Author: leaving traces

I wanted to be born at our cabin, on Galiano Island.

My parents were there on the August weekend – escaping from the big city and their fancy city jobs.

I was ready to be born there on August 6th, 1985.

We were flown to Richmond General – where I was to be born instead.

I guess I had thought it was going to be calm and peaceful when I breached the threshold, so I came out with a smile and big blue eyes.

Maybe it’s because my mom was 38 or maybe it’s because I wasn’t crying – but the doctor picked me up by my feet, hung me upside down and spanked me or whacked me on the back so I started crying.

“To make sure I was breathing,” she told me.

In the womb, in the uterus – what would I have liked to know…

I guess I felt a lot of the emotions and stressors of my mother – I was born with acne… and Louise Hay says acne is repressed anger… would this have been my mother’s anger that got passed on to me and manifested itself on my cheeks?

Or could this have been my own repressed anger – this early – not being born where I wanted to be born…

not at my cabin,

not in a peaceful way.

Smacked while hanging upside down… being punished for being calm, joyful, and wide-eyed.

I wonder how this has impacted all other moments in my life…

Is there a pattern of doing the ‘right’ thing – only to be punished or feel punished for it later? I do know now that this is definitely a pattern I am working through – especially as it relates to my career.

Little womb baby – you are loved.

You are perfect just as you are.

Your smile and big blue eyes may make others fearful, uncomfortable.

Smile wide baby girl.

Their lens, their interpretations are not your burden.

Shine bright – you are as unique and powerful as everyone else.

Step out and into the world the only way you know how.

Head turned skyward – smiling brightly – calmly.

A curious and optimistic knowing.

Flourish. Leave your impressions.

Not needing to impress – but naturally impressing.

Share your love. Wear your mistakes on your sleeve.

Peel back the shame of too this or too that.

Just right – with your built-in flippers and your 6’1″ frame.

Those three white eyebrow hairs are speaking to you baby girl.

Sure – pluck them – but become curious as to why they are there.

Just below your third eye – in your unibrow.

Hands heart uterus

upside down

right side up

a Haiku

breathing in, up, and out

lack of connection

warming the hands

lifting up my belly fat to try and connect to my uterus

do I ever think of my uterus?

I thought maybe I could connect to it more from my low back

Does that mean something?

Is it tilted?

How deep is it?

U-ter-us

Toys-R-Us

Little uterus toys for educating young girls

Breathe

Billowing

Softly

Not sure what to write

Today, this morning…

Hogwarts and raunchy love letters – yes puhlease

How would you describe my juicy booty?

That’s how we’re together isn’t it?

I was walking – you picked me up.

Said you liked my ‘smile’…

Haha – once I got to know you more – you let it slip that is was my wiggle

and my waste-to-buhdung-kadungk-ratio

You slippery son-of-a-bitch.

Lol.

What was it about you?

It was your respect. It was your nervousness and your kindness. It was the way you just wanted to spend time with me.

We got drunk – well too much to drive and you had the other bed made up for me.

No pressure. No paying for dinner and company with my body.

How strange that this was a new feeling for me?

I slept beside you that first night and felt safe. I cried. It was beautiful.

The next morning, I thought you would have wanted me to leave.

But you didn’t.

You were making breakfast. You were ready to spend the day together.

I was surprised – but in a good way.

So we did – and we had dinner together again that night – didn’t we.

Again, we slept next to each other and I cried.

It was on the third night – the one after Uncle Stinker’s 65th birthday – that the party came back to your place.

We both had too much to drink. The party got a bit out of hand – you passed out first – then I woke you to rejoin your own party.

Your friend took a photo of my hand on your shoulder.

He said I was always finding a way to touch you.

We were together that night, and still are.

Tuck tuck tuck. (Shirt into pants).

Slick slick slick. (Hair back with comb).

Style brush twirl. (moustache grooming routine…excuse me – pre-alligator wrestling moustache grooming routine).

Twinkle twinkle. (Eyes into the mirror).

More twinkle twinkle. (Shiny toothed smile).

Eleven minutes to showtime.

The goal – pick as many ripe peaches to fill the buckets as you can while tightrope walking over an alligator-filled swamp/lagoon/levy – pick your damp, murky environment.

Unlike circus tightrope walking there was no safety net if you fell. Training in alligator wrestling was the safety net. Ninety-nine percent probability of tightrope falling with bucket of peaches while reaching for that plump, round, soft, juicy one that only tips of fingers can taste while tiptoeing on one leg and outstretched for dear life.

Six minutes till showtime.

Alligator Jimmy was his name and peach-picking and alligator wrestling was his game.

Inspired by, who he considered to be, the forefathers of alligator wrestling – from the Australian Outback – the late, great, Steve Irwin… from the sunshine state itself – his great grandfather – Punching Peaches Pete – named for his wild technique – using the butt end of the tightrope pole to punch the peaches from the top of the trees straight into the buckets below.

It’s ironic to hear the story of his passing – you’d think it would have been during his show… but it was while he was out golfing… near a sandbar… the gator came outta nowhere.

Was the back wheel sideways while all others went straight? Is my sister the rickety back wheel of our family? Is my mom the man in uniform – collecting the carts, pushing them together and lining them back up in their proper places?

Is my cousin the grocery carts, I mean the stacks of boxes at the back – in the cooler – waiting there empty and cold… really hard to break down and toss in recycling?

What am I in this empty parking lot scene…

I might be a pebble of gravel on the surface of the pavement. Maybe a dented car door… I might be a gust of wind redirecting the cart ever so slightly that it knocks the back wheel in it’s place… rolling smoothly with the rest.

LOL. Of course – I’m the almighty ‘fixer’ in this scene… which is truly a load of poop.

I could be a shiny handle covered in covid residue, or feces… or lip smackers or kid boogers… we all could be any of these things at any given moment – time of day dependent – caught off-guard or ready to perform for an audience.

I’ve been binge-watching ‘The Staircase’ and am finding it weirdly addictive. I feel like as an empath I can see the truth in someone’s actions, reactions, responses… but it really has me wondering… and I’m not so sure.

Hands. Plans. Finger faces. Memes. Marcel the Shell. Thumbing a ride. Swearing with no words. We do know sign language.

Magna Carta. A manifesto. Main – french for hand. Main characters in our lives. Subservient to the actions we wish to carry out. Pen grasped loosely. Mr Sketch. Toucan Sam. Colourful characters from childhood. Follow your nose. A risky adventure in a jungle.

Grasping. Reaching. Curtailing. Nonsense. Forever. Wrists twisting. Knuckles cracking. Nail beds show crescent moons.

“Push your cuticles back”, he said. I’m not really sure why. To stop hangnails maybe. To show the crescent moons on your thumbs. So particular about certain things – yet absolutely oblivious to others.

Brushing his teeth – check.

Trimming his nails – check.

Cleaning behind his ears – check.

Finishing the fat and gristle off our plates – ok…

Drinking red wine and scotch every night… ok.

Dusting – LOL.

Checking his spots for cancer – only if he really had to.

I didn’t see my Dad cry often. But when he did it was a full body cry – when he had to sell our cabin on Galiano, when our dog died….

I love this. What a beautiful blue card to pull for my friends. Ya – you guys are friends now, not just writing cronies.

I also love the idea of asking with an expectation that you will receive. Plus, training the asking muscle – to ask wiser and wiser questions.

What a beautiful thought – that learning to ask questions is a journey – just like everything else. The process of learning to ask for what you truly want. To feel open to receiving. No judgement, no punishment, no feeling selfish or weak for asking.

It took me a long time to realize this. I thought if I didn’t have the answer to all questions, then I hadn’t done enough research, was not right for the job, was too naive, or would be called out.

I like this term the GenZed’ers have brought to light – “calling in”. I’m not totally sure what it means – but it feels like a gentler more inclusive way of interjecting when someone has gone down a path that will likely cause harm to others.

Blues and golds. A direct gaze. Staring straight out at the audience. Being supported. A sense of knowing – embodied in posture and how she holds her body and her gaze.

Strong, stable, deep blue – yet coated in bright light – warm, golden hues kissing her brow and cheeks.

Half full. Half empty. The tummy to cup ratio. Love the idea that last night’s sip plus this morning’s gulp can call your dreams to you.

Or pull your dreams up from within you.

Clouds. Skies. Roots. Shoulders. Daydreaming is not lazy. I like that.

My friend’s dad used to call me “spacey”. I’m never quite sure why. Probably because I was daydreaming about something or spaced out when he was talking to me.

I never really like him that much. I felt like he was always hiding something behind his game of charades. I didn’t like the way he treated his wife.

A boyfriend from Toronto said I had this look he called ‘child’s stare’. Where I would stare off in the distance while in mid-conversation with someone.

I guess it’s similar to when you’re on the couch “alone”, and your dog is staring at something over your shoulder.

I wonder – if this for me was a trauma response. So much the backdrop to the emotional abuse in my life that I became the environment.

I would see the scene play out as if I was the bird cage, the spiderweb, or the cupboard doors – silent and observing from the background.

I’d like to explore this idea more in my writing – how a family member can become the setting while still being a main character.

I forgot to tell you to fuck off. I forgot to tell you that I am still waiting for your apology – for you to take accountability.

I never told you that I would sit at the bottom of the stairs and listen to you fight. You would both lie so much the next day, trying to convince me that you were the better parent – that the other was to blame.

I guess this is how I learned to create my own safety in the house. It was the third house we lived in. Moved in when I was nine, Dad moved out/was kicked out by you when I was eleven.

I only saw him raise his hand to you once. You were fighting, as usual, but your bedroom door was open/ajar… I walked down the hallway to head downstairs and peaked in to see his jaw clenched and hand raised. Your back was to me. I think he saw me and stopped. No one ever talked about it again.

You liked being the victim though, didn’t you? The martyr. The woman who kept it all together – full-time lawyer, sending kids to private school, sports, cooking, cleaning.

Miss Susie Do-It-All – the most glorious mom who ever lived.

It’s interesting though, because those moments on the stairs – listening – those were my first moments of learning not to trust you.

Your version of events was always so stacked in your favour – like a precariously tall peak of pancakes tilting to one side and soggy with butter and syrup.

It’s interesting, I forgot to tell you – that as the executor of my Dad’s estate I could see the emails you had sent him.

I can really see through people. To the well of their intentions. To hidden agendas, ulterior motives. The snakes on my head can use tongues to sense out pureness, to see masks and remove them. To tread lightly, trepidatiously on eggshells of broken glass.

I used to sit at the bottom of the stairs when my parents fought, listening to the facts.

My parents were great at explaining to me which one was worse – who was to blame.

I would sit there and listen so I could discern who was lying and who was telling any version of the truth.

This was at our house on Woodwyn Terrace, on the top of Mt. Newton. So I would have been between the ages of nine and eleven.

My mom finally kicked my dad out when I was eleven. Not sure what that particular fight was about but I’m pretty sure it happened in the kitchen.

I am always a backdrop in these memories, with an omniscient view – or maybe the view of the environment. I am not central in the scene, but off to the side – watching the scene unfold before me as if I were the fridge, the windowsill, or the cupboard doors.

This is something I’d like to keep diving into… maybe how I witnessed and observed so much as a child, that I very quickly became the backdrop or setting.

Not even so much as a participant observer. Purely a quiet observer. Do not upset the characters more than they already are – what’s happening around you? Where is your sister? What time of year is it?

The colours – the 1970’s cupboards of white MDF and a natural wood ‘lip-handle’ at the base. The yellow countertop.

The raw beam cutting the scene awkwardly in two.

Did our first dog die yet? Did we have our bird, Kobi yet?

My mom was yelling so loud and made the decision. My dad was yelling too but then looked dumb-founded when she pointed and yelled get out!.

She sort of sucked at dealing with emotions, big or small. He did too I guess – his own, anyway. But he could be reasoned with. We could sit down and have a chat with him after.

I am so lame or maybe too embarrassed to even think about what I might share.

A few more are coming to me now – like the satisfaction of picking my nose when it’s just dry enough to pull out some nose hairs – or the satisfaction of scraping my nails across my skin in the tub removing layer after layer of dead skin.

But something I actually really enjoy is yelling at strangers. Ha! There, I admitted it. Mostly at my kid’s sports games. If there are asshole parents in the stands then I take immense joy in being able to shut them up with my words.

The Port Alberni hockey team’s parents were particularly terrible. They had air horns and sound makers and signs and really high pitched mothers with shrill screams and even shriller voices.

They were winning seven or eight nothing and would cheer like their life depended on it for each goal – our team was getting more and more deflated.

Finally, when we scored our first goal – I yelled like a banshee – mimicking and mocking their idiotic screams –

“OH MY GAAAWWDDDDD!”

“SO AMAAAAAAAZZZIINNGGG, I CAN”T BELIEVE IT?!”

“Whoooooo,,, yeaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!”

The parents noticed me and looked over half-confused/half-concerned.

I looked straight back and said, “Is it like looking in a mirror??!!”

I got some chuckles and smiles from our team’s parents closest to me.

Cool.

Also – the next goal their team scored was met with much less vigour and exaggerated enthusiasm.

Another time – three dads were being dicks and cheering loudly for dirty hits and rough play.

What broke the straw for me was when one of their players laid out the girl on our team – they almost jumped out of their seats like real assholes.

I quickly looked back and snapped, “Really?! That’s what you cheer for? He just laid her out!”

They looked like they had been scolded by their mothers and shut up, cowering after that.

I guess I sort of see myself as an energy barometer at those games – interrupting some bullshit behaviour before they go too far and it runs loose.

I enjoy sitting on the edge or even in the middle of the opposing teams fans to call them out.

I’m surprised that not more people do.