(pas) disciplinée

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Curieux comment il y a moins de cinq and j’avais une carrière bâtie essentiellement sur ma force de caractère, ma drive, mon leadership et ma rigueur professionnelle. Aujourd’hui, à 41 ans, ces qualités sont reléguées au deuxième rang alors qu’on me sert un avis disciplinaire pour mon mauvais caractère. Un avis avec une date d’expiration. Si les choses ne changent pas d’ici six semaines, je me retrouverai au chômage. J’ai rarement eu plus envie de l’être. Le corporate speak me répugne. Alors que certains me félicitent de mon travail et m’encouragent dans mes initiatives de façon non-officielle, directement au dessus de moi on me tape sur la tête par écrit, parce que je dis exactement ce que je pense, mais surtout, directement aux personnes concernées et pas nécessairement sur le ton de Passe-Partout.

Je n’ai pas envie de changer. Je sais que j’ai très mauvais caractère, et je comprend ce qu’on me demande, mais je n’ai aucune, AUCUNE intention de me conformer. Si je n’ai que ça dans la vie, et bien c’est mon identité. On m’a dit “tu sais, perception is reality”, no shit Sherlock. Ce qu’on m’a appris aussi, c’est que je pourrais être 50% moins compétente et avoir une meilleure attitude (ver-ba-tim) et je ne serais pas dans le trouble dans lequel je suis présentement.

Me voici donc devant un dilemme absolument déchirant. Faker une volonté d’être autre chose pour ne pas offusquer les ostis d’eunuques avec qui je travaille, ou bien simplement attendre que les six semaines passent et me faire montrer la porte.

A definition of attention – excerpt

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“When life is in good trim, when the line which strings our successive words together is galvanized into proper working action, the tale is quite other. The words surge pell-mell. In minute observation they form short, fascinating, tight-packed rings and loops, but in vast generalizations, with more than lightning’s swiftness and force they fling their nervous line wide and net whole hemispheres of meaning. They sweep through every corner of the heavens. With a giant’s ease they balance entire worlds against each other, unite them, divide them, make clean division through minutenesses and confusions at which the finest non verbal tool would retire helpless, and put the whole plastic universe through figures of differentiation and comparison as smooth and harmonious as those of a ballet. The width, splendour, and variety of this stream are, in fine, just what makes life an intoxicating and lordly thing.”
-Dora Marsden, The Egoist Vol. 4, No. 8 p. 114

Taken at the Modernist Journals Project. A huge thank you to Chris for sending this wonderful link my way.

And when she walks, she walks

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A very long time ago, when I was all that (not!), Steve Faguy from The Gazette did a profile on An Unexamined Life… I was reading his post about getting a permanent job at the newspaper and through his memories I was reminded of that very special time in my life, that place I was in.

One of the things he wrote that I always remembered was this: (…) writes about emotions the way a political junkie talks about parliamentary procedure.

Through the years since then I’ve lived a whole lot more than I could’ve imagined. What I thought was the worst of times, in hindsight, might not have been that bad. Yet again, in a couple of years from now I might feel the same way about the last few ones.

Years. Cycles. It should be frightening to be talking in years and not in months, weeks, days. But as I emerge, as a human being, as a woman, from a multi layered and armored cocoon, I can see, accept, that things take time. And that we have to take it. Take the time to cry, to suffer, oh so much and when will it ever end? But also to screw up, to not give a fuck and to just say fuck it all, fuck all that fucking bullshit.

And in the midst of all this, I lost faith in my worth. Thinking about myself first, about my own happiness only made me feel guilty. It’s a long, very long, very hard battle. But I am closer to its end than to its beginning. I wish I could send thanks flying around to everyone involved, but if you don’t mind, I’ll thank myself first.

Lui: L’important, c’est d’être heureux.
Moi: J’ai de la difficulté avec ça, faire des choses qui me rendent heureuse.
Lui: Tu ne devrais pas, il faut prendre soin de ton bonheur.
Moi: Oui, mais je veux être certaine de la justesse de chacun des gestes que je pose pour ça. Il est trop facile de confondre le bonheur, la liberté, avec la fuite. Alors que l’on croit qu’on avance, lorsque l’on fuit on ne fait que tourner en rond!

And so it goes. Full circle? Not quite. But the past is not so far that I can’t see it’s ugly face. As I tread along, it will remain visible, but only as a reminder that I will not hang around his lot anymore.

form

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there’s a life
somewhere in there
a past tense of life
a life lived in albums

there was a time when we could just tuck them away. the pictures.
forget about them, their colors, their scent, their laughs.
just stick them in plastic pages.
never look at them again.
easy to forget.

lies! memories are as vivid as a damp print.

I don’t want to click, don’t want to like anymore. I don’t want to play, to pretend, to go through, to please, to ease. to laugh when it’s appropriate, shut up when it’s expected.

today I’ll do it. that’s what I always say, today. and then I forget why.

I wanted more meaning, more structure
a form of some kind to help me heal
I was thinking, the pyramid kind
that always draws the eye
but I’m not that kind
of architect

Don't surround yourself with yourself

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got my head around what I do wrong. the things that I do that end up hurting me and no one else. the pains I go through just so that I don’t hurt others is one of them. what I can’t grasp is how one can hurt deliberately, knowing exactly what the actions, words or silences will do and still do it. what’s beyond me is how a person can consciously harm and live with it, be ok with it, sleep well, even look the other in the eyes and not acknowledge what they are reflecting. control, power, self preservation, no matter. selfishness should not justify being mean to others. it angers me that this is the one thing I cannot read nor feel. always happens after, when it’s too late. it makes me sad in so many ways.

I latch onto the good. to a point where everything else becomes invisible.

because I will never stop believing there is good in each of you.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJM7TdshUbw?rel=0]

C'est quoi donc la toune?

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If the words do not make it to the land of the saved, what they were meant to tell never existed. Some things are better off left alone. In silence. Put to death by a blinking cursor.

We don’t need to go there.
**

Mais d’autres choses vivent toujours. Les rêves sont tenaces, et menacent même de se réaliser parfois. C’est pourquoi il est important d’en avoir plus d’un! L’idée germe depuis des semaines, et à force d’en parler, celui-ci ressemble de plus en plus à un projet.

Visiter Blue, Harry et Éric? Faire une boucle avec escales, faire la fête, faire la vie. Traverser l’océan. Traverser l’O-CÉ-AN. Aller visiter des amis que j’aime, connaitre un nouveau pays, de nouveaux humains. Respirer un autre air, découvrir ses parfums. La Grèce sera encore là quand je déciderai d’y aller…

**
En attendant je m’en vais passer trois jours ici. On me trouve bien drôle d’y aller seule. Je me trouve plutôt chanceuse de pouvoir le faire. C’est quoi votre problème avec la solitude?

**
Ma grande a décidé de passer sa dernière session de cégep chez son père. C’est moi qui l’ai encouragée à y réfléchir sans se sentir coupable. Entre ses études et le violoncelle, elle a peu de temps, et c’est un stress additionnel ce trimbalage d’une place à l’autre aux deux semaines. Ne me restera que fiston. Bon, elle sera à 5 minutes de chez moi… Et bien que j’apprécie fort mes semaines quand je suis seule, les semaines où ils sont ici me rendent heureuse. Qu’elle ne revienne pas tout de suite me fait réaliser que ma vie risque de changer encore plus dans les années à venir. J’anticipe et j’apréhende. J’ai besoin d’eux autant qu’ils ont besoin de moi. L’amour, la proximité, le partage, la chaleur. Mais bien que je ne sois pas prête à les voir partir tous les deux définitivement, je ne peux nier ce besoin d’être seule.

Complètement, absolument, égoïstement, j’aime ma liberté.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIoRQZ70b_Q?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Save(d)

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Once again. All changes saved.

Words we see, we read, and do not think twice about. Saved. The changes were saved.

Saved implies assimilated, accepted, approved of. Thought about. Considered and agreed upon. Saved. I can safely close this, as it is saved.

There are no more words worth saving.

Safely close this. Move on.

that word

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I was thinking thinking that I can do this as easily as it would be to sit and do nothing since it’s all in here. All in here but the thing is I have to let it come out. Obstructed funnel.

So, I was thinking, one of these days, yes. Then one of these days came and still nothing. I’m sitting here, sleep deprived, semi-drunk, heartbroken, lonely and desperately mute with the loudest loudest loudest fucking party in my head and I am NOT invited.

call the cops

If you didn’t care, what happened to me, and I didn’t care, for you, we would zigzag our way through the boredom and pain. Occasionally glancing up through the rain.

we. that. word. we. will be the end of me.

you know when the end comes, all they will say is, all she wanted was to be loved. by any means necessary. I was thinking that. no way, no fucking way. but all I can do is get angry at myself again and again. and it’s the easiest thing in the world.

I drive men mad. away. and so I was thinking that we business is just an excuse to get me some free abuse. once I wrote I wrote forty thousand words to explain why and how and yes it hurts but it’s ok because that’s all I deserve that’s all I’m good for. I’ll deny myself my bed, food, water, but do anything. any. thing. for we. and don’t you understand that that’s what you need too? can’t you see that. I’m just mad. insane. I was thinking I can’t say that so I’ll write it but. it’s all the same. my mind is gone along with the words.

all changes saved

iwasthinking
iwas
I think I was somewhere
went

I was going places I had dreams I had no we but a strong I and then I. went mad. that’s where. occasionally glancing up through the rain.

Cyclades

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Bon, oui, je réalise que c’est pas mal déprimant ces derniers temps. Mais ça va hein. On vire pas fou avec ça. C’est ce qui sort et qui se rend ici, c’est tout.

J’aurais dû vous parler de choses super trippantes qui me sont arrivées ces dernières semaines, comme enfin rencontrer Éric, lire La Solde (je ne suis absolument pas bonne pour les critiques ou les résumés. C’est bon, c’est drôle, c’est tragique, c’est lumineux, c’est noir, voilà), des partys entre amis vraiment agréables (les amis ET les partys).

Il y a eu des soirées ici aussi, devant l’ordi, à échanger des tounes sur tksync.com avec les copains qui tweetent. C’est dément comme expérience, faut l’essayer!

Il y a de la musique. Et encore de la musique. Des nuages parfois, bien sûr, mais pas tout le temps.

Mon prochain rêve est dans un dossier, en photos seulement pour l’instant. Septembre. Je sais pas si ça se réalisera, mais plus je me pratique à rêver, mieux j’y arrive. C’est comme la guitare, faut pas lâcher, même quand les doigts font mal, même quand ça fait ploïng krouïng crïng.

Blast from the past: Released

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Publié la première fois le 30 janvier 2006

Le 17 novembre elle aurait eu 62 ans.

Le 12 décembre ça a fait 11 ans qu’elle est partie.

***

When she told me her doctor was putting her in palliative care at Notre-Dame, I knew it was over. She acted like it was a temporary thing, just to get some strenght back. I never asked her if she really believed that. I could hardly deal with it myself. All it meant, all I heard was “I’m going to the 5th floor, to die”. Because that’s all it meant really. I had been looking at the cancer killing her for six years. Looking at death making it’s way, drying her skin, rotting her teeth, pulling her hair, eating her flesh, taking away her life so slowly I almost wanted to help her go sometimes. For some years she did good, but the last 9 months were a complete waste of life. For everyone. I mean, how many times can you say goodbye, how many times can you prepare for death, how many times can you go over the paperwork to make sure everything is in order? Six years is a long time. Nine months is an eternity.

Before she was sent to the fifth floor, she was at the long term care unit, with the crazies, homeless, kinless, lifeless. People strapped to their chairs, sitting in their shit all day. People screaming all night, not able to get sleep. We couldn’t have her at home, not with two small children. For us, but mostly for her. I could see she was going. She needed medical care everyday. So that day, when I came to see her, and she told me she was moving up, she seemed almost happy, relieved.

She sat in a wheelchair and a nurse brought us to the fifth floor. Exit the shit smell and the screams. The elevator door opens to carpeted floors and classical music coming out of nowhere, paintings hanging on the walls. A volunteer greeted us and took us to her room. Private, huge, filled with sunlight. He asked her if she wanted anything, she asked for a glass of juice. He brought it in a wine glass on a platter. And yet everything spelled death. I couldn’t even talk, it was surrounding me, hitting me, killing me. I helped her settle in her room, we visited the music room next door, the smoking room across the hall, the kitchen where she could keep her energy drinks and stuff. Then I left. The following day I came back and put some christmas decorations up in her room, it was the 9th of December. On the 10th I brought her home with me to have a small dinner and put up the christmas tree with the kids, we sang some carols and I took her back to the hospital. She threw up in the elevator, even though she barely ate at home. She was really weak. The following morning, the 11th, my birthday, the hospital called me at work.

“Your mother had an embolism last night. She’s a DNR, so we could only help her breath. Unfortunatelly she lost consciousness, and probably has only a few hours left.” I have no brothers or sisters, nor did she. No immediate family either. For the next 24 hours it was me and her in that room. Me and a body I could not touch at first. A face trapped in pain, invisible, silent. The nurses would give her morphine when we thought she was in pain. Slowly, I started to stroke her face, wash her mouth, massage her hands, I sang to her I think, told her secrets, stories. Told her I was there for her, that I loved her.

Around 2 o’clock on the 12th, I saw she was getting agitated. I was sitting next to the bed, a volunteer from the cancer support group standing next to me. In the music room next door a pianist was playing Suzanne, and I held her hand and told her it was ok, let go Mom, it’s ok, I’m here, I love you, but you have to let go now ok? it’s all right, her pain was pulsing, trying to rip through her, but I think that she was trying to talk, and I like to think that in her last few breaths I heard her say I love you. One last tiny breath, and she just stopped fighting.

And I held her hand for a while longer, talking nonsense to her stomach where I had lain my head, hearing the soft melody coming from the piano and then the slience. Only my breath against the blanket, my blood in my ears. And then nothing at all.

***

Tu me manques encore à tous les jours maman.