Nether regions…
Last Saturday I had dinner with friends Prudence, Frank, and Pippin…
I hadn’t seen them for awhile because they’d been up North for a month rebuilding a porch,
on their old gold rush cabin…
You didn't get to heaven but you made it close...
I prepared some steelhead filet for the barbeque,
and a homemade plum and apple pie which resulted in Prudence whip creaming her jeans,
two days in a row…
We talked all about Frank’s return to beer league hockey at the eight rinks next weekend,
and preservation…
Prudence, Frank and I are super connected to our pioneer ancestry…
The Summer cannot end without putting things by for the winter…
Even with a Costco right up the street,
it just isn’t the same…
This is the first Summer in a long time that I haven’t processed forty pounds of Similkameen Valley peaches for my girls, Starshine and Little Gem…
And the last Summer I am willing to physically restrain myself from not whipping out a bow and arrow,
tracking down a moose,
and making up some pemmican…
For now,
living one block south of East Hastings and in walking distance from GM Place – Home of the Canucks,
I must satisfy myself with canning tomatoes purchased at the Station’s Wednesday Farmer’s Market…
Turning these,
into a little bit of this,
and that…
Prudence is vigilant about health and safety…
When you’re canning tomatoes you have to be VERY careful…
You want to do everything in your power to prevent botulism and other stuff that you can’t see or smell,
but will put you six feet under with one small bite…
The best decision you can make is to put a Virgo in charge,
and get it done properly…
I ask her how her astrological theorizing accounts for me being a Capricorn,
and my high level of creative efficiency,
with no f#ckin’ around…
In moments like these she always has a quick answer up her sleeve,
You really should find out how many houses you have,
in Virgo…
Cottoning on…
Little Gem called me Sunday morning…
all out of breath with excitement…
she starts grade two on Tuesday with the rest of the back to school world…
Mama, I got my violin and some pretty new shoes that I can run in, really fast…
I can ride my bike all on my own now…
and oh yeah…
I bought a t-shirt that says
Bee yourself…
Usually a few minutes before the weekly transfer when Little Gem and her older sister go from being with me to her other home with their dad and their stepmom, she nails me with some out of the blue insight…
some words to chew on while I’m on my own…
By the time she climbs out of our big red car my neck is twisted around the stick shift and the rest of my body has slid to the floor jammed in between the brake and the clutch…
in shock from her infinite precision…
There is never any mercy and there is no where to hide…
even once I get home…
because her words rip through me until I sit in the feelings they bring up and let the rollers pass…
it has taken a lot of focus and intention to move out of old habits of distraction and blocking…
and to have faith that this to will pass…
Initially I feared the words and the lessons…
but now I look forward to them…
they give me insight into what I’m processing or integrating at that time…
insight into what I can’t always see or feel…
The last time we parted she said,
Mama it is really important to pay attention to what feels good in your body…
if something doesn’t feel good just don’t do it…
AND
It is really easy to forget things that you don’t want to remember…
I said,
It isn’t so easy to forget when the memories are in your body and you don’t even know that they are there…
She said,
You’re right but what you need to know is that when you do remember your mind makes things so much bigger than they really are…
I’m putting the word out there that if the Canucks really want the Stanley Cup this year they should consider putting Little Gem and Starshine on the roster as Assistant Life Coaches…
Just for when the team starts to lose some perspective…
'cause the walls were shaking...
Peach tree…
At the end of June,
I was minding my own business,
as usual,
riding my bike home from watching Starshine play keeper,
at her World Cup soccer tournament,
on my 1984 Norco Monteray (original decals),
which I bought with my babysitting money,
back in grade eleven…
And while waiting at the pedestrian crossing,
a guy,
sitting on his crotch rocket,
yelled out,
HEY,
nice tits!
And because I didn’t bat an eye,
or look in his general direction…
Mr. Harley Davidson said it again,
louder,
with this boy-like earnestness,
as if he really wanted me to know that I have,
Nice tits!!!!
I smiled a little smile,
and cycled away,
leaving him in frustrated perplexion,
that he was not able to shake my tree…
There are ways to complement another person on their physical features,
and then there are ways to burn bridges…
Nice tits can be very funny in the right context,
but when said stranger to stranger,
this particular style of commentary is not a complement…
Not at sixteen,
not at thirty-two,
forty-one,
or sixty,
even if you live in Whalley…
If a woman seems like she likes this kind of verbal assault,
there is likely some incongruency going on…
With what you see on the outside,
is not matching up with what is going on on the inside…
I conducted some armchair research,
after this experience…
My neighbour on one side said she heard these kind of comments regularly,
as a teenager…
It never felt good,
in fact,
it felt like violation…
I remember my best childhood friend,
and her breast reduction at nineteen,
because of all the unwanted attention she got,
from men,
including her father and her uncles down at the dock,
sucking back their afternoon gin and tonics…
The failure of fellow human beings,
including those charged with her protection,
to recognize and respond to who she really was…
The beauty of a heart pounding under flesh…
The neighbour on the other side told me that she was buying tickets for opening night of District 9,
and as she walked out on the sidewalk,
along Burrard Street…
a twenty or thirty-something leaned out of a car window,
yelling,
Nice tits!!!
My neighbour told me that she has heard that for most of her life,
and for most of her life it has been unbearable…
FYI:
Even if your set is spectacular,
and you know it,
women at forty-one or sixty do not find this language pleasing,
in fact it is experienced as conquest style unconsciousness…
I’m fairly certain that even when I was a cave woman,
I was not impressed by mates who pulled me around by my hair…
If Nice Tits!!! is your opening line you’re pretty much operating at a Neandrethal frequency…
And even though longhairs,
along with the pirates that roam my neighbourhood on their long boards,
in the middle of the night,
are currently in vogue
they won’t last…
As a mother of two young girls,
who at this time in their life hold their heads high and their hearts so open,
I wonder how long it will take before they start to hide themselves…
I wonder how long it will take before they too start to distort their bodies,
in response to the dominant culture that surrounds them…
How do WE shift reality,
and who takes responsibility for making the changes???
How do we move from NICE TITS to
thank you for making the world a more beautiful place by fully being yourself???
How do we grow ourselves toward a place of innocence,
collectively???
I come to you defenses down... with the trust of a child... (photo: Starshine)
As for the Canucks and nice tits,
if you shake your peaches in a logo tank top you’re certain to catch the camera man,
and the nation’s,
attention…
An x-ray of the soul appears to be waiting in the machine for further development…
A polaroid moving toward the reveal of a bigger picture,
That IS hockey…
Canuck'd 