Cat Skinner Club

Random Acts of Nature

Rainy Day by Alexander Volkov

Yesterday, I had just launched in to a much-needed psychiatrist’s visit when the entire hospital building began to move underneath us. Ten seconds and a shudder later, this phenomenon stopped. Then we were evacuated.

I got separated from my shrink in the stairwell, and blinking into the sunlight like a mole, I wandered shell-shocked until I found a Second Cup. Then I called my family. Almost all of them.

The descent down several flights of stairs, iPhone in hand, eliminated my fear that someone had bombed the G20 summit downtown. Apparently we’d experienced an earthquake. Everyone was safe, but my head was still full of stuff. An explosion of cranky, a nap, a date with my girl, a good night’s rest – my head is still full, but I’ve been thinking…

Underneath all of our personal drama spins a planet that is complex and changing all of the time. It spins and quakes and shudders and erupts and then continues to spin again.

There is not one among us who hasn’t similarly quaked and erupted only to return to our rotation, and in that realization comes a deep sense of peace.

Looking at this next chapter, all of the worry seems normal, and totally manageable. The time has come to let go of the things I can’t control and simply have faith. It’s time now to take good care of my mind, my heart, and my body to sail smoothly through the next adventures that are in store.

I listened to the pouring rain in the early hours of this morning, safe in my bed and curled up beside my love and knew that something wonderful was coming our way.

Today I woke up and everything was okay.

Preparing for Landing

I was going to begin this post by apologizing for not writing for a while. I feel like I’m apologizing all of the time lately – for being anti-social, for not keeping in touch, for being too quiet or a bit cranky in the mornings, for feeling stressed out or sometimes anxious. You know what? I’ve decided all of those things are okay because there’s a lot happening in my life right now.

The new house is beautiful. We’re settling in well, and now I’m charged with the task of packing up my life. Today is a big day in Schnooville, (I can’t get in to the particulars), and somehow I find myself all alone, faced with what was once my Fortress of Solitude. This place just feels like a big mess now.

Some days, I’m better off holing up with the roiling contents of my skull. This is absolutely one of those days. I can be most effective, and best serve the greater good by taking today to pour through old journals, part forever with old mementos, smile at silly things I’ve been hanging on to for so long, cry a little over china teacups gifted to me by the dearly departed (teacups that I just don’t have space for in the new home, sadly) and remember who I have been.

The Schnoo who I’ve been feels like a very different person than the Schnoo I am now.

There is something about finding love that challenges your confidence and self worth to the very deepest level one can imagine. Sometimes love feels like the most delicate filament that can be torn away into the wind with the mildest gust, and hanging onto something so fragile is far more terrifying than giving over to the elements as they rip through our lives.

Most days I feel full to my brim with joy and peace and pure contentment, but there are always those days where I feel I am a stranger wherever I go. These are the days that test us, that challenge us to recognize that we are worthy of the happiness in our lives, despite the doubt and fear that surrounds us – from without and from within.

Today my solace and comfort will come from threadbare stuffed animals, tiny ballet slippers, and bad teenage poetry. I predict few boxes will get packed, and that this Schnoo will end up in the cafe around the corner working on my new writing project, admiring my coral toes, and sipping an iced latte.

We all deserve to take care of our hearts and heads, don’t we?

Packing – The Saga Continues

Photo by Olivia Bee, courtesy of Flickr

Hello world!

The move went fairly well, though it took longer than any move I’ve experienced thus far. We’re nearly unpacked, and mostly settled in. Before I can completely relax, however, I must now pack up my entire apartment. As of June 1st, the Fortress is officially a memory.

I love the new house. After a week of fairly intense anxiety (on my part, I hate living in chaos) I’m now able to relax and enjoy the space. It looks like next week I can even return to my writing, if I come up with a smooth packing/work plan. I have to say though, I am least looking forward to packing up my stuff.

I intend to purge a lot. There is so much in that apartment that is now rendered useless, and so many things that I haven’t thought about in these many months of living somewhere else. It may be a bit epic, and time is running out. I’ve got furniture to clear out too, which is always a hassle. June will be welcome, when all of this upheaval is complete.

There is so much good right now – a bigger bed, a home that feels just as much mine as it is all of ours, a happier place with lots more space for our family. I’m really happy, and am trying hard to focus on the good rather than let my obsessive need for order get the best of me. My ability to go with the flow seems to diminish in the face of age. I remember not long ago living in construction dust, sleeping on an air mattress, and using my aunt’s toilet across the street. I suppose the difference now is that there are four other people who are subject to my anxiety, and who add to the overall cacophony of moving and unpacking.

Therapy is amazing. If you’ve ever thought for ten seconds that maybe you can benefit from it, I would encourage you to try it. Honestly, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. I so, so enjoy the process, and I can actually see the change taking effect in my own world.

I’m itchy to get back to writing. The move has really put a damper on my ability to write, and with the book sitting half done, I’m trying to pencil in time to get back to it.

Now, I’ll head off to the Fortress in search of the perfect costume for Charity Dawn to appear in at a bachelor party this weekend. Tonight is choir practice. We’re learning “Don’t Stop Believing” which we’ll perform at a variety show for Gay Pride, at an event at Buddies in Bad Times, hosted by Scott Thompson. Life is never boring, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

Schnoo’s Tips for a Successful Move:

* Choose boxes that are medium-sized, and only fill large boxes with light weight items

* Colour – code each room at the new place and label the boxes with the appropriate colours

* Create a floorplan of the new place with the colour code key for the movers, even though they will laugh at you.

* Categorize each box from 1 to 3 in order of unpacking priority

* Write a basic inventory on each box

* Purge, purge, purge

* Have cold drinks on hand for the movers

* Ship the children off to a loving grandparent for the moving weekend

* Unpack the kids’ room as soon as possible, prior to their return from weekend get-away

* Pack snacks and drinks for moving day. Have a take-out place on standby. Have cold drinks for the movers, particularly if one is a diabetic Newfie.

* Keep aside bedding and towels for the first night, as well as a week’s supply of clothes

* Keep your sense of humour, take breaks, keep smiling

Moving on Up

My apologies guys and dolls for the radio silence. Life has gotten great big crazy lately, and I’m happy to report, mostly in the best of ways.

My book is half written, but is currently on an oh-so-brief hiatus as I pack up our households for our move at the end of the month to a much more suitable space. We found a lovely house with four bedrooms, fairly new renos throughout, lots of light, a huge kitchen, and a wood burning fireplace. There is a porch, back deck, balcony off the master bedroom and roof top deck. It’s seriously brilliant, and I’m so excited about what this all means.

Of course, I’m also freaking out a little bit. They say that moving is right up there with some of the top stress-causing moments in life. I seem to have developed OCD over the last year, and this compulsion for order and organization is being applied to our packing in an absurd colour-coded array of control freak frenzy. I had to take a time out the other day because someone left an un-labeled, un-coded box in the hallway. I mean, really…

The anxiety comes from the fear that what is almost certainly a great step for us may actually be a disaster. This is how I move through relationships now – hoping for the very best, trying for the very best, but secretly looking over my shoulder for devastation to catch up. How do you really enjoy anything if that is the reality? I scrawl about the bad stuff in a journal, and I celebrate the good stuff as much as I can. It’s about quelling that stupid voice that says “you can’t”. I hate that voice. I’m not sure what part of the body it’s attached to, but it should be removed like tonsils or the appendix because it’s just as useless.

It’s glorious outside today. I’m thinking about my best girl, and wishing she were home so I could look at her. I’m thinking about the food we’ll grill later, and the packing games we’ll play with the kids, and the two or three episodes from season two of The Sopranos that we’ll use to numb out our busy minds before sleeping.

I just want everything to be ok. Just like it is right now, but even slightly better, if that’s not too much to ask. I want us all to be celebrating for years to come.

The bigger space, the bigger bed, and the bigger dream is twelve sleeps around the corner. I’m ready for it, more than ever before. I think I can be good at it now, this love thing. Good in a way that has been paved by a stint in the school of hard knocks, some serious life celebration and revelation, and a determination to find love and make it last that surprises even me some days.

May first is moving day, and it’s also May Day, or Beltane. It marks the final end of the winter months, and was traditionally a celebration of fire, sexuality and fertility. Ancient Celts would frolic in the forests on Beltane Eve, free to lay with whomever they wished. In the morning, they would  wake and honour the sacred spring rites of the God and Goddess by weaving colourful ribbon around the May pole. It represents the yielding of the post-winter earth to the ripening warmth of the sun, the moment just before the fresh buds burst forth into supple blossoms, and the release from the lingering grip of winter.

Sounds like a damn fine time to build a home and a life together, dontcha think?

Country Schnoo, City Schnoo

This is day three in the country, and the first full day of work I’ve had since we’ve arrived. Of course, it is also the day when the sun is gloriously shining, so I’m sure at some point my work flow will be interrupted by a brisk walk in my rubber boots.

It’s beautiful here. If I could drive a car, I could spend a lot of time in a place like this. I feel so much more relaxed, and I’m incredibly inspired and focused. In a dream life, I’d have a place like this on a lake, and a modest place in the city. I’d spend more time at the lake, knowing me, and there would have to be a dog.

Things are humming along with my writing project. I’m enjoying it so much, and it’s really changing the way I look at myself and my own potential. I can DO this. This is something I could be really great at, and something that feels entirely natural to me. I’m also piecing together this romantic picture about who Schnoo the writer is. I have writing outfits, and I’ve imagined my ideal writing space down to the most minute detail. I can really picture this kind of life.

How lucky I am to have the love and support that I have. Every morning I wake up grateful for this, and don’t take it for granted for even one instant. Its amazing how I feel like I am finding my voice all over again, and that every moment of my life has pointed to this time and place, and this new experience of self.

The nature of my new work requires that I create an alter-ego, a nom de plume. Breathing life into her has been so much fun. I hope to discreetly introduce her through these pages when the time is right, so that any of you who are interested can help support this project, because a great deal of our marketing efforts will be viral.

Life is sweet like the country air, filled with hope and promise and the lilting sigh of the burgeoning spring breeze.