Waving Not Drowning

It's an incredibly short ferry ride. Thirty seconds. The time spent lining up, boarding, offloading and making their way to and from the gate adds another forty minutes. Everyone around Jane looks familiar. The 30-something couple with the man who makes direct eye contact with Jane while his girlfriend, maybe wife, cracks open a Tupperware container of homemade yogurty muesli and frantically stirs, folds and caresses the muck with an enviro friendly portable bamboo spoon. She's sure she knows them from somewhere. High school? The gym? Did they date? Did she date the woman? Oh, college. The two women in line directly in front of Jane have spread out across the aisle in the middle of the boat, blocking a heavy set young Italian woman from making her way to the exterior deck of the ferry. She has to sandwich her way between two pillars of immoveable flesh in tweed and cotton. They're either angry old lesbians or nuns. Jane can't decide. Matching high waisted khakis with br...

And this is how it goes. You give a little to get a little. When your expectations fall apart, stop having them. When the wants and needs override the plain and simple facts of the matter, change course. Lean into it or fall over and get back up. Again. Then one more time. And again because the bottom's not going anywhere but the sky is limitless. Practice grace and forgiveness then eat some good cookies. Be kind. To yourself. Then more so to the ones you love especially if they can't give you what you want. Or need. Sleep deeply. Dream lucidly. Create the most perfect reality that you can then let it go. Have a spontaneous dance break and throw your hands in the air. Like you just don't care. Words are worthy. You are worthy. We- we are here to be loved. So let's love.

He unloaded in her lap. Dumped his secret life all over her. She no longer has the option of ignorance. Ignorance is power. Ignorance allows her to maintain their friendship as is:  uncomplicated, purely platonic. With his hidden self unmasked, she knows too much. It's burdensome. Unfair. She didn't ask for this. It was a cup of coffee, a catch up with a married friend and colleague. Safe. He is committed to someone else. Ring on finger, vows unbroken, kids in strollers, blah, blah, blah. Holden was not going to hit on her. Ever. It had never even crossed her mind. No matter how drunk they got or how heated the conversation. She kept it above board and he followed suit. Hooray for the adult opposite sex friendship. The bomb drops. A series of them. A drone airstrike, completely unforeseen, annihilating the entirety of their experience together. Words transform the air between them. The sky darkens, the barometer rises. Trish is dizzy. Nauseated and off balance, a gravity drop a...

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...

His lips move almost imperceptibly. It's difficult to make out what he's mouthing as he sits on the top bench of the bleachers watching rec league coed slowpitch. Sad eyes, beautiful skin, somewhere around 28. It's a hot, humid, oppressively sticky late summer eve and he's wearing a navy blue hoodie over a button down shirt, dark blue jeans, and innocuous sneakers, not too flashy but still sorta hip. He's clean, healthy looking, with good hands. He's perched, sitting very still; contained, but not tense. No air of anxiety. He could be high, maybe medicated. Every time she walks back from the plate to the bench they make eye contact. Hold it a beat too long. It's his eyes. Blue, clear, curious but not in a disarmingly strange way. He's watching the game, attentive to every pitch, every swing, hit and miss. When he looks away it's not with embarrassment or discomfort. He simply shifts focus while staying completely present. There's a languid, felin...

It came out of nowhere. Streets slick from a sudden shower, lamp light reflecting in unexpected directions. Quiet. Late. She never jaywalks but after triple checking and the coast being clear she stepped into the roadway. She heard it before she saw it. It felt like seconds before her mind made the connection. A car, barreling towards her. A silver late model BMW sedan, swerving into the intersection at full throttle. Coming out of U turn from somewhere. It really is like they say: caught in the headlights. In slow motion she couldn't discern if the car was coming at her or going around her. It was wet, late, barren. This shouldn't be happening, not here, not now. She stops, trying to judge which way to move. Go forward, skirt back, zigzag across. All she knows is that at his moment, this very second in time she is in stasis, suspended. A simple walk home after class, a subway ride with a colleague discussing the merits of an outdoor sculpture park in Montreal she really must s...

It's a long walk up the property back to the kitchen from the boathouse. Adam feels every step pulling on the back of his calves. Ten years they've been here, long enough for the cottage to become their second home. He never saw himself as a guy with a cottage. A guy with a rich wife, 2 kids, a summer home, a winter chalet and four luxury vehicles. But here he is. For now. The divorce is finalized in October. It's been a long time coming. Caroline separated years ago. Separate vacations, separate beds. Separate bank accounts. Hard blow to his ego, being a secondary bread winner. Intoxicating at first, being well tended. Having a sugar momma. Meant he could write all day. Play his guitar, do yoga, make movies. Then the kids. The shift in focus. Work dropped off and suddenly he's Mr Mom. No more all night jam sessions, spontaneous dates with Geoff and Gord. Or Caroline. There are expectations that come with marrying money. Accountability. Towing the party line. Commitment...

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...

He told her to slow down. Be careful, he warned, you'll flame out. I know, I remember what it's like to begin. Best intentions easily go astray. You'll run out of ideas, get trite, repetitive. Trust me, this will all get very boring very quickly. She closes the browser. Elizabeth knows that the only way to quiet the demons is to eradicate them, physically. Walk away from technology, turn off her phone, shut down his lifeline to her brain and by consequence her heart. They're just words, she says aloud, to no one in particular. Huh. She sips her tepid four dollar coffee attempting to appear lost in thought while the fey beanpole of a barista tidies up the detritus around her. Every day, every single day she writes. Then she rewrites, then scores it, records it and posts. Every. Single. Day. Two hundred and six so far. A body of work that documents in detail life after the fire. Total immolation. Complete loss. A rather charred and warped tabula rasa burned into her body....

Sleep, that's all she needs. Turn off her brain and shut down her body. Virginia can't figure out how this became her routine. Up with the birds then run around frenetically accomplishing next to nothing until her feet are so sore it hurts to walk. And for what, that's the question. Clear as mud, to quote her mom. She picked the wrong fork in the woods way back when, that's obvious. Thanks for nothing Mr. Frost. Hours and hours of breaking her back trying to master her craft and for what? A life of constant struggle and suffering with little to no reward. These days, at least- that's the reality. Give give give. What about some taking, hmm? Ginny's ready to stop and smell the roses. Reap her just rewards. Throw her stupid alarm clock out the window and sleep in for a change and participate in activities and work that is actually fulfilling, creatively, spiritually, emotionally. Ten, fifteen years ago maybe this was a different story but what happened to respect ...

Dimitri can't pick up the smoked salmon canapé from the long skinny ceramic tray. His hands, meaty thick paws covered in scars, calloused and worn, are ungainly. Functional, strong, weathered but not fit for delicate hors d'oeuvres. Standing on brushed granite stone floors imported from the other side of the world, a long sleeve of microbrewed beer in one hand, a napkin of sugarcane shrimp in the other. Rogerio, Vlad and Justin awkwardly socialize with the gang of tradesmen representing at least 15 different cultures and countries. A thank you gathering for the workers who put together this monstrosity of a house, all 4000 square feet of custom designed opulence. Still an empty shell, yet to be filled with furniture and art and life, it's lines are bold. Clean, angular, severe. No curverd space, no soft edges. Sharp, purposed. Windows from floor to ceiling overlooking what will surely become a meticulously manicured back acreage falling deliberately into the preserved ravin...

This is an incredible moment of panic. Opening up the freezer and not finding the stash of emergency chocolate. The really expensive kind, too. Fair trade, organic, chips of mint, maybe coconut, she can't remember. It was a spontaneous purchase for occasions just like this one. She knows better. Stay away from the computer. Flashing across her screen. His face. The date. The announcement. Probably as close as she'll ever come to skydiving without a parachute. She imagines that this is what it feels like. Her vision blurs, she feels her pulse pound through the veins in her neck like a torture porn movie, and waits for her heart to explode. Any second now. This is it. Old ghosts. Living in her psyche. Lining her fascia, sheathing her entire body. Tiny tubular webbing filled with fluid, stretching and undulating, tightening, seizing, creating adhesions. Blocks. Sticking patterns. She needs to break it down before it hardens into more scar tissue around her heart. Again. Months of ...

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...

Bursting at the seams, stretched tight over taut, voluptuous, well muscled thighs her tights sculpt and lift the frontal sweep of thick, heavy quads inserting high into the hip and wrapping around to a butt that rides high, like a bouncing rubber ball, hard as a rock but oh so tactile. She moves like an animal, primal, articulated, stealthy. Efficiency manifests in power and agility. She is extraordinarily feminine: graceful, confident, delightfully prepossessing. Covered in chalk. Her palms are scarred and ripped, callouses bleeding from repetitive lifting and high swings on an overhead horizontal bar. Flipping, dragging, thrusting, grunting. Sweating. Struggling. Surviving. Her legs contract and explode, flexing and extending, each fibre rippling and undulating under a sheath of unblemished skin. Her shoulders, perfect round globes perched atop astonishing arms, a horseshoe of triangulated sinew. Daunting to behold, but compelling to witness in action. Form meeting function of the hi...

Jesus christ woman, I can smell you from here. I don't know what you've been doing but whatever it is you need to take a shower. Or four. Pronto, capiche? You know I love you but seriously, what have you eaten, a dead baby? Holy dinah, darlin' you are not fit for public consumption. Oh! Oh oh oh oh! Put your shoes back on. PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON! For the love of all that's holy and I include among that our glorious, sacred, if somewhat left of center, occasionally anachronistic union, put 'em back on your feet and then take them off in an airtight, sealed chamber where they shall promptly be incinerated. Can you not smell that? How can you NOT smell that. How can the entire neighbourhood not smell that? It's worse than the worst ridiculously over priced cheese you could imagine. Worse than that runny Belgian cheese you brought home at christmas! Phew. They let you train in those? In a group? You didn't gas the entire class with the stench? Tell me, I'm s...

Two more steps and he'll make the couch. Three if he shuffles. This pain, this never ending intense ache deep in his bones, radiating like a searing beacon of Hey Stupid, Way To Go. Feet. Dang. So many small bones, all jammed up, tight together, a perfect symmetry when everyone gets along but one unexpected twist and fall and bam, thanks for playing but this is where you get off. Such bad timing. Eight weeks of work coming up after a blissful, recuperative month off; now he has to figure out how to shuffle gracefully in a hidden cast on camera while pretending to be grounded, solid, whole. Easy peasy. Ha! And the itching, oy. The chopsticks and wooden spoons and modified backscratchers jammed down the cast. Inflate, deflate, elevate, ice, compress, release, oh my god why did this have to happen NOW? Sigh. Ah well, a hitch in his giddy up, a tilt in his hips, an even slower, purposeful gait. S'alright, s'allll good, what evaaaaah. This will wind it's way into the myriad ...

The pong of Wednesday morning. The noxious, malodorous, stench of compost bins strewn half emptied across sidewalks, blown by gusts of wind into bike lanes, across driveways, randomly dancing into traffic. Blue and yellow garbage trucks piggy back one on top of the other a block apart refreshing the ripe atmosphere every few metres. Should have picked a different route. Something about wanting to stay alive, keep to the the bike route, south to Dundas, west to River, south to King. Wednesday mornings are quickly losing their appeal to her increasingly nauseated self. They must have changed the schedule or moved the parameters of the neighbourhood pick up. It used to be that the early mid week morning ride to work was her own private universe. No one on the roads, lanes clear, lights green the whole way through. Quiet, still, slumbrous. No buses or carpools, no screaming, anxious, angry children reluctantly offloading in front of the school. It's all in the timing. Fifteen minutes o...

The sound of her best friend laughing, choking back snorts and hiccups because she's lost her breath, doubled over and weeping with hysteria. The goosebumps on her forearms when she feels the wind brush over her skin at dusk on a perfectly clear, cool late summer eve. The unexpected email from a stranger halfway around the world thanking her for being herself, sharing her story so that others may grow, understand and feel less alone in their struggles. Fresh organic berries with a cashew cream whip and iced Americano in the backyard hammock. Her sister, miles away, ever present in her heart and mind and all over the house draped in her artwork. Her parents in her. DNA, mannerisms, the tilt of her head while gesticulating with arms akimbo, leaning on her hip, as if to underline her point. Sunrise. Possibility. The last cookie at the cafe while bumping into old friends and impromptu catch up dates. Warm skin next to hers, arms wrapped loosely around her waist, head tucked into a ches...

It's darker than she expected. Only 8:30. Closer to fall now, that didn't take long. It's risky but she's cutting through the church lawn and the new concrete walkway, freshly painted. A writhing dark mound appears at her feet, undulating, ebbing and flowing at it's outer most edges. Ants. Thousands of them. Small, fluid, perpetual motion machines. So busy, so fast. All clumped together on top of each other in the middle of a huge expanse of barren concrete, in a crack. What is it that draws them to congregate at this point, this fissure in the ground? She stops, pondering how they know that this is the place, the perfect spot to harbour a colony. To forage and feed, build a compound all for themselves. In the morning they'll be gone, washed away by the overnight storm. Ephemeral. Moment to moment. The steps of the church have transformed, freshly painted an ochre~y cappuccino with too much of a gloss, ridiculously slick. An accident waiting to happen. Come Mond...

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...

The soft, virgin skin on the inside of his forearms is covered in hair. Sparsely so but it's there none the less. She can't bear it. It's like he's sprouting all over. Fine dark wavy hairs in inappropriate places. The backs of his shoulders crawling across his scapulas and marching down the middle of his  back. Crawling up his ribs and wrapping themselves around his waist, carving in and out in every direction. His facial hair has no discernible boundaries by the end of the day. He leaves home clean shaven and returns after work with a full shadow, leaning towards a three day beard. It's his superpower, he says. Ch ch ch chia runs on a loop through her head. A clay head smothered with seeds to grow and groom. She shudders, furrowing her brow. She's shy around the subject but she knows he can feel her visceral repulsion when her engagement ring gets caught in the forest of curls on his bum at the top of his thighs. She loves him so much, she does. She truly belie...

"People mistake confidence for courage. Being courageous, truly courageous, requires so much more than brazen cocky confidence. I'm not saying that all confidence comes from narcissism, that's not what I mean; but sometimes being brave, or selfless, and truly, profoundly courageous requires a selflessness, a risk, a sacrifice of ego and agenda that some people mistake for confidence when in fact it's so much more. Truly." Farley stops short. Maude has shifted her gaze over his shoulder and is fixated on the huge neon painted banner tacked up to the south side wall of the Agora. Her eyes slowly expand as the recognition factor sinks in. It's literally like watching pennies drop and tumblers fall into place, unlocking the final puzzle. Farley is sweating, he can feel his upper lip slick with moisture, his crotch moist in beige pants, visions of sweat stains in embarrassing places. "You see Maude, um, sometimes confidence blinds other people to the fact that...

The doctor apologizes for the delay. It's only ten minutes but in this place, ten minutes is ten minutes too long. She's sitting 8 floors above people dying. Dead people, all around her. People in agony, writhing, screaming, moaning, drugged up beyond belief and still in unbelievable pain. Suffering. Uggggggh. Anabelle can't stop fixating on being trapped in a building filled with sick people. Sure, some people are fine, perfectly healthy; they're the ones dealing with the sickies every day. It's their jobs. Wandering the maze of corridors and elevator banks downstairs Anabelle is overwhelmed by the amount of hospital gowns and lab coats and wheelchairs and walkers and oxygen tanks surrounding her. It's like a convention for the walking or rolling wounded. Obviously she's missed the cafeteria and food court section. There has to be some part of this massive infrastructure where the happy, healthy, living people full of recovery are at. Suddenly the PA system...

There's a huge hole in the floor behind the bar where the softwood planks have worn through or rotted, Kylie can't tell. She's become adept at sidestepping it unconsciously, a pattern her body has memorized in order to safeguard her from falling clean through and landing in the cellar storage room downstairs. The joys of working for aged hippies in a legendary much loved restaurant on the hip strip of town. Had she known what she was getting into Kylie would have stuck with the fine dining gig on the east side but no, this was such a great spot, such an iconic hangout and the location, well- a five minute walk from home, so it seemed like kismet at the time. Dominic comes screaming out of the kitchen waving an 8" chef's knife, drunk, 4 in the afternoon, the lazy hour of the day between shifts. Thankfully only staff are hanging about. Bob, one of the owners, a dead ringer for James Taylor circa the Carly Simon years, only pushing 60, reigns him back into the kitchen...

"You know, like, he never even responded to my last text. And now Rahim says he's dating that skank, that blonde from Casey's party last Thursday. I Can Not Be Lieve It." Adriana spits out the last line, articulating each syllable in a hard staccato rhythm, spitting the sounds as if to get the taste of them out of her mouth. Her eyes pool, she pulls her mirrored aviator sunglasses out of her gloriously long, thick, black mane of Persian hair and slides them along the bridge of her aquiline nose, the angles of her face carving harsh shadows on the top of her barely covered breasts. She's rolled up her tank top to sun her stomach, pulled down her waistband and hauled up her shorts fashioning a makeshift bikini. Her skin soaks up the sun, turning a deep mahogany brown, barely breaking a sweat. Carly nods sympathetically, mmm'ing and ahhh'ing, adding some uh huhs, and oh yeahs for good measure. They sit casually straddled, entwined like lazy cats sunbathing, a...

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...

The texts keeps coming. Have tea with me. You should come meet me, really. You'll enjoy it. I'm good company, honest. We can talk physics and life on Mars and maybe even thoughts on dessert. She stares at the phone. The incessant glass chime sounds then sounds again. She's tempted to turn it off but then fears she may miss something of importance. Not necesarily from him, but from some one. Anyone else. Why is it so difficult to care, to muster any interest in anyone other than herself these days. She doesn't even find her own company that compelling right now. Stacks of fiction and periodicals line the floor beside her bed, stacked five high on the shelf above her headboard. So much to ingest, so many words, ideas, information. Read me, see me, take me in. She doesn't want to spend an hour of her life over tea with some young attractive physics student who used to lift weights for a living. Talking about space and the final frontiers as he angles a way into her pan...