the girls in their summer dresses...

the droning sound of a lawn mower has silenced the robins' song as it rejoiced at the start of a new day...proudly sitting upon its nest in the tree outside my balcony...the smell of newly mown grass tickles my nose and i sneeze...three sneezes...the voices of people are loud and intrusive as though if they speak louder someone will notice them and the mating ritual will begin...what is this thing...this spring??...were it based on nature and the glory of miraculous buds blooming and blue robins' eggs, i could also partake in the celebration...instead it is a mania that inflicts the human race...not a happiness...a desperation...

the long winter months silenced their vulgar sounds and kept their necks inside car windows, it muffled the drunken debates and kept them away...the parade has begun and i don't like parades...clowns upside down and right side up...costumes and floats and screams of 'look at me'...the childishness of peoples' needs is nothing short of pathetic...

i remember a short story by Irwin Shaw entitled ' the girls in their summer dresses ' and how i marvelled at his ability as a man to notice the depth of the pain suffered by a woman in love with a man who is always looking at the passing parade....

the male character Michael says to his wife Frances...'you don't have to listen to this'...'.but i like the girls in the offices, neat with their eyeglasses, smart, chipper, knowing what everything is about..i like the girls on forty-fourth street at lunchtime, the actresses all dressed up...i like the salesgirls in the stores, paying attention to you first because you are a man, leaving lady customers waiting...i got all this stuff accumulated in me because i've been thinking about it for ten years, and now you've asked for it and here it is...'....i think of all of the girls on parade in the city...i don't know whether it's something special with me or whether every man walks around with the same feeling inside him, but i feel as though i'm at a picnic in the city....and when the warm weather comes...the girls in their summer dresses.'

.....his wife cries silently into her handkerchief, bent over so that nobody would notice...'at least do me one favour', she says...'keep it to yourself.  i'm not interested.'

i truly believe that women are motivated by their need to hurt other women...that their power is achieved by displacing a woman who threatens them, intellectually, physically or by simply being in love with a man...they are devious, envious, manipulative creatures incapable of true friendship and loyalty...they are the problem..not the men who strain to look at the parade the women create...their power is displaced and basic...whatever their career or their position in society...something never changes...the game of competition and the game of deceit...we have not been emancipated...women have remained enslaved by the very nature of their being...equality is not possible...man is superior...woman has much to learn.

a shack in the woods, a dog and a shotgun....

i have a saying when i am weary of this life, the city and its human traffic, the pretention and the jostling for position, the power struggles and intimidation...i tell those close to me that i will live out my days in the country in a shack with a dog and a shotgun...okay...maybe not the shotgun...the sentiment being that i need the simplicity of life...a wildflower garden...vegetables growing in my front yard...a place to lay my head and a fire to cook my food...

i think i could turn and live with animals

they are so placid and self contained 

not one is dissatisfied not one is demented

with the mania of owning things.

walt whitman

a friend who makes salt sweet                               

and blackness bright                                    

john masefield                                                                         .

                                                                                  

                                                                                 

                                      

spring, april is the cruellest month....and other noteworthy poetic quotations...

'April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.'

t.s. eliot.....

from the Burial of the Dead....

while the world celebrates the warmth of the sun and the shedding of winter clothes, i wonder why i feel this desperate feeling of having lost control...the security of scarves and mittens, hats and parkas...the quiet world of the cold...there is a comfort there...hiding in layers of fabric unseen by the eyes of the world, always judging, always watching...

one of my favourite short stories written by Conrad Aiken entitled Silent Snow, Secret Snow is something i have read and re-read so many times in my lifetime...i can feel the cold wind on my face when i read his words...he describes the magic of the winter in such an ethereal way...

'...at last his steps were curiously different, they were softer, 

they had a new secrecy about them,

they were muffled and indistinct;

and while the rhythm of them was the same, it now said a new thing- 

it said peace,

it said remoteness,

it said cold,

it said sleep...

snow growing heavier each day, muffling the world, hiding the ugly....

the hiss was now becoming a roar-the whole was a vast moving screen of snow-but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep...'

i often wonder why Canadians cannot embrace the winter and the pureness of fallen snow...i realize they are so automobile oriented that the arrival of the snow presents a problem for them in terms of tires and anti-freeze and traffic jams...therein lies the problem...we have lost sight as a society of the simplicity of life and have complicated it to the point where we are incapable of happiness without perfection...a sunny day and dry roads means easy....clouds and snow or rain means difficult...in a language so simple and childish...this is how people conduct their lives ... it saddens me...the hedonistic world that we live in...the sun worshippers have deprived themselves of a world of peace and beauty by denying the climate for half of every year they live ....

to quote poet Thomas Carew from his poem, The Spring...' she doth carry June in her eyes...in her heart January...'

women friends, unicorns and other mythical creatures..

perhaps i learned too early in life that women can't be trusted...maybe my fathers philanderings with me by his side taught me something i should never have had to learn...or maybe it was my so called best friend baking all of my cakes for my 'easy bake oven' on christmas day while i sat by innocently dumbfounded by her audacity...my mother screaming at me later as to why i did nothing to stop her...

whatever i did, i could never win with women...old, young, related, strangers...i always thought that women were cats and men were dogs...the cunning, manipulative nature of the feline so suited the dishonest deceit of the women i observed in my life...

i truly believe that women are incapable of true friendship and are solely motivated by their own selfish needs and inadequacies....to recall the x-files mantra..'.trust no one.'..especially if they are wearing heels...and what of those heels???   we all know they aren't comfortable, nor practical...have we truly advanced to achieve equality with men and yet insist on teetering on shoes that one cannot walk in?  the whole notion of the heels shifting the stance of the body to alter the buttocks into a mating position....are we human or are we chimps?  or the theory of helplessness achieved by wearing heels and seeming vulnerable and unable to walk without the help of a knight in shining armour....is this equality...no...it is manipulation, and women are not capable of functioning without it...

power...the chant of the 'modern woman'...power suits, power heels...the loud clattering noise of high heels on the concrete....why do they want power?  and what of motherhood?  of nurturing and love...of creation and compassion...i truly believe that the downfall of our modern society is the fact that women want to be men but still fulfill their biological need to create children...ironically then to enslave another woman to raise them....they are hypocrites....their woman power can only be achieved by using another woman to perform their daily tasks...that is not equality...

and the ultimate irony as we see in today's world...they can't conceive...perhaps they are becoming men and require drugs, implanted embryos and fertilization techniques in order to do what should come naturally by loving a man...or are they capable of loving a man...they are versed in the mating rituals, the trapping  and sacrificing of their mens dignity and masculinity...but where is the love???

women claim to have men friends and men claim to have women friends...that is a misnomer...it doesn't exist...the balance of friendship is always tipped one way...what the man may see as friendship, the women perceives as the possiblility of romance...especially if the man is already involved and in love with another woman...the enemy...it is a game that intensifies when a woman perceives a threat, and the larger the threat, the more she will persist....pathetic...basic...uneducated scholars...as transparent as the window to their empty souls...

i have never had a manicure, pedicure or had my eyebrows shaped...i have never had a 'girls night out' or a posse of female friends...i have never felt the need nor the want as i know they are threatened by something they don't even understand...fire...passion...depth...the unknown aura that surrounds me...i am a real woman...my births were natural, i breast fed my children much longer than the recommended 3 months...i love with great passion and desire...i don't need to discuss the man that i love...i don't share my innermost thoughts...my love is too precious to be the fat they chew to gossip and deceive...

women are no further ahead than they were in the days before womens' so called liberation...they are wearing the disguises and playing the roles of politicians, business moguls and executives, but they are basic, and boring and predictable....they have taken away body hair and sprayed themselves with perfume chemicals disguising their natural pheromones that attract a mate...they are immersed in on-line dating sites and desperately searching for a man to enslave with promises of carnal pleasure...it is part of their plot...well executed and discussed with their female counterparts...it is never about the man...the posse of pussies are a threat to all that is good and true...it is the ultimate betrayal...and men are the casualties...

i have often thought of the drag queen as the ultimate definition of my theory...in order to convincingly portray a 'woman' they exaggerate the breasts, the hair, the makeup, the nails, the high heels, the tight clothing....leading me to wonder why supposedly 'real' women have to do the same???.....are they unsure of what it truly means to be female?  do they understand what a woman is as undefined by desperate measures to be noticed?....

have we really evolved or will we ever...Shakespeare brilliantly used his character Hamlet to scold his love Ophelia...' if thou wilt need marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them.....i have heard of your paintings too, well enough.  God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.  You jig, you amble and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance...go to, i'll no more on't, it hath made me mad....  

easter bunnies, spring and family heartache

Easter...chocolate bunnies, spring flowers, eggs, the promise of new beginnings...if you aren't a religious person, easter is a chance to be with loved ones and search for easter eggs, eat too much and break chocolate ears from bunnies heads...

i remember standing in our local delicatessen as a little girl listening to my mother spelling out the names of her three children as the man behind the counter wrote them onto hollow eggs and hollow bunnies....the smell of pastrami over-riding the sweetness of the chocolate... the magic of the easter bunny forever shattered by this tradition...little girl lost in the sliced meats and olives...wondering where the innocence had gone at 4 years old...

when my children were small, easter was a celebration of fun and searching for hidden treasures in spite of the dysfunction that surrounded them...the magic should never be taken away from children...they should dream, believe, and forever hope...

this easter, i am away from the man that i love and we both feel the sadness of longing...he is my easter bunny, my santa, my tooth fairy, my birthday party....he is magical and loving and hope springs eternal when we are together....

there will be no pastrami for dinner or hollow bunnies...my love is solid .....

OF SCRAPBOOKS, WALLS AND PRETTY PICTURES...

Ever since i was old enough to hold a pair of scissors, i have cut out pictures from magazines and flyers and pasted them in blank scrapbooks, on walls, on garbage pails...anywhere that needed some colour and life...it has been a life-long quest of mine to beautify my little corner of the world always hopeful that the beauty i surround myself with will somehow, through osmosis, penetrate the deep corners of my sad mind and my aching heart...

forever the optimist, i have continued this joyful work..

finding that it had a legitimate name in the real world...decoupage, artistic expression, inspiration walls........who knew.....the innocence of children and their will to dig to china and climb trees to touch the heavens is what keeps us alive and determined to find that elusive joy...my child-like passion for colour and image keeps me in the hunt for that contentment...sitting in the farmhouse kitchen of my boyfriends' 93 year old grandmother this weekend was the closest to complete happiness i have ever felt in my life...i didn't want to leave...who would want to leave their happy place that all of the digging and climbing had never uncovered....love transports us to places we could not discover alone...

Of motels and peeling walls...

In Belleville on the weekend we stayed in a motel that reminded me of the stuff that movies are made of...the line of rooms where the motorcars can line up beside the room...i felt as though i had found my home..i could imagine planting pansies in window boxes and welcoming home my love every night...to our little blue room with the two doors...one leading to the endless hall that looks like a scene from "the shining"...the other to the outside world and a brief walk to tim hortons...

walking through the streets of this town and feeling the history and the life of my love at every turn...learning so much more about this man who has captured my heart and where his world began..

the peeling painted walls and worn wooden doors...the city is so far away...

the snow has fallen overnight on this april day and i am amused by the number of people who are puzzled by this phenomenon...it has happened so many times before...snow in april...do they realize that a cold, wet spring creates a bountiful harvest of spectacular flowers that last long into the summer with vibrant colour and storybook size? there is a reason for everything in nature...but as Wordsworth once said so profoundly...

'the world is too much with us; late and soon,
getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
little we see in Nature that is ours;
we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
this sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
the winds that will be howling at all hours,
and are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
for this, for everything, we are out of tune;
it moves us not...

the earth beneath my feet...

>my weekend in the country is over...i am numb with sadness and longing for the earth beneath my feet and my love beside
me...there is a peace there...a calming hand placed on my soul taking away the sorrow, the worry, the confusion..

the city is my home, my birthplace, but i have always managed to find natures treasures here...a need to feel that connection to the soil, the smell of the spring, the solitude of an open field..

meeting the people in your loved ones life is wonderful...a dog sits in my lap and accepts me..a grandmother tells stories of her life on the farm, parents struggle to overcome the awkwardness of introduction, to find that you are not the ogre or temptress they might have feared...you are the woman who loves their son...the woman who wants you to love him as i do...to erase the past and enter the present and the future and embrace the amazing creation they have made....love is lost in translation...their love that created him...perhaps that is where things go wrong...it is all about love for me...love should be so basic and simple...like the solitary horse on the lonely hill..unafraid and at peace...

the birds were singing...i saw my first robin...i met a mourning dove named rosie and a dog named slim shady...a lovely old dog named kitty who hid from my camera but ate both dinners not intended for her...a golden retriever named buddy and a shih-tze named missy....i can never spell that dog breed...i am so calm...i love my man with my soul, my heart and the blood rushing through my veins...i envision us in a country home with a wild garden and creatures wild and tame who visit us...love breeds love...and love will grow in our garden....

LOVE HURTS...

there is nothing more wonderful than being in love and nothing more devastating than being in love....was it the group foreigner who sang that song 'love hurts' with the plaintive vocals and tearful pleas...the path of love never runs smoothly...it is the greatest joy and the deepest sorrow and yet we throw ourselves into its depths with dreams of forever and endless romance...

it is difficult to be away from the one you love and i try hard to hold on to the quote..'if a flame is small, the slightest breeze can extinguish it...but if the flame is strong and powerful, even the winds of a hurricane can only fan the flame and make it grow even greater...

i am lovesick and filled with sadness today, and i wonder why we fall in love with the ones we do...some unfulfilled past life experience....some inexplicable connection that cannot be denied...the heart is a muscle...it aches, and yearns and needs to be soothed....i am without solace today....