The Senator of Illinois

I lived in Illinois from 1980-1983. Entering grade 8 when my family first moved down, we lived in a town called Naperville, about half an hour train ride from the Loop in Chicago. My twin sister and I spent our first two years at highschool in the neighbouring town of Lisle. The highschool was Catholic and private. One of the friends I met in the first term that autumn of 1981was a guy named Joe. As an African-American, he was one of the few visible minorities who attended the highschool. After Christmas, I didn't see him anywhere and I asked Cristina, my best friend at the time, where Joe was, had she seen him? She told me he'd quit and left. I couldn't for the life of me understand why. Cristina is Filipino herself and she explained, "the racist comments - he couldn't take it anymore." I remember feeling stunned. In my naivete and at my young age, I always pictured the Southern states as being the areas with that kind of problem.

I am thinking about Joe tonight. I am wondering what he's thinking, what he's feeling tonight. I just drove home from watching an amazing piece of history unfold.

Senator Barack Obama of the State of Illinois has just been elected the 44th President of the United States of America. He is the first African-American president to ever be elected.

I first saw him maybe 3 years ago on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. He was hilarious, witty and spoke so astutely of the Iraq war. The show was promoting his book, Dreams From My Father. I bought the book shortly thereafter and loved it. Obama's writing was so frank and clear, honest, open and heartfelt. Ever since, I've tracked with growing interest the fact that he was touted to be the next possible president.

I feel elated tonight. The last two elections in 2000 and 2004 were literally stolen right from under Gore and Kerry's noses and proof has shown since, quite illegally so.

Witnessing tonight's democratic victory was, simply put, incredible and awe-inspiring. I am thrilled to be carrying a baby who will enter the world where such a man as Senator Obama will be the new Leader of the Free World, the man heading up our world's biggest Superpower.

My twin sister was with me today at my initial midwife appointment where I was able to hear for the very first time my baby's heartbeat. It was so good and strong inside my womb, a nice high count of 170 bpm.

Tonight, watching the election to the South unfold, she told me she was carrying her first child when 9/11 happened. She said how terrified she felt, for herself, her child, her family, her country, for the entire world. She thought it was World War III starting. Of course, we live in the hemisphere where bombs don't hit the ground every day and innocent people do not become collateral damage on a daily basis. Still, I can't imagine the fear she went through and what kind of world she thought her first baby would encounter.

So I feel blessed to have witnessed this awesome event in my lifetime and at this stage of my life. I crawl into bed tonight and touch my belly and feel so much Hope for the planet, for my own country, for our neighbours to the South, for the baby in my womb.

I am so thankful, Barack Obama, that you had the audacity of hope to make your own dream and the dream of your country and its people manifest. You are part of a global dream for many people and the myriad of countries around the world who celebrate with you and your family tonight and applaud your victory. You have given me and my growing baby hope that change in the world can happen, the kinds of change that are needed and a vision and promise of a better world with it.

Can we change the world for the better?
Yes we can! We just did. And we will...

Music: Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday

Hallowe'en Tail...

Hallowe'en was pretty scary for me this year. It started off with a phonecall at 5:30 in the morning from my ex. I bolt upright knowing that a phone ringing this early can only mean one thing: bad news. And it's pretty fucking bad. My dog had a stroke on Thursday night. My ex describes, when he can find his voice, how she'd fallen over, what sounds like some kind of epileptic seizure, her eyes twitching all over, her arms flailing. The way she'd tried to flip herself over to her "good" side. By the time he phones me, he's already admitted her to the Guelph OVC hospital and has no idea if she will be alive or dead the next time we see her.

I am clutching my belly the whole phonecall without being conscious of the act. He says he is sure it was a stroke. He doesn't feel confident she'll survive it. She'd been fine when he'd left for work that morning: standing, wagging her tail, with her eyebrows raised in hope, her dark eyes willing him to stay at home the way she always does. When he got home, she was lying behind the door. He took her outside for a pee and she fell over and started spasming. He managed somehow to get help from this myriad of wondrous people who surround him and actually give a flying fuck about their neighbours. Talk about All Souls. When we ended, he moved to this amazing, artistic community where people come up to you to chat when you're walking your adorable German Shepherd-Husky. Where they throw you a spontaneous welcome party 'cause you've just moved into their village. Where they come visit your dog all day in streams 'cause they've heard she's not good and you're the ex and they talk to you like they've known you for 20 years already. They're in shorts and tshirts in November. They're fey and dressed as Bo Peep for a belated costume party. They're intriguing and refined matriarchs who've raised four boys single-handedly. My eyes shift between my dog at my feet and the new friends she's made since my ex and I split.

The evening before, we find out what's wrong: it's called Vestibular Disease. They don't really know what causes it. Could be a fall. Some hidden tumour in the brain. An ear infection gone cryptic. It starts off like a seizure and suddenly your dog looks drunk. The vet describes it as "she doesn't know what's up from down right now, she's lost her sense of balance".

That morning it's still dark out, not six o'clock yet, as I stare at the wig on my table, the one I'd planned to wear to work for a laugh. My fingers work anxiously over the curled coils of the telephone cord like they're prayer beads. In my mind, I am hearing him tell me the details, but I'm going through the day as it may unfold. Will I get to look in her eyes again? Will she recognize me/us, wag her tail? Will she be gone by the time I get to touch her fur again? Or will she be in irreversible pain and we have to (pause. take a breath here.) put her down? Will he want to cremate her or bury her?

He and I have never had that talk. When she turned 10, it was like we made a concerted effort not to bring up the nearness, the possibility that one day she'll be gone from us. We manage to share her and since we parted, we walk around wondering, will I be there with her? Will she be with him or me when she goes? How will either of us cope without her? It's too painful to swallow the knot building in my throat as I hang up the phone. She will be...would be 11 years old this Winter Solstice. She was 11 weeks old when we got her. We've raised her, loved her, and been loved by her since she was handed to us in March of 1998. Just a puppy. A rescue. Born 500 miles North of Thunder Bay. She had paws the size of Manhattan to grow into. Her nose, a cute, little, stubby thing protruding between deep, dark auburn eyes, hadn't filled out yet. The softest silver tips on her ears. Her mum had been shot and dumped at the dumpster. She'd been abandoned there with the body. She'd had a really rough start and now she was ours. She'd never known what it was to wear a collar or leash. She was as wild as can be. She resembled a little wolf. A timid, sweet, petrified, wild, tiny thing. That's how Unconditional Love looks sometimes. Our hearts completely melted.

After a night of zero sleep, I drive down to the vet hospital. All I intend is to bring a blanket so she has something to lie on 'cause we've been asked not to come see her at all on Friday, that it might stress her out to visit her and then have to leave her in that place. They were talking about monitoring her until Monday. I cry on the drive down thinking maybe I still won't get to see her, picturing the last time I saw her a week ago. I'd been looking at photos and videos of her in the night, praying to the stars fading in the morning dawn. Suddenly I am standing in the reception area clutching this blanket like she is already wrapped in it and the doctor is telling me she's an exemplary patient. She's made a wonderful recovery. She's eaten, she's peed, she's pooped (with the help of 3 vet students). She is on anti-nausea pills for now to help her with balance and she can be released that morning back into our arms. I am led into a room where I lay down the blanket in a square and kneel down. And here comes the manifestation of the prayer I make on all fours, prancing in the room, a little wobby, her eyes smiling, her tongue panting and lolling, wet sloppy kisses all over my face. And there's that perfect fuzzy Husky TAIL, lashing around like it's Babe Ruth's bat ready to hit a homer. Out of the park. Goodbye Mr. Spalding. I LOVE that fucking tail! She almost falls on me in her excitement and I start weeping in mine. Her head is slightly tilted. She is twitching, but it's an old twitch she's had since the broken collarbone in her first year of life when she ran into a concrete bench at the tennis court in Riverdale park near Broadview and Danforth. We can take her home this morning. She will always have a head a tad askew. She will be a little off-kilter (join the club, is what escapes my lips as a slight murmur). She will be clumsy (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree). But she will survive (in all these ways, there's no denying she is her mommy's puppy, the resemblance, uncanny.)

My dog is alive today. Her tail thumps a little rhythmically at my foot as I sit and knit and read between her and a warm fire for 10 straight hours at my ex's apartment while he's away working a long day. Waves of visitors arrive with stories and smiles to make sure she's recovering. Her head is tilted as she looks up at me each time she wakes. She leans against my leg a little as I walk her outside to pee. That morning, the vet tells us she'll always have a bit of a quizzical expression and I have to crack a smile. That doc just doesn't know it's something she's always had since she was that lost, little bundle placed into our lucky, loving arms.

I am writing this thinkin' bout the first baby I lost a decade ago, how relieved I was then to have an adorable, little puppy who needed a mommy. 'Cause I needed to mother and it ended up being this crazy, furry, little girl. It is balmy and sunny today, this first day of November, but I have a fire going anyhow. I'm relishing the way my dog's ribs move up and down as she sleeps and I breathe deeply along with their rhythm. My wooden needles click and clack and I pause. My hand moves slowly in a circle over my burgeoning belly. I am now at 12 weeks, beginning week 13, the final week of my first trimester. A new milestone. My Lil Sweet Potato I got cookin in this here oven is developed now and can, apparently, suck her (his?) thumb. A phrase pops into my head: I Yam what I Yam. HA. Then the song. Maybe it's his (her?) way of reasurring me...

I'm strong to the 'finich'
cuz I eats me spinach.
I'm Popeye the Sailor Man.

Take after your mum and her good, ol' dog, kay? Stay strong to the finich. Pinky promise me.

The dark of All Souls Night has passed. It is the Celtic New Year. A Sunny Samhain. And my dog is ALIVE!


Music: (S)He's a Good Dog, Fred Eaglesmith

Cryin in the Bathroom

September 7.

It's 5:10 in the morning. I have to pee like a horse so I figure now's the time. I slip downstairs in the dark, naked and cold. First light isn't even fingering the tops of the trees yet in the back yard as I unwrap the package. There's a three minute wait. I place it window up, put my elbows on my knees and cover my eyes as I lean my head into my hands. I count the first minute to myself silently and decide I can't stay here. Back in the living room now, I turn on my iPod. Wrapping a throw around me, the song that hits the silence of that early morning is Casimir Pulaski Day. I figure this can take up the remaining two minutes. I am contemplating starting a fire in the woodstove, sitting on the couch, hugging my knees against my tits and can't help but begin to weep. This happened yesterday, too, right out of the blue as I stood at the sink, washing the dishes. That time it was Fred's Water in the Fuel and I got all choked up.

I am trying to gather the courage to walk back into that bathroom. My knees feel funny. 'Course they look funny. This has been a long road: 10 years since the first time I saw that double line; 5 years since I last saw it. My mind flashes back to me bleeding all over that examination table, whispering to you to come back when you were ready. In the back of the car on the way home, my sister said she could hear my screams through three sets of doors as she sat with her husband in the waiting room at Women's College Hospital. It was so goddamn hard to lose you. Both times.

I take a deep breath and stand. Sufjan is singin 'bout untied shoes and the great divide. I know all about the complications you could do without and how he takes and he takes and he takes. Too many bloody months in a row. Fucking years. I am whispering please, please, please... My mouth feels parched.

The bathroom door zooms out away from me like one of those surreal hallway scenes in some movie as the blood rushes to my head. I'm dizzy. My feet feel as though they are moving in Slo Mo. My body feels under water. Turning my head as I enter, I peek over and there you are. Thick and dark as can be. I catch my breath, mouth agape, knees quivering, caving. You're back. I can't control the tears now. I am whispering, thank you, thank you, thank you... A month ago, I sat outside all night bleeding and wishing on the Perseids and here a shooting star just fell into my hand. It will be hours before I can tell another soul. But I have you with me so I'm not alone. I am no longer alone 'cause you're back. You're here.

oh the glory that the lord has made

It's 5:15am on Sunday, September 7, 2008 and my heart just exploded.

Music: Casimir Pulaski Day, Sufjan Stevens

Are You There Horton? It's Me, Nancy.

Kay, I don't know if there is something out there. Some creator being or whatnot. Horton actually wasn't exactly that anyhow for the Whos of Whoville. He was someone who helped them, though; someone who looked out for 'em. I admit I'm more like Nick Cave and don't believe in an interventionist God. I do like to think there is something greater than the sum of all these parts. I can't help when I look to Nature and all its amazing patterns, the universe, its cycles, the cycles of seasons, of day to night, that there might be. The Earth amazes me despite all the shit we've put her through. The cosmos is the greatest show on earth, literally. So maybe there is something out there. Some pattern to it all. To us. To our world. Who knows?

A few weeks ago, I attended Music and Movies in the Park. The night I went, the Jolly Llamas opened with a musical set and the screening that night in the park was the most recent hollywood animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' 1954 classic, Horton Hears a Who! My friend, Dawn, and her daughter Devin had a chair waiting for me. I'd really only planned to attend other nights showing Bladerunner and Breakfast at Tiffany's, but Horton was more fun than I would have anticipated. It was a beautiful, warm, summer night with just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitos at bay. So awesome to sit out under the stars and share a movie with all these strangers from one community gathering, carrying babies, blankets, pillows, chairs and flashlights and laughing on the grass.

The last couple of days I've been thinkin' bout Horton. My twin sister and her husband attended this wedding on a hillside in Vermont last month that was heartachingly beautiful in its simplicity. As it was on the East coast, the groom-to-be had described the sensation of all their friends and family trekking from all across the States and Canada out to this wee spot in Vermont as though they were all some great, big "love elephant" bounding towards them. Their wedding site URL was inspired by his remark. My sis has been starting her own side business of customizing exquisitely designed and handcrafted stuffed toys. Thus, as a wedding gift, she created this gorgeous, beaded, handsewn elephant to celebrate their day. I'm a big one for metaphors and I adore this image. It's popped into my head this early morning. As has Horton.

My twin sister, my own womb-mate, is sleeping upstairs and I let her continue to dream as I write this. It is 5:00 am. In 45 minutes, we will get into the car and drive to a clinic in Hamilton and this huge journey I've been anticipating for so long will have officially begun. All my preparation for this moment is coming to fruition, hopefully literally. And I'm thinkin' bout Horton and the Whos of Whoville.

S'cause I feel like all my friends and family members who know the magnitude of what I'm attempting are out there for me this morning. My chance at success feels as vulnerable and fragile and random really as some speck of dust floating in some gigantic, obstacle-laden jungle. There may be danger at every turn. But there they all are, banging their tom-toms. They're tinging tie kettles and pummeling brass pans for me. They're clanging garbage pail tops and old cranberry cans in some kind of frenzy. Each one of 'em is putting lips to a bazooka, tooting their hearts out on oom-pahs and boom-pahs and flutes. They are all making whatever noise they can so some Horton out there might hear 'em. So that what I'm carrying, my own lil' collection o' microcosmic dust specks, these tiny universes unto themselves, will be protected and safe. My womb is flowering, unfolding its petals to catch them so they will be able to survive and live...

I can hear the clamouring din. I feel it pounding inside my breast, echoing my own heartbeat. It's making me cry as I write this in the dark of early dawn. I am so moved by their efforts on my behalf. They are simultaneously my colossal love elephant out there in the world as well as each and every Who in Whoville whom I love.

Small wonder that Loxodonta Africana is my mother's favourite creature. I'm thinkin' bout my mum a lot this morning: how wonderful a mother she's been to all of us; how perfect an example to inspire me at this time. And she's so damn crazy 'bout elephants. I can't help loving them myself this morning. For an animal whose gestational period is in years not months, I can relate. I've been waiting for this moment for years myself and I hope it comes true. And like an elephant, I'll never forget all these voices and hearts resounding out there for me in Hope that it happens. I won't let you forget it, either, if I ever get to tell you this story. This is the first fucking book I'm gonna read you...

But for now, right now, I climb to the top of the Eiffelberg Tower alone. I am Jo-Jo. I no longer want to be afraid of Hope or shy away from joining in this hullabaloo on my behalf. On yours. I no longer wish to be "cautiously optimistic". I want to yell with all my heart and every ounce of my fucking being (which includes you). I realize that my voice, my Hope, is the important li'l bit that's maybe been missing before.

And Horton? Christ, I hope you're listenin...open those big, floppy ears, hey? Please hear me, hear this communal prayer goin' out from the mouths and hearts of all of those who love me. For the one(s) that I am dying to love. I am singing, screaming out to the stars above me:

"YOPP!"
Music: Love Reign O'er Me, The Who

Robin Eggs, Shooting Stars and the Number Eight

My grandmother, Lily, was very superstitious. It’s because she was “fey”. She was terrified of the gypsies. Behind Number 8 Walkinstown, Dublin, the field held a number of caravans living in it. The gypsies would come to the door asking us to fill their bucket with water and my grandmother would put The Fear of God into us with her pointy finger, “be nice to the gypsies”. She didn’t want a curse put on her house.

Lily had the Second Sight. She could tell when certain things were about to happen. I “take after” my grandmother, is the phrase in Ireland. I am fey. My mother is number three of eight children. She is fey, too. She’s only begun to really admit this in the last decade or so. She and I have a weird connection. Well, not weird exactly. Maybe “unearthly” is a better term. It’s like we know each other inside out. And most of what we know, we know without really talking about it. She makes me feel like Petra in the fucking Chrysalids. If we could stop reading each other’s minds, we might achieve a normal parent/child relationship. But I think our connection is a result of the fact that I was the last to leave her womb, and some kind of invisible cord remains between us, unable to be severed by a pair of dull, hospital scissors.

My mother tells me I am a changeling: that the faeries had switched her real baby with me. It isn’t a cruel statement. It isn’t even meant to be a joke as much as it is an acknowledgement that I’m a bit of an odd duck. She would watch me when I was younger and she’d bite her lip nervously if she saw me staring at a tree too long. or um. talking to it. She’d purse her lips at me when I’d bring home half dead animals. Kay, some of ‘em, I admit, were completely dead already, but I couldn’t just LEAVE them there, could I? Just LYING there like that with one leg stuck up in the air or a wing all crumpled? It was shit like this which caused her at these times to lay her hands on my shoulders and with her eyebrows knit tighter than a cabled aran sweater, in a panicked whisper, she’d cry, “Are you fey? Are you fey?” I always thought she was asking if I were ill when I was younger because of her tormented expression. I learned later that to be fey means to walk on the borders of Faerie. Banshee is the anglocized version of Ban Sidhe (meaning simply Woman of the Sidhe or Faery Woman). The Sidhe were the faery race in Celtic mythology and they weren’t tiny like faeries in other stories are; they were called “The Lordly Ones”, being of unusual stature. In this way, I’m not exactly like ‘em. I’m only five foot two. And I don’t even have eyes of blue so I can’t sing that damn song either. My friend, Paul, who is an amazing singer/songwriter, says he can’t stand that song. He thinks a guy would have to be an idiot to go around singing, “…has anybody seen my gal?” He’s like, “get up off your ass and GO OUT AND FIND HER YOURSELF!” HA! That’s solid advice…

No one writes songs about hazel eyes. Did y’ever notice how many songs there are about blue eyes? S’crazy how many there are! The only song a girl with eyes like mine can feel akin to is Brown Eyed Girl, by Van the Man. Or um, likely more apropos is “A Pair of Brown Eyes”. Good aul’ Shane. But no one, to my knowledge, has written a song about hazel eyes. Prolly 'cause the only thing that rhymes with them is, um, "nasal" or "appraisal". "Basil" maybe. None of which makes for good romance...

You’ve got hazel eyes like mine. Yep. I sealed the deal today. I found you two days ago. Your essay choked me up. I saw two of your photographs. In one of ‘em, you’re a teenager. Your face reminds me of my favourite uncle, Christy. He was a handsome devil. He was a good and kind man. Crazy funny. Witty as all get out. You look like him. In the photograph, you’re in this football jersey even though your essay and profile doesn’t read like a jock's. You’re artistic. You’re pursuing acting. You like a book to change your perspective on life. And you have hazel eyes…

My favourite of the two photographs, though, is your gradeschool picture. You look about six years old. I love the way your little fist is curled as your head leans on it. I adore your striped shirt. Your shy smile. Your bright eyes. The fact that your shirt is buttoned up to the neck makes me weep, I admit it. The whole image makes my throat catch. You look so sweet: a wee, gentle soul. The kind faeries would steal and replace with a changeling. Finding you has snapped me out of the growing dread I’d been feeling.

See, my robin nested a second time above the side door. She’d had five babies this past Spring and she was nesting again end of July. But I was leaving the house last week and found one of the eggs broken on the ground. I’m not sure if it had fallen or if she had tossed it out. I became that child again bringing home the dead. I scooped it up and brought it inside the house. Over the next few days, I watched her. She wasn’t sitting on the nest. She was looking at it. She was off to the side looking at it. Then she flew away. And I haven’t seen her since. There was one lone blue egg left in the nest. When I was sure she’d abandoned it, I took a spoon and scooped the egg out and brought that one inside, too. It is so round and perfect but I know she wouldn’t have left that nest if she’d felt a heartbeat. My own heart has been in my throat all week. I touch this egg once a day. I talk to it. I keep thinking of my grandmother and bad omens. Of superstitions…

But today I can breathe. Today is a lucky day. It is August 8, 2008. It is 2008-08-08. It is 08/08/08. Today is full of eights, my favourite number. Today makes me think of Number 8 Walkinstown. Of the eight children who grew up happily in that house. Of a perfect figure 8. Of getting behind the 8 ball. How it's so like the symbol of infinity. How it looks like two eggs. No: one egg split into two. Like identical twins. It looks like perfection. I am thinking of motherhood. I am thinking of someone else's mum tonight. I am thinking of becoming a mum. I am breathing again because just after midnight this morning, I made the decision to go with you. The blue dread of robin eggs is leaving me. My nerves are only slightly tingling. They are finally calming. I am so thankful I found you. I am thankful that your essay coaxed tears. I am thankful for your spirit. The spirit in which you offer such a gift. And I am opening myself finally to be filled with Hope. This is all I am doing now: I am waiting to bleed.

This should happen Monday. The 11th. It’s the peak night of the Perseids again. Last year I caught 26 shooting stars in 40 minutes. And all I can think of is the two babies I’ve lost and how I picture them as stars shining up there over me. This special cycle is gonna begin with a fucking METEOR SHOWER! My little stars will gather all their friends and dance across the sky for me and I will wish wish wish with all my heart to catch a star of my own. In my hand. In my trembling, open hand.

A gift…

Music: Wonder, Natalie Merchant

Brave New World

Today was...an ecstatic day. Sometimes you go for months wondering where you are or if you’re making the right choices. And then a day comes along that is a thumbs-up to your very spirit, heart, soul.

I ended a 9-year, common-law marriage in January. Three days before my birthday. It took all my courage to start anew and choose a happier path than I’d been traveling. Recently, I turned down a job though I wasn’t really in a position to do so. I’ve been walking a tightrope of risk for the first time in many moons. But all the while choosing to finally listen to my gut and go with that; EMBRACE it. And today, I’ve begun to feel rewarded. That somehow this is the first of many astounding things to come for choosing this path less traveled. Life feels scary yet so alive! Baby steps. Leaps. Bounds!

I thought the day couldn’t get better when my sis e-mails me this video. It was of some shy, beautiful Welshman performing on Britain’s Got Talent. He sang opera. I felt his triumph in my tears of joy. I keep replaying it, mesmerized; thanking my lucky stars…and Paul Potts, the Welsh Wonder.

Music: Nessun Dorma, Paul Potts

Equinox

So last night I drive into Toronto. The way I go is to take the backroads as far as I can 'cause I like to avoid the major highways as much as possible. I went to catch Iron and Wine at the Music Hall on the Danforth, my old neighbourhood. Got there early so I tucked into my favourite Irish pub two or three doors down and sipped a half pint of cider. Told the bartender it had been far too long a time since I'd last cosied up to these hammered copper tables and he simply said, "welcome back" when he gave me my change. It still felt like home sitting there. When I got back to the hall, it was general admission and, as I was by my lonesome, I scored an empty seat in the fifth row centre just as the lights lowered. One of the best concerts I've seen in many moons. Sam Beam is a fucking genius and his voice is...well it's indescribable actually. Check him out yourself if you can.

After the concert, I headed back a few streets to my car, but then figured I'd take a stroll since it was such a beautiful night. A walk down memory lane to years when I was younger and still full of hope, lighter of heart maybe. Sauntered past my old house on Ingham. It was bought by a couple of Angels (literally their last name). I wandered around and couldn't help touching the older trees in the neighbourhood, guarding everything in their silent majesty. These giant witnesses of time. The old drycleaners where I'd forgotten my wallet one morning and was told to 'pay the next time'. The movie rental place where John, the Chinese owner, always teased me how my late charges kept food on the table for his family.

An electrical storm loomed in the distance and once the rain began to softly reach me, I saw two gay lovers walking slowly hand-in-hand so tenderly and I envied it. The streets were strewn with leaves of every colour and it caught my breath, as it always does, to see them swirl around in some cyclonic embrace in the middle of the road, the same way the wind can swirl your heart around visiting memories in the autumn. A drunk balanced himself as he walked along the little wall outside of an old church, like a child does when experimenting with his first fear of heights, testing himself. Made me recall this wall on the Southeast coast of England, the sole mechanism of play offered at recess, and the way we'd all gather cross-legged to hear Mrs. Read read aloud to us, our chins cupped in our five-year old palms. The soft glow of light emanating from some of the windows warmed my steps as I passed. Someone had planted a twiggy bush by one trunk and fashioned a banister up their steps with it. And yeah, I wept, okay? I remembered the taste of chocolate cake with maple icing and was craving it along with this ache surfacing in my womb, the one echoing beneath my left breast.

The equinox was Sunday and it was a wondrous way to celebrate the beginning of fall walking those streets with those old brick homes banking each crescent as I strolled. The moon is full tonight and it was coming on pretty bright as I turned each corner. It wasn't until I hit the dirt roads again that the rain really came down and, as my headlights illuminated the road ahead of me, they captured a frog leaping across. At first I thought it was another leaf, but it was bouncing too rhythmically and the underside of his belly and legs shone a bright white as he danced to the other side. And it made me think about the leaps and bounds I've been making this year for myself; the ones I've yet to make that still feel just around the corner.

And I hoped to God, even though I'm not religious at all, that I hadn't run him over as he was crossing. It would have been a shitty end to a beautiful, breathtaking night. A shitty end period 'cause he looked so damn happy to have the rain hitting his back like that. And maybe I shoulda pulled over and checked on him. Maybe I shoulda fucking kissed him 'cause for all I know I could fall in love any day now. Come to think of it, the autumn may be a better time of year for that kinda thing actually. It's always been winter in the past but that hasn't fared so well for me to be honest. And the thought of me kissin' that frog made me giggle with no radio on and just the sound of the rain hitting the windshield and the slow swish of the wipers failing to do the simple task required. Instead, my wheels keep rolling along and I imagine him making it to the grass and sitting there with his sides bloating and caving with each breath. And I smiled at this thought: life can feel so damn beautiful when you reach some place you're trying to get and the getting there can be enhanced tremendously with a little rainfall on your back in the autumn.

Next year is another leap year and I can't help but wonder where I'll land as I write this. Hope to shit I won't be flattened out by some tire in the middle of the goddamn night. I just want to reach that wet grass and breathe deep and crisp and even. Take it all in and feel heartened over the simplicity life can offer, traveling down this road...

Music: The Trapeze Swinger, Iron and Wine
This blog was originally posted on Nancy's Myspace profile on September 27, 2007.