Cat Skinner Club

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?

The Massacre of the Innocence

may-pole-daisies-600kb

Is it ok to enjoy someones company if you have a nagging feeling that there is no potential for anything lasting, or substantial? If in your gut you feel like they are just not on the same page, or that their own personal “stuff” will prevent them from meeting you halfway? Is it ok to ignore these things for the sake of appreciating the now, and “seeing what happens”? No, it is not. I already know what’s going to happen.

What is ok, absolutely ok, is to feel exactly as I did yesterday afternoon, as of about two pm. Perfectly at ease, fascinated, open, engaged, safe, and ready. Amazing. I’m tapping at the pedal brakes to avoid my Leonine overwhelming enthusiasm, but whatever happens next might be less important than the realization that those feelings are what I need to feel. Nothing less.

I liken it to the first time my untrained voice realized how to use my breath to properly support the sounds I make. I was filled with more air than ever before, and could sustain the note, and the intensity of the note for as long as I needed to. I hung there, played there with my own sounds, and felt the power and control that I was capable of. Magic.

So, thank you for Saturday afternoon magic. For children pulled from ancient photographs covered in spaghetti sauce before my very eyes. For tiny birds coming in for a landing on my shoulder. For wooden rooms filled with wood. For slow grazing on greens. For bordello teepees. For that nape of the neck image that made my heart sing with how fragile and pure it was.

For remembering something I thought I’d lost a long, long time ago.

Lady Lazarus, at your service.

High Holy Days

Playground love - Olivia Bee

Playground love - Olivia Bee

It’s ten o’clock. I’ve just come home after an action-packed day at the office followed by a lucrative production meeting which only served to make me love my business partner that much more.

As I walked home from where the donated cab ride ended, I knew two things; I wanted to sit on my terrace, and I wanted to smoke a cigarette. The former I do frequently, the latter not so much.

I fetched my dog from the main floor of my almost two hundred year old house, dropped off my things and took a pee break in my stifling attic apartment (would that the bedroom window would open!) and headed to the 7 eleven to satisfy my nearly-never craving. (Please note, I do not advocate smoking, but I was feeling nostalgic for Paris).

With Arthur in tow, I encountered a gigantic party in my neighbour’s yard, with a tent and blue lights, and now as I am typing this the exuberant strains of Punjabi music are the soundtrack to my perfect evening at The Fortress.

I’m lit by the blue glow of my lap top and a single beeswax pillar. I’m wearing a Japanese style robe procured from some unmentionable vintage shop and a pair of lacy red shorts. I’m sipping Perrier with a splash of Cassis and I am thanking every Deity from every pantheon for my unbearable sense of freedom.

My neigbourhood is alive with gardens, bursting forth in a riot of spring-ripened blossoms. Every ten paces is a fully-blooming lilac bush, and Arthur and I stop and drink in their heady scent. Each and every morning my life is put into perspective as I stroll through this familiar neighbourhood, and I am so, so grateful.

I won’t be taking a vacation this year. I will be looking to make some extra cash on the side. The bottom line is, I will not give up this freedom for anything. Nothing in all of the world is as important as this feeling.

(Cassis and Perrier is not an ideal combination, in case you were wondering.)

I’m thinking of a few select people who have touched me deeply in this last year of my life. I’m thinking of any of you who have borne witness to my metamorphosis, and my growth. I’m thinking of my girlfriends who are equal parts relieved that I left a very bad relationship, and worried that I will never experience their wedded bliss or child-bearing joy. I thank you all for your love, in whatever capacity you were able to give it. It has been fuel to my fire, and although I know my path has been one of seeking independence, I recognize that you cannot be truly independent without knowing that you can accept love when you need to.

We all need to.

Long have I maintained that I lead with my heart. Some of us lead with our head. Some of us from the gut. Or the elbow. All of us need to know we are loved, I don’t care how smart you are, or how many credentials you have earned. To say you don’t need someone to soothe you, or hold you, or cheer you on is ridiculous.

Accept love. I dare you. It’s incredibly difficult, and I know. Accept that you are deserving of love, and that people want to give it to you, whether it be platonic or otherwise, because they see the noble nature of your soul.

I’m not ready yet, but I will be. Perhaps after a languid summer of freedom, filled with experiments in charcoal grilling and the perfect Sangria. Perhaps after cottage trips that grow blurry in their re-telling.  Soon I will be ready, I can smell it in the promise of summer that hangs in the breeze.

Will you be there when I am?

Hot Cross Buns

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At Easter, I don’t celebrate the Resurrection. I find it hard to buy into. Instead, I turn my thoughts to rebirth, rejuvenation; coming into the light again after a period of darkness. I suppose you could say that I postpone my Spring Equinox festivities to a later date when I can celebrate with family and friends, who I am sure are also not celebrating the Resurrection; at least not in a literal sense.

(I’m experimenting with semi-colon. Please let me know how I am doing.)

I ran some errands in Bloor West Village yesterday. I saw not one but two men wandering down the street dressed as the Easter bunny, with truly frightening giant plush heads. Why, oh why? I was terrorized by these “mascots” as a child. They never, ever fooled me either.

The Easter Bunny has nothing to do with Christ. Or Hallmark.

Did you know that the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe, and similarly, the “Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos.”

The roots of the people in the early days of Europe when the Christians first arrived shaped all these holidays that we celebrate today.

Our roots shape and inform the way we celebrate at present, and the way we tell our stories and celebrate our tradition moving through future generations. A finger is always dipped in the pie of the past.

I’ll bet it took a long, long time for the early Christians to convince the Pagan tribes to adopt their new mythology. I know they had to create some parallels, for sure. How else would these people ever relate to this strange new culture?

As I understand it, during that time, things could be relatively peaceful too. There are stories of peaceful Christian monks living alongside Druid Priests, sharing knowledge and ideas (and no doubt enjoying all the meade and bonfire-lit revelry.)

I bet things didn’t start to get violent until someone in Rome started to loose patience, and felt threatened by the idea that there was a whole pantheon of gods who were vibrant long before J.C. and his big daddy.

Then the people were forced to leave their tradition behind, in ways that shan’t be described here, on such a nice, sunny spring morning.

I am embracing my past. I am honoring the stories that have shaped me. I am closely examining the pain and the pleasure, the sorrow and the triumph so that I can move towards a place where I can incorporate the rituals and customs that brought me the most joy into celebrations that involve new mythology. Without my dark and sometimes chaotic Pagan Dieties, I will never be able to appreciate this new god of Light and Love. In a perfect world, all the archetypes of my lifes’ mythology will enjoy a meal together someday. With a pile of brightly coloured eggs in the centre of the table, just so we always remember what came before.

Saturday Poem:
(not mine.)

Bells For Her (Tori Amos)

And through the life force and there goes her friend
On her Nishiki it’s out of time
And through the portal they can make amends

Hey would you say whatever we’re blanket frinds
Can’t stop what’s coming
Can’t stop what is on its way

And through the walls they made their mudpies
I’ve got you mind I said she siad I’ve you voice
I said you don’t need my voice girl you have your own
But you never thought it was enough
So they went years and years
Like sisters, blanket girls
Always there through that and this
There’s nothing we cannot ever fix I said

Can’t stop what’s coming
Can’t stop what is on it’s way
Bells and footfalls and soliers and dolls
Brothers and lovers she and I were
Now she seems to be sand under his shoes
There’s nothing I can do
Can’t stop what’s coming
Can’t stop what is on it’s way

And now I speak to you, are you in there?
You have her face and her eyes
But you are not her
And we go at each other
Like blankets who can’t find
Their thread and they’re bare

Can’t stop loving
Can’t stop what is on its way
And I see it coming and It’s on its way