Zebra Finch Dreams

I heard once that the zebra finch practises its song in its sleep to perfect it for the time it is awake. This fact has captivated me for a long while. There was a time when I could not play enough school and kitchen and store. I would devotedly go down in the basement and teach a classroom full of imaginary students (some obedient, many who were not) from 3 until supper day after day, I even kept records. I would prepare meals and make cash registers out of bread boxes. All of these activities would thrill me and give me so much pleasure. When I actually started to get up in front of real live students and finally got my hands on a real cash register in one of my first jobs, I started to grapple with how gruelling these activities can be. Preparing meals continues and although, it is not without its pleasures, it is not always as fun as I thought it would be. I think back to my first apartment and how there was a fleeting feeling of excitement that somehow my play kitchen had grown to 19 year old proportions but the expectations of what all of those activities had in store were all so drastically revised and the old thrill quickly slipped away.

Recently, unexpectedly, as I washed dishes no less, I realized that I barely remember what I daydreamed now would be like. I have that vague feeling you get when you wake up and only remember a glimmer of the dream you were having. As busy as I am each day, occasionally, when everything is quiet, I no longer have play scenarios to retreat to or daydreams to revisit. I feel the need to spend some time daydreaming, not so that I can fill some of those rare idle moments, but to practise possibilities that I cannot even yet conceive of. I need to dream, to perfect my song for when I am awake.

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I entered August without you.

I won't visit you this month. You won't call. I will raid your garden and you won't get any of the vegetables. I will make plans without telling you about them. We'll go to the store and not buy you one single thing. Whole books will be read and I will not tell you which ones. I will watch movies and not inform you. The nasturiums will ripen. Last month was different. I changed my schedule and took time off work to be with you. I dropped all kinds of plans for us to be together. You sent me messages, I received them. I picked up food that I thought you would like at the store and sent you pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. I sang with you. We watched the Great Canadian Baking Show. You chose the recipe for the garlic scape pesto and gave me instructions for making the gooseberry jam. I am in August without you. You are in July.

Fists full of lettuce

It is a pot of a variety of lettuce plants. It was planted by my mom. She has been living with Stage 4 bile duct cancer for at least 1.5 years (that we know of, probably a lot longer). Standing and gardening are becoming harder as time goes on. She learned about gardening from her dad as a kid and kept on gardening every year of her adult life. Sometimes the gardens were tiny or rudimentary, but with the help of my dad , they have become major and, at times elaborate, growing projects over the years. Now it is a collection of raised beds and regular beds that hold a host of plants, vegetable and flowers. Something that was clear that first spring with Stage 4 cancer is that gardening would continue in a big way, cancer or no cancer. It was important to order the seeds and start them inside and get them planted outside, no matter what. Spending time together in the summer with cancer now consistently involves gardening and following instructions. Plant...

Keep telling yourself that.

We talk to ourselves everyday, all day (and night) for the whole of our lives. We started talking to ourselves before we knew we were a self, we forget what we said because we forget everything from before...when we were too young and busy developing our brain to remember those early years. There is still lingering residue of long forgotten conversations I have had with myself as a toddler sitting around in the crevices...sloughing off occasionally into words I tell myself still. We talk non-stop, and not just with dialogue. Our goosebumps communicate to us, our tingly feelings, our neurons, our peripheal vision. They are all submitting data into our self and expecting us to react, respond or all to often, expecting what they are sending us will be ignored. After all that talking, you'd think we'd know what we think about most things, but occasionally we are stumped. Unless we stop what we are doing and really concentrate sometimes that voice(s) ...

Growing Versions

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