and the heart...

mid week, late afternoon

trying to wrap my head around my ph.d committee's feedback. four pages written thick. it is hard to return to this paper and revise. i am two hoops away from license to really dive into the dissertation.

there has been so many starts and stops.  trying to listen to what the heart is saying and also to put the heart out of it, if that makes sense.  to get down to business, trust my vision for this project, trust that i can find my way through these smouldering blogs, and thick oppressive air.

days i am at the non profit, engaging with the fourteen adolescent young women, reading their writing, sharing writing of my own and everyone from dionne brand to emily dickinson i feel my purpose and that i am enacting the work that i crave and that gives life meaning.  this phd would just validate and make this official and allow many other doors to open.  i have encountered many doors shutting in my face loudly, or so quietly i didn' t know that they shut until i stood before them.

i am trying to work my way through and not get stuck.  i am leaving for toronto for a few days and upon my return have nine days before an official committee meeting. it makes me gulp.  i haven't seen them in person since last jan.  i will be thinking, writing, and feeling my way through until then putting both my heart and not my heart in it.

fences

today is the last day of summer, sun shone albeit weakly. the sun provided a much needed comfort --warmth to my left cheek, to my back as i walked along.  the sun followed me through today. today would have been my grandmother's 96th birthday. today my almost 96 year old grandfather is in the hospital, he has been many times, but here he is again, and here is is still the fighter, fighting infection, multiple organ failure on the left side of his body, fluid congestion in lungs, leakage in his heart, kidney not working, and getting blood transfusions for anemia.  he survived losing his mother at the age of six, two concentration camps, the stress of not knowing if he'd live another day, the agony of not knowing where his wife was if she and baby were alive,  the stress of moving across continents, of trying to make it, of trying to forget as well as remember.  there are so many stories and words inside the stories.  i feel i don't even know half of them.  some are woven inside of me. some were half told, written, uttered, video taped, some i have to piece together.  this is because telling was seen as hurting--silence was seen as protecting. i hear this is common with survivors, but as a third generation--i wish everything would have been made explicit. they need to be known.

i am in an in between place.  i feel out of sorts.   i have lost my way a little bit.  i am very tired. yet i am wide awake and it is almost 1am and i cannot seem to shut my eyes.  

i have lost my way after countless hoops for my ph.d i am facing a big fence and i need to turn the latch and walk through.  i am hurt, scared, unsure of myself...i am trying but in the trying there are a lot of stops, starts, stops--i freeze and turn away. i freeze because  the lock on the fence is a bit sticky-tricky, i just need to be patient, to stand in front of it, make peace with it and in my own time walk through.

there is disappointment, thought i would have a mentor or two. thought i would be seen, heard, valued-learn. i have to be there for myself, and not only walk through but find the strength to see it all through.

Catapult

As i write this first post-- against the window pane the rain is loud, and falls stacatto.  It is Saturday evening September 18th, Yom Kippur, day of contempation, of focus, of fasting. Today has swiftly come and gone.  Much more swiftly than years past, or at least it feels that way.  Since Wednesday, i have been thinking through what I hope for this year upcoming.  What I not only hope for, but for what i want to enact, what I want to see through, what I hope to change, what my partner and I envision for the year.  It is fitting, I feel, that I take the plunge and begin this blog tonight. 

Though it is not just that, as things are not usually one note, or one sided.  To be honest, at the same time, having a blog of my own feels a little self-indulgent and freaks me out a little bit.  Initially i wanted to call this blog:  my red pen, but it was taken. so the next instinctual title that came up is what appears: what is not erased. I plan to write about everything from the trials and tribulations of being a ph.d student, to frivolous pop culture stories that are of interest, to films, excerpts of poetry, cooking, fashion, travel, love--my life.  A dear friend (fabdazz) has created a blog and she has inspired me. 

I turned 31 at the end of august, i feel disconnected to this new number.  I began my fourth year as a ph.d student--in a bit of limbo awaiting ethics approval before my fieldwork begins.  I am already at the site of my fieldwork doing poetry workshops with adolescent young women who have been labeled as "at-risk" youth.  I have been with L for almost eight years, and married for five--a true partner who supports and challenges me drives me crazy and colours my days in more beautiful shades than I could ever imagine.  I write my own poetry but not often enough,  i am a pop culture junkie and like to take it in and critique from a feminist perspective.  I feel most alive when I take in the arts whether it be music, novels, films, theatre, dance--it is my fuel, it catapults me forward and through.

So from this almost autumn saturday evening I close for now.  I welcome your comments and plan to be back to this space shortly. Thanks for reading

xx