Sunday, October 31, 2010

Anticipation..

Every detail was so vivid that morning..

He stood there at the corner of King and Dufferin amidst the morning commuters with their iPods, lattes and frustrated expressions. I observed him from my vantage point on the King Streetcar. He shook visibly. His jacket was just a bit too big, his pants a bit too short, his shoes worn and misshapen by another man's feet. Though his hands struggled to cooperate, his face was set with determination as he fought to open the slippery plastic packaging of a five-dollar ice cream bar. It may have taken him hours to beg the money toward its purchase. The juxtaposition was striking: pure decadence clutched in a trembling hand against a backdrop of need. I wondered what had been the last thing that he'd eaten and how long it had been.

There was a desperation about his eyes and I noted my own sense of panic, so afraid that, after all of his effort, he would drop the bar to the sidewalk without ever savouring a bite. Time was suspended while I watched, silently cheering him to victory.

And there it was.

The defiant hands overtaken.

The slick packaging conquered.

The ice cream revealed.

Even before he allowed himself his indulgence he reached to discard the plastic wrapper in the trash bin next to him. It was the sort that is divided into three separate receptacles for trash, plastic and paper. An elderly woman approached to dispose of her own litter in the same moment and from the scowl on her face it was apparent that she was scolding him for placing his garbage where the bottles belonged. She was oblivious to the struggle that had let up to the moment. She had no idea that getting the wrapper into the bin at all was a coup.

She was clearly perturbed.

He stared back in disbelief, the reward of his efforts slighted by her anger.

He turned from her and took the first bite he had been so painfully anticipating.

I wondered if it tasted as good as he had hoped.

::

CRAZY CIRCUS WORLD

A lemon yellow Lady Macbeth
Her smile fills a room
While she thinks about death
And seeks out a soul to consume
In the room
A lemon yellow chair sitting there
And in it hides a lock of his hair
And the lady ponders on about death
In the gloom
Of the evening there’s the sound of her breath
And she fears not this thing they call death
And she won’t be beholden to doom
And she basks in the light of the moon
In her town
Where the crazy circus world spins around
In her head
Where the Candyman tells her that she’s already dead
Where the fat lady sings
And the supper bell rings
Where lions and tigers and grotesquely pretty things
Live for the spotlight
And the warmth that it brings
And the lock of his hair
Is still hiding there
In a lemon yellow chair for Macbeth


author: Lara Marjerrison
circa: April 17, 2009

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Pretty..

Watch this first: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

For years I believed it was my only asset. I was told repeatedly as a child that I was such a pretty little girl. Pretty. It came to be the thing that I knew I could rely on to get what I wanted. Pretty = Power.

When you're pretty, people like you before they know anything else about you. When you're pretty, you get given things you haven't earned. When you're pretty, you're let off the hook. Doors get opened, drinks get bought, lines get bypassed, gifts get conferred. You'd be amazed just how much pretty gets you.

But pretty isn't all it's cracked up to be. As often as people like you before they know you, they hate you. As often as positive assumptions are made, negative conclusions are jumped to. As many times as it's flattering to be seen as pretty, it's frustrating to be seen for only that. More than frustrating, it's potentially deadly. If pretty is all you've got and pretty gets you what you want, soon pretty becomes your currency. And pretty often just isn't enough when you're trading for the big ticket items, like love, acceptance, tolerance, respect. It gets to be about more than just your face, more than just a smile.. it gets to be about your body, your spirit, your soul. And when those become your currency, you're getting into very sketchy territory. Boundaries get blurred or disappear completely and each time you spend, you lose a little more. Each time someone wants, they want a little more.

There have been many times I've wished I were ugly. I have wished it right out loud, "I wish I were ugly so people would notice my heart and my mind." I wanted to carve up my face. In fact, once or twice, with my own fingernails, I did just that. It wasn't pretty.

I'm not pretty.

I'm beautiful.

And I'm not beautiful because I have a pretty face.

I'm beautiful because my heart overflows with love and I daringly wear it right out on my sleeve where everyone can see it despite how incredibly vulnerable that makes me.

I am beautiful because I see my greatest strength in that vulnerability.

I am beautiful because I am constantly striving to be a better person, to learn more about myself and my purpose in the world and my impact on others.

I am beautiful because I am passionate and I allow that passion to shine through, even when it's not so popular or so widely understood.

I am beautiful because I'm not afraid to make mistakes and I'm not afraid to admit to them and apologize for them. And mean it.

I am beautiful because I keep getting back up even when I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do so.

I am beautiful because I live my life as one long act of improvisation, as though all the world really IS a stage (and it is) and this is my greatest ever role and I must fulfill it fully and completely.

I am beautiful because I would give you every piece of me if you needed me to and not expect anything in return because I believe that's the way it ought to be.  

I am beautiful because I hold onto my convictions and because I'm willing to be proven wrong.

I am beautiful because I'm scared too.

I am beautiful because I am flawed.

I am beautiful because I had the courage to admit where I was falling short and to do something about it, because I was willing to learn how to love myself, here and now, from the inside out and to stop relying on you to tell me I'm pretty.

I am NOT. merely. pretty.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Picasso..

Have you ever met someone for the first time and recognized them? Despite the internal protests in favour of logic, have you ever just known? Have you ever met someone that, in a fraction of an instant, your heart encouraged you to risk everything for while your mind was busy trying to talk some sense into you? Have you ever spent time with a person and found that every. single. moment. spent. was exaggerated, embellished, monumental, mythical? Even the teeniest, tiniest ones? That each point of contact, each encounter, each syllable, each accidental (or purposeful) touch was pregnant with promise and passion, mystery and magic, celebration and sensuality and serenity? Have you ever been rightupclose to someone that you know just KNOWS your whole soul, that hears and speaks and listens to your silent subtext so that you needn't utter a word and still he'll understand you at your very core, will understand things about you that you don't even understand about yourself, will see things in you that you have yet to notice? Have you ever met someone with precisely the right smell and touch and taste and sound? Have you ever met someone with precisely the right sense of humour on precisely the same wavelength with precisely the right values and precisely the right philosophies and precisely the right passions and precisely the right way of expressing them, demonstrating them, sharing them, evoking them in you? Have you ever met someone who got right into your very DNA and caused you to realize that you'd been missing something you didn't even realize you'd lost? And despite all this knowing and all this magic and all this passion and all this promise, have you ever had to walk away anyway? Have you ever found your masterpiece and had to leave it? To just hang there? Just doing what it does?