Waving Not Drowning

The table is set for ten. It's tight but they find a way. A few minutes of musical chairs, some cross table rearranging and voila, everyone is met. They celebrate earlier than others simply because it's easier to get the gang together outside regular hours. A rag tag group of self employed creatives, two single parents, a writer, one city councillor, two real estate agents and a landscaper. It's the tenth anniversary of their first official gathering. Some years they're a few shy of the whole lot but not this year. Chris and Carla swapped weekends with their respective exes and Donny, Jim and Shawna rearranged their family and work plans to make this fly. Ten years is a big deal. They were so young when they first met, at least that's how they see it. A decade of accountability to each other, through hell and high water, marriages, divorce, births, death, career changes and relapse. The amazing thing is that they've stayed together. A splinter group that evolved...

He's smoking again. It slid back into his life so incrementally, so casually he can't pinpoint the exact moment the scales tipped back to the life he left behind. He's off the gluten, off the meat, even managing to get in some running. Well, jogging really. Still, full speed ahead. But the smoking, that's the killer. Literally. It winds it's way into every aspect of his being, who he is, how he feels about himself. He was, is, will always be a smoker. A dry drunk, well, this is the battle with nicotine. The trail of smoke curling out of his nostrils, floating up across his brow, slightly furrowing as his glasses fog over. Ember glowing, crawling up the shaft towards the crook of his index fingers lightly bent, wrist cocked just so. Iconic images of silver screen matinee idols, cowboys, and rebels without causes. Men. Strong, virile, masculine men with Marlboros and Camels and Galouise. Players, DuMaurier, Native Spirit. Rolling papers and west coast bud rolled in wi...

She's shrinking, folding in on herself. The doctor says it's a twisted stomach but that can't be right. Now they tell her it's a hernia and have given her reams of prescriptions, people to call, plans to follow. Tell her to go away and come back in six months then they'll re evaluate. It's a dingy space, her basement suite. Less light now that the air conditioner is taking over one of the precious three windows. We are solar powered. She needs more light, lightness of being, in every aspect of her life. Times speeding up and slowing down. Her EI is finished and there's nothing new on the horizon. A serious lack of potential prospects. Too old, over-qualified, under-employed, why don't you come back next month, things may have changed. Keeping a place north of the city for when she retires seemed like a great plan years ago. Now she returns from weekends away longing for a retreat somewhere else. Near people and culture, a sense of belonging, community. S...

It really wasn't the news she was anticipating but then again, Loretta understands she should never anticipate anything. Ever. Expectations cause endless disappointment. Not the most positive of mindsets but Loretta knows from whence she speaks. Sixteen years of stasis in middle management,  two near-engagements; one long heartbreaking, slipshod divorce and five rounds of chemo later, Loretta expects nothing short of the unexpected. The first round had gone relatively well, as far as treatment goes. Three hours in hospital, then an easy day at home. Days two through six  knocked on her ass. Then she began the slow climb back to next-to-normal over the following two weeks. The frequency was wearing her down. At every three weeks, Loretta was familiar with the seesaw rhythm of up and down days. Right now was pretty freakin awful. The mass had spread, metastasized into her lungs; things weren't as positive as Loretta had hoped. This is the problem with expectations...

Just like that. He's gone. Forever. No more late night calls, spontaneous walks on the mountain, laughing themselves silly until they can't breathe, making fun of the tam tams, the privileged west island and south shore kids who come in on Sundays to feel alternative. Glen would ridicule them behind their backs, aping their pseudo hippie composure, sitting crosslegged in three hundred dollar jeans and playing new djembes they bought from Steve's, badly. A bag of mixed day olds from Fairmont, thirteen for a buck ninety nine, tub of whipped cream cheese and flat of smoked salmon,  Glen and Leo would would grab quart bottles from the dep, share swigs while masterminding their  impending domination of the theatre world, riffing on ideas for festivals and installations, taking the piss out of Cirque and Lepage because hey, who did they think they were. Leo noticed the lump during one evening of too much hash and not enough curry, after two hours of the worst Chekhov they'd e...