whitened edges and solid infinity above, the clear, blue, serene sky,
this day when the veils between worlds thins

With the impossibility writing has been presenting for me these last months, I wonder if joining Nanowrimo this year would be a good discipline and challenge?

The first year I began where I was, and let a story unfold. Of course the manuscript is huge and unwieldy! I've never edited it into something more reasonable. Though it's possible that the urge to do at least one complete rewrite will overtake one indolent day.

Nanowrimo begins Nov 1st - enough time to decide.

The first one began in a temp job matching files to original ledger entries in a vault at a funeral home in Vancouver. A natural title was Book of the Dead, and I incorporated a couple of other texts, the Egyptian and the Tibetan ones, into the writing.

That was fun, discovering each day what was to happen, and layering the text with references to other texts.

We build on ourselves.

I find it inspiring to be among those who are running their own writing races separately but together as a group - last year of the 100,000 who enrolled world-wide, 50,000 participants made it to the finish line.

It's interesting to reflect on my own Nanowrimo path. In 2004, "Book of the Dead," was more of a 'novel' and 50,000 words; in 2005 my writing was shifting to prose poetry and I wrote that year's in smaller numbered segments that I still haven't finished but it came in at 50,000 words and then I spent a few days reading it and deleted a third of the manuscript, never mind (the first pages can be found at my art website here); in 2006 my writing moved even more towards the poetry end of the spectrum and while I wrote "EnTrapped WOR|l|DS" in November of that year I didn't enroll it in Nanowrimo since it's only 17,266 words, and too short for the contest, but poetry's like that - though it is a completed manuscript, which made me happy.

I wonder where this one might start and what the writing style might be?

If I take off my readers, can I write? A disjuncture between life and writing, or that I want to hide? Without seeing the keys or the screen. Write blind. Behind where words form. The words that shape reality even as I speak them.

Glide through the world of words with a dancer's ease. My body is a word, a gesture, a line scrawling across the horizon of time.

Am I purple, or aubergine? A curve of a back before a computer, hitting keys I can't see?

And how many mistakes before we get it right?

And how many times are the crystal glasses broken before we can---drink, see, touch?

It's cyclical, the years go on, some good, some bad. There is no will to it. Whatever you want to happen happens; you are a consequence of your past; and each day is a surprise thrown up by the fates of fortune.

When I sat down to write I knew nothing,
and less now.

water drizzles over slats
onto rocks

iron ivy
crawls over the lamp

I'm tired
of the restriction
of vulnerability, sensitivity,
injury

walking in the warm,
light rain

before the seasonal cold
sets in

I look out through slats
hiding or revealing myself

or you do

rocks become water
that float away

____

Tired of protecting my knees when I dance, I didn't. For a number of weeks. Bending low, I used my knees, experienced the freedom of a fuller movement, bliss. My knees are now so sore I'm on Ibuprofen, which helps reduce the swelling, constantly and a prescription anti-inflammatory, as well as icing them fairly frequently. So this poem, the first I've attempted in what seems like a long time, was triggered by that, tired of the iron ivy on the lamp, not wanting to protect one's sensitivity, and whatever the emotional corollaries are, the rocks are water that float away.

ps I think I have a 'stretched' tendon, that it's just a regular sort of minor injury anyone who participates in sports or dance gets. Not serious and with a bit of pampering it'll heal fine.

But an interesting process in terms of our emotional proclivity for protection of our sensitivities.

[Okay, okay... last night I danced with my jingly silver belly dance belt over a black danskin at Tam Tam like a dervish. Shhhh...]

[No, no. I arrived late, 10:30pm or so, to a dark hot dance studio of drummers after seeing the Tibetan Lhapa documentary, changed into black sweats, danced, realized that there were only a few dancers, some as old as me, and so I put on the belly dance belt and let go, it was fun, I left around 12:30pm, some people thanked me for dancing, said it was beautiful, and walked home by myself, arriving home at maybe 1:30am; this pattern is normal, I go, dance, rarely join the group for food after. Arrive alone, leave alone. Now what that had to do with emotional corollaries, who knows.

It's all connected though, isn't it. :)]

Ahhh, now that's motherhood!

A great scene photographed by Roger Cullman during the Toronto Zombie Walk 2008 Postmortem. A Zombie Walk of a thousand-strong in Toronto yesterday emerging from Trinity Bellwoods Park. Which I missed! Oh, bomb! ZombieZoots! The march of the Zombies on the Zombie Walk passed by my apartment yesterday! Munching on brains, gore galore. The ghoulishly lively undead! Where was I?

An intensely emotional film that explores and exposes family dynamics in ways you might not be prepared for; an ultimately healing film. I recommend it.

And the hot chocolate with whipped cream at the Starbucks buried in the IndigoChapters bookstore afterwards with your daughter with her newly dyed deep fuschia pink hair who has recently gone Vegan and so had tea with soy-milk before seeing her off on the bus where she was traveling to another city.

And the books you bought, finding yourself guiltily in the Philosophy section, where you always find yourself when everybody else reads fiction. You left the Tofu-cookery book behind since she convinced you by cell phone that she had bookmarked all those recipes on her laptop.

You carried Rachel with you for maybe 5 or 6 city blocks home to the madly lonely dog who became madly happy, thinking Anne Hathaway is really a superb actress, remember the "Screen Test" where she said that of all the ways she could have played Rachel she decided simply to try to make her real.

Real.

My Costi employment counselor loved my idea for an independent business. Of course with clarification. I know I need to take some courses which unfortunately won't be covered and I'm not sure how I'll afford that. But a green light go to the next step: an orientation session at OSEB (Ontario Self-Employment Benefit Program). I felt that life was almost possible as I emerged into the light of the Autumn day.

Appointment with a Costi employment counselor today to see if my idea for an independent business is viable.

This came in The Writer's Almanac this morning. It's "found poetry" - had me hooting over my morning coffee. Sharing...

Fun piece. A combination of poetry, painting, GarageBand jazz. A friend, Doug Carroll, & I were playing with my camera, Final Cut Express & GarageBand. A neophyte, I spent a further 6 hours editing. 2nd attempt at a videopoem, and the first one using Final Cut Express (which I'm learning by watching You Tube tutorials, see my playlists). Poem, "Vishnu on Chinese New Year's" (Dec, 2007), painting, "Women in Spring," (May, 2008). Many thanks!