Author: leaving traces

My lumpy pulse felt like a cold egg yolk at first. A yolk that had been frozen. I know what a frozen yolk looks and feels like thanks to a colder than average camper trip we took this past Christmas. I learned that once a yolk freezes it doesn’t thaw out again. It forms a tightly bound ball and I’m assuming shouldn’t be eaten. The colour of my pulse at this time was a deep rich egg yolk yellow.

From there I noticed my blood, which is almost a royal blue colour. I am more translucent this time of year, which is a fun joke amongst my Haida family members – I disappear next to a beige wall, etc, etc.

What was the next rhythm again? Breath? Oh ya, that – carrying my breath all the way through my body – like a roundtrip commute in my day – I’m not sure my breath had a colour – more of a misty fog maybe with green or purpley-grey undertones.

Then the craniosacral… this always seems like an electric liquidy snappy syrup – not a room temperature syrup – heated up… less viscous (more runny) – whatever the right viscousness is to describe that. I feel like this rhythm is what causes static electricity – maybe because of the very few times I have felt it run down or up my spine – like champagne bubbles – yes – that’s the look I feel – warm champagne bubbles traveling along my spine.

Yaaaasss! Nitty gritty.

Those close-ups – the videographer clearly has a favourite. That dude with, no no – that dapper gentleman with the perfectly quaffed hair. Does quaffed hair queef? Anyway – shimmy, shimmy – pen is dying – slippery feet in shiny shoes.

White people can’t dance – I mean this was something choreographed and learned and even that bozo at the end didn’t hit the last note – his shoes were too shiny – did they shine the bottom of his shoes too? And who would have known if he even hit the note because the cameraperson was too busy crushing on the quaffed queefer to pan out in time.

Really loosey-goosey… the women were having some fun but not too much fun as to ‘outshine’ or overshadow the men.

Let’s all be the male peacocks of our species – loud and proud! Shiny, shimmering, maaagic! There’s my mermaid coming through – bedazzled, my little mermaid doll my little sister had – I think you could comb colour into its hair with water in the bath. What a weird concept. Sitting in a bath combing a mermaids hair – probably having a conversation too. Do we have to write things down as adults because otherwise we’d be talking to ourselves all the time, like kids used to do?

“Hi-ya! Hoo-chah! Everybody was kung-fu…” nope, not going there.

“These mosquito bastards can’t get me – look at me go – I’m travelling faster than one horsepower.” Was that English? Meh.

I think the mosquitos went for a swim.. probably tossed around in the air by my wild kicks. Horse. Ocean. Beach. Waves.

[Stop stomping your boots outside! I’m trying to write!]

What fairytale am I drawn to? None where a prince charming is involved. I’m too cynical and too “feminist”. What about getting closer to the Divine Feminine, or an archetype to “rewild” myself – break out of the matrix as some people call it.

Hmmm writing + writing = writingwriting. What is the square root of writing?

Each of those were critters. It felt like a stop motion animation – is that what those are called? Gawd. My words are so simple and it takes a while for me to find the right one – or an interesting writerly one.

Imagine if the water, or all of the fluids in our bodies turned to ice like that – or brittle bones. Shards of glass swimming through our veins, adhering to the coldest parts of us.

What are my coldest parts? Well, my hands and feet are almost always cold – would glass shards form around my toes and ankles so I “crunched” when I walked? Would typing on the computer sound like I was breaking tiny chandeliers? Are there “metaphoric” cold spots held within my body?

Is there such thing as cold steam? If so, maybe parts of my heart would be leaking cold steam. Oh ya, liquid nitrogen – and the gas it produces when it comes into contact with air.

Liquid nitrogen pockets are held in portions of my abdomen, rib cage, liver, and probably other places – ones that process toxins – lymph nodes I guess.

Let’s imagine my lymph nodes as tiny chilled grapes of liquid nitrogen soothing my armpits and neck while I break tiny chandeliers on my keyboard and leave shards of glass as I walk.

The dinger didn’t go yet – I really tried to time that one. My back – low, mid, and upper – are aching, time to reposition.

Ambido. Sink teeth. Amoeba. Toothless. Raindrops down the window… is he here? I was just listening to rain drops dabbling down the roof outside. Teeth. Sinking teeth.

Last night I had a dream where I was at a work function and I was just about to text my boss all of the shit I wanted to say to him. In that moment, he showed up. He looked old and kind of hunched over – what little hairs he had left on his head were gone. And he was wearing a fucking fedora – jeez, he was making this easy for me. I marched up to him and started to unleash all the things I wanted to say – but it was coming out all incoherent – and he was just laughing. The fucker was laughing – kind of an awkward laugh – the one where your shoulders go up and down to sort of fake the laugh – or make it more believable.

He didn’t agree with anything I was saying – he said he was only gone for one week and he had two jobs – what I did was a breeze compared to him.

In the dream – the more frustrated I got – the less I could make sense of anything. My teeth began to feel like marbles in my mouth made of plaster and they were crumbling and falling out in whole rows.

I ended up taking my teeth out and putting them in this woman’s glass of water – it was like rocks and cement, or gravel. I chose her water because she was agreeing with him. I was making this big scene and no one understood my side of things.

My boss just kept laughing and walked away.

I googled what “teeth falling out in dream” meant this morning and the first thing to come up was about big loss and major life changes – example, job. Dang, how true is that.

I’m here, in Whistler with my sis and my niece, a part of digitizing Haida language – I mean, come on! How cool is that? We’ve got a hot tub on our deck and we make our own bubbles. (Wink).

“Is it an ‘S’?”

Ya!

“P”.

Ya!

“e”

Ya!

“O”?

Nope.

(redraw, redraw – nice and slow)

sssss…

“C”?

Ya!

“Spec…”

“Spectacles?”

Nope!

“I”?

Ya!

“A”

Mmhmm

“Special?!”

Haha yup!

Special!

This collective group is so special – and I’m so corny! lol

Remember as kids we used to spell words on each other’s backs? It was fun but also this kind, intimate gesture.

I feel like involuntary touch has disappeared. Affection by touch is definitely one of my love languages. Anyway – this group – this group does more for me than my $225/hr psychologist – his cat licked its ass on our last call – ha – I should have said something – when he noticed, he played it pretty cool. Trying to understand and then process all my bullshit and then this cat lifts its leg up, straight up – not facing the camera – well, it’s head wasn’t facing the camera – but it’s asshole was – lick, lick, lick, – try not to laugh, focus, focussss… cat’s ass – haha – don’t say anything – it would cost me like 20 bucks if I mentioned his cat’s ass – this is my time – my insurances dollar – this fucking cat – pretending no one else is in the room – although we know, cats know – licking his ass on purpose – pretty sure I caught it give me a wink while licking and looking over it’s shoulder.

Is that a metaphor for life? We’re all in our heads trying to heal this and resolve that, while cats are just there, licking their asses?

I just realized I hold a lot of trauma in my neck and throat area. I think this is not only physical but also spiritual. I’ve had physical trauma to my throat – I’ve been strangled to the point where I thought I might lose my life. While being choked I was also kicked and punched in the back of the head. Just because I’m a “straight, privileged, white woman” doesn’t mean I haven’t gone through some shit.

“Windows to the sky”, I think she said – keeping my head from soaring into the clouds. In Japan, I was so relatively tall that I could have had temperature inversion – much like a ski hill – “It’s warm and sunny up here I would say”, hollering down from above the clouds.

I’m imagining my head as a hot air balloon – being tied down by my scalenes and [ insert fancy sciencey word here ] muscles and ligaments. My head wants to escape from the gravity of many things that have happened – sure you can fuck my body, cut it, scrape it – but with my head drifting away – I will never know.

My body would connect with Earth and grow vines to hold back your arms, your eyes, your evil spirits and wind around you – suffocating you and filling you with the essence of blue chamomile, daisies, and lavender – so even your poisoned bodies would regenerate the soil – fertilizing the Earth to provide a bounty of new crops – fruits and vegetables, and bees to pollinate them.

Smushing play-doh. An elephant’s foot. broad at the base and flat on the earth. Grounded. Soft. Malleable. Soft… again. My arches are so tight – the sinewing bone that runs along the centre of my foot.

I used to eat play-doh – it was salty and had a good texture – like mashed potatoes or cookie dough. My right foot felt like a bundled up or rolled up ball of play-doh and then when I placed it on the ground – I could see that the ball had been smushed down by my thumb. Filling all the gaps between my arch and the floor. I hadn’t thought much about my hips and back and legs before but I’m pretty sure they felt better after – no twinging pain – no stiffness.

I played basketball last night for the first time in about 16/17 years. It was awesome. I had the whole community centre gym to myself. It’s amazing how our bodies remember so much – my skills pretty much came back to me – all muscle memory – my brain was not the leader. For those who don’t believe in somatics – maybe using the term “muscle memory” would help – as it’s more relatable.

I felt like a baller. I was rusty for sure – but I made about half of the shots I took, worked up a sweat, and even did some pump fakes.

I felt confident and like a badass – pretending I was a millionaire in this gym all to myself.

“Swoosh! Nothing but net, baby.”

“Fade away jumpers.”

“Finish on a good one.”

All of these sayings my Dad would repeat over and over. I started talking to him on the court – think he’d be proud that I’ve still got it. Shooting around. Dribble dribble. Blah.

What a freak eh? A toothless snowman? Who comes up with this nonsense? Oh sheesh – just me, the class jester. I absolutely loved seeing everyone get into it – laughing at themselves, laughing as a snake, or a donkey – or shaking their head at me for embarrassing the crap outta them.

I used to be so silly – I used to give way less shits. What is it about adulting that makes us think we need to be a certain way? My closet is so dull because of my business casual wardrobe – then I tried to ‘capsule’ it – so this boring top can go with this lame pair of pants – and you can alternate this long cardigan for this blazer or that button up for that turtleneck. Ahhh!! Steve Jobs wore a turtleneck to keep his head on – his robot head – to hide his intergalactic throat panel.

I think covid has made Canadians even more subdued. More lackadaisical. More muted. More meek. Unsure. Non-offensive. Honestly – I wish I lived in a bigger town sometimes so I could prance through the streets in a homemade moo-moo, barking at strangers on bicycles and sumo-walking into stores.

My Socials 9 teacher had a trick for me when I had too much energy – he would have the class all laugh together – going “Ho-Ho-Ho-Ha!”

“Ho-Ho-Ho-Ha!” He was a pretty sturdy, very CIS rugby coach and socials teacher so this was quite the sight. Also, my class knew to blame me for this collective ‘Ho-ho-ho-ha-ing’… I used to have so much energy I would fall victim to laugh attacks that would send me out of the classroom and into the hallway – and for a couple laps around the building until I cooled down. Now I can sit and behave ‘politely’ for hours on end. I think maybe my true aura is full-fledged bitch, but I’ve been so good at hiding it, that my negative/sour energy turns into armpit sweat, ear wax, and large pores on my nose.

Walking through the fog. Smeary lights. Smudgy existence. Wondering. Wandering. Peripheral is gone. Blur tool in photoshop. That sepia orange so artificial it doesn’t even mimic the moon. A dog’s tail. Is it still clear for him in the fog? So many dog walkers out that night – lights, no lights. Pee break.

I remember walking on this day and embracing the dark, embracing not knowing and not seeing. We are so reliant on our sight that I think it blinds us. Blinds us through assumptions. What we presume – the stories we tell ourselves. The fear we create in our own minds. Fog can be welcoming, not ominous. Not spooky. Blanketed by fog – protected. Hiding. Cloaked. It feels soft and warm – muffles the sound like a crisp snowfall. Removes the excess. What is essential? Tap into other senses. Cotton candy fog. Wispy, fruity fog. Can I make friends with fog? Welcoming all that is not clear to me – training my mind to not fill the gaps. Blissful, all over fog.