Withdrawal

It's been one week + one day, and I'm getting the shakes...
the lightning bolt flash of memories that appear and then disappear....
the sweats.

I'm in withdrawal from my wedding.

I wrote in the last entry about how there was no way I'd have postpartum following the wedding weekend, and I was right-- to an extent. I have no signs of depression because the time of planning and pinteresting are over : I'm effin' relieved.

The withdrawal is from all the love. THE LOVE. Newly named Husband B and I are feeling plenty of marital love over here in Brooklyn, but I am slowly feeling that my didn't-even-know-I-could-get-addicted-to-it prescription of Friends + Family + New Friends + New Family love needs a hit. I'm a SaturnaLoveFest'13 junkie.

So in desperation, I emailed the amazing Stephanie Rae Hull, my beloved photographer, and she sent me some images entitled: The Fix.

Oooooooh.... she's a good dealer. It was just the fix I needed.

LAW (Life After Wedding)

Crickets on the blog. Chirp, chirp, chirp.

Sorry for my absence-- all 6 of you who are reading this.
Silence on this Internet end usually means a lot of noise in the In Real Life end. There has been an abundance of that.
Some good noise, in the form of shrieks from friends we haven't seen in a year, the muffled noises of urban city life that we've missed so much, the whiz of bicycles behind and in front of us as we bomb down Ontario St.
Some not so good noise, in the form of the clattering of laptop keyboards as we send copious emails to various people about various wedding related things, the tone of impatience in each other's voices when we're tired or hungry or haven't had enough coffee to deal with anything W related.

This Week in Pictures: the Weather Edition

April 25th, 2013

Are. You. Kidding. Me. 

Biggest snow puke of the Winter. The few days before, we had FINALLY started to see the brown earth from underneath as ice gave way to thaw. I was not impressed with you, Mother Nature, on this day. Especially not with the cyber reports of epic sun down the West Coast.

We had plans to BBQ in the sunshine this weekend, man! And go canoeing! 

*Fist Shake at Sky*

Toronto

This was a trip that I decided to go on; then not go; then go on-- several times over.

When you become one part of A Couple, the thing they fail to tell you is that you become very, very used to having your person around. Making decisions with your person. Sitting across the table at a restaurant with your person.  Exploring new and old territory with your person.

And the operative word in those sentences, is 'with'; a preposition that usually accompanies the presence of another.

In my extreeeeeemely single days (which I believe spanned all the years post high school and well after graduating from University), there was no need to use the word 'with'-- it was implied that Joann would be making the decision, eating at the restaurant, exploring the territory...with herself. And while that is largely written to make use of parallelism and is exaggerated to fit the point, it is true that despite having gorgeous, wonderful friends and family, I only relied on myself, when it came down to it.

Independent Joann was very fierce in those days. I think I did my fair share of scoffing at girlfriends who got lost in the depth of their partners (though I doubt we called them 'partners' back then), who became a part of a sticky pact. Girlfriends who made clear demarcations that this new person was a VIP, and thus made time for him, talked about him, held the importance of his happiness on par with hers. I'll never be like that, I thought.

I'm sorry if it was you I scoffed at. Because, well.......... now I get it.

That interdependence does not equal codependence.
That it is valid, and true.

Life in Pictures: Mapril

After we shook off the hibernation from our eyes in February, it's been pretty zoom zoom from there. I was hardly home in March-- flitting from one coast to the other for Spring Break, a staycation at Kathleen's with her chickens and hospitality, and then in windy Whitehorse to learn myself up real good at a counselling conference.

Here are some brief images from Nikki. Toronto post coming up next. 

Saturday morning ritual

Apparently, Spring

We had a freak cold snap this past week, where temperatures dropped to minus 30 in the mornings. For now, it is dangerous to start imagining and trusting in the concept of 'Spring'. There is little evidence of it yet, though it has warmed up to -5 again as I type.

While I wait for crocuses to bloom and the annual putting-away of my snow boots, here are some odes to the beauty of what Winter can be. (Have fun with your T-shirt weather, everyone else.)

On Creating

These days, people always shoot their eyebrows up in surprise when I tell them that I majored in Theatre in university. I suppose being an introverted individual, living in a somewhat isolated + isolating community of 800, doesn't automatically lend itself to being a natural match for a life in the Dramatic Arts.

BUT.





From the age of 15 (when I was part of my first play, Audience) to the age of 25 (when I moved away to London), I was on stage. A lot.

I have been a green oompa loompa. A student revolutionary in China. The greek goddess of wisdom, Athena. I've dropped trou and displayed granny panties on stage; been cast as the "sassy lesbian"; played the awkward and disillusioning aftermath of a sex scene in Vienna, in 1900. I directed and created and starred in an ensemble-based show, called The Secret Keeper, inspired by the Postsecret website--which was simultaneously the single most rewarding and shit-my-pants inducing time of my life.

I (almost) fell in real love once, on stage. With a boy.