

Most decidedly, there is something in the human psyche that seeks order.  We even create deities and then mythologies around those deities in an attempt to create reason and order out of what often feels like a chaotic universe. 

The universe itself seems to favour order and pattern, as sequence, patterns and order are increasingly revealed as the preferred status quo.  Science and technology continue to affirm again and again the hypothesis that where there is chaos, the universe demands harmony.

The problem of course is that while there can be comfort derived from ritual and equilibrium from a pattern in your days, mindless rote in the end serves only to undermine creativity, spontaneity and ultimately, can be and is often used as a substitute for insight.

I’ve also always found it mystifying why we continue to engage in patterns that are patently destructive to our peace of mind, happiness and ultimately, the quality of our lives. 

Why do we do that?

I’m not talking about patterns we don’t see (because, like it or not, each of us engages to some extent in a groove of repetitive habits that through their very predictability, have become invisible and fallen off the edge of awareness).  I’m talking about patterns about which, through trial and error, through experience and repetition, are obvious and in their obviousness, destructive to our peace of mind, quality of life and happiness.

What are your destructive emotional patterns?

Do you have insight into why you continue to follow that path?

I sure as hell don’t.

I consider myself relatively intelligent, with a modicum of insight and believe I at least deserve credit for determined if not fruitful contemplation of esoteric meanderings yet damned if I can figure out why I engage in the same self-destructive patterns decade after decade.

I think fear has some bearing on it; there is a comfort, spurious or otherwise, in “known” actions – in being able to anticipate and even predict outcomes.  Breaking a pattern brings with it the loss of certainty (in essence, inviting chaos); the question of course is WHY is that seen by many of us as a negative consequence?

While “patterns” are often seen to be synonymous with “harmony” and thus desirable, I think that is perhaps a rather shallow interpretation of the balance in life.  I think sometimes that chaos is far more gratifying, more life-affirming in its own way than peace.

Chaos in short has had a bad rap.

If the point of life (and I believe it to be truth) is in fact for each of us to strive to live up to our fullest potential, then I believe that too rigid an adherence to patterns can stultify and impede our journey to true self-insight and discovery.

The reality that in many instances we are our own jailors is moot; our fear is strangling us.

In ancient Greece, Chaos was the dark, silent abyss from which all things came; as in life, as in the creation of same.  But somewhere along the philosophical trail of history, we’ve redefined it as a negative, something to be avoided.

In doing so, those of us who rigidly, persistently and blindly continue in our repetitive, often self-destructive behaviour are in essence contributing to the hobbling of our own probabilities.  And that is just plain sad.

Sometimes it takes a hint of chaos, a small tremor of disorder, a frisson of turmoil to open our wilfully closed eyes to the realities of our existence and, while that can sting, hell it can be quite agonizing – I think the most important thing to bring away from the pain is self-realization ….

I’ve been told by my best friend Sally (about whom I’ve blogged before – for I truly believe EVERYONE should have a “sally”), that our family has weird conversations. That particular comment arose because I was relating D’s permanent scarring of Daughter 2- Rowan.  This occurred when cooking dinner one night, Rowan perched on the counter, D. holding onto his coffee as if it contained the elixir of life, we were discussing the castrati (http://www.essortment.com/all/castratihistory_rzna.htm) during the Baroque period.  The discussion was lively as we argued the merits of emasculation in terms of creating a better life for you and your family, how it was ostensibly, a good economic decision, the ramifications of the life, what was involved and what the futures held for these divinely voiced boys. 

Thinking about it, D., in I am sure a very male moment, grimaced and said the WORDS “When I had my vasectomy”, thus permanently scarring Rowan who collapsed to the floor clutching her ears, screaming “TMI, TMI” –because of course, as her DAD, he had only had sex four times (under duress) to create herself and her siblings, thus there should have been NO need of a vasectomy, particularly in view of our advanced age. 

Sally looked at me and said “Yes, we stand around our kitchen when I’m making dinner and discuss things like the castrati in the Baroque period ALL THE TIME”…

Last night I thought of that.  D, son Declan, daughters Rowan and Kealin were sitting in the living room discussing Rowan’s experiences at a protest by students of York University (aka GODDAM YORK – as I had JUST finished forking over close to $6,000 in tuition last October and two DAYS later they friggin went on STRIKE – and refused categorically to return said $$$). 

Did you KNOW that in Toronto, and for all I know in the rest of Canada – you BOOK a time and an AREA for a PROTEST????

Good rebel child of the 60s and 70s that I am, I am aghast.  You BOOK for a protest??? How CANADIAN and polite is THAT??  She was like, yeah, we booked our time, then they assigned an area and we protested.  All I could think was How the Mighty have Fallen!  What happened to CHAOS? What happened to REBELLION?  Where are the hippies gone???

The conversation ranged then from the protests of my youth to the Black Panthers, the Weatherman, touched on the Stockholm Syndrome and Patti Hearst, meandered into whether violence was an acceptable solution, flared into arguments over unions, tripped into a tirade against CUPE (who had tried to incite the students into violence) and then suddenly, Kealin, who had been sitting quietly (we thought) taking this all in …

“Do you know you can’t get ketchup chips in America?”

HUH – we all stopped short and stared at her.

“Yeah – I saw this interview with Jimmy Kimball and Seth Rogan – Seth Rogan was like, you have to IMPORT ketchup chips”.

She nods sagely, appalled at how limited the shopping apparently was in our neighbour to the South.

“Imagine, not being able to get KETCHUP chips”.

D. and I looked at each other and I said considering – “well, they DID push for amnio in view of my being a senior mum… maybe we should have listened…” 

sighs.

Eyes

I was reading a blog recently that explored and asked readers their perception of tears ... whether they found crying catharthic, whether it provide release, how in fact they viewed tears.

His questions provoked a rather contradictory response in me and while I went to comment more than once, I realized in the end that I would have to explore it further in my own venue as my thoughts were convoluted, complicated and verbose.

My gut reaction was quite simply to declare “ I HATE tears” and further thoughts on tears, while providing some insight, did not change that initial flush of emotion at all. For, right or wrong, it is bred in the bone to me to equate tears with weakness and I cannot tolerate nor abide any weakness in myself.  I despise crying and have spent my life fighting a natural propensity to tears, refusing to surrender to a passionate heart and a genetic predisposition for revelling in great emotions.  (The Irish are well known for their ability to tear up at the slightest brush of emotion – from rage to passion to love – requited or unrequited.)

I cannot stand to be vulnerable. And there is a vulnerability to the soft eyes, the trembling lip, the heart which leaks in trails down soft cheeks. 

I cannot stand to be seen as weak. And while society wrestles with the reality of tears and the knowledge that tears do not necessarily equate weakness nor does the saltwater of passion mean a lack of character, I can’t internalize that any more than the general populace. 

Tears have caused me much anguish during the years.  Oddly, while I have learned since very young to ruthlessly suppress the tears of sorrow, pain and anguish, I continue to find it almost impossible to contain tears of rage.  Which infuriates me even more.  For women are still underestimated, seen as emotionally unstable, irrational and apt to be dismissed out of hand.  To be a rational, intelligent person and have your concerns dismissed because of being unable to contain a few inadvertent tears is infuriating ... and to have my rationality challenged, my facts suspect, my arguments dismissed is galling to the extreme – because individuals look at the tears and ignore the substance of your argument.

I don’t necessarily feel that my obsession with NOT crying is linked to any child trauma either.  I had, when all was said and done, a loving childhood with passionate parents, both of whom were unashamed to cry and did so on occasions of sorrow, joy and passion (whether fuelled by rage or simply a conviction of their validity).  But I do believe that it is partially a personality quirk, intrinsic to who I am.  For in my own children, I see myself in that respect in my eldest, who you could have flayed alive before she would cry while my second one never stopped her wailing ....

Ultimately, tears to me are a weakness and one in which my pride prevents me from indulging.

I think too that being a woman in male-dominated fields in my 20s and early 30s (1970s/1980s) at a time when that meant you bore the brunt of harassment and contempt, when you had to fight hard for simple respect, when you had to work twice as hard and twice as long as men, meant ANY vulnerability, anything that linked you even tenuously to what were perceived as “weak” feminine traits HAD to be ruthlessly and positively suppressed and tears certainly would fit that kind of narrow viewpoint.

Further, I have a rather rigid sense of honour, and tears have been a woman’s weapon for many years (understandably so, shorn was we have been and continue to be, of many other ways of defending ourselves or asserting our own will).  But I despise manipulation of any form and while I believe that most women do NOT use tears to manipulate, there is enough perception of this being a “feminine” trait that I avoid it as yet another reason to suppress my tears – for fear I would be seen as resorting to a backhand and less than honourable way of getting what I wish.

One of the questions asked in this blog, is do they provide a catharsis?

For me, NO. In fact, they leave me more anguished than before, bereft and vulnerable.  As if personifying my dislike of my vulnerability, tears of sorrow or anguish physically hurt ... it is as if some form of acid has etched its way into the saltwater of my body and escapes to trickle burning down my cheeks, hot, acidic and hurtful to the soul and to the body.

And when I do cry, I want to be left strictly, completely alone – not unlike if I hurt myself physically – whether spiritual, emotional or physical, when I hurt, I am an animal who needs to be left alone to deal with the pain as best I can.  To touch me, feel me, reach out to me is ultimately destructive to my sense of self and my ability to control my emotions and will leave me crushed.  I don’t think that is necessarily a positive trait, incidentally, and can be immensely frustrating to those who love you and reach out caring hands only to have them smacked away a snarling virago spitting rage at them for daring to care ...

I slipped once and fell down steps and broke three ribs and absolutely refused to even be touched or helped to my feet but lay, pulled in on myself, clutching my agony to me, fiercely mine, not to be shared .... and that is how I am when tears do sometimes claim me.

Even physical pain seldom makes me cry.  I have an immensely strong constitution and take pride in my tolerance and ability to withstand pain.  In actual fact, physical pain is probably the LEAST likely trigger for tears .

Oddly, I have NO issue with tears in others and soften and want to reach out and nurture when I see others’ tears.  Other tears open the deep wellspring of caring I carry inside me always and makes me move mountains to bring smiles, to bring some level of comfort to the individual crying ...

But tears... at the end of it all, I HATE tears in me.

It seems to me that there is an awful lot of “settling” going on around me – both online and off. In my own limited sphere, I see several bloggers I know settling for what crumbs of time and attention they are accorded by men who have other lives. I see other bloggers settling for less than they desire in their primary relationships. I see people whose lives are far less than they envisioned and others who seem perplexed and confused as to how they ended up where they are ...

In real time life, I am conversant with various relationships, the sum of which is one partner has “settled” for what the other partner is willing to accord them. And I’m not exempt, of course, as witnessed by my recent whining, I’m settling myself for less than what will make me truly content. And truth be told, it is something I’ve looked at long and hard and realized in the end, that I’m settling because the history of my dynamic with him always has been and probably always will be, I take him on HIS terms. Making me, I suppose, weak-willed and ineffective....

I accept, however, that it is, ultimately, ALL about choice and ALL about compromise. The trick of course being that you have some self-awareness of what that compromise will cost – in terms of comfort, in terms of emotional equilibrium, in terms of what you will gain versus what you stand to lose.

I think in one sense, the nature of life is all about compromise. It is neither realistic nor possible to assume that each of us always gets our heart desire out of life. We whine, we cry, we shout and yell and demand and scream that we MUST have it this way or NO way ... and in the end, we have to make a choice – whether to compromise, accept, walk away or deny.

“Settling” has such negative connotations- as if we accept less than that to which we are entitled; as if by accepting that we can live with less than we really want, we are somehow diminished, weakened.

In the end, most of us settle for what we think, in the end, is the “lesser” evil (Christian dogma aside, I think the intent is clear). Ultimately, it comes down to the individual own sense of preservation, self-esteem and desire.

Yet....and yet.

There is for most people, however, the hard reality that time and experience have etched on lives; a knowledge that the grass is often NOT as green ...a comprehension that dalliances, short-term experiences, limited exchanges in the end are not indicative of what a full-time life would encompass.

There is also often the hard-won knowledge that desire does not equate need, that want does not equal must and that what works in the short-term may not survive the long haul. There are so many adages that preach the whole concept of `settling` ``a bird in the hand``, ``be careful what you wish for`` .. a myriad of home-grown preachy sayings about settling for what you do have rather than yearn for what you may not.

Should you or shouldn`t you? Hell, I don’t know.

What I do know is anyone with a modicum of intelligence will think long and hard before making a life-altering decision about anything. One must weigh the consequences not just on your own life, but on those whose lives are entwined with yours. For very few of us come without our own set of complications, our own Gordian knots of worries and confusions. The choices an individual makes impacts not just them but those with whom they are entwined. Further, no one comes to a new relationship unencumbered ... each of us brings our own baggage, some of it battered and torn, bearing history and hard-won lessons.

I think one of the most prevalent scenarios I see are online relationships where individuals equate reality with the stolen moments online; where pixels and visuals confuse fantasy with reality and where fulfilling what is ultimately a role is confused with living a life.

The bottom line is that living a real life is not the same as creating and maintaining an online one.

And if you are content with that, then more power to you. BUT, what i see more and more are people equating their fantastic twitterings with real living

In musing about this, I realize too that the online worlds created with the advent of the internet are really just Marshall Mcluhan’s vision brought into being ... for snatched moments online are really not all that different from the more cerebral and sometimes flesh on flesh “affairs” engaged in before electronic wizardry.

In fact, on a re-reading of some of his work, I realize what a visionary this man was!

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.

the topic this morning in work was invariably the weather .. specifically, the frigid, -30 temperatures which have descended on our city

it was SO Canadian! What would we do without our weather, we Canadians? What in the world would we talk about?

Each person to whom I spoke had a usually amusing story to relate about their forays into the arctic air. From the lawyer talking about how his shoes freeze, thus making him walk like a clown as the soles refuse to bend to the individual whose nose suddenly began gushing blood as she took a deep breath and frozen water sliced into the tender mucus membranes with a vengeance.

This morning at 4 a.m. I was crunching through the morning dark with the dogs frisking ahead, oblivious to the cold, kept warm by their enthusiasm and sheer joy in being alive.  Encased in my dad's parka (bought in 1958 when he first came to Canada and was working up north in Bear Island), I felt quite cosy but as the walk progressed, as the frigid embrace of dark arctic need insinuated itself into the vulnerable exposed expanse of skin and licked fire into thighs covered only by thin work pants, I felt the beginning of the Canadian "sting"...

My legs began aching, licked by fire and breathing hot stinging want...until I slipped into the warm golden light of the house and they erupted into ache.  Laughing, I pulled down the pants and grinned at the flaming crimson of my thighs, reminiscent of those high school days of micro minis, knee socks and coats with linings removed and never closed (because you might look FAT)... when pale fleshed legs flamed red and even purple and frostbite was a thought away.

Rubbing feeling back into their frozen length, I slipped up my pants and put on a coffee, slipping out quickly to start the reluctant car (and feeling a small sting, quickly extinguished, of remorse at my contribution to global warming!) and then completing my ablutions continued into work ... where I gloried in the myriad tales and stories of my workmates and laughed again at the Canadian obsession with our weather.

Despite dealing with what many from outside our country consider untenable situations, we Canadians remain united and strong in our passion and secretly (and not so secretly) relish our crazy temperatures as a uniqueness which defines who we are.