The Blue Hour


I will gather up my memories of you,
And with them I will build a tower,

Sweet thought upon sweet thought,

Until mine is a life of a dream-piler.

And in the spreading meadows below my tower,
The bees will know your name,
And fill the flower with happy nectar,
Until the valleys over-brim with ripened thoughts of you.

And I will whisper your name to the somber sea,
The hushed gray-lipped sea,

And it will murmur your name in low pebbled tones.
Your liquid name will roll upon ageless shores.

And I will sit in the deepening shadow-pool of my tower,
And grow numb in the fumes of the evening meadows,
And lift my face to the drowsy sea-breath that speaks your name.

All ancient children of my love for you.
GB, 2000

I promised myself that I would come home from three days away with a different state of mind. As I am rocking towards Toronto, I am pondering what this different state will be.

There are some things that I must let go of now.
There are new ways that I must look at myself.
There are sacrifices that I must make.

I feel that my greatest strength will continue to come from being still, and from focusing on my physical environment. There are such direct connections between my physical environment and my emotional landscape.

I will clean, and organize, and fill my fridge. I will plan meals, and rid myself of two large boxes of things I don’t need or want anymore. I will launder and mop and place fresh candles around. I will get simple flowers to put on the lovely round table at the top of the stairs.

My strongest urges are consistent. I want to climb naked into clean, crisp sheets with my outdated glasses perched on my nose, and pour over a good book until my eyes are forced to close. I want to hear my dog snoring happily at my feet. I want to rent sweeping costume epics and watch them alone after a delicious meal that I cook from scratch just for me. I want to write things that have nothing to do with what is inside my head and my heart.

My friends have the same advice for me;
Stop looking.
Stop wanting to find love.
Stop thinking about having a partner.
Stop being wistful when you see happy lovers on the street.
Stop caring.
Stop dating.
Stop.

Then it will magically happen.

I’m not quite there yet.
It’s hard for me to stop hoping, and waiting.
I’m not there yet, but I’m close.

As the train paused briefly at a station on the way home, a woman paced slowly along the track, peering into the windows. She grew increasingly anxious as she realized that the person she was waiting for was not on this train, and would not be getting off to meet her. Her face grew pained and drawn and her pace slowed to a resigned stillness. She shoved her hands in her pockets and closed her eyes. I watched the prairie amber of the sunset create a chestnut halo on her head, and I laid my fingers gently on the window.

Comments

comments

Follow:
Share:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

4 Comments

  1. anonymouse
    March 2, 2009 / 4:06 pm

    Clicked our your blog…cute dog!

    First, I agree with what your friends are saying regarding all the “STOPS”.

    But it’s not good enough to just STOP. You have to START…

    If you do nothing today go buy this book- Louise Hay (You can heal your life). Very simple read, non-denominational so fill in what works for you and ignore what doesn’t. Read it and re-read it and re-read it. Challenge your patterns…never let it collect dust on your shelf.

    You can either ignore this comment or take a leap of faith. Maybe, just maybe… from a metaphysical perspective all this emailing via James’ blog happened for this one sole purpose…so this book could land in your hands. I’ll leave that to you to decide.

    Also, there nothing wrong with what’s in your head and heart, write about it always. Never STOP ! Maybe one day you’ll write a piece about everything that is wonderful about YOU and really believe it.

    So despite the “inflammatory” comments directed at me, lol, you sound very real. So from me to you wishing you the Best of luck girl ! 🙂

  2. Catherine
    March 2, 2009 / 9:14 pm

    Hmmm…so it’s now Cat and Mouse. Fascinating what is happening here.

    Thank you for your words. I will very likely read this book.

    I am real, as I assume you are too.
    I can’t help but notice that I still don’t know who you are.

  3. anonymouse
    March 3, 2009 / 7:59 pm

    No, not cat and mouse AT ALL-that would mean there was a chase.

    I only clicked on your Blog because the option was there to do so. Plain and simple.

    My intentions weren’t to comment, it was just mere curiosity. But then I couldn’t help but notice that you are spiritually broken, it’s in everything you write. Beautifully written, I may add. I know for a fact you won’t heal with just stopping things. I couldn’t help myself, felt compelled to recommend the book, it will help speed up the process so you don’t waste another second being so hard on yourself!

    It’s best I don’t visit your blog anymore, don’t want to create another unintentional conundrum but things are going to get better for you, they already have…

    Also, just to be clear, I couldn’t possibly know you and you definitely don’t know me, that’s certainly understood. Just an exchange of words on a computer screen with 2 souls attached.

  4. Catherine
    March 4, 2009 / 5:05 pm

    Well, I thank you for your compliments. I would like to say though that it is my heart, and not my spirit that is broken. The latter may be slightly bruised, but broken it is not.