ohwereyouinlondon?

the feeling that follows the the kind of phone call that dissolves into muted sobs can be likened to a small, person-centric black cloud. there was a plea, an impromptu plane ticket and suddenly I was struggling (again) with a small bag of peanuts and dully watching lackluster blockbusters thousands of feet in the air and wedged between curious strangers. they probably wondered why I refused to make eye contact let alone conversation.
at the time I had scrawled, almost desperately, in a notebook- better out than in- words that are far too personal to even entertain the idea of splaying here. in a phrase: I was frantic. rushing towards what I thought would be certain failure and in the end turned into a test of enduring patience.
having left behind my camera (my forethought being that the trip was not for pleasure and bringing it would be like wearing a feather boa to a memorial service) I felt naked, unable to capture anything about (whatIconsidertobe) an aesthetically appealing city. one gray mid-afternoon I found my self standing in a Sainsbury's- having just relayed translated hospital conversations, organized and neurotically re-organized a kitchen- dazed and drawn to a shelf of brandless disposable cameras. I robotically snatched one up greedily, paid....very... slowly (pence are confusing) and then guiltily unwrapped it like a Point Watcher with a candy bar.
then I walked.
I wandered in a haze.
I didn't take the lens from my eye, it seemed, except to wind after each snap. it kept my hands and my mind busied. shapes, colours, words, a faceless face. I was gone for a few hours, but i felt like it was days, years. I was odysseus my travails seared onto film.
by the time I returned to her house and heard the soft-voice call out to me i was refreshed, ready again.

the shortest day.

We're all orphans this year.

Not in the depressing Twist/Copperfield kind of way, thankfully, but in more ways than we expected. Some are stranded, with family so far that staticky phone calls blur messages of love. Some have parents with reverse empty-nest syndrome that escape to foriegn islands leaving their chicks behind. Some have obligations to friends that demand they witness ceremonies that only happen once (ideally). And some have chosen paths that isolate and yet complete them in the way only a close friend can understand.


So when a good friend decided to hold her very first solo Winter Solstice dinner, we all gathered like bits and bobs from a shop of oddities, bringing with us the overflowing feelings we can't offer to our individual families this year. We broke bread (literally, as grain is key to good fortune), laughed and basked in our post-gorge glow. Terrible weather was easily forgotten, life stresses put on hold, anecdotes cordially drowned out by bursts of cassette tape nostalgia.


We rediscovered that friends can be like family- I even banished my ever-cynical ways as we made jokes about the impending year knowing that if in 2009, we found ourselves abandoned, marooned or deserted, we would find a way to one another again.

As our collective For-Solstice adopted Papa says, "Health, abundance, happiness and all the best for the new cycle."

i could have gone as a pumpkin

As Hallow's Eve and sexified anythings draw near I can't help but try and recall why the event never quite excites me. What could be so unappealing about piles of individually-wrapped sugar, "hilarious" costumes and general tom foolery?

Everything.

I swear I'm not a buzz kill (a majority of the time), but something about nearing quarterlife and trying to make a list of 'must-haves in witch couture' makes me very, very tired.

Once upon a time as a wee little FOB, Halloween was this elusively obscure event that the other kids talked about ad nausuem and I, having spent the toddler/early learning years tethered to a condo, spent the majority of my first two fall months at school trying to figure out how they were allowed to go from house to house asking strangers for candy. I remember approaching my mother one day, a costume parade permission slip in hand, and explaining that a parent's signature on the dotted line would promise a 7 year-old's appearance at school that Friday, dressed in a suitably fun costume (preferably of the home-made variety as prizes wouldn't go to three Rainbow Brites). What a lack of ink-spelled permission equalled, I hadn't known yet.

Of course, my equally foreign mother decided anything drawn from paganism/satanism/too-time-consuming-ism was a definite 'no', so to my horror I was the kid, the foriegn kid, without a costume that day.

The ramifications were as follows:
1. Appearing at school that Friday in my pink sweatsuit to realize I was the only kid in class not in some form of costume.
2. The new, new kid had one of the better costumes, immediately bumping him up above me (the old new kid) on the playground social ladder.
3. No costume meant I had to sit out the parade and the chance to win a plastic pumpkin full of candy the size of my head.
4. Not being in the parade meant I would have to stay behind in class while the rest of the kids went out into the courtyard.
5. Being the only person, including the teacher, not in costume meant I couldn't be left alone in the classroom so I was trotted off to the library.
6. The arbitrary group of non-costumed kids from grades 1-4 that awaited me in the library looked like a model UN, made up of ESL kids mostly.
7. We had to play Hungry Hungry Fucking Hippos.

In the years that followed, my parents eventually eased their vice-like grip on Halloween and allowed my sisters and I to trick or treat (but only to 5 places)and wear costumes (but only if they were store-bought) but somehow that first experience always left a sour taste in my mouth- no matter how many Blow Pops I consumed.

And I don't think she's planning to have a good Halloween either.

mother-daughter cliche

almost a week into the my mother's visit. it's strange how much a year and a bit apart can feel so epically vast. conversation runs dry often. she asks if I've eaten. I shrug or politely answer. she mentions law school ad nauseum. i pretend not to notice, nauseated. we sit side by side. who's line?. i run off to work before she takes her first coffee sip. return to more questions. exhausted I succomb, and say "Sure, Mom."