an evening in tenney park

It’s morning and the fan is slowly blowing in the window. The table has flowers on it and piles and piles of books, waiting to be packed away in milk crates. There is sun and the leaves are dancing their slow morning dance. I know over the hill there is a market, and I will go later when the sun is higher.

I ran into L. everywhere: on the street, at the liquor store, behind the counter at cafes, at poetry readings, on bicycles.

It sure makes for long, lovely afternoons.

Maybe I like afternoons after all.

I am sitting drinking my daily cup of raspberry leaf tea watching the curtains twirl and bikers pass by on the street and people with their arms resting out their car windows.

Keely asked what other jobs I could see myself doing. I’m glad she asked, because I think I’ve learned a lot about what sort of work I enjoy this year. As a kid, a teenager, a young adult, I liked to daydream about doing different jobs. I wanted to be a marine biologist, a doctor in Africa, a great professor. But I’m beginning to see that I don’t like grand jobs fixed in grand systems. I like work that is small and solitary, but still creates and connects with people. I like using my hands and my words. I like jobs that feel like giving little gifts.

So other than my work writing or pouring good cups of coffee, here are some other jobs I could see myself doing:

-Woodwork. I could see myself enjoying carving small things like pipes or treasure boxes.

- I could own a little shop that sells little somethings people can sit with inside (perhaps edible or drinkable).

- I could see myself being a shepherdess. Or a goose girl.

-I could see myself being a potter.

What are some jobs you could see yourself doing?

I spent most of this morning going through clothes and doing laundry, deciding what to take with us on our move and what to leave behind.

How do you spend your work breaks?

At work, I get a ten minute break. Sometimes I like to sit and take little notes about people around me while I sip on my cappuccino. I feel like Harriet the Spy when I do that. Other times, I journal. Or read. Lately, I’ve taken to memorizing my favourite poems. This is the one I started on today. It is beautiful, and speaks to me in about a thousand ways.

To Hold by Li-Young Lee

So we’re dust. In the meantime, my wife and I
make the bed. Holding opposite edges of the sheet,
we raise it, billowing, then pull it tight,
measuring by eye as it falls into allignment
between us. We tug, fold, tuck. And if I’m lucky,
she’ll remember a recent dream and tell me.

One day, we’ll lie down and not get up.
One day, all we guard will be surrendered.

Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
So often, fear has led me
to abandon what I know I must relinquish
in time. But for the moment,
I’ll listen to her dream,
and she to mine, our mutual hearing calling
more and more detail into the light
of a joint and fragile keeping.

Today was beautiful. At 35 degrees, I found it too warm for wool and happily embarked for work in my spring jacket. I left 30 minutes early to give myself time to enjoy the streets. There was so much to enjoy. Puddles. People looking each other in the eyeballs instead of hiding under scarves. Sunshine. Somehow, the slight warmth in the air defrosted my mind, and small memories surfaced.

I found myself thinking about the little voices that have shaped my life in such big ways. I thought about people like Paul whom I shared eight hours with on an airplane over the ocean. He was so kind, generous, and honest, the whole plane changed when he stepped on board. I thought David with a British accent thick enough to spread on a scone, who I spent 15 hours with on a train. He told me his own wide and wild story of leaving his job fixing roofs in a small town in England to build homes for the homeless Romas in Romania. He made a long, potentially difficult journey for me rich and light. I learned so much from him, the things he said, the way he was.

Its easy for me to close myself up, stay quiet, internal, and safe. I’ve always thought that in the end, it’s just you and God, really. Just you and him all alone. And that’s true. But it’s also true that we matter to each other. It’s true that we can help each other along, and that from our little voices, people’s lives can be changed in unspoke ways. Our hearts were made to be open and honest and alive. Let’s share them with each other. Let’s tell our stories. Let’s warm our hands together. Let’s fold fingers and pray with each other. What do we have to lose?

Have any little voices have shaped your lives? What words have near-strangers said that you’ve never forgotten? Please share. Your words make a difference to me.

When Adam first suggested it, I was strongly opposed. I feel like it takes away a books individuality or something. It seemed unloving to the books. Or disrespectful. If I published a book, I wouldn’t want to see it on a colour coordinated shelf. I’d want to see it coffee-stained and jostled around in a purse or sitting by a bedside. But I figured, why not? I can always disorganize them again.

I have to say, it looks pretty neat (way neater than the picture suggests). And reorganizing the books was rather satisfying. It was like a puzzle. It got me better aquainted with my husband’s half of the books and made me see my own books in a different way.

It was a nice project. I should reorganize bookshelves more often. Any suggestions on how to arrange them the next time around?

A surprising discovery:

I have a better day when I know the kitchen is clean.

Which means I’m totally becoming a grown-up.

Which I totally don’t mind-

if it means I’ll keep the kitchen cleaner.

What other things do you think mark a person as “growing up?”

I’ve been (very slowly) reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. I can’t seem to read it quickly, and I can’t seem to put it down. His story entrances me in a patient sort of way. The thing that strikes me most every time is that he was not simpy fighting for the rights of his people, but their human dignity. In jail on Robbin’s Island, the uniforms for the Africans included shorts (viewed as boy’s clothes, not a man’s) rather than pants, which the Coloureds, Indians, and Whites wore. Nelson Manela fought for the right for Africans to wear pants rather than shorts in prison.

Nelson Mandela fought for the right for Africans to wear pants rather than shorts in prison. And I feel like we (and I mean we) take our dignity for granted and sell it for too cheap a price, like it’s worth our dignity to feel sexy or wanted or any number of things. Who is fighting for dignity these days? I know some, but I wish I knew more and I wish I was more like them. I hope I will be. I hope I am.