Magdalena O!

A friend writes on their blog how they write with a censor, so instead of writing freely, they write about the everyday, and their perspective on those experiences, asking questions like, “Can I lay myself bare and assume that people won’t draw conclusions?”

Over the past few days I’ve been thinking about this space here, the fairly secluded hill I’ve managed to climb and build a moat around, but I am not sure I want this to be so hidden. At least in such a way, that to find it, is nearly impossible. Would allowing this in the public change my voice? Allow me to write more, allow me to write differently? Although my stats show more hits than people I’ve given this to, I always manage to leak it here & there, but mostly to those close to me, because I want to be read by them.

The question asked though, is so obvious in achieving its answer. But, can we lay ourselves bare? Can we ever explain our motives enough for others not to draw conclusions? Everyone assumes it’s always about them.

For me, it is always, Can I write outside of myself? Can I write something other than my own feelings? Am I difficult to digest because of my focussed perspective? I think my most honest writing, my best writing comes in the form of letters. I have always been obssesed with conversations through words. Often, when I write about an experience, it is written to the person(s) involved. I don’t really know why I do this, not at first thought.

(If you read this, even from time to time, because I know some of you do, say hello, say anything!)

My belly is swollen, protruding. I hold it below my belly button. That spot. I would then run my palm up over my belly button and say, “Yes, here it is, here is our love.”

“Would you want me to carry y/our baby?”

If this was a book, then yes, it could happen right here, right now. I am always acting like I am in a book. You want reality, but I only know fantasy. I could one day stop taking my birth control and wait, prepare, massage my skin with oils, let it gain elasticity for its expansion, stop getting fucked up, start eating meat even!

I could learn to love meat. You could feed me real beef burgers and chicken wings. I would want more all the time, for all the years I despised meat. But nine months is a long time to be reading a book, maybe it is one of those serials that isn’t really a serial because serials aren’t serious literature. But it would still be a series of novels about the same character doing life in a way to relate to me, but having the ability to jump away with words and end just like that. Just like Catherine asked Jim to sit inside her car while she drove the car off the split in the bridge in Avignon. I was there looking at the bridge this summer. You have to pay to go on the bridge now. I didn’t want to pay to stand on a bridge, so it only exists from afar but close enough I could recognize it in films like Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. My Avignon bridge meant nothing but a way to make money, for Catherine it meant a way out of her neurosis, for Truffaut it meant a way to end the film dramatically but easily. Crazy women always get killed off in the end. Erica Jong talks about this, refusing to kill of Isadora Wing. Down with death! The world needs consequence without pitiful tragedy of funerals! A man can’t imagine follow-through on a life of a labyrinthine woman.

I’m running a festival, all by myself and I’m anxious that the participants aren’t rolling in like the previous years. I’m anxious that the early-called election is taking full view.

I’m desperate for sharp conversation, but when it’s right there I in all my social awkwardness take over and mumble about something or other. Food politics! Down with Harper! Cocaine! Wobble basslines! The city’s arts scene! Everyone is dancing the same!

I wait days and then you have to take it away prematurely. But isn’t any time before forever premature?

I don’t write anymore. There’s no fiction in my words, there’s just running around selling my ideas, helping on projects, reaching out to everyone and anyone for grad school, for community politics, for my documentary. Everything is external of me. I enjoy the way it masks my depth by pronouncing my knowledge of current events. That seems like a contradiction but really it makes sense to me. By involving myself with everything around me and facilitating ideas that involve many, I don’t have to think about the hurricane that is subsiding at the slowest rate possible inside me. By being involved I can seperate myself from my grief, from the memories, from the reminders. But they are there, they were there when I ate the Dr. Oateker pizza yesterday, or when I think about getting my driver’s licence. Smell is supposed to be the most intense sense in memory recollection, but intensity of experience scraps smell and instead lingers on every sense.

The writing class I wanted to take was full by the time I was ready to register. I didn’t have to loaf, but instead I was too intimidated to let myself inside my own writing. It’s so easy to feel anxiety and cry about not being able to do what you want to, it’s way fucking easier than giving in and doing it. So instead of using the grief to write and write, I’m just letting it go away, even if it doesn’t seem to want to.

-

She pulled at the seaweed covered branch stuck between the rocks, trying to lift it up just enough to throw it over the stone’s edge.
“Come here!” She yelled after him, as he disappeared into the dark.
“Leave it alone.”
She managed to slide the long thick branch over the stones, just near enough to touch him with it at the other end, “You’re it.”
“You’re it,” he jumped over it and pummelled her onto the stones, catching the back of her head with his hands.
“You’re it.”
“You’re it,” he grinned looking at her so close, he could no longer focus.
“Always catch me. Ok?”
“Yes… Yes.”

(every week I have a timed free-writing themed exercise in my Creative Writing Class. I will post it unedited here.  Feedback is welcome)

“Just really, I mean really, do you think that anyone thinks you can actually convince people of love? Is those words you swoop from our hearts and make them yours?”

“What do you mean Rebekah?”

“You know what I mean. I’ve written about you, I’ve studied you. I believed in you.”

“Well, the consequences of your life aren’t just up to me Rebekah, you need to take fate somewhere too, you know.”

“I know, but you gave me hope. I took Plato’s words to make you one of the gods, but now I realize you were just a woman who spread herself too thin.”

“You’re projecting all over me. “ She half-snickered at the last bit. “Is it because your book didn’t sell as many copies as Grenada Falls?”

I gave her a shifty look and turned away, except I couldn’t because she hovered over me swiveling in any direction I could physically go in.

“Stop it!”

“But if I am not who you think I am, how are you allowing me this influence on your life? This annoyance?”

“You’re awful. Simply awful. I don’t understand.” I shoved my face in between my palms and started to cry. Well, fake cry in hopes she would go away as I knew loss was a strong suit of hers, in that, she couldn’t cope with it at all.

“Should I jump off a cliff now? Do you take me for heartbroken by your dishonest weeps?”

I grumbled. “I do love love. I just don’t think that you are the one that I should sacrifice the pain of love to.”

“But that you must, that is what happens.” Her gestures seemed so grand I felt them sweeping the entire globe.

“I know you felt that. You felt my power.”

“You are manipulating me.” It’s just so sickly humid outside that’s all, I winced, taking the neck scarf to my forehead.

“You are in love aren’t you?”

“I am not!”

“He doesn’t love you back, that’s why you stopped believing in me!”

“No!” My voice raised.

“It is so! You are smitten with a man, and for the first time he is unwilling to kneel for you.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Before I could realize that this was a subplot in one of my earlier books, Sappho disappeared.

I’ve realized the only thing I know how to write about is my own life. How the fuck do I get past that?

Que Big Band ~~~~~~—<><>—~~~~~~~Romantic Music SetRomantic scene set.#1 Wide Angle span across a bright afternoon lit room, Magda is sitting in rocker on left side of shot, Jordan sitting in large wing chair at opposite side of shot. Wide angle emphasises the large divide between them although they are in reality sitting quite closeMagda: It wasn’t what you think, I don’t even know what you think but I know it wasn’t what you think at all, I swear not at all.Jordan: Who said I think it was anything, or that there was even an it to think about, this isn’t the time or the place for things like this, thats not what I came to talk about. » Read the rest of this entry «

I watched Saraband on Saturday. Saturday was the 28th. The 28th is when I left Toronto two years ago to catch a plane to arrange a funeral and deal with the passing of the most important person that’s ever been in my life. It was the day I got a phone call from my family, and my brother had to tell me because my mom was in hysterics. He fumbled the words. I remember being on my cell phone in the cross between the bedroom and bathroom door in the living room. Jason was sitting down at his desk beside me when they called. His feet up on the desk, making music. It was the afternoon, but that doesn’t make sense because he died early in the morning. Maybe it was the morning? But the six hour time difference? Maybe my grandmother didn’t call us until later, which would have made it morning. Yes, because I had to go to work that day and I had to call work that I would not be coming in and that I would be back sometime in late August and I don’t know when. They kept pestering me on the phone while I was shaking, still in partial denial shock. When you first hear of death, your body doesn’t register it as ‘gone forever’ but as a temporary mark of ‘not around right now’, only after a few seconds you hear the word ‘dead’ in your head. The conversation with my brother was very brief. He told me that mom is sending me on the next plane available. Was it that day? Or the next day? I don’t even remember. I don’t remember packing or getting to the airport. I remember brining my Zara heels because I needed to presentable for the funeral. How did I get ready? Did Jason pack for me? Was I able to eat? I was trying to figure out whether it would be worth it to bring my laptop but Jason said I should just focus on Poland and not worry. HE’S FUCKING GONE NOW, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MATTER WHAT HAPPENED?! Were my parents at the airport? I don’t recall seeing them. I remember numbly saying goodbye to Jason yet bawling uncontrollably. He asked if I wanted him to come with me, but I wanted to do it alone. I had to do it on my own. In the plane I read some Shopaholic book all the way through to keep myself occupied with triviality as to be somewhat manageable. I flew through Amsterdam and did yoga in the terminal. Everyone looked at me while I squatted in the waiting area by the big windows that overlook the runway. I wore my lululemon Capri pants with an olive green tank top and a black fitted tee shirt over top and my green hair ribbon tied around my neck and my olive green Fila thongs. I see myself so clearly. There was a certain freedom I felt having my bags on the stroller, skipping through Schiphol all alone. I hadn’t slept and all of my energy came from the reserve stationed for situations like these and the fact that I was going to handle all of my grandfather’s proceedings. I was in charge of it all. Of course, I had help along the way, especially considering my Polish isn’t good enough not to get ripped off. So many costs were incurred regardless. So much tension in my body to hold back tears every moment.

I woke up on the 30th of this year to find out that Ingmar Bergman had died at the age of 89. He said Saraband would be his last project. He was able to know that. He was able to let others know that. The 30th was the day after the funeral proceedings and the day I was able to finally lay to sleep.

In Saraband, Karin talks about grief and how it doesn’t subside but coping with it gets better. Do we ever let go? Do we ever accept death?

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