kate e macneill

the dreams feel like boundary crossings. i spent last night with friends who all lived in peterborough a few years ago. many of us were close; some, closer. some only moved away last month. it was beautiful to see everyone close and laughing again. at this point, only joel and myself haven’t moved away from this street.

we were celebrating the marriage of one of our dear friends, to a dear new friend.

i can identify three times in my life in which i really felt like i was part of and contributed to a close community of friends. once recently, with all of the music and dancing and trauma and life, in the middle of my survival kick, surrounded and held by, and holding those close to me. the first was this tight knit stoner crew in high school, all of us just barely managing to stave off disaster at every turn, at the whims of our damaged families and damaging minds, hurting each other and learning to love through music and drugs and art and conversations.

the other time included the group of people i hugged and kissed last night. through the trials, deadlines, exploits, successes, and failures of the university administration, the student union, the student paper, the songs, the shows, the organizing efforts, the performances, the conferences that turned into parties and the parties that turned into conferences, our identities, our pedagogies, our egos, our insecurities, our sexualities, our lines in the sand, our commitments, and desires were forged and marinated and taunted and taught.

at least this is how it all seems from my perspective, and with the minimal retrospective i’ve been able to accumulate.

which somehow, even in the thick of it, always feels peripheral. like there is an observer status placed on me — and maybe everybody feels this way.

like i’m constantly on a boundary. like i’ve always got one foot in this world, and one in another. one hand in control of the reins and the other barely holding onto my hat.

i’ve fought with myself for as long as i can remember to make a commitment to this life, to this side of the line, to a future of possibility and not a past of hurt. i feel like it’s only been recently that i’ve been able to articulate this desire.

and sometimes, when faced with the devastating beauty of what the difficult experiences of all of us have turned into, what we’ve made of them so far, like last night, it brings me such joy. but simultaneously, i get so scared that whatever semblance of certainty or balance i’ve been able to attain through all of this will just fall away.

i recognize my periods of being alone are important times for reflection and movement and stability. but they are terrifying. i know now it’s a matter of balancing the darkness with the light, instead of bouncing from one extreme to the other. too much of either only results in blindness.

the friends i have made are what keep me in this world at my lowest. i am lucky. i miss you right now. i love you.

slowdown

it’s only when i am sick that i feel kinda lonesome.

this time might be the first time i’ve missed somebody other than my ex partner.

he was always so good with me if i was sick. soup & toast & kisses & pillows & reassurance. he was raised by a nurse and it showed. he might’ve been grumpy about it sometimes, but would make it up in kisses.

i just got myself out of bed to make some kale and garlic. it was okay, but he always put too much butter on my toast and i didn’t let on that i secretly enjoyed it.

but i’ve never been one to dwell on how things could’ve been different.

who to blame

i had my last class as an undergrad yesterday, and i didn’t even realize it until afterwards.

now, i can see how perfect it was, and how regular. the smoke in the sun admiring the architecture before heading into the basement of the science complex, sitting at the front of the class as usual laughing at my prof’s nerdy jokes about canlit, walking to the bus and stopping along the way to skim the last issue of arthur, suspicion at seeing the new editors who were elected but feeling relieved that a couple articles critical of the university shone through, getting the new east bank bus schedule wrong (again) and having to run to catch it.

then, as i rushed around before going to gallery sit at artspace for the day, things started happening. i received a phone call from the bursary program for getting funding to go to montreal to learn french for a while this summer. then, i got an email from a rad clothing store asking me in for an interview. then, i got an extension from a prof who i don’t know too well, and was nervous to ask.

things move swiftly, and change happens when i’m not looking. this year has been very difficult, and this degree has been very difficult, but after inching forward with every non-alcoholic drink, with every anti-depressant, with every early morning, with every good meal and better conversation with a friend or lover, i finally feel like i’m in a place where i can react to these changes in a positive way.

i am trying not to put off feeling accomplished, but it’s difficult, as well. when june hits, and i attend convocation, it will have been almost exactly seven years since i decided to move to peterborough to go to school, five since starting to perform and organize again and be part of a community, two years since the assault and devastating breakup, and one year since i got sober and started taking school seriously again.

these are all good things. i feel very blessed (for a heathen).

blame it on my genes.

i finally got my parents on the phone, and they informed me that they had some good news.

my aunt wrote them earlier to say that my 95 year old grandmother (after convincing everyone last week she really was going to move on after a couple strokes and all that business) was on a “bit of an upswing.” the way my aunt knew this was that my grandmother insisted on putting on her earrings and necklace to go to the dining hall for dinner.

stubborn femme genes 4ever.

sigh.

when i sleep too long, the fears of losing lovers manifest in dreamscapes of drug binges and nervous breakdowns, arguments and alienation, tall buildings and cars driving off, running across lawns shouting names that go ignored, chasing down small stairways, collapsing in exhaustion on a park bench i don’t even notice.

of course, that’s when the lover i always miss, when i miss anyone, finds me, the moment of resignation. there’s a space of reconciliation, until we make the mistake of a kiss.

‘it’s different.’

‘of course it’s different. it’s been years.’

‘but it still feels the same.’

there’s a lot to

the stories someone tells.

there’s a way of listening,
that if i were to conceive of a soul,
it could be found there,
in the breaths between phrases
and the spaces between passages.

sure, the details are important, how someone uses their pronouns, pluralities, how they pacify themselves, think they have learned from mistakes.

but the secret is in the connections, the in betweens, how one memory slides into the next, in what is skipped over — not to hide anything, but because they seem irrelevant.

sometimes i fear that we and our present actions are not defined by what we remember, but by what we have forgotten.

like little piles of demons sit around playing poker in my unconscious, gambling with fortune(s), betting to take turns twisting my memories into new formations to keep themselves safe and secret.

i try to recall often the times i have hurt others, the times i was wrong, the times i could have done the better thing. but how do we synthesize ourselves without losing our worst and our best?

sometimes i fear you only see my most moderate, the carefully constructed narrative i’ve built and destroyed and redesigned more times than i can count.
i want you to see the figments the fragments i cannot cohere into my stories. when i was doped up on codeine and standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes and a wine glass broke and i stared at the scars on my wrist for an hour wrestling with shards. when i performed a self-choreographed contemporary solo to jewel’s foolish games and felt like i was finally free. when i said something really racist while really stoned to my high school boyfriend. when i convinced my friends to put together a ‘rap’ based on the billy goats gruff fairy tale and our teachers got us to perform it at an assembly. when said high school boyfriend and i carved ‘endless love’ into our skin.

the happy secrets are more difficult to drudge up, obviously. there’s a reason why hell is down below, and the clouds are angel’s breath.

we can never know one another, not really, but i can love you. i can love you. we have our entire lives to share these stories, and if we choose so, as yours intertwines with mine, the connections we make between them will grow stronger and more evident as we go.

so do not think i am silent, or keeping secrets, or playing safe; i tell you more through my lips to your neck than any account of whimsy.

i listen to your stories with my entire body; i can almost taste the shifting tide.