Not metal.

Drive out with the sun in your eyes
You wasted my time
It's true, it's true

My god, don't you hold out your hand
I called off my plans
I counted on you, on you

Got lost in the places I've been
I should go out with my friends
I'd go tonight but I know you'll be there too, there too

For me, this bottle of wine
Is to slow down my mind
And forget the things that I knew, I knew

And if you're ever left with any doubt
What you live with and what you'll do without
I'm only sorry that it took so long to figure out

I can totally picture Jacob singing songs by Band of Horses.

Not sure if that makes me very happy or really very sad.

So nice to see your face again
Tell me how long has it been
Since you've been here
(Since you've been here)
You look so different than before
You're still the person I adore
Frozen with fear
All out of love but I take it from the past
All out of words cause I'm sure it'll never last

I've been saving these last words for one last miracle
But now I'm not sure
I can't save you if you don't let me
You just get me like I've never been gotten before

Maybe it's a bitter wind
That chilled from the pacific rim
That brought you this way
(Brought you my way)
Do not make me think of him
The way he touched your fragile skin
That haunts me every day
I'm out of love but I can't forget the past
I'm out of words but I'm sure it'll never last

Rarely do I manage to be listening to music that holds the theme for my week. Usually they're completely unrelated but I bend them to my will. Usually my shortage of words results in an overabundance of emotions and actions that speak for me but this time we've hit the wall and god, did it ever hurt. Smashed into it face-first, lost a few teeth and came away with a bloodied nose and a bruised brow.

So if you need me I'll be in the corner nursing my wounds and my busted ego.

When I can't breathe, I make lists.

• Finding sea glass.
• watching the tide come in.
• cotton candy. Blue. Always blue.
• butterflies landing on the hood of my jacket.
• having a ring to twirl.
• chocolate chip cookie dough.
• sunset.
• lilacs and fresh cut grass.
• bubbles.
• the burn of saltwater on superficial wounds.
• Edward Gorey.
• music. Never turn it off or down.
• licking your fingers after ribs or corn on the cob.
• lobster and scallops, eaten with a silver fork, outdoors in the wind.
  
• new earrings.
• a book so good you can't put it down.
• rainstorms and sun showers.
• a light breeze.
  
• stacks of new fun mail.
• a hot cup of very good coffee.
• playing card games in wet bathing suits.
• Someone else making dinner.
  
• Holding a baby/helping the littles.
• A clean quilt on a freshly-made bed.
• driving down the highway with all the windows open.
• broken stained glass.
• a roaring fire on a cool night.
• frog songs.
• snoring dogs.
• sleepy men.
  
• bad pictures, taken in excitement.
• the audible cue of a key in the front door lock or roar of an approaching motorcycle/truck/boat.
• long uninvited hugs.
• peace.
• a deep breath.
• seedy carnivals.
  
• light tans.
• braids.
• a crossed-off list.
• I love you, said with a smile.
  

Stalemates. (Ha, NOT A PUN but should have been.)

I'm working up a sweat today. It's Monday, tomorrow will be four weeks since we moved in so I thought I would change all the beds, scrub all the bathrooms and generally scour the house once again from top to bottom. I think I bit off more than I can chew living here. It's a very very big house. Three times the size of the last one, I think. Add to that the five loads of laundry from skipping two days doing it and I've hardly had a moment. I'm upbeat, I'm busy and productive, I am healthy today. Or for now anyway.

Which is good, the boys are outside standing around in the rain arguing about exactly how much of a polyamoric, indulgent nightmare I have become and who is going to walk away from that first. I don't expect that they'll get anywhere and frankly, just to piss EVERYONE off I'm going to throw in here that an angry, passionate guy in soaking wet clothes is just about the best thing ever, and there's three of them out there.

Yes I said three.

Nevermind the ghosts, I don't think they count. Ghosts aren't affected by rain.

Morning glory.

I am the crisis
I am the bitter end
I'm gonna gun this down
I am divided
I am the razor edge
there is no easy now

The final birthday party was a smashing success and I'm done for a little bit. Until July, when Henry turns nine and we go to the fair and then have a cake and spaghetti fest here at home. That will be fun. Even with the wine. I had just enough wine for a light buzz and a complete eradication of any sort of anxiety or judgements leveled. Just enough wine to make sure everyone knew exactly what I think of their opinions and their feelings. Which is pure and total acceptance. It's a dance, you see, we have cards and it's very well-choreographed and the music never stops but thankfully it's only music I like so I feel at home. Music keeps Bridget's brain quiet, you see, and the strong arms that are always available keep the fluttering fingers to a minimum.

Everyone went home at a decent hour, and I cleaned up the kitchen while Ben tackled the rest of the house and then we emptied the time machine together, settled in to watch a movie with Lochlan and then went to bed late after spooking ourselves out with the total absolute stillness of the woods in front of the house, standing very still, listening to the creatures that were out there while we stood exposed in the light of the verandah, relative safety in the form of constructed dwellings versus the wild.

Snort.

Wine puts me out cold when I pass the buzz and work my way back to vaguely tired and dehydrated and so I was asleep in seconds after wondering who left the nightlight on in the big bathroom down the hall from our room. I woke up at five, pressed against the heat and covered in sweat and I turned onto my other side to press against the cold, dropping my body temperature back down to comfortable, pulling the quilts up over my shoulders, finding that perfect place for my head against Ben's chest and remaining there dozing hard until eight, when the dog pawed the bottom of the bed wanting his walk, and Bridget does the bright early morning walks while Ben does the scary dark night ones.

I climbed down to the bottom of the bed and found my clothes from the previous night and put them on, made a face, and the dog followed me all the way down to the front door where his leash hangs and we stepped out into a pretty nice day. Cool, and cloudy, quiet and still, save for the rolling of the gentle ocean waves under the fog.

Today the plans are for a day hike to another new waterfall and most likely a whole lot of fallout from the boys for writing about the things I do here because confirmations about certain aspects of my life within the collective are off limits, except after wine.

There is no wine today, however, and so the secrets once again go into my handbag to be carried around with my giant Toki Doki keyring and my blackberry. Have a good one.

The holy triad and I'm drunk.

Nice. They're sitting here making jokes about drunk princesses what she will do and I don't even care. I do care about good punctuation, however, so I'm making sure that I'm not spelling things wrong. What I don't care about also would be what people think of the fact that I sleepw ith who I want to. Whatever, fuck off. I'm not your problem. And aren't you lucky for that.

Not here for the ability to make good conversation.

I stood on the balcony this morning overlooking the grounds and the ocean beyond. The water was the most beautiful shade of teal black I have ever seen. The fog was tight and invasive and it was freezing but I stood there anyway and let the rain ruin me. My scarlet slip was glued to my skin, my hair was pressed to my scalp and stuck to my back and I shivered so hard I wondered if I would fall over but I didn't move. Not an inch. Not a deep breath. I just let it take me in and I fell asleep with my eyes open, dreaming of shipwrecks and sea monsters and hard lives carried out along the edge of the unforgiving waters.

Jesus Christ.

Oh, that's a Jacob-remark if ever there was one but it came from Lochlan and I rolled my eyes. He came out with a blanket and put it around my shoulders but I didn't reach for it and so it slid to the floor. I shook my head once and he didn't catch it. Don't interrupt me, I'm escaping right now and I don't want you here but instead he continued to gently berate me only I couldn't hear a word for the competing roar of the surf against the steady downpour of the rain. Drowning in his words. Too small to touch bottom, too paralyzed to do anything about it. I swallow all of the water until the lights go out and everything is black.

This is how I die.

They don't like that and Lochlan could read the words in my eyes because I'm a billboard, everything I think is always clearly visible, just without context or timestamps and so he panicked and took me by the shoulders, turning me away from the water, waiting for my eyes to focus from nothing to his strawberry curls and soft blue eyes. Again with the gentle smiles, the oh my God she is so fucked up why are we persisting in letting her have this independence when she doesn't even know enough to stay out of the rain? look that leaves me happy he is as unsure and anxious and uncomfortable as I am because misery loves company. She adores it and invites it to dance. She bathes in it and kisses it and sleeps with it and dreams about it.

I shook my head again. Blue lips. Wild thoughts. Behave, princess, or they'll take you away from this.

Sorry, what?

What in the hell are you doing?

Thinking.

Can't you think where it's warm?

No?

Bridget, stop it.

Stop what?

This.

If you don't love me, go away. This is what I do.

No, it isn't.

Then you tell me my profession.

You write.

Ha.

Oh fuck off.

I haven't written anything worth reading in forever.

You've been under stress.

A low grade, slow-moving stress. I should be able to outwrite it.

Not when everything is new.

Wait, you're not supposed to be on my side, Lochlan.

I'm not used to being the rescuer.

Just the ruiner.

What?

Nothing.

Is it safe to leave you alone?

Never.

Bridge-

I'm fine. Really. I'm going to have a shower and get dressed and make coffee. Seriously. I'm fine.

You sure?

Yes.

I love you.

I love you too.

Bridget?

What?

What were you really doing?

Just enjoying the view. I missed the water.

Okay, but stay warm and dry to do it. You're going to worry Ben.

Sorry.

It's okay. See you in a bit.

Fine.

He stood there for a few more minutes. Not an awkward silence, just staring openly. I know what I looked like because once he was gone and had closed the door behind him, I went straight into my bathroom to run a hot shower and I met my reflection in the mirror halfway into the room.

Oh.

Lord.

Wow.

I wasn't the only one enjoying the view.

Caleb was sitting in his car in the driveway, with a perfect line of sight to my balcony.

The Dying Tree.

They cover the grass out here, a carpet of dried ivory paper cut out to resemble oak and sometimes maple leaves. Faded from the sun and curled by rain they scatter and come to rest again, sometimes face up so that you can discern different words or phrases, still, if you are very lucky. Otherwise you are forced to decipher what is carved into the bark, descriptions so breathtaking you fall to your knees, sermons and thought transcribed with emotion so thick your eyes water and you make excuses for the lump in your throat, maybe a cough, perhaps just clearing it. It wouldn't be noted, everyone has the same reaction to Jacob's reading tree.

Only Jacob's tree is dying and I didn't expect to come to the clearing and find it exposed to the sun, bare branches with all of the words stripped away so brutally but so naturally too. Because that's what death is, just one more part of life, one more thing we find so different and so sudden. Surprising. Final.

If you need me, I've gone home to get a basket so I can collect all of his leaves. I don't want them to blow away. The wind off the water can be fierce.

Influence.

The earth is MOVING.

Henry comes home from school now and eats five cookies and then goes downstairs and pounds away on the drums for forty minutes every day.

He does not have a light touch. Granted, he is the tallest, heaviest eight-year-old I have ever met so maybe that was to be expected. It's pretty cool actually. He asked me last night if he could live at home for a while after college so he and his band can 'get off the ground without starving to death.'

Next week I'm expecting him to grow a beard sometime between recess and his 8:30 pm bedtime.

Cole would have been so proud, like we all are. My kids are awesome.

Princess crossing.

Another province, another driver's license, and this time my height clocks in at a staggering 1.6 metres.

Meters? I still haven't memorized the centimetres one from the last province. Or inches for that matter.

And for the record, they still got it wrong. Right across the country now. She ASKED me how tall I was and I told her and once again I think my shoes got factored in..oh well.

I'll take it. I didn't think they were going to give me any licence here for a moment or two. I got a little road safety quiz (which they didn't give to Ben, since I think they were just totally intimidated by him and decided to punish me, since before they would even put my changes through I was sent home for my marriage license.) and I completely blew one question, but they passed me anyway because it would be the right answer for everything east of here.

I left with my yellow temporary papers, so there. And I'm going to hold them up and wave them in the air and you might even see them this time! That's how tall I am now, folks.