~That Blue Blur~

So there's a lot going on, I'm back to school, at a new job and trying to find a balance in which to live. My parents are constantly telling me I'm a child and telling me to be an adult. They want me to go out and have a life, not happy that I am happy to sit at home and read. It is complicated to fit into society when I feel so round-peg-in-a-square-hole. I'm happy to be at a good job where everyone is friendly and the hours are steady, I'm glad to be pursuing my life's dream of working towards being an interpreter and I like the majority of my school mates and yet, I do feel a hole in my life that my little George, with all his cuddles and purring cannot fill. I'm nearly 20. I made myself a goal this year that I would sorta like to have my first date before I hit the big 2-0. I would love to find someone to share my ideas and passions with, to go to the museums and zoos and bowling and all the other random things I want to share with someone. Almost everyone I know or have met has been dating since they were young. I don't really envy them, I've never yearned to go through men like peanuts or any other snack food but shouldn't there have been someone some where who could have fit with? I don't crave a guy, I'm not desperate or looking frantically I've seen what it does through many friends who have the issue of being alone and rush into relationships and into failure, I need to find someone who makes me think and smile and who respects my well "old timey feel" for the premarital mambo.I think my parents set me back a litte, they met at 16/17 and have been together ever since so, in my mind I thought I'd be with the man I was going to marry by now I would be married by 22/23 and would be having my first baby soon. Nope. I don't want to be an older mother so I set myself a date and its funny how this is precieved. Some people see me as a liberated, open minded women others see me as ruinging my life and that of the child I would have. If I am not married or close to it by the time I'm 28 I've deiceded I've going to have a turkey baster baby (or IF baby). I would prefer to be married, but what is life without a backup plan? For now I simply try to float along my day and work through what I need to work through and hope for that movie moment when i reach for that book on the book shelf or say that's my favorite blank and someone one esle will say me too! lets go to lunch! Its a silly school girl romance, but every girl wants one....
Always,
~Kitty

So my title lends to many things, it's been a while since I've posted, a while since I've written anything in the novel/short story front (it's mostly been poetry if I'm lucky). So, about this time last year, I wrote my last short story. In truth, it began as a writing exercise and is in a different tone from anything I have written before but I liked it and so I followed it through to a place where I felt comfortable. I will also post the last story I wrote before this one, which I wrote, well back in grade 10 in my media arts class. But it was edited and made better when I worked it for a creative writing class. Hope maybe someone likes them!

For When You Need To Know Me

In the silence and peace the train allows me between stops and while rattling along the tracks, I look to the smallest part in me, the place where, for the moment you live. I know that you are very small; perhaps right now you have not a care in the world. Maybe your cares are my cares, or you worry about your father and the broken words and phrases that break through to you. About him I have few words to say to you. He is a good man, he is capable of great things, but just because a man is capable does not mean he does all he is capable of. Know that I love him with all my soul and that if ever I speak an ill word against him it is in anger and not in truth. I will not try to tell you how to feel about him, or guide your heart, that is for you to decide. All I ask, all that he asks; for he himself knows his truths better than any other man, is that you give him a chance. Do I fear you will not love him? Yes. For there are many days where I myself ponder how I feel about him, at night as I lay in bed and fall asleep, or as I ride the train as I do today and I watch the sun rise, slow and unhurried by anyone; I know that in the deepest depths of my soul I love him. I love him so that even if there were another that I found amiable, he would always be the love that stirred my desire.

I do not pretend to be a seer, and nor will I dare to make predictions in case they break your heart in the future. Know only that we will strive for your happiness always, and your well being. No matter if you are born a boy or a girl, I will hold you in my arms, sing to you and make sure your every need is met. You will be my chief concern. When you toddle, regardless of you nature, I will hold your hand and help you take those first steps and then, when it is time, I will stand back and let you run. I will not crush your freedom, knowing that in its youth it is a delicate and fragile thing. I know your father wishes only for your health and happiness. I know he too will help you to toddle around, hold you on his lap and whisper to you secrets and stories for the two of you. He, like me, will marvel in you miniature perfection, the simplicity of your needs, and all the potential you hold. Slowly and without your knowledge, you will give us our new lease on life.

Are we happy? I can hear you thinking this as I write these words, already you must wonder what kind of man is your father as you gaze over the words I have written and search them, and read them into their fading to find a different tone in which to find truth. I will tell you this now, and whisper it to you as you lie dormant in the tiny corner of my soul you inhabit at this moment. Truth has many sides, some considered lies but each of us has our own truth, and in time you will find your own and in that will find peace. Even without knowing it you will find your wholeness in the tiny moments others will think of no great importance. Embrace these moments where you feel truly with yourself. And yet, for the small portion of these times we devote to our happiness (and manage to fill) yes, we are happy together, in our evenings together and those stolen moments during the day when everything is so fast moving and rushed. I will not promise you that we will always be together, but I can attempt to promise we will always be around for you and that we will always be, in some form or another, connected to each other in deeper ways then any can be explained with words. Happiness is fleeting but I can claim to own, no not own but to rent, the small bit that wafts to me on the steam of my morning tea and the slipping touch of his hand as he passes it to me.

All I can do now is try to be patient and wait as you grow. Wait until you are ready to see the sun. I have done my share of waiting, and of watching. I have watched as others have had their babies, longingly gazing as they hold them tight and let them loose to play. I’ve seen them running and repairing scraped knees, now I wait for the pain I know must proceed, and yet, not mar the beginning of our lives together. Do I fear it? I know if you are a girl, who will grow to be a woman you will ask this of me, do I fear the pain? Do I worry about what could go wrong or how I might fail in this trial of mine? Maybe if you are a caring boy-child or when finally you are grown and your wife draws near to her time you will come to me, or to your father and ask of us, was there fear in our hearts? How did we maintain our strength? I do not know how I will answer, or if I will ever know except for when the question is asked and the words are leaving my lips. Maybe I will know the pain well but then, perhaps you will be followed by many more, and it will have become a friend whom I look at as the bearer of good and glad news to me. At this moment, I cannot say, I only know I look forward to your coming as I have looked forward to nothing else in my life.

For now, only the three of us know of your place, yourself of course, your father and most of all me. Now there is more waiting, I wait for the flutter of your heart, the soft movements that are sure to come as you grow. You will be my tiny gymnast flipping and twirling in your own private pool. I will wait, till I know in the most definite terms of your plans to stay until I tell other people. Your father had to know, it was important for our standing, for our lives at that moment, we needed something to hold on to together, and you were our tiny secret and our binding glue. When you are older, if you ever ask me of our troubles, I will tell you in the hopes that they will help you to stop them from becoming your own troubles. At least, know always that you are special to us, and that we will support you will the end of our days, and try to help you for as long as is possible for us to do.

It seems to me now that I carry with-in me a perfect miracle that I notice, in great abundance, those which occur almost every day around me. The brilliance and flawed projection as a sunrises bursts to life with dark pomegranate reds, soft grapefruit pinks and the specking of a pale violet in the edges as it reaches out slender fingers that fatten to take the sky for their own. And the ways you can see it! If watching the sky was not enough for you there is always the option of seeing it reflected in the buildings around you, the way the colors flow back from clouds, a white stencil being placed on colored paper. Then there is a natural mirror that adds its own splendor as it duplicates others, though imperfectly, for this thing lives like the dawn, forever and always moving, waves pulling and pushing its existence in a comfortable dance of the ages. All these things I will take you to see and others you will not need me for. When the rain plops onto the roof and the thunder breaks and the lighting slips into your room, you will know them for what they are, a break from the too quiet times and the washing of all that needs it, to rid the earth of worry. I know for deep inside you is a piece of my soul and I know and love these things, and in a part of him so does your father, thought he may not want to admit it. I know you will value these things and treasure them, even if, with you as it is with him, it is in secret.

Now I often sit and I deny myself the luxury of relaxing in the thought that we are a perfect family and have few issues. I will not let these thoughts come to me until I know I can live in them without being disturbed by the rudeness of reality. One day I think someone will come to me and ask to spend the remainder of my days with them quiet and careful, in my hopes and my wildest dreams it is your father that comes to me, as I sit on my balcony in the falling evening to speak to me and quiet tones and then as I rise to leave to bed he will call me back, and for a moment we will sit together and he will hold my hand in his own and ask for us to call the searching off and that for the rest of our days to be happy sitting this way together. But for this moment at least I sit and know that we are content in our togetherness as shallow and non permanent as it is.

This morning when I was racked by nausea, for a moment I had forgotten my condition. In my head was the slight fear of the flu when your father came to me and laughed, ‘Now you’re in for it darling.’ I myself laughed back and told him that was no way to speak to the mother of his child, and he helped me off the floor. So you were remembered, as you will always be, with a smile.

Today was entirely earth shattering (in a splendid way so don’t worry my little one)! Today we called everyone over for dinner, your grandparents (my parents), your Papa James, (that’s your father’s father) as well as my grandparents and some of our other family because we had decided to tell everyone the news. Before dinner, we sat on the balcony and chatted away, Clara, (who will be your aunt before you get here) was telling us all of the wedding plans, colors and things, and Papa James was asking how we (your father and I) were doing, all knowing full well we have had our troubles, and your father looked at me his eyes shining. I have never seen his eyes so bright nor his soul so clearly. In his eyes at the moment was such tenderness and love, I would tease him later for all his pretending of rough skin. I see this as the perfect cue went and stood next to him, and at that moment I knew my mother’s thoughts and did feel, for a second, disappointed in myself for I knew I would let her down. “We’re going to have a baby,” I said softly. I knew there was a large smile snaking its way across my face, my joy glowing pink.

Always know that they were all excited for your arrival, just some people would have expected, myself included, marriage before a baby, but now that you are on your way, I could wish for nothing more than to hold you. There were hugs all around and a few tears. Papa James gave me such a big hug, his eyes shining, “You are such a light” he whispered to me, “For the both of us.” He pulled away and shook my father’s hand. Later on as I put the final touches on supper, I saw the men over in a corner lighting cigars that had mysteriously arrived. Pride could have been your father’s middle name, because we are his joy and in that lays his pride in himself. Never feel this weight; it is not for you to bear.

Dinner went smoothly and happily and after your father helped me to do dishes and then we sat on the balcony, his arm around my shoulders and basking in each other’s company. In my mind this moment was perfect. As we went to bed that night, he came round to the side of my bed and sat down, he took my hands and asked me to be his wife. I cried, and suddenly I knew who had brought the cigars and how he had helped my mother adjust. He had asked my father. We will be married soon, a small affair, family a few friends a little chapel and I will wear a pale yellow dress. This I have already decided, there is no point in wearing white, and yellow is a happy color. I will not have you swayed to be one or the other before your time so yellow also helps there. You are always considered.

Your father came to me and said he’d found a church, in two weeks we will be married. Before Clara and Shawn. I asked her the other day if she was mad at me, or felt that I was stealing her thunder, she smiled and laughed, she has always been easy going. “Never!” she had told me, “You’ve been together longer, years longer than us, and we are happy for you. It will even help me to calm my nerves.” We hugged and I knew the words were true. So now the preparations begin in earnest. There seems to be so much to do for one day. A dress for me and then a color for my two brides maids, flowers, where we will have the reception and things like that. Things now move so fast and it seems like there are not enough hours in the day in which to do everything and still rest. I’m worried that you will become mischievous and start growing now so I will buy a dress that will give you room.

And now, with only 3 days to go I have found a dress, a pale lily yellow dress with an empire waist, little white lines forming flowers all over. I’ll have my red hair curled and pulled up and have a flower settled into it while some of it is left to flow. Everything is falling into place and everyone has called to say they will be there and it feels as though, now, I wait. More waiting. Waiting for my wedding and then waiting for you. But after my wedding, there is another thing to wait for, and there is only a short time to wait I will have a honeymoon. I am ecstatic. We are going to London and France, and maybe Scotland if we can fit it in. All of you grandparents have planned this for us, and my grandparents. We will be gone for 3 weeks and I will enjoy every second of it

Little one, you will not remember Paris, or London, but they were wonderful, all the stuff of poems and art. Your father was kind he humoured me and we toured the museums and galleries. I bought a copy of a beautiful painting that made you dance when I stood in front of it. I shall hang this in your room, and maybe it will make you feel glad. I am a married woman now, and it is lovely. It is every dream come true. And it was your father. My soul explodes with this happiness.

You grow with such urgency now! There is no time to adjust and no time to rest my weary back. Your father brings me tea when he is home and calls me from the office. Now he worries. I do not know if it is because this is in me deeper than breathing, but I do not worry much. A little, but that is it, only about if there maybe pain. I know soon enough you’ll be here and we will count all your toes and fingers and then my mind flies over the pain.

Hey kiddo, your mother wanted me to add something, so I’ll do it now while she’s busy and then she can’t coo over my words. You’re on your way now, before the morning they’re telling us. We are excited for you to come into our lives. I don’t have any beautiful words of my own, like your mother sprouts, but there is one thing I remember her reading to me. If you are a daughter I will hold you close like a pearl in my hand and show your shine to the world, if you are a boy you will be my spade, strong, sturdy and full of the love I have for our workings together. I hope they’re ok. They stuck with me; they’re like your mother that way. We love you, and the waiting’s nearly over. Our world is no longer as bumpy as you may have imagined, we are a family now, and with you, we will start the new chapter. There are so many people waiting for you here, and now I have to go, if I’m not there someone else will have to cut the cord! Love your dad.

You are here, in all your perfection and I am happiness itself.