My Kind of Yukon Gold

Sometimes the world is so bursting with inspiration it hits me over the head. That's what happened today. I was tucking some clothes away in the crawl space and letters and photographs rained down from the walls. 

Of course I read them. They were over 20 years old and written from various women, all to the same man, all within the same 3 year period, all about how much they long for him, love him, culminating in a 14 page letter written by the jilted woman who was carrying this mans child!

And so I am crackling with fictive energy, pregnant with poetry!

cursive hearts hidden 

still beat, fatherless

children still breath

Am I a terrible person for finding these letters? For reading them? For sharing some of the most poignant excerpts on my blog?

(Names have been changed)

 

Mary:   I just got one of my sculptures fired (actually 2 of them) but one I'm really pleased with. It broke and I    

                           need to repair it but I think I can do it so it won't be obvious.

Cath:  P.S. I left the earring on your dresser so it should be there if you found the        

                  other in your truck.

Josie:  (expect me when you least expect me

              with the baby in me or in my arms)

I ache for these women. I too have attempted to repair beautiful broken things, left talismans behind,  worn our child like a wedding ring.

i bet you'll think it's about you

And it is.

I've been writing fiction lately. Doing what I like with people and places and events of my past. Twisting settings and conflicts and loves every which way. Reliving and creating.  

For example. In the summer of 2009 a man I was involved with came close to throwing hot tea at me. Stopped and glared and tried to scare me with the fact, he could have. I wasn't scared. I was too busy revelling in the freedom of no longer lying to myself. I was leaving him and he was angry, had the arrogance to believe he could tame and keep me forever. 

In fiction the tea gets thrown. Thank you for the dress rehearsal Mr. Gilbert Blythe, jilted lover, cheesy dresser who talks like a cowboy but is an east coaster. "I reckon" haha oh I am mean. For some reason it still irritates me. How someone is convinced their love alone is enough to sustain a relationship, when the other person involved has clearly stated their indifference. 

And this irritation stems also from my own sense of guilt for my own stake in this convincing. Had I not weaved myself into his family, learned his grandmother's recipe for cinnamon buns and sat and charmed his parents at so many weekly family dinners, and oh god spent an entire, all expenses paid week, on a yacht in the Bahamas with them. 

Out of so much awkwardness. Out of guilt. Out of uncomfortable pangs of nostalgia for someone I tried to love once and the failure of fate to fetter me to this simple capsule of an island and this tidy island family and this island nice guy who was so nice and knew he was so nice he couldn't compute my desire to leave. Out of all this emerges words on a page, chiseled and sculpted as I choose. 

I used him. Sure he let me. But I used him. And I am not finished.

looking for the perfect man?

do what i did:

step 1: go treeplanting under the guise of making money and finding yourself and becomming one with the natureness of canada.

step 2: find a samsquanch

step 3: shave said samsquanch

volia!

me and bovary

reading madame bovary and she reminds me of myself back when i was stuck in a relationship with a "nice guy" and wanted out but he was just so "nice" that i waited until a year passed before coming to my senses and running as fast as i could away. madame bovary has made me think about this nice guy and when I am thinking i am sometimes under the impression that i feel bad, but i do not. i did what i had to. i was honest.


some of the nicest words i have ever heard, the kindest words, have been "i am not fallin for you" said by a wheat haired, sun burnt and brawny tree planting man who realized i was falling for him and wanted to save me the misery of being mislead. people should save each other the misery much more often than they do.