A SALAD THAT STOLE MY HEART

I have a friend who cooks fine food. He is currently looking for work and wanted to try out a restaurant: Chow on South Granville. I had the beet salad as a starter from the Early Prix Fixe Menu. Feast your eyes on its description: "organic baby beet salad, Okanagan goat cheese, candied walnuts, bitter orange puree and vin cotto vineger." I am still thinking about it 24 hours later.

THE DENTIST IS NOT THE MONSTER

a poem by Bobbi, who loves dental hygiene almost as much as she loves wearing black sweaters . . . almost

As a child, I did not feel the same fear
I feel today about going
to the dentist.
In youth,
fears were
rabid wolves in my closet
unknown shadows running beside me in the night
bursts of flames behind
my eyelids.

In age, I greet this oral fear
when I wake to the radio’s
news, telling me of the
snow
and the wars.
I sit with fear at breakfast
I blow dry it around my head and spray
something pretty on it before I leave
for work.

My teeth are not beautiful
someone once said my face was
but I’m sure he wasn’t looking too carefully
too closely
at my teeth.
They have the bumps of childhood
the stains of sacred beverages
the stance of a disorganized battalion
unsure of where the battle is or how they can
come together in the end.

And then, it’s time and I drive
through slush and grey sky, married to tall towers
but loving the earth more.
They welcome me:
“Hi Bobbi”
“Just have a seat in the chair in room two, Bobbi.”
A touch here and a touch there while
the chair eases me, though I’m uneasy
into place.

The dentist rolls his chair up to me
his chest is right against my hair and the assistant
is leaning against
my left arm
so close
so close and touching, I feel
even through the three layers of black shirts I climbed
into this morning to stay warm
all over.

They keep asking me if I’m OK.
They keep asking me if I am OK.
And they wipe off
the bit of my
dread
as it leaks out under their tools and rubber dams
I am trying so hard not to come undone
dotting the stray tear as it escapes and makes
a run for it.

MY BACKSIDE

I have always had a hip thing, and in the last five years I’ve had a bit of a lower back thing, and then two weeks ago I fell (hard!) on the ice and now I have a bit of bruised tailbone thing. With this crippling combination I knew I needed a little more help than my stretching book could assist me with.

I met with a physiotherapist for the first time this morning. Apparently my ass is flat on one side! Who knew? I’m not sure I have the finest butt in the land, but I had no idea it was rather lopsided. It’s pretty funny, really.

I just finished some of the exercises and I feel better already. I’m eager to see what the effects of this will have on my running and the aesthetic appeal of my ass. What fun.

SEEING WITH MY FACE

My dad says, when I was little-girl-Bobbi Jae, I used to get frustrated when people didn't listen to me. In an attempt to get people's attention, my plea went something like this: "Look your face!"

I'm sharing another poem I'm working on with you, lovely blog readers. I'm stuck on a bit of a "face" theme, it would seem. But, maybe I've always been quite taken with faces and wondering a bit about my own. I still get nervous putting these little word creations up here, but you don't seem to mind and some of you have been wonderfully encouraging.

Thanks for looking your face.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

THANK GOD FOR MY NEW FACE

What I’m wondering today is if God snuck up on me and
changed my face for another
when I wasn’t looking. It seems that people
like me more, and I don’t really
know why.

My sister says she doesn’t see
a big difference in the way my face
looks. She would know. I think this face is
half hers. She said that as I grow (or shrink) there might be
more confidence, but I don’t look all that different. Or so
she says.

But what was up with the guy who
slowed his car down today as I jaywalked across
Fraser St? He slowed down just to ask me
if I wanted to smoke a joint with him. Strange new
happenings that merit some thought, don’t you think? Like I
don’t think enough.

And then there was the man at my favourite coffee
shop. I noticed him as I walked in because he
looked the part of the neighborhood: greying hair
ruffled in perfect cool, dark glasses and dark
clothes (like me). Our bits of conversation wove into
a real one. Lots of life shared in an hour.

And as I walk home through the streets that feel
a bit like my sheets, I’m still wondering: did
God swap my face for another
when I wasn’t looking? It seems people like me more
these days, and I don’t even know why.

IT'S WINTER AND I'M NAKED-FACED

IT’S COLD, BUT NOT THAT COLD

In winter
white blankets comfort
hot coffee brings me new life
porridge is my morning friend
so faithful

And though sheets of
ice
sneak up under my feet
and take me down
crashing
I know that I can
be naked faced
and found
with friends

We muck about in
the snow
and breathe deep
sometimes
forget our worries
standing on a mountain
together
In wonder

WORDS/SOUNDS THAT GOT CAUGHT IN MY HAIR TODAY

“BOB-bi.” 1

The sun-warmed snow clunking its way down cedar trees while I snowshoed.

Silence.

“Only then did she realize that she had slept a long time without dying, sobbing in her sleep, and that while she slept, sobbing, she had thought more about Florentino Ariza than about her dead husband.”2

A picture of you holding a picture of me
In the pocket of my blue jeans3

I felt a suddenness
I felt a suddenness
The day fell completely still
The dream was a lot like this4

Old laughter made new with my dear friend Dara.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 my little neighbor, Molly.
2 from Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3 from the song “Jolene” by Ray Lamontagne
4 from the song “He Came to Meet Me” by Hem

ASTONISHMENT

I just discovered the repeat button on my Toyota factory stereo . . . TODAY!

This car has been driven by me for four years.

Me!

I am the one who loves to skip her favourite songs back again and again and again . . . and again and again and again. I think I hope that they’ll press into me so hard that they might become a part of my countenance. I know. It is a little bit freaky.

I can’t believe I didn’t even know about this button until TODAY!

Since this beautiful moment of revelation I have listened to the same glorious Over the Rhine song all through this downcast day.

Nothing delights me more.

A SIMPLE POEM I AM WRITING

I WALK AT NIGHT IN EAST VAN
by Bobbi

I walked and walked
to restore my sense of self
after losing bits of it all over the place
in meetings
in teeth cleanings
in my windowless office

I walked and walked
in the spitting rain
to the sanctuary of coffee
I watch the community
come and go
all alone or meeting friends
sipping loudly or just
sipping

I walked and walked
to the Main Plant store
though it wasn’t in my plan
I met a man who loves his plants
and sold me a Peace Lily to clean
the air of the toxins I pick up in the day
all day
and that hide deep in the furniture
and creep out late at night

I walk and walk
breathe deep
keep my mind on the words
I read
by Thomas Merton
one of my new book friends,
a contemplative:

“Every moment
and every event
of every man’s life on
earth plants something
in his soul.
For just as wind carries
thousands of winged seeds, so each moment
brings with it germs of spiritual
vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in
the minds and wills of men.
Most of them unnumbered seeds
perish and are
lost,
because men are not prepared to
receive them:
for such seeds as these cannot spring up
anywhere except in the good soil
of freedom,
spontaneity
and love.”

THE END OF AN ERA

This past weekend I hosted a party: Angie and Bobbi's Last Wingding. Angie has been my roommate for four years. She has been my BC family, a safe and true friend, and someone I am so glad to share lovely/goofy memories with. I don't think I even know how much I am going to miss her.

Here are some of the visual highlights from the party:


The nomads

Paul and Lou: some of our favourite East Van neighbors

Angie the jumping art student

My friends

More friends

Delta peeps

And here are some of my verbal highlights (some of these are visual, too):
++ Angie's fill-the-room-with-that-beautiful-blue shirt
++ Hospitality JOY
++ "Do you mind drinking wine from a mug?"
++ "I'm drinking wine from a mug!!"
++ Sharing sacred living space
++ Beautiful mix of people
++ Collision of worlds

COVERED IN DOG HAIR AND GRACE

Some holiday highlights, chosen especially for mom and dad.

A POEM

I was introduced to a new friend in a book this week: Anne Sexton, an American poet (1928-1974). Her book, The Awful Rowing Toward God, met me at just the right place. Here is a poem with whiffs of Advent:

THE EARTH
by Anne Sexton

God loafs around heaven,
without a shape
but He would like to smoke His cigar
or bite His fingernails
and so forth

God owns heaven
but He craves the earth,
the earth with its little sleepy caves,
its bird resting at the kitchen window,
even its murders lined up like broken chairs,
even its writers dipping into their souls
with jackhammers,
even its hucksters selling their animals
for gold,
even its babies sniffing for their music,
the farm house, white as a bone,
sitting in the lap of its corn,
even the statue holding up its widowed life,
even the ocean with its cupful of students,
but most of all He envies the bodies,
He who has no body.

The eyes, opening and shutting like keyholes
and never forgetting, recording by thousands,
the skull with its brains like eels --
the tablet of the world --
the bones and their joints
that build and break for any trick,
the genitals,
the ballast of the eternal,
and the heart, of course,
that swallows the tides
and spits them out cleansed.

He does not envy the soul so much.
He is all soul
but He would like to house it in a body
and come down
and give it a bath
now and then.

POMEGRANATE

I want to live
the way
I eat pomegranates
in season

Attentive to each squirting seed
Fingers engaged and messy
Each little bite is
saving me

RUNNING BACK INTO MY OWN SKIN

I ran today
The sky was folded up in greys and mute blues
I think God was speaking to me
through the woman
walking her dog:
“Good girl. You are a good girl. You are doing so well.”

I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE PARTY AT MY HOUSE

Tonight my FUSE group, a small group of grade 6 girls, came over to my house. We squished a wackload of fun into a couple of hours: baking cookies, eating nachos, wild dancing, and even a rousing game of hide-n-seek. I am in awe of the freedom that comes when people feel safe . . . loved/liked . . . enjoyed. Aren't we beautiful (and utterly silly)? Love it.

If You Like Music Like I Like Music

Get your lovely, listening ears over to these two concerts on NPR's All Songs Considered:

1. Nickel Creek
2. Josh Ritter

So stinking great.
You can also get them in peerless podcast presentation.

Hello? Comments? Anyone?

That's right, it's time for the Bobbi blog roll call.
Are you reading this thing?
Then say hello.
I have no idea who's reading this thing.
If you read my little blog, please shout "Here!"

Trash Talk

This afternoon I made an oath between me and the earth.

I was making my way up the last hill on my return from a sunny Fall run. It was not one of my finest running hours, but it was time spent outside -- brightening, connecting, mind-wondering time with myself.

Since the outside workers strike this summer in the city of Vancouver, garbage has crept far, far away from trash cans and can’t seem to find it’s way back home. And, now that Halloween trick-or-treaters have wandered through the neighborhoods there are little Lay’s chip bags and Coffee Crisp wrappers everywhere.

Mess has always equaled stress to me, so I decided to start picking some of it up. I’ve resolved to pick up 1 piece of garbage every time I go outside. But there is something noteworthy about picking up one piece of litter: once you start, you can’t stop. This, and it seems like just the right thing to do.

I’ve been thinking about “the right thing to do” since listening to a Jean Vanier interview with Shelagh Rogers of Sounds Like Canada (CBC radio 1). Vanier said, “I am somebody who does something because I feel it is right. But there is no plan. It is just that it is right and that is what I will do.” He talks about the beginning of L’Arche. L’Arche is a community, now all over the world, of people living together in community with people with developmental disabilities. He said that as he began by living with just two people with disabilities he had no idea he was sitting on a gold mine. Vanier is a large voice of peace and hope in our world, and it seems that this action is linked to simply doing the right thing.

Our actions of goodness, though they might be small and seem insignificant, may one day grow legs on their own and walk about spreading peace and beauty all over the place. I want to be a part of a movement like this, even if, for today, it just means I’ll pick up a few pieces of trash in my East Vancouver neighborhood.

Look Out World

Here comes Captain Hygiene!

For our Halloween youth event on Friday I dressed up like Captain Hygiene. My costume was inspired by the preteens I work with and my love for all things clean. One of my lovely sponsors, Emma, dressed up like . . . me! I didn't get it right away, though. I squished by her on our crowded bus and read the pink heart on her grey long-sleeved tshirt. It said, "I heart CBC." I thought, "That's funny. I love the CBC." Then, I got it.

"And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower" (Walt Whitman)

Things I loved about my evening run in the cool rain:
1. The colours of the fallen leaves carpeting the sidewalk.
2. The squish squish sound of my wet, well worn runners as my healthy body moves at its own pace on top of the earth.
3. The glory of the light bursting out of the thick gray atmosphere to say, “Surprise! I really am this beautiful.”
4. The feeling of my own strength as I run.
5. The spaciousness of the city when it rains. People are hiding and the prairie girl in me breathes in this openness. The park is all mine, except for the lover couple under the umbrella and the girl with the jumpy dog and yellow boots (the girl’s boots, that is).

Turkey Trot

My mom and sister came to Vancouver for Thanksgiving. Amazingly, they let me sign them up for the 9th annual Granville Island Turkey Trot - a 10 K race here in Vancouver. I say that it is amazing because NONE of us are runners/racers/athletes. We do love each other, though, so when I expressed interest in this event my lovely mom and sister joined right in (well, Kasha took a little convincing).

It was a beautiful day. There was so much to be thankful for: the changing colours of fall, the water of the sea in the inlet, the presence of friends (Paulina who ran at my slow pace), the diversity of the runners/walkers, our health, the red Puma Turkey Trot shirts, and the fact that it did not pour rain on our grateful heads.