Waving Not Drowning

Lean into it, just drop your shoulder, plant your feet, turn your core on and lean into it. Trust that you'll find your balance, alright? You can do this, you know this- you've trained your whole life for this moment and you've got this. You Know This. Kaelea takes a deep breath, trying to quiet her nerves. Her palms are shaking. She closes her eyes, runs through the routine in her head for the umpteenth time. Visualize, visualize; she replays the sequencing over and over, mouthing affirmations and positive self talk. She's read that all of this helps, it really works. It could be the edge she needs to give her the tenths of a point that mean the difference between gold and silver. Or worse, not medaling at all. The years of sacrifice, countless hours of practice, recovery, of being tethered to the gym, missing every dance, every party, every sleepover; spending weekends in cars driving to meets and tournaments and being billeted in strange houses with stranger people. ...

She makes him grin. He makes her smile, then a sad ache reverberates from her heart and travels out the ends of her fingertips, shooting invisible tendrils of longing across the continent reaching out to reattach themselves to the core of his being, his soul, his desire for her, as if they had never been pulled apart. Loss is a funny thing. She surfs waves of emotion trying to catch the top of the curl with precision timing so she can ride the wave in for hours, revel in what seems like days, until it dissipates into a foamy brine on the shoreline. On days she can't catch the wave or gets sucked into the undertow and crashes onto the rocks below, tossing and turning in the roiling surf, those days take forever to recover from. He's been gone for months, but never really out of her mind. The wake is half over but she lingers. It's too soon to say goodbye yet way too far past welcome home. She'll pick up a book, put on a record, stroll through the streets of Chinatown and...

Her scars poke out from under her bikini, crescent shaped trails curving alongside each hip, dotted like braille, telling the story of Christine's new hips. It's deceptive. Her youth and vigour belie a lifetime of debilitating pain and compromised mobility. She's funny, hysterically so; a double-yourself-over, laugh-til-you-cry-and-snort-then-end-up-on-the-floor-begging-for-mercy funny. A clown. Literally. Christine has an entire tickle trunk  of costumes, props and wigs. To her kids, as she calls them, she is Sparkle Susie, Princess of Unicorns and Bullfrogs. As a child Christine didn't run or play the way her kids do with her in her drama art camps. Injections, braces, medicines, trial after trial after experimental test group defined Christine's youth. Autoimmune inflammatory disease with delayed onset stenosis of facet joints and femoral acetabular impingements culminating in osteoarthritic symptoms. Her bones fail her. Her joints are angry, uncooperative. At 23...

On the fourth floor of a five story ancient walk up deep in the bowels of Chinatown, she climbs out of her single bed, scattering the dust on the linoleum as her feet hit the floor. She pads the twelve steps out her room, through the galley kitchen and into the cubby of a washroom. A sink so small she fills her hands to wash her face then douses herself while leaning over the tub alongside it, so as not to spill water all over the subway tiled floor. Various Chinese male voices can be heard barking at each other from above and below, tones shifting, guttural stops and moans; she can't tell if this is a good thing. The F train rattles overhead sending delayed vibrations up through the foundation. Sirens buzz on and off, cutting in and out; a jacked up Escalade rumbles through, stereo shaking the shampoo bottle perched on the narrow window shelf behind iron bars facing the world's smallest tub. She likes it here. Small enough to cocoon in but not claustrophobic. She feels safe he...

"You gonna post that one? yeah? What are you gonna say- you should say like, Benny finally meets someone age appropriate, ha! Wait, is it the one with her in the red dress? That's just crazy, you gotta post it. Hey- tag Benny in it. Oh, and David and Alan, Shannon and Ashley will go nuts!" Nathan is slumped across from Josh, texting away with thumbs like lightning, massively oversized watch sliding around his soft wrist. Boys weekend in New York and they've documented the entire gong show on facebook and twitter, hashtagging the victors and spoils. "Are you on wifi or are you using your data? You're gonna get hammered with roaming fees, you know that right?" The weekend in Vegas cost Nathan an extra $400 in data charges, most of which he rolled into the expense report. Josh and Nathan have figured out a way to write off their weekend exploits under the guise of research and development. When they're able, they rope in Benny, David, and Alan and wreak...

Whenever Cheryl sees a parent with a young kid, like a 3 year old toddler, she thinks to herself man, that's heroic. It's bloody fucking heroic, is what that is. There's this tiny little person clinging onto their dad like a koala bear as he straddles her across his hips like a casual sack of groceries. Nonchalant, all easy-like. It blows Cheryl's mind. There was a time when her ovaries would have exploded but now they're all shrivelled up and useless. That's what she tells herself.  Physiologically it's not true but she envisions her womb as closed for business right now. Psychically it's as if she's hung a sign that reads Under Renovations, Please Be Patient. Whatever it is, she's reading as unapproachable, beholden to none and Not Available. Hence the sleepy ovaries. If  Emmet had his shit together Cheryl thinks the two of them would have made exceptional babies. He was the only man she ever envisioned breeding with. Ever. A lot of near misses...

You only get one first time. One first kiss, one first love, one first heartbreak. The first job, the first car, the first home, the first kid, the first  fight. The first make up session that leads to the beginning of the first step forward into the first part of the next phase in your first grown up, accountable adult relationship. That moment of realisation is a first, too. Your first trip, your first show, your first train/plane/ bus/ car/ pony ride. You can't un pop a cherry, un pit a peach. Your first failure, first loss; the irrevocable damage caused by the first betrayal that turns each and every subsequent betrayal into a number increasingly greater than that monumentally iconic First. The first time you cause someone deliberate, earthshattering, soul crushing pain. Intense shame, overwhelming gratitude. The first of the last goodbyes. First miss, first reunion, first communion. First aches and pains, first forgettings of any new firsts because slowly, steadily, you've...