Waving Not Drowning

Four more days til he can get back to her. The deal is never longer than two weeks. Thirteen consecutive nights alone and even that is pushing it. After 4 years of long distance commuting Tom is feeling things start to implode. They're creating problems where there aren't any for the sake of conversation. Conflict creates contentious communion. Magnetic poles attracting and repelling simultaneously. It started so well. Big dreams, incredible connection. Flurries of fleeting layovers, insane exhausting weekends, extended overnighters,  the eventual week-long live-in. From the beginning they know what they're in for. Bicoastal breakdown. Tom vows he'll never do a long distance relationship. Elaine doesn't see it coming. An unexpected hello turns into a twenty minute seduction. His eyes on her arms, her lips on his neck, their fingers intertwine, legs interlock and time stops. Clothing litters the floor, sheets are soaking wet, an entire suite is consumed by their bodi...

Opening the freezer the blast of cool air rushes over her shocking her system. The sweat on her forehead momentarily stops streaming down her face, where it's been pooling in the crook of her collarbone. So much sweat. She's a human salt lick, the dog can't get enough of her. Every time she lays down on the ceramic floor he slobbers along the length of her arms and legs til she gathers enough energy to shove him across the tile and out of range. It's supposed to be autumn but this freak heat wave is more reminiscent of Chennai in January than Winnipeg in October. It can't be good. Everyone on the block struggles to replace the air conditioners they packed away 4 weeks earlier and trees that are crusty with dried up burnt orange foliage are starting to bud again. If this is what menopause is like Darcy's moving to Alaska. There are more men up there anyway. Four to one ratio, she heard. Maybe when she hits 50 she'll pick a winner. Lord knows she's a total...

Another trip round the sun. Three hundred sixty five days, couple of blue moons, handful of seasons, myriad of cells sloughed off, regenerated and she's still here. One year older, arguably wiser, certainly more experienced with this thing called Life and all that entails. Every moment of every day carries within it the pure potential to swing wildly in or out of her favour so she's been practicing choice, adaptation, engagement, disentanglement, acceptance, forgiveness, righteous indignation, compassion, kindness and outright fear and anger wrapped in a bottomless pit of Now What? One more year, one more ring around the trunk. Roots grow deeper, sails bellow out a bit deeper and black and white becomes a tenuous shade of grey more often than not. The what ifs, the shoulda woulda coulda's mean something different now. That surprises her. Expect the unexpected. Better yet, lose all expectation. Investments are larger, losses are greater and the highs failed to manifest in an...

It's his father's face staring back at him from the fogged up mirror over the bathroom sink. Same high forehead, receding hairline, same soft chin, long ears. Hence the permanent three day growth. The bald spot on the back of the top of his skull is out of sight but every now and then he catches it peripherally in a window or in a candid shot or video. He's aging. Halfway through or thereabouts. This is who he's become, a mirror image of his younger father with an inkling of his mother around the edges. But it's his pop's demeanour- cool, calm, laid back- that he's spent a life time cultivating. A me-so-happy, why worry aloofness. Detachment to handle the anxiety. The insomnia. The busy, unquiet mind that keeps him humming and buzzing at all hours. The years of self abuse, of negative self talk, willful destructive habits and behaviours. Relationships are no fun so he just dabbles, always sits in reactive, playing willingly but disengaging at any sign of exp...

Charlie always says no. Confidently but not with so much force as to raise any flags. Direct, make eye contact, no embellishing, then move on. Sometimes the interviewer will elaborate, a subtle attempt to casually redirect, asking the same question with other language to provoke a different response. Charlie's been at this for a while, she knows the drill, sees it coming miles before the neural synapses have even fired in the doctor or nurse or social worker or psychiatrist sitting in front of her. On a third attempt to question her once, the triage nurse started speaking uncomfortably loud and very slowly, as if Charlie was either deaf, mentally challenged, a foreign student or all three. Maybe it was the hapi coat and chopsticks in her crazy dreadlocked hair, who knows. Her asian phase has long passed. Regardless, the blue eyes, fierce red hair and freckles should've been a dead giveaway. The problem with a technologically advanced medical system in the largest city in the co...

It's a long drive, up north. Past a myriad of small communities, tiny one horse towns with similar sounding names, ending in brook or hurst or steed. The occasional signs of big box stores and chain  groceries glow in the dark off an exit ramp in the distance. Last chance for food, shelter, gas and family size jars of dijon mustard and 46 rolls of toilet paper for 34 miles. Hawks circle above, banking, soaring, catching updrafts and hovering effortlessly above the treeline. There's rain in the air, a faint shift in barometric pressure. Should've packed a tarp. Should've packed her life, jammed her belongings into boxes and bags and thrown everything she's ever been into the rental car.  Never come back. No real sense of where she's heading or why she's leaving except it's something she can do. Volitional, for now, at least. No set schedule, no dependents, no rhyme nor reason to anything anymore. Despondency, ambivalence. These are foreign words now tatto...

The second glass of Santa Margherita goes down easier, sweet, cool, tangy relief. It's been six weeks, no booze. Against advice from the psychiatrist, just to make sure her health is as optimum as can be. And it is, apparently. Phenomenally low blood pressure, excellent renal function, solid heart health. The social worker told her they'd be taking her left kidney- 50.3 percent function in her right, 49.7 in her left so technically, it was the inferior one. She was planning a Liberating Lefty party, a farewell celebration. It wasn't until Chris pulled her aside in the waiting room last week while running a session for some insurance spot that she began to think about her disease differently, as a potential detriment, a contraindication to her potential to save her friend's life or even some stranger's. He had a resectioning, 31 centimetres, but like her, no drug protocol. It was too risky, he was told, to even consider donating; he wouldn't qualify. But since sh...