Why I love flubs

What I like about recorded flubs is that they make really talented people look human. I think that’s why bloopers are so popular. I was listenting to my favourite version of “The Weight” by The Band performed by Harry Manx and a bunch of other accomplished musicians in his recording of Live at the Basement. There are a few points where they forget the words, and they laugh, everyone laughs with them, they keep going, and me and my friend who are listening on the other end, are laughing too. Ella Fitzgerald’s version of “Mack the Knife” is one of the best, because she skillfully and humourously moves through the lines that she didn’t remember. I often find things and people that appear perfect, oppressive. Probably because it’s not natural. I realized when I was working on my final project for school, that I was trying to make it perfect, and it was never going to happen. It was going to be what it was, and the best I could make it. I admire people who work so hard to get really good at what they do, and love what they do, and have enough confidence in themselves to laugh at their own stuff.

I want to write something happy…

for you who stumble across this blog, and for me to write from a genuinely happy place, an unforced happiness. I want to write something happy, because there is so much misery in the world, and I don’t want to contribute to the pile. I want to tell stories that are redemptive, but I know I can’t always do that. Sometimes there is no happy healing ending, sometimes it’s just painful, and then maybe later, after some of the pain has run it’s course, there is relief, some brightness, something touching and beautiful, sweet, funny, and warm.

Random thoughts

Monday- August 10- Sitting in Waves at Pender and Main. Got some slime on my fingers from grabbing the underside of the counter, I think it was honey. Amazing what happens when your away from something long enough. I’ve become a total germaphobe. I used to walk around barefoot at the corner of Main and Hastings, wash people’s feet with my bare hands. Feet that had been walking in pissed, bloodied, and feces soaked pavement in the same socks for weeks in the rain. Feet that belonged to bodies and souls of people living with AIDS, HIV, HEP-C, TB and/or Cancer. I have said many times since those days that I was possessed by some other force during that time. I had no regard for my own body. I responded constantly to whatever anyone needed. I did the same as a child. Always responding to need. I still do, but much less.

I have experienced things in the past few weeks that I don’t remember being able to do or feel. Sit for 20 minutes in a form of meditation and not move. I felt a trust in something greater than myself, a universe, a plan, and that whatever happens to me in the next while is what is best for me. I have also said – I want to be free, and I meant it, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I’m not a very trusting person, so these experiences have felt unusual. I don’t trust that people won’t hurt me, physically or emotionally, or that when I say I will get what I need or what is best for me that it isn’t tainted by the thought that what is best for me might be that I end up harmed in some way or dead. I live with alot of fear. I guess that’s what the desire for being free is- to live without fear. Not to be without concern, or caution, but to not be crippled by it. I have been.

Thursday August- 13-I hear things on the radio some days that are so horrible I’m not sure how to process them. I imagine if I am at least able to hear it without turning it off or getting really triggered, then I am healing. I was trying to imagine what it might be like for the journalist who just had to read that broadcast about bodies being disintegrated in a pool of acid- drug war violence. Where does he put it, or does he just turn off, that’s what it sounds like- 10 seconds on the bodies in acid, and another 10 on increased taxes. To say this is madness is a joke. Of course it is. It’s made so normal, so matter of fact, that we kill people every day, for money. I always feel like a naive young girl at this point. Someone could step in and say” Of course dear, this is the way the world is, we are a kill or be killed kind of people, and more so since we have developed things to fixate on that make us feel so powerful, even though we have destroyed cultures, people, land, and food supplies to generate this power, it doesn’t matter anyway, we won’t be around forever, so who cares.” That’s where I get stuck- who cares? How did the people who submerged the dead bodies in acid feel when they were dropping them in there? when they were killing? Or are they like the journalist, did they just shut off, do the job, and then go for lunch. Or did they throw up? It has to go somewhere, no matter how often we shut off, not care, only look out for our own interests. The impact, the pain, the violence, the trauma it stays with us. It may not sit in our brain somewhere, but I can speak from personal experience that while the brain may not be able to handle what it’s seen or done, the rest of the body will hold it. In my right eye I’ve absorbed so much trauma, that it makes my eye sore, and vibrate when I’m triggered. We can ignore, shut off and disassociate into the comfort of our complacency and not see each other, and I may be naive, but I’m not foolish enough to think that just because I stick my fingers in my ears or cover my eyes- that maybe it didn’t happen, that none of this is real, or that I can tell myself it doesn’t matter because It’s not happening to me. It’s not, and it is. I am of this world and in this world, a fact that can not be escaped.