The (love) songs we sing - part 3

     Of course, this is my 111th blog post. Numbers, always with the numbers. And this is part three of my  lunaversary, anniversary, valentine's day trilogy tribute.

    Today is my and my Beloved's 39th lunaversary. What is a lunaversary, you are wondering? Our love was consummated as the five days in February came near their end. We were in a Kamloops motel after driving through a snowstorm with all-season tires on the Coquihalla. It was February 19th of 2019, we could drive no further, and a young woman delivered our pizza. I had never thought about the fact that perhaps every other pizza that had ever been delivered to me was delivered by a man, until the contrast of opposites stood smiling at me through the motel door. But I digress. We haven't even had our first kiss yet and here I am jumping ahead. To make a short idea long and complex, we celebrate each full moon, sometimes with a kiss, a mention, a foot rub. Earlier on, more often, with flowers, gifts (rainbow themed ones), cakes... 39 moons of loving.

I wrote this poem for my love today. Unedited, with baby at my feet, in about ten minutes (it could use some work):

For you, on our Lunaversary

Thirty-nine moons

full swoon

Time goes by so soon

Ethereal eyes of the deep-dive loon

And I am still, 

                loving you

I wonder if we have a tune

Celebrating the love and the ruin

Time-torn patterns mangled and strewn

Butterflies, both of us, emerge from the cocoon

And I am flying,

                     loving you

When we rise at dawn but wake at noon

songs of love from the speaker croon

Hearts bleed red, burgundy, and maroon / I know you will never leave me adrift, marooned

And if they lie our bodies 'neath icebergs or sand dunes

I will be sleeping,

                      loving you

    My love has a rhyming dictionary. I didn't grab it for the writing of the poem, but maybe I should have? I ran out of -oon words! Spoon! Of course. June, as in June's Lunch. 

    Come see JustBee and her amazing hand-crafted jewelry on February 26th in Highland's on 112ave in the old spooky fun La Bohème (which now houses Fox Burger and June's Lunch-it is worth coming just to go to the bathroom, so eerie down there). I will be doing a reading of poetry just for fun!

    If you wish for more exciting details about my first date to the ocean three years ago and the intense, apocalyptic love that has me growing, learning, and co-creating and nurturing new life...well, you will have to buy my collection of short stories, once I write it!

    

The (love) songs we sing - part 2

    Before we get to the part where we go on our first date all the way to the pacific ocean, which was sort of our third date, let me tell you about our first date, an afternoon coffee...

    It was freeeeeeeezing. February something, I can't remember for sure. I had decided that I should be friends with a man, someone that felt safe and that could restore my faith in the notion that men are safe to be around. I remember the texts, I remember rolling around on the floor of my third story subsidized apartment after writing: "Well, I guess you could see me sooner if you asked me to go for coffee or something." I didn't know then of his oppositional tendencies. He never did ask, he asked what days would work for that and then I followed up with the actual: "How about..." was it a Wednesday? 

    We went to a place near the river, just in case we wanted to incorporate a nice walk, but, the freezing. I arrived first, ever the punctual rooster, and he appeared not too much later carrying a water bottle filled with NGW. I thought it odd when he refilled his tea with water from it (how could cool water re-steep a tea bag?). Now I agree that it is much safer to drink steam distilled water. But the more remarkable thing about the bottle was that it said "Nathan" on it. It was purple. I had not long before prayed to Creator holding the Eagle feather that had belonged to my brother-in-law's brother. I prayed hard, crying, praying for my Beloved to be sent to me. The feather of Migizi had belonged to Nathan. 

    I felt shivers when I saw the name. Of course, I didn't tell him. I don't think it is advisable to reveal that our love is fated to be on the first coffee. He spoke though, telling that he saw an Eagle on the drive over, flying just over the graveyard on 107ave while Bob Marley asked him: "Could you be loved?" over and over through his car speakers. Eagles. Nathan. I needed very obvious signs from the universe to break free from fear. 

    I feel it has taken at least three years of sometimes struggle, having me hum while the words "nobody said it would be easy" while I hear him bursting with "I still want the hard life!" to reach the point of really knowing, deep in my bones, that: "Love will lift us up where we belong, where the Eagles cry."

The (love) songs we sing - part 1

    

"Could you be loved?"

    Three years ago today I texted a simple "Happy Valentine's Day" to my beloved one, but we hadn't done more than touch shoulders while watching a film at this point. I suppose he fell in love with me when I slid into second base 7 years before our first coffee meeting, but I didn't know that for a long time. My first reaction upon meeting him and playing on his ball team for the weekend was one of curiosity: "Why the strange moustache and mismatched sock pulled up so high?" And still, something about the way he walked drew my Spirit near; I now recognize it is the powerful connection he maintains with Spirit as he walks that first had my outer cells orbiting towards him, unbeknownst to my psyche at the time.

    I was in my office at the U of A when I texted the Hallmarkian capitalist greeting. He responded with some facts about St. Valentine, maybe it was something about relics and where Mr. Valentine's skull is held, I can't quite recall. After the shoulder touching incident I awoke craving him next to me. "For fuck's sake!" I chastised myself, for my intention had been to have a male friend. Nothing in my conscious thinking mind wanted a relationship, not after the hell I had been through, a hell from which I narrowly escaped. But escape I did! And I was practicing sinking deep into my body to listen to the wisdom there. So safe to stay in the body, such truth to be accessed. 

    The next day, on February 15th, 2019, I dropped my little T-man off at daycare. I had somehow managed to have 5 days of childlessness in a row ahead of me, and with no work after 3pm. I sat in the Kia a moment behind the old McCauley school. "Body?" I breathed deeply, wiggling toes and squeezing butt cheeks together to bring my traumatized self back inside of me. "Body, if we could go anywhere, where would we go?" The dissociation of body from self was still rather obvious. The answer came quickly. "The ocean, of course." Is that possible, I wondered? I guess so. "And with whom?" Why with Timothy, of course. Oh no...no, no. 

    The impulsivity. Body is texting. Stop it fingers! What are you doing?...click. Send. "Do you want to go to the ocean with me?" I wrote it. I sent it. And then I began to buzz with a mania that is almost unparalleled in my experience. Now the waiting...except I barely waited at all. Almost instantly he replied: "I can be ready by 4pm." Oh no oh no oh no, what have I done? I am terrified of loving and being loved, more than ever I am scared of this. And yet, my body, the universe, life, the ancestors, the beloved dead...they are all guiding and blessing this union, orchestrating this moment...