Right into the heart

This is more or less a free write. I'm considering experimenting with this style of journal entry for a while.

I still have all those elderberries left in the fridge. I haven't forgotten about them, trinker, just getting distracted with life. Anyway, I have to do something about them this afternoon. I will try making some elderberry syrup based on the recipes I found.

It has to be this afternoon. I'm leaving for Toronto later to meet roosterbear and quillon. I tried to phone on the cell this morning, wondered where they were, then realized this was the day they were driving to Niagara Falls.

It seemed funny, considering I had been thinking about Niagara Falls this morning. Thinking about Devonian dolostone and crustaceans and coral all falling into a pale, slimy mat, turning gradually into stone so that we can walk along the top of a cliff and say, "Look at the blue, blue water like a coral sea. It isn't warm, though, it's Georgian Bay."

Thinking about people whose lives are informed by the geology of the Great Lakes. Shipmen, ferrymen, scientists. I think of Doug Larson, one of my ecology profs at University of Guelph, who took cores from ancient cedars growing on the Niagara Escarpment. Some of them are tiny, dwarfed, natural bonsais. Such severe conditions they survive. You can take a core from a tree without killing it, drill right into the heart and see how many rings it has. Some of those tiny trees have 1,400 rings, a heart so deep in experience and age we should all bow down to them and ask them to tell us how to save the world. If a tree as high as my knee can survive on a cliff that long, then we ought to be okay.

Monday I went to the gym, and now my chest is hurting. No, not my heart, the muscles. It isn't a bad hurt, just a slight twinge where they insert on the front of my shoulders.

Monday night I talked to Marian on the pay phone in her dorm. She said there's a closet with a phone in it, underneath the stairs. You can close the door for privacy. I tried to picture her sitting there in the darkness with the green glow of digital numbers from the phone display. She could hear her housemates going up and down the stairs over her head.

I told her Danny had gone to a knitting fair over the weekend and she giggled about that. All these people knitting. She said Danny should have put the bull ring in his nose. Wouldn't that be spectacular!

She calls her French teacher Madame, doesn't know her name. The knitting club is run by Madame. They wanted Marian to join it, but she said no. Madame saw the only finger, Marian's baby finger, on which she had painted a skull with some fingernail polish. Told her to take it off. She's the only one who's so strict, Marian said.

The rest is history. The rest of school I suppose. I remember sitting in history class. We called Mr. Pouget the Buddha because of his tummy and the way he sat there droning monotonously, oblivous as we shot paper airplanes across the room. Oblivious to everything.

I'm not feeling so great today. The first day in a couple weeks I feel that flutter-cringe around the edges, anxiety, a vague terror at doing anything. It compels me to sit, turn my eyes toward the monitor and let my mind soak endlessly into games and obsession. I want something to stir me. Bring back the empowered anger I felt yesterday. I feel assured this is only a blip. Only one day. Don't know why.

No, I didn't drink. I haven't had one since sometime last week. It feels good to know that I can stop altogether if I need to cleanse my mind. Well, there was Madeira in the mushroom soup last night, but that was cooked. Smelt wonderful when it was simmering, this rich, fruity fragrance laced with mushroom. That's one of the best things I can think of.

( Last paragraph: sexual content )