More simple than this.

My favorite sort of winters, the brief thirty-hour ones that roll in as we are finishing dinner downtown at our favorite hole-in-the-wall ramen house and end within a day or two, as the temperatures rise, bringing rain and taking away every last trace of the snow. The children spent most of Sunday building snowmen in the backyard and we found out what still fits and what doesn't when it comes to snowpants, boots and mittens.

Today is blinding sunshine and warm spring air once again. It smells sweet to me, as if spring is coming at last. Just around the corner.

He sat at the desk, waiting while I cried. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I took hitching breaths. Wishing he would just look at me but he couldn't so instead he kept his hand wrapped around mine and held it tightly while I kept trying to pull it out so I could hit him or hurt him or make him feel the same way just for once and I cried and cried until there was nothing left and then he stood up and grabbed a tissue for me, standing beside my chair while I dried my eyes and pretended to compose myself.

And then I made a break for the door.

He was waiting for that too, and he grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the ground and just held me there as I thrashed and screamed at him. I called him everything I have ever learned on the show and afterward. I named every flaw he owns and put myself right back at square one with tears, wondering why he's still allowed to make me feel this way when I have come so far without his help.

And still not a word. It's all right there in his eyes. Pretend stoicism, Incapacitating fear masquerading as impatience, ambivalence, embarrassment, even. Maddening silence. I can talk and talk and talk until my voice disappears and I run out of words and he will listen to every single thing and still not respond. Not a word. Then I will throw myself into his arms, forcing him to put them around me and rock myself for far too long before he takes over, the movement less one of desire and more of a habit, a hypnotizing lull.

His life now is the next best thing. The closest he can get to still having his beloved circus without the danger involved for me, because it became abundantly clear that it was no place for a girl and so he was forced to choose between his two only loves. Resentment goes both ways, you know.

I took it away and yet I am what he loved most about it. Though he gets tired of these wordless fights.

We had a lot of years there where we were almost normal, ones where you never would have known how visceral things were, just under the surface. Years we thought we might actually survive one other. Years we thought maybe things had changed.

A wasted effort, all of it. Nothing changes. Ever.

Snow tires and cigars.

When I finally got into my boots, coat and gloves, I went outside to see a row of men standing at the top of the driveway watching the children play in the snow. August was blowing on his hands and rubbing them together, Caleb was smoking a cigar. Ben wasn't watching the children at all, instead turned to face the house, watching for me. I ran down the driveway and threw myself into him. He closed his arms around me when I wavered, having hit a brick wall. I was slightly dazed after that but he hardly felt it. PJ laughed out loud and and said maybe I should start wearing puffier clothes for my own protection. I shot him a look and then winked at him too, just in case. He's been sort of testy this weekend. PJ gets the late February blahs. The only thing that picks him up is Daylight Savings and tea so we have two weeks left to go. I make a lot of tea.

This morning we woke up to a good seven inches of fluffy, packable snow. Coast-snow, a far cry from the powdery granular ice-snow of the Prairies. I didn't like that snow, but it never mattered much, the children were never allowed outside long enough to make anything of it when it was usually -30 or below. At least now it's warm enough to still stand around without gloves or a hat and enjoy yourself. It's real winter, the best part being all of it will be gone in a day and a half when the rain returns because the tiny little cold weather spell is over.

I hope the crocuses survive because they were popping up EVERYWHERE, and I know that in just a couple of short weeks the cherry blossoms will explode everywhere too. And I cannot wait. In the meantime I have had my fill of cigar smoke, because like woodsmoke, gasoline and freshly-mowed grass, it's one of those wonderful smells I absolute adore. I have had my fill of Satan, who stopped by to see Henry's latest school project and help Ruth with a game, and I have had my fill of the snow again, because I don't like winter, you see. Fall is my favorite time of year, when it cools off just a little. That's when the leaves turn beautiful colors and the ocean is as warm as it can be after a full summer of sunshine.

Better left.

Is that what it is? The grand gestures? The fact that they fall all over themselves to see to your happiness?

There's no magic formula so you should save your breath.

You don't believe in second chances?

No and don't tell me you do. You never gave me any.

I'd like to, now.

It's too late. I mourned you first.

You got in over your head and couldn't get back out. It wasn't your fault. And I should have done something.

You should have done a lot of things.

You were supposed to come back.

No, I wasn't.

Look me in the eye and say that.

No.

No because you don't believe the words coming out of your own mouth. Peanut, what did you talk yourself into this time?

He had asked me that question once before, the day I spent all of my pin money on blue cotton candy and ate nothing else for a whole day and then had a single warm beer and spent the remainder of the evening behind the trailer, barfing up blue foamy surprise. He laughed then and walked away, back to the bonfire. I crawled back into the camper, wiped my face on his last remaining clean t-shirt and fell asleep fully clothed in the center of the bed. I never did figure out who he was more angry with that night, me or himself.

He takes care of me.

I took care of you too, once upon a time.

You took a pass, that's what you did. You hung me out to dry and you let Cole take over and look what happened.

If you love someone, set them free. He laughed bitterly and took a sip of his drink.

It wasn't meant to be, Lochlan.

Sure it was. The fortune teller told you so.

You never told me what she said to you.

Because she was a sham. Because it's not important.

Then you can tell me.

He took a longer drink this time. Courage, it meant and I regretted asking. I am done. I don't want to talk anymore.

She said that I would forever be watching you fall and be unable to help you. And that it was my punishment for what I have done.

But nothing had happened yet, Loch.

He nodded. Cold blood ran through my veins as I took the glass right out of his hand and finished his drink. It was pure whiskey and I was wholly unprepared.

I coughed hard and pushed the glass to him. I don't need this. I don't need him. I don't need these feelings bubbling up all the time like air bubbles trapped beneath the surface. But they do, and I have to get used to it. Just like he does.

Soap and glory.

I sat quietly on the edge of the bathtub while he dipped the facecloth into the nail polish remover. My skin is slightly pink and raw now, but he is gently working to remove the last of his words. I wanted to let them wear off gradually but he is somewhat sheepish about people's opinions of Bridget as his own personal canvas.

He paused and smiled at me and then went back to slowly scrubbing the back of my knee, head tilted to the side. He is concentrating on removing as many letters as he can without causing any undo amount of suffering but my skin tingles and burns.

It's the best love letter I've ever gotten, Ben.

I didn't do it to win a competition, bee.

I know that. I just wanted you to know anyway.

He stopped and dropped the cloth into the tub.

There, I think you're good as new.

I wish I was new sometimes.

Me too, bee. But it won't stop me.

He reached over his head and pulled his t-shirt off and then slid down his jeans and stepped out. Starting the shower with one hand, he checked for the hot water and then turned off all the lights in the bathroom. He took me by the hand and pulled me into the spray against his chest and smoothed my hair back from my face. His hair is dry. He is above the spray and I am drowning.

He proceeds to wash off all the caustic chemicals he had to use on my skin and he promises not to do it again, that next time he will paint the words in chocolate, or maybe in icing or lip gloss and eat the results, that he forgets I'm not so tough, that I am accountable and I am so done with his unwarranted apologies so I pull his head down, pulling myself up around his neck and I kiss him. He stops talking. It's like a miracle and I'm in control for a few blissful seconds until he pushes me into the wall and I am his object once again to be used and admired and ruined.

And ruin he does. :)

By the time we are finished my skin is wrinkled and throbbing. Heck, everything is throbbing. He turns off the water and wraps me in a towel and bursts out laughing. I am pink all over. A little lobster.

He pulls the towel off and bends down around me. A long hug. A never-let-go hug. An I just totally destroyed your dignity and everything is just fine now hug and I reach up and hold on so hard. I think I could almost fall asleep if I wasn't practically hanging and he whispers in my ear,

Okay, maybe it was a competition. And I nailed it. Just like I just nailed you.

He makes his letch-face and I can't help but laugh out loud. Ben is like that. From class to crass in the blink of an eye.

I still wish he had left the words. I wasn't finished taking pictures yet.

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
- C. S. Lewis

And quoted by my dear friend Sam from his favorite book:

Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Heavy sleep.

I've lost all that I wanted to leave
I've lost all that I wanted to be
Don't believe that there's nothing that's true
Don't believe in this modern machine

This morning I followed Lochlan into the kitchen. I can't seem to open my eyes, sleep clings to me like a shroud, reluctant to burn away with the sun. I move past him and head straight for the brew button on the coffeemaker when I hear him swear. He walks over to me and pulls back the neck on my t-shirt and looks at my skin. Another curse and he turns me around to face him and lifts up the front of my shirt. It's then that I realize what he sees.

I am covered.

Head to toe.

In Benjamin's words.

The only things he didn't write on were my arms from the elbows down and my face and neck. He wrote in black sharpie over tattoos and over blank places alike. When the black ran dry he switched to purple and kept on writing until he was finished. It took me all morning to read it, to the point where I was standing on the counter in the bathroom to see the hard to reach places.

On my toes it says BENLU VSBEE.

And here I said I was a light sleeper.

The late shrift.

Take a breath
Hold it in
Start a fight
You won't win
Had enough
Let's begin

I know how he thinks, how his mind has twisted the present into a blend of the past and the future, a dreamworld in which he doesn't have to be absent in the moonlight or center stage in the circus instead of watching from the back, fingers laced with mine, or arms tightly wrapped around me while I stand tucked into his coat, clapping my hands, jumping up and down, banging the top of my head against his chin, making him swear like a gentleman pirate or just a highly irritated teenage boy. Ow. Owowow.

This was in the days before beard growth seemed very successful at all, something that doesn't seem to happen until one's late twenties, it seems. It's okay though, he was always chewing gum on top of my head, grinding his chin against my skull gently but endlessly so if I jumped up and he bit his tongue then it was what he deserved. His chin is softer now. Did I mention I love beards? Because I do and that is partly why. They hurt a hell of a lot less.

The nickname Lochlan gave me was the very first. Had I started this journal before 1997 it would have had a vastly different name. Hell, I'd have a whole different identity, perhaps.

I've never shared it with anyone because it evaporated suddenly along with my dreams of living my life out on the road with the show. Lochlan stopped using it the day he broke up with me when I was still too young to fully understand heartbreak and I haven't heard it since. Apparently it was something he continued to use under his breath or in his head, much like I'll walk around calling Ben a shithead but never OUT LOUD because that isn't nice, right?

Right. So out of the blue Sunday night Lochlan said it, and I'm not sure if he slipped (but he doesn't slip, for he is perfect) or if it was a calculated attempt to undermine Benjamin (which he does, we're just not bright enough to catch him) but he came into the dining room last night long after dinner was finished, dressed in his armor, ready for battle with the road, jacket not zipped up yet but two helmets threaded up his forearm. One was mine.

Want to go for a quick ride, peanut?

Ben's fist hit the table and the dishes jumped six inches, causing Ruth to call down the stairs to see if we were finally having an earthquake and was she missing it? And PJ put his hand on Ben's shoulder as in, get up and I'll step in if I have to.

Because the children had already gone to bed for the night and the last thing they need is to bear audible witness to any more violence or sadness or anger, ever. I'm dreaming when I say I want to shield them from all of it and sadly they understand how emotions can get the best of people but they also know that we all need to work harder to keep ours under control, and to control our outbursts and impulses. Being human, this is hard. Being in a complicated environment such as this, harder still.

Lochlan didn't move a muscle, he just kept staring at me, waiting for my answer, waiting for nostalgia to kick in and point out to me that he had just called me something he called me every ten minutes for six years straight and something I may have missed dearly but had filed away for all eternity up until that moment last night. Ben saw my face. I was horrified by how I felt, hearing it after so long.

Ben didn't let me say anything though. Instead all my efforts were focused on getting out of the way as he upended the dining room table, dishes and all but only half of it came away because the leaf is out and I couldn't get the two halves to click back together properly last week. He was in Lochlan's face in two seconds flat, PJ holding him back but barely. You can't hold Ben back. He's a locomotive with a chip on his shoulder, anger-management classes be damned, all this damage over one little insignificant circus peanut.

Only I am not insignificant, nor am I exclusive. Anymore, anyway.

PJ's grip on Ben put him at a disadvantage and Lochlan clocked him with the helmets. Reflex? Opportunity? I'll never ask. I'm not sure Ben even felt it as badly as everyone else heard it, since he is singularly focused in his jealousy and impervious to pain besides. Lochlan isn't strong enough to hurt him but for that awful moment I doubted that fact and I thought he had hurt Ben and I kind of zoned out and Daniel was there by then and he took me out of the room, upstairs and we told the kids the table fell and the boys were arguing over the best way to put it back, shucks, you know how loud they are, sorry, and I pushed away from him and ran back downstairs to the dining room and Schuyler had invited Lochlan to get his sweet face out of Ben's universe and he put the helmets aside and PJ was standing while Ben was sitting with his elbows on the table. Working to keep control.

It's just a name, Benny. I said it quietly but I don't think he heard me.

PJ shook his head in warning. I ignored it. Ben exploded up out of his chair once again and this time he didn't get a pat on the shoulder from PJ, he got tackled from behind. My poor Ben. Everyone is hurting him, he just wants to be happy.

PJ put him on the floor and Ben flipped over and stood back up and asked him if he was fucking insane, that he wasn't going to hurt me or anyone else and what the fuck, who decided whether or not he could touch me when Lochlan seemed to get a free pass from everyone under the sun. To do whatever he wants, all the time, with no one second-guessing him or evaluating him or telling him to back off/cool down/step back/give up.

Exactly.

So PJ took a step back and Lochlan threw another one of those stupid unpredictable punches and Ben grabbed the front of his shirt and it was on. They brawled for a good minute on the floor as if it were the rink and I think they both came out of it hurting, judging by the amount of blood I spent the morning washing out of clothing and the pile of buttons here to be sewn back on their shirts.

I did not find any teeth this time. Huh. They must have gone easy on each other after all.

They made up under threat of being sent to live in the garage, together. Forever. Because I can't have this in the house. I can't have this near the children, asleep or awake. I can't deal with this and I can't really deal with Lochlan choosing to space out his attacks on my heart like this. I think I like it better when they just throw everything they have at me and I can reject it and things return to a quiet simmer.

Lochlan used my nickname again last night and I'm not really sure if he has a deathwish but Ben's fingers tightened around his fork and he just kept on listening to the idle chatter around the table. Later in the dark he held on to me as I gave myself up to the night. Dreamless sleep. No circus, no music, no nightmares and no ghosts. As long as he's touching me I can fall hard, like a peanut onto the hard-packed dirt of a circus tent floor. I'm certain I'm not deserving of the amount of attention I get from either of them, but they seem convinced that I am.

Peanut. What the fuck.

Found a distraction in my inbox. You're welcome.

(You can click to make this bigger, I think.)

Here. Someone wanted to know what I carry in my purse. The now-infamous Maggie Bag from Coach, joined by the Poppy Groovy wallet, both in a strange sparkly black leather that gets softer and more fluid every week that I bash them around, because I'm hard on things. I don't mean to be, maybe I just finally have things of quality that can stand up to a little enthusiastic use.

So...inside the bag? A map of metro Vancouver. Because I get lost a lot. Covergirl pressed powder (I am so NOT a makeup snob) in vampire-pale. Clinique Mascara in blacker-than-night, Covergirl eyeliner. I forget what color, either green or black. A brush to separate my lashes in case I actually use the mascara, because I am messy.

Lanolin hand cream because nothing feels better than innersheep-grease (says Duncan). Sexy Motherpucker lipgloss (which is painful, holy shit), two Peaceful cause-metics balms (one chocolate, one rose), Tokidoki lipgloss, 2 Loreal and a Kat Von D gloss (AKA snacks for Ben), a pill bottle containing a bunch of Advils for grownups, a couple of children's Advils and a few Lactaids. Bandaids.

My apple noise-canceling headphones. A pen. Too Cute mints that have a slide-out mirror. Bach's rescue remedy. Various bobby pins, hair ties and a ouchless clip for my perpetual twist. Cough drops, my vampire picnic cosmetic bag from Kukubee and my key ring. If you look to the far right you can see the baby blue glittery enamel Princess charm that Jacob bought for me seven billion years ago on a lark.

There, one mystery solved. I bet you were hoping that the contents of my purse were far more sinister than they are. Actually you would be right. Missing from this photo at my lawyer's request are the condoms and sex toys, lit fireworks, monogrammed guitar picks, pocket fire extinguisher, dozens of stolen still-warm human hearts I have begun to collect, and a live goat. Just in case.

I wonder if you are sorry you asked?

(This boy does not care what's in the bag, unless I'm carrying his feed bag, in which case he knows I have apples and sugar in my pockets and he gets right down against the fence and gives me the eye. )

Baudelaire Sundays

Because nothing says a darker, sunny Sunday like very good French poetry.

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;

Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!

Joining millions of bloggers everywhere by taking a picture of my lunch.

The snow trimmed the neighborhood in white but we went out in force anyway. Dry pavement, full sun, the promise of a round of chowder for lunch and people-watching, turning the tables on those who think just because they've seen someone in a magazine they have earned the right to eavesdrop on their existence. Cold wind on the motorcycles, my face was red under my helmet, hair making a halo around my collar where curls would escape from where they were left tucked in. Ben did a last minute inspection of me and told me to signal him if I was too cold. I believe he still thinks I am made of glass by day and opaque indestructable marble at night.

I did not signal. I should have signalled. Okay I had one truck ride with Schuyler when the traffic crawled to a virtual standstill when a nearby neighborhood was cleared of traffic and inhabitants due to an IED found in a park (Hurt Lockerish photos from the news) so our plans were actually truncated by the ridiculous wait times on the highway but still, it was enough over a break from ducking under rainclouds that I feel somewhat sated and less wanderlustish tonight.

Until the morning, anyway.

Lochlan did not pull rank when I did not join him. He took his fast bike anyway and I'm generally nowhere near it because he's a bit of a maniac on it but I still think he was hoping for a little time. He doesn't need time, he is home all week, working from his little home office off his bedroom, close by to have all the time in the world so this day was about time with Ben. Scrunched in beside him in the booth. I had given up my crackers to the kids when the waiter lost our order (I think he was a little overwhelmed by the boys) and Ben shared his crackers with me to crumble into my chowder.
It was good (and OMG I am so messy). The whole day was good. Except for the IED part. That was completely unnecessary and a little over the top.

Even for us.

Sentimental circus (no sideshow).

And if you think real beauty's on the outside
Well that's a far cry
From the truth

Maybe all the information you received
Well you should not believe
There's no proof

PJ returns to the house after a brief holiday and the house returns to a completely comical version of its unbridled self. PJ runs a tight ship. PJ lives in my boathouse, so no surprise there.

But he is never down there. Instead he stands behind me as I navigate my days, giving Caleb these looks that just stun him into total silence or incredibly obvious subject replacements because for some reason PJ's word is gospel where no one else has ever set their hands on such a scripture before. Maybe it's because I do so well when he is around. Maybe it's because of the full moon/impending spring. Even Lochlan follows PJ's directions like a spoiled but compliant little boy and Benjamin wouldn't question PJ even if PJ told him to go naked bungee jumping for a good cause.

For the record..we're not going. We do give a lot to causes we believe in, and we keep the organizations and the donations closely guarded for obvious reasons. It makes it easier to deflect those who flat-out ask for money (don't).

Besides, Bridget (at almost forty) versus gravity? Are you out of your mind? There's a risk I won't take and I won't even get started on the whole leaping willfully off a high place because it's just not the way today is and so let's close the flap on that tent and move along to the larger, more colorful, bustling hard-floored tent that you've been watching us raise up in the dust for days.

Which is that I've been taking a lot of supplements lately.

Not a lot, just a few. But many days have since passed and I've been noticing something amazing that sort of surprised me and pleased me at the same time.

Mental clarity.

(Oh, God. There's PJ, reading over my shoulder like a nosy transit rider, chortling to himself over precisely how much mental clarity I could possibly have left when my head is so freakishly small and I stumble over the children's names fourteen times a day usually and I write every single thing down so I don't forget and really at this point he is becoming a thug, like a volunteer bouncer/well-compensated security guard looming behind my shoulders snarling at everything in sight so what exactly would he know about mental acrobatics and really, you want to see something amazing, PJ? Come over here and hold this rope and I'll show you the trick where I slide down to the knot with one leg locked on it and then turn myself around in mid-air, supporting my own weight, while it swings at fifty miles an hour. Dizzying, hey? Now shut the fuck up.)

No, really! It's uncanny. I haven't missed anyone's name in three days. I have remembered to take my vitamins/put the laundry in the dryer/walk the dog/send a thank you card/call the dentist without writing down a single thing.

That doesn't happen, but it's happening. Now. To me.

I can't imagine the fun of being able to retain the pages I read or the continued success in having random conversations without fluttering, stuttering, pausing to conjure up the right words or that thought I had right before I heard Ruth/the helicopter in the sky/the windchimes/doorbell/ringing phone.

I also feel happy without a specific reason. Stupidly so.

So it's definitely either spring fever or the thought of a full-frontal before-and-after shot of any naked bungee jumpers in my vicinity, with their newly stretched-out limbs and distorted naughty parts.

I'll figure it out eventually. I'm off to infect the big lunk with a little 'clarity'. Because he's walking around singing that stupid Britney Spears song. The new one. Because he knows I don't appreciate popular music in the way most people do.

I'm fine with that, too. (<--Not Britney Spears but also a new video on the scene this week. It's awesome).

Jacob would tell me, Just say the day was challenging, Bridget.

The day was challenging, Bridget.

Kiss principles.

The resistance to dishwashers ran long. Not only due to living in the hundred-year old castle with the sketchy wiring and sporadic successful plumbing but because they represent the final hurdle into full urban routine and domestic complacency. Now that we have set up in a new location and the house is new and the dishwasher is RIGHT THERE, I have had to make peace with the thing, and still wash fully half our stuff (thermal coffee mugs, PJ's eyeglasses) by hand, thank you very much.

I am so feral and uncontainable and the circus still runs through my bloodstream painfully so, to the point where it was really quite a brutal moment last week when Lochlan's mother saw the dishwasher flung open and pulled apart so that the fresh clean dishes could DRY already and mentioned that I could buy rinse agents to speed that along exponentially.

Oh.

Really?

Must I?

I bought the little bottle of 'jet-dry' when I was buying apples and carrots and coffee and birthday cards and I brought it home and regarded it suspiciously for several days and this morning I had to search 'adding rinse agents to dishwasher' online in order to see where exactly I had to put it and how much and what is that dial for with the numbers on the inside and let's go halfsies and see what happens and I wish someone would hold the flashlight and really...

You know what?

Life was not so hard living in a camper without a clean dish and hanging off the bar in the lights by my knees, being passed a chocolate chip cookie from a well-meaning rigger and calling it supper and really I would have balked quite magnificently at paying $7.99 for a bottle of something that makes my dishes pretty, unless I could have used to to wash down the random meals I was given as well.

So there.

If time was never on our side
then before I die I want to burn out bright

I had my head against the plaster, facing the wall. Away from the windows and the doors. I would have been smack in the corner if only the big plant stand wasn't already there. I don't rearrange furniture in order to find escape, I simply turn away from the light so you can't see my face. I close my eyes and wish myself into oblivion.

And yet I am still right there and his eyes are burning holes into my back. I can feel the cotton of my shirt burning away. Dammit all anyway, Jake. I really liked this shirt.

Why don't you just wait and see before you panic, pigalet? He asks. He is not taking me seriously, which is a good counterstance for the fact that I take myself too seriously and I am always full of expectations and abilities I don't have a hope in hell of fulfilling but then when I stop expecting so much everyone else starts and it's frustrating that when I am sick I should stop but when I am afraid I must keep going. Who made those rules and why do they need to apply to me anyway? If they work for you, great. I'm not interested. We've come to the point in the lecture of life that doesn't apply to me so I will excuse myself now and go and wait facing the black wall in the dining room with my head pressed against the cold cracked plaster and my brain screaming at me to get a grip.

Sometime during the night things were removed and replaced. Cast changes when the show isn't going well.Don't think your admonitions don't reverberate from inside my brain as well and I'm afraid the noise is never ever going to go away, drowning everything else out and the only thing that quiets it is the music and even that seems more difficult than it should be sometimes.

You don't speak so much as condemn, stacking your words against the top of my skull until I can no longer take a step and I am frozen in place by your disappointment but I know it's your own fear reflected in my eyes and you don't want to see that, ever because then you'll have nothing to hold over me.

Regret comes slowly, like the sunrise. And I only ever wanted a chair but I'll warn you, I'm still going to turn it to face this wall too because I'm not sure about you. You don't seem to have earned the right to judge my expressions and I'm incredibly angry that you think you have the right to evaluate my fears and discard the ones that shame us all. I didn't intend for that to happen, hell, I would just give them all away if I could and be like everybody else and instead I can't stand up to you in case you respond poorly so it's easier to find the disappointment in the pores of the wall and give my wishes to the stars, who will in turn absorb them until I have forgotten what they were and the noise and the dark will continue forever and ever, amen.

My patience is wearing thin, like the paint on these floorboards. I should fix this but I really don't care.

Queen of Hearts.

I feel like a giddy fool today, and not because Ben and I forgot to wish each other a Happy Valentine's Day. Give us some credit. At 4:45 am I'm lucky if I can remember to put my underpants on BEFORE my jeans, so really the extent of my skills are not social at that hour. Besides, he brought home flowers last Thursday night because he didn't want to forget the holiday and I gave him a card last night after we indulged in our favorite Chinese take-out. The sexual favors were traded all damned weekend and really, we are not lacking for romance in this house so don't worry about me. Besides. I can always go mack on my boyfriends. (Since you persist in being so awful, I'll join you. My, the water is warm in the gutter here, isn't it?)

In other news, I have eight hundred billion things to do today, I just noticed the floors are a DISASTER after rain all weekend and I am so not awake yet and really I don't care about the Radiohead album but I am patiently waiting for the Switchfoot one (GRAMMY winners now, DID YOU SEE?) and in the meantime I am...

...birdwatching.

Okay, headphones, dog that doesn't say much, absent bears, deers and cougars aside, the only interesting creatures we keep running across on the four or five long dog walks I take with the dog each day are yellow-breasted chats. Cute little fat yellow birds that live in the woods of my neighborhood. They are obnoxious, loud and adorable (now I know why the boys love me) and they're a little shy but not all that much. The dog doesn't care to eat them the way he seems to want to with hummingbirds, sparrows and finches (hawks, crows, owls, cats, bugs, please name anything else that breathes here) and I'm really proud of myself for looking up their proper names, past Oh my God, Duncan! There's one of those fat little yellow birds again! Look! Fuck! You missed it! Argh!

So there.

I will see Benjamin at supper time and the rest of the boys over the course of the day so I hope you have a lovely day. I am off to attempt to duck under, outrun and generally stay out of reach of Satan today. Because Satan can do a holiday like no one else and really he needs something else to focus his attention on, so if you have a recently-infected zombie or spare mushroom cloud or a giant man-eating bird I can distract him with, please hook me up ASAP.

Dangerous new pasttimes.

While they fight over me, I have a tendency to disappear. In my dreams at night I look for Jacob, and Ben will pull me out of the night and take what he wants from me and then leave me to fall back into the dark where every sign sends me in loops and the map is washed and faded, illegible and the way home is something reserved for after I have found what I need. It will be interesting when they do my autopsy someday. Not only will they find the pieces of my heart strung together on a tangled black cord but they will discover my shrunken pie-chart of a brain, divided by name, given to forgetting what the right hand was doing while the left hand took control.

I think I found him last night. He's been gone again for weeks and I want to yell at everyone that they are awful for living without him. Forgetting him. For pretending that life goes on because it doesn't. I am still waiting for him. When he was here the only one I missed was Cole, namely because whenever I touched Jacob I would think this was just insane, that I was finally able to not be afraid of his jealousy. But I keep waiting for Jacob to talk to me, to try and make everything better. To keep the boys in their corners and to keep me from sabotaging myself every waking moment of the day and sometimes of the night too.

In my dreams I listen to him sing. I watch his eyes as they smile or show concern when the rest of his face is stone, and I watch as they fill up when he is sad and slowly close when he is tired. Never once did I get to watch him fall asleep. He would not sleep unless I did first, and then he would lie at the ready to fight any demons that appeared in the moonlight, whether they be real or a product of my vivid and quite insane imagination.

Ben does not fight demons in the night, he sleeps on through, a novelty still from years of sleeping all day, or worse, not sleeping at all. He loves the routine of being home but he still loves to work too and I have entirely too much time where I feel the familiar sting of forbidden actions and instead I poke around the unused corners of my brain looking for dreams that are left behind.

A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future.

I heard Ben's truck because he always beeps three times when he pulls in. Otherwise he has a tendency to sneak up on me and that isn't a good idea. I scream so loudly.

He came through the door somewhat slowly. I made it down the steps and into the front hall in time to see the door open. Ben looked at me and he smiled softly. So softly. Hopefully, almost. He closed the door and turned to face me.

I have a Present for you.

He looked defiant, almost. Cynical. But hopeful was edging those both out in a spectacular finish and when I thought hard about his words, I nodded. He may not have as long a history with me, but he has Now and he'd like to keep it.

I nodded. I ran and threw myself into his arms. I did not let go. I won't let go.

(The present, not the past. You people have no imagination. I give up).

Yeah, wow. All taxes. No time to arrange the words. I'm sorry. Just take it and pretend you never read it. Thanks.

I'm praying for rain
And I'm praying for tidal waves
I wanna see the ground give way.
I wanna watch it all go down.

I have words lodged in my ears this afternoon and rain in my eyes. There is a storm building in my head and my heart has gone on an extended vacation and I am left to marvel at Benjamin's ability to throw himself into project after project, regardless of the consequences or the song and exclaim over Lochlan's actions (always the same since 1979). We are in such a weird place in that I went out of my way to not Do This and Here I Am anyway.

Fuck.

The homesickness arrives with twilight and descends over me as I turn on lamps around the house, closing curtains against the coming night, listening to the quiet hum of the furnace or the fridge if I am close by, closing windows from the evening chill and watching the clock for the inevitable crush of boys looking for dinner, for hugs and for confirmation that I did finish their taxes and yes, everything went smoothly for all because it always does, we see to that. It's too bad no one can see to smoothly on Bridget's behalf but they try and perhaps that's better than nothing at all.

When the sun went down on the show, Lochlan would wrap me into his sweater against his t-shirt and hold me until I fell asleep. If he was performing he would leave his sweater with me and I would wait just out of reach, incentive for him to throw harder and take more risks and then he would shove fistfuls of cash into our pockets and we would spend it and hide it and eat and then he would grow up not to care very much for the man and things like taxes and deductions and retirement savings. He says when he retires from art he'll go back on the road, busking across Europe for food and lodging and go out the way he came in, hungry for life in such different ways than everyone else. I have heard his dreams. They have not changed in thirty years and still I hope he realizes them. Out of all of us he is the least responsible and still the most likely to have everything he ever wanted, for it is so little.

Once the stars came out I could get my bearings again because they follow me. I would lie in the trailer tightly held in Lochlan's arms (and because it got cold at night) and I would stare out the little round window in the door at the sky. I would count the stars inside the window pane. Six. Six was my lucky number, too many for wishes but enough to get a fix on location via echoes and friendly voices. Something, anyway. The noises. Some of the temporary people who worked just one town or sometimes two scared me to pieces and Lochlan would sing me to sleep to block out everything else and I still think to this day I learned to sleep that way and no other way at all and so I wake up every hour all night every night of my life since save for nights when he doesn't leave, when he stays with us and helps to fend off the ghosts and save what's left of my soul in exchange for my savage little bottomless needs.

He does this without complaint, and without effort, as he always has, tucking me under his wing or pushing me out of reach when he suits up in his armor to take out the fastest bikes, the ones I'm not allowed on. Fire on wheels, the ones that function as his words when words don't come and he needs to escape or process how we managed to arrive at this place without benefit of a map or spoken hint of direction from a well-meaning passerby. Things were so amazingly simple then and he took it for granted and decided it might be better to set free what you love.

I came back though, didn't I?

Just not in the manner he was hoping for. Or maybe his carnival sentimentalities will always extend to being able to easily disengage from his heartstrings and step into the flames and I am in denial that he loves me at all. Except that I know it isn't true. He does, he just has spent so long telling himself he doesn't that he's no longer sure if he should believe his heart or his mind.

His mind plays tricks on all of us.

I hope he gets his chance to perform on corners across the world. I hope he lives to see his dreams, namely because that's what he does. He dreams. Sort of like the way I will look up at the stars and plan my future, dismiss my fate and hope for safety in times of great risk simply because that's where my mind wanders, playing along ribbons of melody wrapped in bows from tree to tree, woven through the grass and blackened for standing too close to the fire. Always warned, always unable to hear the words that will keep me safe.

As usual.

Bridget will forever be wiping the soot from her feet and rubbing bits of ash from her forehead after being held by the fire juggler. It's all dreams just like the one in which I find a permanent cure for homesickness and this massively fluctuating heart.

Home, please.

Ooh. New Foo Fighters and Trews CDs releasing on the same day. Lets hope HMV can manage this epicness, not like it matters much, they're closing anyway and I'll have to buy my retro-media (read NOT digital) online at Amazon since there are no record stores left in this country that stock anything other than top 10 popular music and mediocre television DVD boxed sets.

But that's a rant for another day. Back to taxes. I have barricaded myself on the floor of the library with the stereo and a very good pencil sharpener and I am painstakingly working my way through the numbers, because I'm really good at it.

If I can't manage anything else in my life, at least I can manage the finances.

Go, Bridget. Big or home, at least.

You are so lost and the only thing I have ever done is try to help you and I may have gotten carried away and for that I'm sorry.

But not sorry enough to stop.

I have tried.

Real hard, hey, Caleb?

I'm not the only one, Bridget.

He is welcome in my life. There's a difference.

He changed you.

He raised me.

He should have gone to jail.

He isn't the only one.

I would arrange to remove myself from your life again but he would have to go as well, and then there is the matter of Henry. It isn't every day a man discovers he is a father. I want to be a part of things.

His life, not mine.

Both. I have a vested interest now. Maybe some things are meant to be.

And maybe Henry will grow up and learn the truth.

I hope not.

What goes around, Caleb.

Bridget I'm not trying to make your lives miserable but you push me and I have to push back. I'm making it clear that if you continue down this road someone will get hurt and I can assure you it won't be me and I'm not going to allow it to be you. Lochlan is on the hook and the only reason I don't take him down is because you have lost enough. That and recently you have been more open about admitting that you did love my brother, in spite of his issues.

I nod. Hard to believe Lochlan's destiny is on a permanent hiatus due to fate. Due to bad luck and death and angels and defective hearts and tall buildings and the roll of trick genetic dice.

He reached out and smoothed my hair away from my face. I didn't move a muscle, nor did I change my expression.

So if you're not going to move on this why not let it go?

What sort of king surrenders when he's not under siege? Remember that, princess, and don't ever try a stunt like this again.

Forsaken, in shades of red and blonde.

You will have to forgive me if I'm having a hard time keeping track of what I'm comfortable sharing and what I'm not, and if I seem remiss in being able to keep up with my usual entries instead of this journal becoming a mixing-bowl full of odds and ends. Not every week is smooth. Not every breath comes without a catch and I've really been having a hell of a time with my loyalties lately.

There, I said it.

The urge to throw myself in front of the speeding runaway train that is Caleb in order to protect Lochlan is huge. We've reached the usual impasse. A million lifetimes ago, had we had these resources at our disposal, everything would have probably turned out okay. But now there is Henry and there is no Cole and that really makes a mess of things. Throw in Ben, who doesn't want to be patient and generous all the time anymore (though he tries) and everything is heartrendingly awful.

The only thing that would move Caleb at this point would be a sudden shift in his own attitude and a newfound generosity of his own right, neither of which I see approaching any time soon. He has no reason to back down, this is better than nothing at all. Clearly there are no standards among us whatsoever. They keep saying that, as if turning around and walking away from me would be some sort of bad idea. Better than nothing? Bullshit.

And so in this house if you are afraid you get a good stiff drink and an ear to bend and then at least you aren't alone, and you have some bottled courage which at least will keep you warm for a time. That was how I knew that Lochlan had crossed the line from his weirdly uptight, logical gypsy carny mentalities to grown man afraid that everything he loves about life would disappear in short order. And while I'm at least 90% sure that wouldn't happen, I have been caught off guard by life before and barely survived. I found Lochlan sometime on Thursday afternoon with a bottle of brandy between his feet on the floor in the hallway between his bedroom and his office and now the brandy is gone but the courage stayed behind. For now.

Caleb has the nerve to stand there with his head held high. He may have become the devil but he was never the bad guy. Do you know that? Of course you don't. Lochlan has sustained this burden for his entire adult life and it's my fault but he doesn't blame me, it's not as if I could help it. I can't control anyone or how they feel. If I could things would be so vastly different but I won't say how, everyone is hurting enough. But in the beginning their roles were reversed and if that doesn't help you to understand why this is all so hard then I don't know what will.

In speaking with Batman this evening it seems as if we may not win this war after all. We can push but when push comes to shove there are risks we simply won't take and roads that we won't travel that will grow over, obscured by trees and brush so thick daylight is no longer distinguishable from night.

Night has become endless.

Special.

Lights go out and I can't be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
You've put me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead

Tax forms have arrived at your local post office, for those of you Canadians like me who get the wrong personalized form sent, for over twenty years running now. You'd think they would catch on.

RevCan's Telefile is open beginning on Valentine's Day. I don't know if I can phone it in this year with moving expenses. I hope so. I have plans for my refund that involve airplanes and expensive French dresses. Reality has plans for my refund that involve dentistry and RRSPs.

Ah, such is life when it's normal.

Except that I have Clocks stuck in my head today, and Lochlan is finally sober.

More later. The dinner hour is upon us.

Loch Pilgrim versus the world.

You know what's really awful?

No one gives Lochlan any credit at all. They should. He is underrated. Even Ben will tell you this, on a good day. Sadly this is not one of those days and so Ben has to trust me on that.

It's not an easy sell, Lochlan is three sheets to the fucking wind and belligerent as hell and I will need a lot of help to get him safely into his room because he isn't going quietly and he must, the children are already sleeping upstairs. I don't need this. Then I'm going to remove his glasses, throw a cup of cold water in his face, turn the light out and walk away.

Tomorrow I will wake him up with Ruthie's clarinet. I don't play. Maybe by then he'll have stopped rambling incoherently about having to defeat all of Bridget's evil husbands. That isn't nice and I think I have run out of patience for one evening.

He is driftwood in the water out past where you can touch bottom.

He lets me float out away from him and pulls me back gently by the hair. I am staring up at the stars, aware of the vacuum of silence brought by the saltwater in my ears. The ocean is my very own sensory deprivation tank and he is my life preserver. I close my eyes and find the dark. Triggered at will, the kind darkness, not the fearful one. The pressure in my head disappears, the pain in my lungs sets itself free and I am sleeping against the current, blinking softly in red and green. There is nothing here. Nothing at all and it is exactly what I expected to find.

His touch jolts me back into myself. The tension crawls up my skin like nerve endings on fire, bleeding me dry, weighing me down, wearing me out. I want to stay in the water until my hair breaks away and my skin slides easily off my bones, leaving a bleached white representation of what I once was, flesh, blood and heart. Nothing more, nothing less. Memories drawn in the sand to be erased by first reach of a new tide.

The night will hide my secrets and the sea will swallow them whole.

Shhhh.

To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.
~George Jean Nathan

I think maybe Caleb did have something to do with New-Jake and Keith taking their leave just now. Just around the same time that Ben decides he has had enough of Caleb altogether and when someone threatens Caleb's interpretation of the status quo he feels is fair he tends to bite back and so while I don't have a lot of faith in lawyers and orders and plans and supervision and promises and oaths and the devil on earth I do have a lot of faith in someone who knows what I am thinking and is standing on the front porch at the exact right moment that came in the form of a warning, coming back from taking Henry and Ruth to school together (UNITED FRONT DAMMIT), and I was slow to answer a question because I didn't hear Caleb and for that my arm was twisted up behind my shoulders until I was lifted almost off my feet (because it's the arm that no longer bends properly at all). There's no way in hell Lochlan could have seen that happen but he felt it and he made it to the front steps of the verandah before Caleb could force me up them and suddenly Caleb let go, deciding to head back, busy day, lots to do, thinking he can get away with things because I don't tell them.

Except for when I do.

Be after me, be before me.

Took my chances on a big jet plane,
never let them tell you that they're all the same.
The sea was red and the sky was grey,
wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today

We're standing on the beach in the dark. I'm going for composure but the best I can come up with is emotional turbulence. He's uncomfortable, clearly and I'm not sure of the reason until he tells me he doesn't like goodbyes. He was happy here. Well, up until late last night when Lochlan ran low on mettle and shoved him into the fridge door. Now there is a Jake-memory-dent in the metal but I'm telling you this boy can hold his own, shoving right back and refusing to take it any further. Mercifully it didn't ruin his perception of his time here. He's not a leader though, he is a follower and he and Keith are heading south to warmer shores for the spring, to reconnect with Stephan (Steven? I never did find out for sure) and some others that Sam knows because that is what they do. I knew for a couple weeks but I hate change. You know me.

I really like Jake because he talks nonstop and now I sort of know how everyone feels about me when I talk a lot but there are days that I won't talk at all anymore and I can't help that but Jake listened to the story of who we are and decided he liked it here and he never wanted to be any trouble but there were days when he was nothing but, and he scared me to pieces when he turned grey that one time and then we found out he was a diabetic and that's okay, I can do this, I learned how to give needles to my best friend when I was seven and I still carry fruit in my bag for her even though she died when I was twenty-eight and really Jake just needs to take the time for himself first and not ignore his health and then he can help others.

He helped to build four houses in the time he was here. That is something he can be proud of and he goes where he is needed to pitch in and they are noble men, less prone to the bullshit of excess and history and jealousy that my boys are cemented in. I can only hope that they leave some of that behind. Keith and Lochlan are friends for life I believe. Same with me and Jake. I reminded him to come back and see me and he said he'd be crazy if he didn't. He threw stones into the water and said he would miss everything about this place and us and that I was lucky and he hoped things would be better soon. Half of me wants to ask him if this is Caleb's fault because Caleb didn't like Jake at all and Caleb tends to make people go away but I refuse to let my paranoia win, for the moment.

Lochlan at least had the guts to face Jake this morning and they shook hands and thumped backs and wished each other well. There are no grudges and no resentment, only bravery and adventure and humble hopes that he finds whatever he is looking for and a reflected wish back for Lochlan because all he demonstrated in their time here is that he is one conflicted, miserable individual. It isn't fair, and they know that, but it's simply what they saw. Perhaps if they had made it to the end of a year they would have seen the glorious summer-boy who blooms in the heat and seems to shed his weight like a heavy coat when the nights are warm. Perhaps another time, indeed. And Lochlan turned down Jake's attempts to repay him for the steel-toed boots Lochlan bought for him after discovering he was on building sites without them. Jake doesn't have a dime and didn't want one either but safety is paramount. So I don't think there's anything but concern between them. Really I don't.

Now it is down to this, we've wrapped up the post-mortem on the boys and really though Jake and Ben got along very well (JESUS do you know how hard it is to write in past-tense? I don't do this well, I'm sorry), Ben was pretty much absent because he's in demand and busy working, working all the time and so it was almost a treat when they could spend time together and so I was left in charge of Jake because when he wasn't on site he was here hanging out with me, talking my ears off and I didn't mind so much because I think I only heard about a quarter of what he said.

Jake knows I'm not good at goodbyes either. He knows I'll probably spend the rest of the day locked in the library and he knows Lochlan is conflicted but harmless and he knows we'll work with the collective and shift it and change it and that he is welcome if he ever comes back. I throw myself into his arms for a long hug and he says he will come back, it's a promise.

I'm not so good with promises. I am suspicious but hopeful nonetheless. It is hard to let go. He doesn't for a few more minutes and I am grateful.

Dalton and Duncan are waiting for us on the path with the big flashlight. We head back up to the house in single file and I wrap my sweater around my ribs tightly against the wind. The roar of the waves precludes conversation up here. I am still coughing, still miserable and Duncan takes my hand, pulling me safely over the slippery places where the spray has frozen on the rocks and it's easy enough to emerge at the top of the hill in relative safety and be able to excuse the tears as rain. Oh yes it is.

RIP White Stripes and other strange things about today.

The cold from hell continues. The light is too bright, the dark is too black. Everything hurts. My boots are buttoned too tightly, my collar is too high, my coat is too warm, my rings are too sharp, the end of my nose is bright pink or so they tell me, I don't know since my eyes are too watery-bloodshot to see anything. My throat hurts too much. I'd like to be cut out of my clothes at which point I will fall forward onto my face on the bed and sleep without waking until I am better.

No? What do you mean 'No'?

And frankly Nyquil comas seem to last from eleven until three a.m. sharp and then sorry, kid, you're on your own.

I was going to dip into the mailbag. If you'll recall, in this post I asked what you wanted me to write about and frankly, I'm sorely disappointed. I can actually grant very little of the words you want. Mostly you want a voyeuristic look into Ben's life. And some of the others too and this isn't acceptable, clearly because if the boys wanted you to see these things they'd have their own blogs.

I can see the blog titles now in my head and I can't even share those! And they're IMAGINARY!

But I can't do anything now because Jake is singing Africa. Suddenly I'm well aware I posted that sentence a few years ago (post now removed) which means once again, head=explode. He thinks he's harmless. I'll tell you he's harmless. It's just dumb little things like this that chip away at my soul. This and the cold from hell. Literally. I got it from Caleb because you know, little girls can't keep their hands out of the fire even after being told.

Groundhog day eve.

(Firstly: Is If I Die Tomorrow REALLY by Motley Crue? It doesn't seem like one of their songs at all.)

Good morning.

February is Heart Month. The grass on the lawn is still green and the devil still seems to have a key to my house.

Also? I have a very bad cold.

Caleb is winning the war and sadly right this second I don't care, preferring to wish away the stabbing pain behind my left eye. It always hurts behind my left eye during flight landings and when I swim underwater too far below the surface. I'm guessing any minute now my head will explode in a big riot of confetti consisting of miserable blog paragraphs, hair metal lyrics, brightly-lit LEDs, the nutritional breakdown of Lucky Charms and still photographs of Tom Hardy.

Or something ridiculously similar.

Anyway, Caleb thinks it's exceedingly amazing that I never spent a dime of his money. I don't think he thought it would accumulate either. He yelled this at me this morning the second we returned from taking the children to school and his voice cracked to bits all through it and I looked up sharply and wondered how he got sick. Satan doesn't get sick, hell, Satan can leap through a tornado and still come out the other side looking like a young Montgomery Clift only far hotter and more contemporary.

Words? I didn't pay attention to his words. I told you I am sick.

Everyone is sick and you can't wage a war when you're reaching for kleenex and constantly checking out on Nyquil.

Or maybe you can. Ben calls it the war of motherfucking indifference in that for now it's on hiatus, and we will get back to it as soon as our energies return. Of course, lately we seem to recoup all of our energies just in time for a new round of germs to hit the house but that seems to be par for the course when you move from one city to another. At least for the first few years.

So, yeah. That's pretty much the extent of my comprehension level today. The lawyers have the day off, the stereo is silent, the children are the only healthy people in the whole house and for the stalkers who must.record. every. detail, I did spend a whole day with Ben's old iphone and sadly between iTunes still professing its hatred for me and the last iOS update that did something to his battery, I decided ringtones I can hear easily and a battery life greater than 30% when I head out the door in the morning needed to win out over playing Grimm and the possibility of a GPS that actually tells me were to turn. Until Thursday night, when I will wish madly for the GPS, that is. But then again, what good is that GPS when 4.2.1 broke the battery on the phone (conspiracy....YES) and I'm rambling.

Clearly I'm delirious and the Nyquil is finally wearing off so I think I'll just take more and go back to bed. Wake me when the fight is back on. Or when he goes home, because his son is sitting in a grade four classroom up the road coloring in a Haida killer whale, so really Caleb can go back to whatever hole he crawled out of don't you think?

I'm going to crawl back in mine.

(But not before Daniel makes me point out that YOU TOO need a designer hammer for the low low price of $38. What the fuck. Haha. Goodnight.)