Monday, January 30, 2012
Pain is so demeaning when it stops you in your tracks.
It robs you of your personhood a little, it takes part of you away.
And the loneliness.
The loneliness of it is pain too, less acute, more hollow.
But it's amazing what searing pain can teach you.
You can reach the outer limits of yourself, that squibbly border where the universe slowly becomes me, where my skin and the thing next to it are virtually indistinguishable, where pain is just a thing, a thing inside my head that is in fact not bigger than I am.
Meditation is to conquer the beast.
To sit down and have an intellectual conversation with it.
Comfort is the bedside table: the chocolates that I don't even pretend to hesitate over, the books with unbroken spines, the blister packs.
Victory is sleep - despite, or in spite?
Just sleep.
It robs you of your personhood a little, it takes part of you away.
And the loneliness.
The loneliness of it is pain too, less acute, more hollow.
But it's amazing what searing pain can teach you.
You can reach the outer limits of yourself, that squibbly border where the universe slowly becomes me, where my skin and the thing next to it are virtually indistinguishable, where pain is just a thing, a thing inside my head that is in fact not bigger than I am.
Meditation is to conquer the beast.
To sit down and have an intellectual conversation with it.
Comfort is the bedside table: the chocolates that I don't even pretend to hesitate over, the books with unbroken spines, the blister packs.
Victory is sleep - despite, or in spite?
Just sleep.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
For a long time, blogging was very fullfulling for me.
I started to see life in terms of how I would post it: something interesting (or banal but potentially still worthy) would happen, and my brain would ZING with words, excited to put it down and hit publish.
And then I fell away from it.
But you don't stop being filled with something that needs to come out.
I still have a lot that wants to come out and meet the world.
These days, I'm making connections with brides instead of bloggers.
I make wedding invitations.
I make really beautiful, glamourous, high-end, unique wedding invitations.
I make a small contributions to people's love and happiness.
I make something meaningful.
Sure it's business, but to me it's so much more.
I'm not trying to make a lot of money, I'm just enjoying being a working artist with a little studio and lots of lovely ideas.
Everytime I put a little sparkle into someone's day, a little bling, a little glamour, a little luxury - there's just something satisfying in that.
Taylor Made is a work of love - not just invitations, but wedding stationery: the thank you cards, the ceremony programs, the favour tags, the wine bottle labels...I love the layers. I love the love.
Labels: bling, diamonds, glam, invitations, ottawa, unique, wedding
Monday, June 06, 2011
The doctor calls it a herniated disc, but I call it a good excuse to stay home on a sunny day.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Destination Unknown
The term honeymoon apparently originated because friends and family were supposed to supply the newlywed couple with enough mead to last their "sweetest period" - which was estimated to be about a month.
Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe it was the wine making them sweet, and that if the couple kept drinking, maybe they'd also keep up the good times? Could we impact the divorce rate by subscribing newlyweds to the wine of the month club?
It's not that I wouldn't mind being showered with wine by our kith and kin - lovely vintages selected by Sean's parents, "flavoured" wines found in the 'party' section with a sugar content higher than alcoholic content donated by my sisters, random bottles lovingly given to my non-wine-drinking mother as end of the school year gifts from students regifted and probably still with original wrapping (and gift tag!) attached, and of course the cheap boxes of whatever was on the aisle and grabbed hurriedly by my broke and disorganized friends (sound familiar, Kate?) - it's just that my work (if not my liver) would probably object to this stewed state lasting literally until the moon had done its cycle.
The post-wedding vacation that we're craving might turn out to be almost as long anyway. We want to "do" Europe, as they say, and to do it well, we're going to need more than just a few days. But we're also going to need sunnier skies and more clement weather than February usually provides. So we're postponing it until summer and sunshine, knowing full well that it will more crowded and more expensive and more aggravating. But more us.
However, never the types to pass up an excuse to vacation, we're planning a February honeymoon ANYWAY. The kind with sunburns and sand and salllllllllty margaritas.
And king size beds.
But where is this?
Not the Dominican Republic, this much we know.
(I was married there in another life)
Probably not Mexico, or the Bahamas either, since I travelled to both those countries in 2010 and though beautiful, I like to expose my passport to new and interesting stamps.
So where does that leave us?
Pitch us your honeymoon! Tell us where to go! Where have you been? What did you love? What do you hear good things about?
Pick our honeymoon, and we'll be sure to send a postcard.
Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe it was the wine making them sweet, and that if the couple kept drinking, maybe they'd also keep up the good times? Could we impact the divorce rate by subscribing newlyweds to the wine of the month club?
It's not that I wouldn't mind being showered with wine by our kith and kin - lovely vintages selected by Sean's parents, "flavoured" wines found in the 'party' section with a sugar content higher than alcoholic content donated by my sisters, random bottles lovingly given to my non-wine-drinking mother as end of the school year gifts from students regifted and probably still with original wrapping (and gift tag!) attached, and of course the cheap boxes of whatever was on the aisle and grabbed hurriedly by my broke and disorganized friends (sound familiar, Kate?) - it's just that my work (if not my liver) would probably object to this stewed state lasting literally until the moon had done its cycle.
The post-wedding vacation that we're craving might turn out to be almost as long anyway. We want to "do" Europe, as they say, and to do it well, we're going to need more than just a few days. But we're also going to need sunnier skies and more clement weather than February usually provides. So we're postponing it until summer and sunshine, knowing full well that it will more crowded and more expensive and more aggravating. But more us.
However, never the types to pass up an excuse to vacation, we're planning a February honeymoon ANYWAY. The kind with sunburns and sand and salllllllllty margaritas.
And king size beds.
But where is this?
Not the Dominican Republic, this much we know.
(I was married there in another life)
Probably not Mexico, or the Bahamas either, since I travelled to both those countries in 2010 and though beautiful, I like to expose my passport to new and interesting stamps.
So where does that leave us?
Pitch us your honeymoon! Tell us where to go! Where have you been? What did you love? What do you hear good things about?
Pick our honeymoon, and we'll be sure to send a postcard.
Labels: honeymoon, vacation down south
Monday, August 30, 2010
Peace By Piece
This weekend really ended well for having started out with sobbing. Big, fat, uncontrollable sobbing.
Friday was the anniversary of Rory's death. This is not the kind of anniversary you celebrate, just...mark. And to mark it, because I had to, because it has certainly marked me, I wanted to visit her grave. In theory.
In reality, to visit her grave, I'd have to also drive by the place on the road where she died. Where her blood soaked into the ground and now fertilizes weeds. Where she spent her last conscious moments.
At home I have gotten to the good place where I remember the good times, and smile about them. I can look at photos without dissolving into tears. At the cemetery I can think of her "resting peacefully", or elegantly disintegrating back into the earth, dust to dust. That's nice.
But driving by that spot, THAT SPOT, with the underwhelming marker that doesn't convey one ounce of her preciousness, the corpses of flowers dead almost as long as she...I come undone. Rory's legal death happened almost 48 hours after her accident, in a hospital bed, surrounded by unbelieving relatives, and me. But her life ended on the pavement. And that spot makes me dwell on those last moments, whether the last thing she saw was the road as it rushed toward her, panic filling her lungs, and then terror, and then dark. Or did she lie there feeling the life rush out of her, regretting, already missing her daughter, feeling the pain of crushed bones and organs and dreams?
So I didn't go.
Instead, I was kind to myself. I took a rare night off work. I drank in sunshine and good conversation, and yes, daiquiris. Mango daiquiris! Banana-strawberry daiquiris! Between those and the gellato (lychee and cantaloupe), I've had enough servings of fruit for the week!
We walked for miles and miles, sweaty hand in sweaty hand, just to see what we could see. The flats I wore gave me 9 blisters (my feet were made for heels) and really earned the humongous steaks we ordered for dinner, along with a sharing platter that held the most beautiful black olive tapenade and smoked salmon that could turn a doubter into a believer.
We went to the drive-in, passing by the house that Rory last called her home, and I felt fine. Finer than fine. I was good.
We a saw a truly terrible movie (The Expendables), followed by a pretty forgettable one (The Switch). And we didn't mind because we sat together in the back seat and acted like obnoxious 10th graders. It was divine.
We slept sumptuously, our concave little bodies cradling each other, and woke up smiling. Maybe we knew that good news was on its way: my sister is engaged. Yes, another one. That's 3 out of 4 sisters, in case you're keeping tally. My mother wants to throw up (from happiness, I'm sure. I know I've thrown up from happiness many times before. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, "happiness" and "champagne" are interchangeable.)
And now I'm back at work, a 13 hour shift, the first of 12. It sounds a bit brutal, but I am recharged. And, in the likely event that my batteries don't last the entire stretch of work, I've also got my eye on the next great weekend:
I'm booking a weekend at a thrillingly expensive couples-only resort (and trying not to work out in my mind the number of hours I'll have to work to pay for it), treating myself and my honey to a private spa villa that has a fireside jacuzzi, a sauna, a calming 4-headed rain forest walk-in shower, a bed big enough for our imaginations, 5-star room service, a masseuse who will come to the room, and enough space to grow my heart and be at peace. Really, really at peace.
Friday was the anniversary of Rory's death. This is not the kind of anniversary you celebrate, just...mark. And to mark it, because I had to, because it has certainly marked me, I wanted to visit her grave. In theory.
In reality, to visit her grave, I'd have to also drive by the place on the road where she died. Where her blood soaked into the ground and now fertilizes weeds. Where she spent her last conscious moments.
At home I have gotten to the good place where I remember the good times, and smile about them. I can look at photos without dissolving into tears. At the cemetery I can think of her "resting peacefully", or elegantly disintegrating back into the earth, dust to dust. That's nice.
But driving by that spot, THAT SPOT, with the underwhelming marker that doesn't convey one ounce of her preciousness, the corpses of flowers dead almost as long as she...I come undone. Rory's legal death happened almost 48 hours after her accident, in a hospital bed, surrounded by unbelieving relatives, and me. But her life ended on the pavement. And that spot makes me dwell on those last moments, whether the last thing she saw was the road as it rushed toward her, panic filling her lungs, and then terror, and then dark. Or did she lie there feeling the life rush out of her, regretting, already missing her daughter, feeling the pain of crushed bones and organs and dreams?
So I didn't go.
Instead, I was kind to myself. I took a rare night off work. I drank in sunshine and good conversation, and yes, daiquiris. Mango daiquiris! Banana-strawberry daiquiris! Between those and the gellato (lychee and cantaloupe), I've had enough servings of fruit for the week!
We walked for miles and miles, sweaty hand in sweaty hand, just to see what we could see. The flats I wore gave me 9 blisters (my feet were made for heels) and really earned the humongous steaks we ordered for dinner, along with a sharing platter that held the most beautiful black olive tapenade and smoked salmon that could turn a doubter into a believer.
We went to the drive-in, passing by the house that Rory last called her home, and I felt fine. Finer than fine. I was good.
We a saw a truly terrible movie (The Expendables), followed by a pretty forgettable one (The Switch). And we didn't mind because we sat together in the back seat and acted like obnoxious 10th graders. It was divine.
We slept sumptuously, our concave little bodies cradling each other, and woke up smiling. Maybe we knew that good news was on its way: my sister is engaged. Yes, another one. That's 3 out of 4 sisters, in case you're keeping tally. My mother wants to throw up (from happiness, I'm sure. I know I've thrown up from happiness many times before. Of course, as far as I'm concerned, "happiness" and "champagne" are interchangeable.)
And now I'm back at work, a 13 hour shift, the first of 12. It sounds a bit brutal, but I am recharged. And, in the likely event that my batteries don't last the entire stretch of work, I've also got my eye on the next great weekend:
I'm booking a weekend at a thrillingly expensive couples-only resort (and trying not to work out in my mind the number of hours I'll have to work to pay for it), treating myself and my honey to a private spa villa that has a fireside jacuzzi, a sauna, a calming 4-headed rain forest walk-in shower, a bed big enough for our imaginations, 5-star room service, a masseuse who will come to the room, and enough space to grow my heart and be at peace. Really, really at peace.
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