Ice is Nice

A trip I dreamed about since I was a kid. The airway to Iqaluit (Nunavut, Ca) is paved with good white intentions...

My Butterflies

When I was little, my parents, especially my grandparents, used to tell me that I behaved and spoke as if I had butterflies in my head. I was too naughty and too restless for their pace.

Thirty years latter, my butterflies have gone all the way down to my stomach. And it’s so very hard to agitate them. Maybe they’ve grown older or something because I very very rarely feel them. But it’s a sweet quick moment when they start opening their wings in a tiny little inside tornado. And it happens only when my inside eyes show me long-lost people and the funny things we did together. Because those people are all gone and have taken their belongings with them. So here I am, with my butterflies that will soon become moths and eat my dreams from inside out.

Sundown

Life is just a projection... against a white wall, in the autumn sunset light...

What’s in a smile?

Today, my happy smile has got a small sad thought hanging down my lips. There are still reminiscences of those days when I was convinced that he was there to stay. When I was feeling protected but insecure about what was to happen. When I was childishly spreading my arms to get all the hugs and all his smiles, to keep all of them for me only. And, like the kids often waking up in the middle of the night reaching out for their loyal teddy bear, I suddenly found myself hugging the emptiness. Bitter tears, shattered glass, dim light, barricaded doors, nights, nights, nights…

Until now, when this man makes me laugh with his witty grace, with his tons of stories. I sometimes think that he makes up some just to see me laughing. But I am not that child anymore, I don’t even look for hugs and I don’t expect anything. Smiling is just a façade, while my mind is busy living in the past.

Day dreaming

For a couple of seconds, with my eyes wide open, I had the following dream: wearing a black dress, I was dancing (partner unknown) with an unbelievable grace. But I stopped because I remembered I have a kid at home who is waiting for me. OMG, what if this is true? What if my brain is tired of commanding me to wear boots and kaki clothes? What if it is sick of reflecting rock music in its circumvolutions and of managing my clumsy moves? What if my brain wants a child? Would a brain and a vegetable get along?

Mediocrity management

Where is the problem coming from if:
- you have one of the easiest jobs that you have ever had, and
- still, you consider the results of your work as being mediocre, with standarts that are way lower to those you are able to deliver

Is it me or is it the lack of management vision? Or what else could it be? What is to be done before going crazy?

It's time to paint

Time is a canvas on which every one of us is painting their own life. When we finish it, we take the painting and hang it on the wall of our eternity bedroom.

Rule rulz?

If you ask me quickly how old I am, I will as promptly respond that I am 24. Although I am pretty older. This is why I always judge the new things coming up into my life accordingly. Maybe because it is the age when my life stopped being funny and started being kind of serious.

I recently met somebody I though I should date. And when he told me his age I found it cool, just a little bit older than me. When I realized that I am in fact as old as my ID shows, hmmm… he is not dateable anymore. Just a little bit younger…

Do we have rules when we date? Do we need to obey them?

I am not dead...

...just awfully busy with my new job. Where any trace of stray thoughts is nipped in the bud. These North Americans just work, work, work till they drop! Now I am busy with a plan to pretend that I am working and to mime that I am thinking. I'll be back soon on my green grass here.

Life changes...

When somebody rings at the door or makes a phone call...

Haunting these blocks

About one year ago my mind became a ghost whose favorite perimeter is made up by these blocks. Torn between two worlds, it keeps wandering over here, although the school’s out and there are no frail students to haunt anymore, and the old tenants have decided to move away.

This area has a memory of its own. It’s like an attic where I have gathered up old dear things: kisses on sunny summer mornings, you playing the guitar in a language I had never heard before, your exams we prepared together, the sand you carried from the island in your big sandals… It’s all here, in this picture.

But the summer ended. And the cold November wind blew me like a leaf, further from you, to another street. In this picture, I can follow the road to the house where my mind is still trapped. Even if all its furniture is going to be sold in a day or two or it’s going to be given to old friends… I don’t have memories from here because my mind has always recorded them as eternally present facts: his well-ironed shirts, the cake he baked for me, the big books he had written, the clocks I could see from anywhere in the house. Each of my exits from his house was a genuine ceremony meant to keep his demons asleep: I was not allowed to leave angry and alone. Maybe this is why my mind is still haunting that place; my eyes are still looking at those dear things and my arms are still feeling his hugs. He is moving away, to a house I will never know. But my mind will continue living where he used to wait for me with his books shut…

Hypocrite

I find it hypocrite to remain friends with somebody who had once said “I care about you but we cannot be together (because I am afraid of my own shadow – my remark)”. Then what? Pretend we are just acquaintances, trying to suppress the feelings while still acting on those feelings? You cannot be friend and pretender in the same time. Either one or the other.
So, I don’t want to be hypocrite with you, Mr. Habibi!
(this was a very private statement made public)

Ridi, pagliaccio! (Laugh, clown)

Yesterday, I had the chance to watch from the red carpet one of the last shows performed this season by Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, Kooza.

Going back home with my hands deep in my pockets, I realized that yes, we are pagliacci (clowns) in our own life. We laugh, we cry, we make jokes and we suffer. The most important thing is whether you're applauded or not when you exit your life's stage. Whether you have managed to perform the way you expected, whether they loved your act or not. Whether your act was not just an act, but your real persona. Whether you fell on your feet or not...

How it feels when I feel good inside

There are very few moments when I am at peace with myself. Because most of the time, I am recruited to fight some battles that are not mine and I am longing for those years when I had my own troops. Still, once in a blue moon, I get to feel good on the inside.

On the inside, it is always bright. In fact, the sun goes down just for a few moments to freshen up while some bluish evening takes its place to entertain me. Inside, I don’t have a bed; I just sit on crispy green grass. All the windows are open and the red transparent curtains are always blown by a sweet Zephyr. I don’t have a computer; I don’t have chairs, so my guests have to sit on the grass with me. There is no kitchen and no place to leave their shoes.

Inside, I live in a house but I go out on the balcony to hang my laundry: squirt little thoughts and wiggling shiny memories. When I am happy, I would invite everybody up. Well, there is a little man who welcomes my guests saying “all righty” if he likes the person. But generally there is no problem with him because eventually he lets everybody inside.

As I said, most of the time it is not like that. It doesn’t always look like a garden party on a Sunday afternoon. If you pass by my house, you are most likely to see that the lights are off, the windows are shut and the ivy is crawling on the walls. I don’t answer the door and I am not opening my mail.

It’s winter

This post was supposed to be about people who changed my life. But there are very few to count. I owe almost everything to a single man who is no longer among us. The rest is emptiness, silence, nothingness. Life has given me a lot of things but, in exchange, it took its toll.

When I was a little girl I used to ask myself “Why did I come in this world?” When I grew older the question was “What is my true calling in this world?” Now I keep asking myself “Why am I alone in this world?” And, from time to time, “Why did he come into my life?” “He” is always a variable in my equation, never positive enough to give the proper result. Anytime I am leaving or I see people leaving, I am asking myself what could have been the divine reasoning for our paths coming across. Maybe to learn a new song, maybe to learn how to hit a nail or just to get warm hugs until the winter ends.

This is a moment when I take all my memories out as if they were pictures in an old photo album that you had forgotten in a dusty suitcase. I look at them and sometimes I wonder who the faces in the pictures are. Then I put them back and swear I will never look at them again. Until the winter comes…

People

People are what they mean to us, not what they say or do... They are what they make us feel like... it's how we feel after they leave... when they are far away and they give us a call just to tell us a funny story...

I date him, I date him not

Inspired by my friend A., who is struggling these days to see where she stands with her “petit ami”, and also encouraged (better said discouraged) by some of my own experiences, I thought about drawing a list of the non-dateable professions. People that we should not date because their “raison d’etre” contradicts our expectations. I know, I know, the myth says that women have high expectations; they don’t want you to pick your nose or scratch your balls in front of them etc.

My list revolves around those professions where men love themselves too much to be able to look around. For today, I only listed, alphabetically, the artists, the (graphic) designers and the engineers. I must admit they are very creative human beings (are they human?) but they cannot live another day unless they look in the mirror and say “I am great/the greatest. Aren’t I?”

Creativity is about originality, about uniqueness, about finding unbeaten paths. It always gives you the feeling that you are the best, the only one. Thus you start loving yourself more than anything, becoming addicted to the tension you get when you touch the “mortal” human beings.

What would a woman do around any of them? She would feel incomplete, part-time loved, sometimes used for another creative insight.

But women know those men are far from being perfect. Simply because those men can only have one side of their mortal beingness: the professional life. And to be complete you need something more. Apart from the true genius, you need to share true love. Only then can you say “I am the best”.

Later edit: I cannot help loving the creative men. They're an inspiration to me and to my life. Still, I will never follow any of them up to the end of the world if it is only for their sharp mind.

OMG, the Inuit Sun!

I accidentally discovered that an Inuit goddess has my name. There is a cruel and sad legend that explains the presence of the sun and the moon.
However, I wish I could meet those Inuits. And I am just a few planes and more Celsius degrees away from them.

My stone

When I am sad and I've lost hope that the night would turn into daylight, I string a couple of words on a piece of paper, the way you thread colored little stones that you plan to wear around your neck during a carefree tropical vacation. The effect stones me. It is like rubbing my skin with a loess rock: writing has the power to rip off each layer of dead skin, leaving me red marks but also a shiny new epidermis that I need for the next dramatic event in my life.

And I will use the stone again and again. I cannot be myself again without the stone. I have to rub and to scrub my skin to stay in power and detach from my past.

Trinken

Have you ever tasted Chianti with tears? The fruity flavor harvested in October from those quick spirited Italian vineyards meets the bitter but rounded taste of the restless human eye.
And they both become mortal when touching the palate, like two songs played by the jukebox in the same time… “Ooh feeling fine, mama / Painted ladies and a bottle of wine, mama”...

The end, my friend

I have always been at the beginning of something. Or in the middle of something. But never at the real end of anything. The end was always a glorious closure for something that had been painful (i.e. presentations, dissertations, degrees or bad relationships etc.). Now it is a painful end of a period that I considered good. And it’s clear: it was good only in my mind… Again, it’s all in my mind!

The real end has just come, the way I started to expect it a while ago. It came as a creepy spider, with all those long dark legs that climb hastily on your skin. One sharp biting and you pass out in shock. “At least it’s a bite you get from reality, not from your dreaming mind, Malina!” whispered in my ear one of my life-long friends, my left earring.

What (and when) is the end? When the others tell you is over while you believe it’s not? When you think is over while they send you signs that it’s not? Is it a line you draw or a line they draw like “From now on, stay away from me!”, Go home, you bum!” “Why don’t you mind your own business?” Is this the moment when you must hit the road or just open your palms and go “But, but… you see… you’re wrong…”?

Sometimes I think I am so pathetic that I get kicked out even from my own dreams… I always mean to do well and I always mess it up, sooner or later. And the story ain’t over. The spider is going to bite again this week!

Lesson learned: don’t waste your time searching for gold because it might not always come in that pure. And silver is as good to do the job!

http://www.romantic-lyrics.com/ls12.shtml

Who is living my dreams?

I have always dreamt of having a rock band where I would play the drums. But with my “exceptional” sense of music, I’d pity the auditorium. Another dream that I had was to go and live in Labrador, the native land of one of my imaginary childhood friends: Apolodor, the penguin from Labrador. When I was a little girl, my parents bought me a book about this penguin, who was employed by a European circus where he was missing his family back home. Extremely moved by his homesick, I said to myself that when I grow up I will go to Labrador to bring him news about his family.
Recently, someone mentioned to me that he got a job proposal in a little town in my beloved Labrador. Although I generally have positive feelings toward my friend, this time I felt only envy. He was about to live my own dream! Beyond any reasoning, I only managed to envy him.
Today I saw on the bus a young man playing with a pair of drumsticks. As if he was rehearsing with imaginary drums. So focused on the rhythm, he was waving the sticks as if they were two magic wands. Watching his mute movements, my head got the beat and I found myself footing it. Is it possible to hear a song that someone is miming? Yeap, and this man was enjoying another dream of mine.
But maybe I am like them, too. Maybe I am living someone else’s dream without even knowing it…

Someone is on my summer wish list

I wonder how I can live without a summer tree, where Santa Claude (someone like a sugar daddy, with a sexy French accent) would stop his bicycle to drop me a few gifts. This summer I am going to meet my Santa Claude and make sure he brings all that I ask him to. If not, I will steal the bicycle wheels or throw a dead fish in his shorts.
What do I want? Let’s see… hmmm… I don’t ask for too much… First of all, a word finder. Yeah, something to help me find my words when I am speechless or too sad to express myself…
And once I get the word finder, I would need someone to speak to. So, summer Santa, bring someone to tell me bed time stories and wake me up in the morning with the darkest coffee ever. I will know that he is my someone because he is never furious to see me crying and he is never bored to listen to me beating around the bush. I will know he is the one when I see him crossing the street in an unmarked area just to meet me sooner. It’s him if he takes me to places where he knows I don’t understand too much but I just love to be around. I will know it’s him when he takes me to the Moon, even when the Moon is just the name of an ice-cream parlor.
But, the hell with the word finder. Why would I need it if I have love to put instead of my words?
So, Santa Claude, prepare yourself for this summer! And don’t tell me you come only on Christmas because I already heard this joke. Anyhow, should I believe in Santa?

Nostalgia

I wish I could live my childhood again, along with my adult life. I wish I had a book to open each time I feel childhood sick and read the words that recall the smell of summer street dust that we used to raise with our balls. I want to read sentences that recall the taste of the mint chewing gum we used to pull out of our mouths with those dirty hands we were getting from covering the sidewalks with grotesque chalk drawn characters. I wish this book opens right in the middle, leaving as much past as it leaves future, the way we used to split adventure books open to see the pictures you were getting if you digged into the story.
About that age we all shared at a certain moment, like multiple twins born from the same mother, some things should be said, some shouldn’t. It is the childhood of a dozen kids, pulled together by the imposed migration of rough farmers towards the peaceful towns. It's never going to be the same...

Here it is

After many months of hesitation, here I am opening my own skull to see what's inside. Curious by nature, I need to see if the grey material is in place or not. Probably not. And I also dare to open it in front of the others, so that you can assist to my own surgery. Bring your white gowns, wash your hands and keep away the bonbons that might slip into the wide open of my mind.