Here I Am. Find Me.

Here I am, queer and bent but never broken.

I’m posting this morning because I still believe in Love, and hope somehow that love will find me here. It’s not the most romantic way to meet on WordPress but what does that matter if this is our vehicle to Love? Looking for my soft place to fall. Looking for my comfy couch. Again not the most romantic vision, but bare with me:

I’m a Libra so I’m all about beauty as Venus is Libra’s North Star, but I’m now 63, and though a beautiful post modern couch still thrills my eyes, it’s hard on my bum!

What I really want to sit on is a big comfy corduroy couch, the kind of couches our dads loved, where comfort was chosen over form.

This is where I’m at now in my vision for my romantic future. Oysters and champagne (Cristal, bien sure!) are delicious and fun but not sustaining.

I’m looking for someone to walk in the park with me and my puppy Lucille, holding hands together and soaking up the beauty. I want us to cook meals together, dancing to old school music and laughing as we regale each other with stories from our day.

I want for the first time to truly be naked with someone and have her know my soul, as I will know hers. I want to go to the movies (When it feels safe to go back to the movies) and be held and share my popcorn and feel finally that I’m exactly where I need to be which is with my Bashert, my soulmate, my soft place to fall.

I tend to be attracted to soft butches and all along the spectrum until hard butch (not certain that hard butch is actually a thing but I’m sure you all know what I mean).

If you feel like this might be you, if something in my post resonates with you, please as the song says ‘Take A Chance On Me.’

Love The One You’re With

Lucille has spent many nights during this pandemic pondering the meaning of life and here is her answer: Life is about loving the one you’re with, because if you can’t be with the one you love, you must love the one you’re with. Go now and show the one you’re with some love.

Your daily view of Lu.

A Joke For Your Monday Morning

My father Joe Greenbaum, loved to tell long convoluted ridiculous jokes. We used to regale each other every week with more and more outrageous jokes. I think he’d love this one.

There was this little boy about 10 years old walking down the sidewalk dragging a flattened frog on a string behind him. He walked up to a whore house and knocked on the door. When the Madam answered, she saw the little boy and asked what he wanted. He said, “I want to have sex with one of the …Read Morewomen inside. I have the money and I’m not leaving until I do.” The Madam figured, why not, so she told him to come in. Once in, she told him to pick any of the girls he liked. He asked, “Do any of the girls have any diseases?” Of course, the Madam said no. He said,”I heard all the men talking about having to get shots after making it with Amber. THAT’S the girl I want!” Since the little boy was so adamant and had the money to pay for it, the Madam told him to go to the first room on the right. He headed down the hall dragging the squashed frog behind him. Ten minutes later he came back, still dragging the frog, paid the Madam, and headed out the door. The Madam stopped him and asked, “Why did you pick the only girl in the place with a disease, instead of one of the others?” He said, “Well, if you must know, tonight when I get home, my parents are going out to a restaurant to eat, leaving me at home with my baby-sitter. After they leave, my baby-sitter will have sex with me because she just happens to be very fond of little boys. She will get the disease that I just caught. When Mom and Dad get back, Dad will take the baby-sitter home. On the way, he’ll jump the baby-sitter’s bones, and he’ll catch the disease. Then when Dad gets home from the baby-sitters, he and Mom will go to bed and have sex, and Mom will catch it. In the morning when Dad goes to work, the Milkman will deliver the milk, have a quickie with Mom and catch the disease, because that damn mailman is the son-of-a-bi*ch who ran over my FROG!”

Laughter Heals My Locked Up Heart.

Feeling a little fucked up and a lot fragile today and when I feel like this the best tonic for me is laughter. If you are feeling a little bit fucked and a lot fragile, hopefully this will help you as well.

Grateful, Part Two

The second thing I’m grateful for today is this-I don’t care about straightening my hair.

I have always felt weird and wrong and ugly but the one thing I knew I had, actually the only thing I knew I had that was remotely lovely was my hair.

My natural hair was brown and curly but it was thick, so I went once a week to my hairdresser where he would blowdry the shit out of it. I would then go to my colourist, douse it with bleach and then became if not pretty, then pretty-ish.

I did not know then that I was born with Moebius Syndrome, making my speech and mouth different than the norm, I just knew I was fatally formed.

I hid behind my hair for years. Rain became my kryptonite as the dampness would turn my blowout into frizz. I rarely went out in the rain and if I did I wore a plastic rain bonnet or a hoodie to protect my hair and I felt constantly enslaved by the weather. I could never allow myself to enjoy the freedom of a slow walk in the warm rain.

It has taken me a few decades and thousands of hours of personal growth work, but today I stand proudly shorn.

I feel free for the first time in my adult life. Finally I’m looking not outward for validation but inward to my own self.

I’m so grateful I’ve healed myself to get here, especially now in these pandemic times where there are no hairdressers in sight.

I am the only one who can give me the love, the benediction I need to believe in myself and in my beauty.

To quote Lady Gaga: ‘I’m beautiful in my way, ‘cause God makes no mistakes, I’m on the right track baby, I was born this way.’

Go For A Walk.

Lucille told me that while she was happy to chill at home, the ennui was starting to fill her consciousness with anxiety so a walk was needed. I completely agreed so off we went and found these chalk drawings on our way. Lucille has always practiced social distancing with other dogs and I have basically done the same with people so we are golden. Lucille has asked me to tell everyone to be careful out there, but go out for a walk. It will make you feel better.

We Can Do Hard Things.

Different day, same position. Sometimes it takes us humans great effort to stay perfectly still and present, but for Lucille it just comes effortlessly.
Be like Lucille. The world is offering us all a time to reset, reflect and be still. Stay in your lane, stay in your home, stay in your body, and stay safe. We can collectively do hard things and if we do this, we will literally be saving our world.

Your daily View of Lu.

Be Like Lucille

There is nothing to do now but breathe, sleep and dream of a better world. Be like Lucille, stay home. You’ll be saving lives, perhaps even your own.

Your daily view of Lu.

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Another #selfpromotionsaturday! Here is another excerpt from my book ‘Perfectly Flawed’ written under the pseudonym Barrett Rose Baum, available now on Amazon.ca or Balboa.press.

I wrote ‘Nantucket’ as an aspirational poem, my version of a vision board.

Nantucket

Darling:

long have I waited

breath by breath

for your arrival.

I must be

honest here

my love,

there were times

days//months//years

when I thought you

would never appear,

yet here you are

fully embodied,

present and complete.

The totality of your love

forces me to acknowledge

slowly, ever so slowly,

that I am deserving

of kindness and

a place in this world.

I love getting lost

in the deep of you,

feeling joined in a

way I’ve never felt

before, my own

unified theory.

Memories of Nantucket,

the winter of our content,

searching for sea glass

on the frozen beach, your

sturdy arms protecting

me from the harsh wind

that blew sand into

our eyes, and mouth,

and hair.

I remember how we

ran together

into a cove,

seeking shelter from

a sudden snowstorm.

I kissed the nape

of your neck,

your skin, oh your skin,

tasting so sweet,

a heady mixture of

pure maple syrup,

along with your own

dusky pheromones,

making your scent

so potent,

I could find you

in the dark.

Despite the dampness

of the wet sand,

I felt a sense of

warmth infuse

my body,

a knowing that

you will be here,

a heart without question,

someone to watch

over me.

Klove

.

the rainiest day

the rainiest day

rain rain cold rain

making my heart hurt

making my bones ache

making my tears freeze

as they trickle

down my face

on this dreary

thursday morning.

i’m taking a

shortcut through

the rain soaked field

that’s adjacent to

my apartment building,

returning the

milk that has

soured before

it’s stamped

expiry date.

i’m feeling just

like that

bottle of milk,

curdled

before my time.

the rain is now

coming down harder

and harder.

i just wish

i still had

had my car

so that i

could drive

to the store

but my car

was lost

along with my

girlfriend and

all hopes of safety

and permanence.

it’s raining down

like cats and dogs.

where does the idiom

‘raining cats and dogs’

come from anyway?

i wish it was

actually raining cats

and dogs right now

for i would scoop up

a little bedraggled

puppy and place her

under my raincoat

close to my heart,

where she could

snuggle up

close to

my body, her body

understanding that

finally against all odds,

she has been

saved.

klove

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My Latest Art/Heart Painting.

The Lesbian Chronicles

I’m lying on my couch with a bag of frozen beans (organic, of course) placed strategically on top of my right knee and wondering why , on this perfect Valentine’s Day eve that I am without my Beloved, still.

 

Like really? After all this time and all the therapy (hours of talking, Rolfing, and sobbing) all the wishing (on four leaf clovers, on falling stars, and on the magic 8 ball) and still — she is not here.

 Perhaps it’s that I cheated with the four leaf clover, it was really a three leaf clover that I superglued with a separate clover. (My fingers as well, Renaissance woman I am not!)

 Now what about this folklore of when you are least expecting, or not looking love will appear?  Well my friends, I take umbrage with that particular tale because:

1. I am a Libra and we Libra chickies are never quite happy unless we are in love.
2. I am a romantic. (Perhaps 2 should be an addendum to 1.)
3. I am desperate (see 1) but also extremely picky and picky trumps desperate every time.

 Which brings me back to this morning and why I have a bag of frozen veggies on my knee. Lucille, my spritely puppy and I were in the park today for a long long time. She is new-ish, and I Jew-ish, but we both love being in nature and both went a little overboard today. (She is lying next to me as I write this blog, conked out.)

 So I guess I will take a lavender and Epsom salt bath, and listen to some old slow jazz and just be grateful for what I do have: my daughter, my puppy, my friends who love me even so, and send my wish for love up to the stars.

The Lesbian Chronicles: You Reap What You Sow.

I am co-habiting here in Montréal with my Mother due to a confluence of events much too complex to write about today, better saved for that proverbial rainy day blog.

Here is my mini version:

Years ago in a different time and place I was a practicing Buddhist. When the day arrived for my naming ceremony I felt quite hopeful, as I was attempting to rename myself from my given name of Rhona and my adopted name of Katharine to something else altogether.

I entered the temple and waited patiently for my turn, and hoped the Buddhist Name Goddess would be kind. My teacher gave me a blessing and named me ‘Sawjack’. I asked my teacher what my name meant and was told ‘You reap what you sow’. (This is where you insert that creepy music from the movie ‘It’ when the clown is about to do something very very bad.) At that time I didn’t understand the ramifications of reaping what you sow, today I most definitely do.

I have up until recently chosen only powerful but cruel women. Truth be told, their cruelty turned me on, but only in limited quantities. When they acted according to their character, I demanded that they treat me with kindness instead of cruelty.

“How did that work for you?” You might ask. “Not so well!” I answer. So here I am, living in Montreal with my cruel and powerful mother and certainly reaping what I have sowed which to be honest, is mostly manure.

C’est la vie! I have learned a lot and continue to do so. I am one of those irritatingly optimistic people who believe what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

‘Till next time,

K.A.L.

Shadows And Light

Recently  I made a video of myself reading one of my stories and frankly I was quite dismayed. I wasn’t sure who I was looking at, certainly this person on the video did not match up with the image I have of myself.

This was the first time that I had ever seen myself on video and frankly I was more than a little disturbed.  I did not like at all how I looked, or more specifically how I spoke. In still photography I look fine, because I can smile like everyone else, I’m just not able to smile with my teeth showing. On video however, I can see that when I speak I certainly do not speak as most people do.

I have Moebius Syndrome, or Moebius has me. Regardless of the how or by whom, having Moebius means that some muscles in my tongue do not function, forcing me to speak differently than the norm.

In my community which includes healers and therapists; there is a movement to look toward the light, believing that if you are in the vortex of positivity you will be rewarded with all the riches, healing and love that you have been longing for.

I have toyed with these concepts for a while and find them lacking. Here is why –

If I can’t make peace with my flawed mouth then I will have failed and the kingdom of heaven will then be permanently closed.

In my opinion however, this concept of praying away the shadow only forces the shadow deeper underground. I  am a perfectionist. I can never not be one, perfectionism is written in code into my DNA.

Now how can I make peace with not looking perfect?  I can’t. What I can do is this. I can finally make peace with never being normal and make peace with not looking nor sounding like Joni Mitchell (my heroine). Then paradoxically I can relax into me, because I just gave myself permission to love and accept my unyielding perfectionist self.

So I am loving the hater part of me instead of shaming the hater part of me into submission and into the shadows where she has lain waiting, always waiting to find another opportunity for self abasement.

Accepting the all of me just as I am: the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Forgiveness

 

Definition of Forgive

1: to give up resentment

2: to grant relief from payment

3: to cease to feel resentment

I have had such difficulty writing this piece. I wanted to give all of you something perfect and shiny and bright. I wanted to wrap up my story with silver ribbon and a blue box from Tiffany’s.

Instead you are getting my truth which is not wrapped with a bow but in yesterday’s newspaper, and I didn’t even use the cartoon section for the wrapping, but the obits.

The greatest sorrow of my life has been my relationship with my mother. My first days of life were spent in an incubator in the ICU department of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montréal, where my mother abandoned me for a business trip with my father to Québec City –

” Why would I have stayed with you in the hospital? said my mother
The nurses were there!”

Late this summer when I told my mother I needed to stay with her for two months due to my untimely exit from the apartment I had shared with my now ex – partner Lorraine, her response was less than enthusiastic. I ignored her non response, and proceeded to annihilate what was left of my fantasy mother by asking her to come back with me to Toronto so that she could help me deal with the unpleasantness brought on by my exit from my aforementioned apartment.

“You know I’m not good with that stuff!” said my mom.
“Mommy!!! I need you!! I need you now!!!!” said desperate me

“I need you mommy!” was now looped through my brain and played non stop throughout my day, like an itchy ear worm.

I couldn’t stop myself. I understood intellectually that I did not win the good mother lottery prize but emotionally I was still just four years old, begging my mommy to come to my tea party. She never came and my Barbie’s had to drink their tea with just Ken and me for company.

In my desperation I called a psychic I saw advertised on my Facebook feed. Rachel told me I needed to forgive my mother before I can move forward. Really? This is what I paid five dollars for? ( It was a special offer.)

How do I forgive? According to the Miriam Webster – I need to stop feeling anger toward the person who wronged me.

I have tried repeatedly to do just that. I really have. I have gone to therapy for years with hopes that I could come to some type of peace with my mother. I have talked incessantly about my situation with Jodee, my long time therapist. I thought I was making slow but steady progress, but in Montréal all healing went to hell in a hand basket. I felt unhinged, as if I literally was coming apart. I was desperate for my mother to take my face in her hands and say –

” Don’t worry Katharine, I got you”

I so wanted my mother to create a safe space for me in Montréal, even though that had never happened on the thousand trips I had made to Montréal previously. I didn’t think I was asking for much, just a drawer to put my clothes in, and an acknowledgment that this was indeed a scary and difficult time for me.

As a child, I did not enjoy Halloween, as dressing up in costume made me anxious. I lived with parents that put on masks every day when they went outside our home. Just like the parents who caution their children to use their inside voices during school and synagogue; my parents used their inside face with me, and their outside face with others. The mask they showed to others was so radically different than the one they showed to me at home, that I am still disturbed by masks of any kind, knowing what danger can lurk beneath.

I tried this time, I really tried to make believe that I could calm this frightened fragmented inner child of mine, but I, like my mother before me, threw baby Katharine out to the wolves. I could not console her and I let her rage at being abandoned take me over.

I so wanted my mother to come to my rescue, just this once.

I kept on repeating:

” Mom, you can redeem yourself for all the damage that you have done before, all I ask is that you create a safe place here for me to rest and recoup until my new apartment becomes available in November.”

And each time I begged and each time I pleaded, I lost a little bit of my soul and a lot of my dignity but I could not help myself, so desperate was I to be seen. To make matters worse, as a retired psychotherapist, I understood intellectually that my mother was not ever going to give me what I needed, and in fact took pleasure in seeing her former jappy princess daughter reduced to sleeping on her not so comfy couch, but I was not able to make my brain meet my heart.

Weeks passed in this way, and then my birthday happened, or didn’t happen, to be more accurate.

I had spent the weekend before my birthday celebrating with my close friend Marcus and his family. Before meeting Marcus I had an idea of what familial love should feel like, but did not have a body memory to go with it. Thanks to Marcus and his family, I have experienced love as a felt sense. To celebrate my birthday, they surprised me with a weekend at the splendid Hovey Manor, located in the Eastern Townships.

When I came back I made the mistake of sharing my joy with my mother. If any of you here tonight are familiar with the reality TV show Survivor, whenever the winner of a reward challenge gloats about her reward, the people left behind become angry. I came home so happy, I forget my own rule about keeping my joy contained so as not to risk my mother’s wrath.

Too late.

Now I was to be punished, and since the punishment level was in line with my joy, the punishment was extreme. My mother decided to banish me from her kingdom which meant that my birthday would not be acknowledged.

No birthday cake. No birthday card.

” But I’m sixty, Mommy!! See me! Celebrate me!”

And my shame at my bottomless need to be seen by her, obfuscated my otherwise sound judgment.

And still.. and still.

I’m now back in Toronto, safely ensconced in my new cozy apartment. Every morning before I get out of bed, and every night before I go to sleep, this agnostic Jew prays to the Divine Mother and my Guardian Angels and anyone else I can think of, saying my prayers out loud because I don’t want to take any chances on any unseen helpers not hearing my forgiveness plea.

“I release you mother, and the hold you have on my heart. I am going to do my best to stop blaming you for not being the mother I so desperately wanted, and to try my best to live a life unencumbered by my old friends shame and blame. Please dear Mother God send me your love and healing and if you’re feeling really generous, please send me my Beloved. I am ready to receive her now!”

Hopefully these prayers will help me this month when Chanukah comes around, so that when I light my Chanukah candles sans Maman, I can take comfort in knowing that like the Maccabees before me, I have won the battle even though I have lost the war.

Lifeboat

Lifeboat

Feel your rage

Feel your grief

Feel your joy

Feel everything

Don’t outsource your feels
Don’t send your
little wounded child out
to find true love.

Hold on to her like
she’s the Titanic
and you are the only lifeboat.

Trust your own heart
let go of everything
all the detritus
all the clutter
that has busied
your heart
for the past
one hundred lifetimes

You are safe now
You are saved now
Welcome home.

KAL

Love Is Who I Am

Love Is Who I Am

‘You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.’ Brene Brown

I have always been that hustler, that hooker, that looker, offering up my body as a token of my admiration, beseeching her to love me through my trifecta of tools: shame, blame and manipulation, with a soupçon of fairy dust thrown in for good measure.

Always dancing as fast as I can, all the while singing the same refrain stuck on repeat, “Please love me. Please fill me. Please heal me. Never leave me. I will do anything and everything to become the one you need. I shall make your every wish come true.”

Hoping always that ephemeral, elusive feeling of safety would land on my right shoulder like a butterfly’s kiss, like a benediction, like a blessing.

But that was yesterday. After a lifetime of yesterdays, on this early November morning I can walk straight into my story, thankful to proclaim my own truth, which is this:

I am worthy of love. I am inherently loveable. I did not need to change my surname to Love. I did not need to lie prostrate on my kitchen floor, begging her to please please please, make love to me now or I will shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

I just needed to know, I just needed to feel, I just needed to own that my flawed and broken self has inherent value in this world.

And it does, and I do, and therefore I am, extremely thankful to be here now in this messy magnificent world.

I am here. I am queer. I am home.

This piece is an excerpt from my memoir ‘Perfectly Flawed’ written under my pseudonym Barrett Rose Baum.

Love Is Who I Am

Love Is Who I Am

‘You either walk into your story and own your truth, or you live outside of your story, hustling for your worthiness.’ Brene Brown

I have always been that hustler, that hooker, that looker, offering up my body as a token of my admiration, beseeching her to love me through my trifecta of tools: shame, blame and manipulation, with a soupçon of fairy dust thrown in for good measure.

Always dancing as fast as I can, all the while singing the same refrain stuck on repeat, “Please love me. Please fill me. Please heal me. Never leave me. I will do anything and everything to become the one you need. I shall make your every wish come true.”

Hoping always that ephemeral, elusive feeling of safety would land on my right shoulder like a butterfly’s kiss, like a benediction, like a blessing.

But that was yesterday. After a lifetime of yesterdays, on this early November morning I can walk straight into my story, thankful to proclaim my own truth, which is this:

I am worthy of love. I am inherently loveable. I did not need to change my surname to Love. I did not need to lie prostrate on my kitchen floor, begging Her to please please please, make love to me now or I will shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.

I just needed to know, I just needed to feel, I just needed to own that my flawed and broken self has inherent value in this world.

And it does, and I do, and therefore I am, extremely thankful to be here now in this messy magnificent world.

I am here. I am queer. I am home.

This piece is an excerpt from my memoir ‘Perfectly Flawed’ written under my pseudonym Barrett Rose Baum.

Torch Song For The Little Bird

torch song for the little bird

early morning light
softly illuminates
the etching of a
bird on my blush
coloured wall.

“be careful with whom
you share your little
efforts at staying
luminescent.”

says the brown bird,
perhaps a wren,
perhaps a swallow.

“now is the
time
to bring your
brightest self
to the world,
even though.”

i said to my small
unfurling birdie that
is almost ready
to fly.

katharine angelina love

Calling Myself Home

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be celebrating with my almost daughter Emily, on the eve of her thirtieth birthday in Cornwall, Ontario.

When I write about Emily, I use the phrase ‘almost daughter’, although sometimes I write daughter, depending on how vulnerable I’m feeling in the moment, the truth being this:
I have loved Emily ever since my daughter and Emily became fast friends in Kindergarten and I began my first lesbian relationship with her mother. Emily refers to me as her ‘other mother’ but for this moment and for this piece, the ‘almost’ is important.

We were ten people strong celebrating Emily’s birthday when a friend of Emily’s mother asked me a question:
“So, is your name Katrina, or Katharina or Katharine?” I think the question was meant to wound, but nothing can harm me if I don’t take it in, so I simply said… “I don’t know, I haven’t healed this place of my name yet.”

I’m rereading the book ‘The Presence Principle’ by Michael Brown. He wrote that naming something calls it into being. Perhaps that’s why over 20 years into trying to name myself I’m not quite there, as I’m still working on calling myself into the world.

I have never ever felt I belonged. Not to my family, not to my community, and certainly not to myself. I was born into a wealthy, clannish, Jewish family where fitting in was imperative and I, from the beginning, did not.

My given name was Rhona and I had a speech impediment which made pronouncing the letter R difficult and because real life closely imitates the movie ‘Lord Of The Flies’ the kids in my school immediately took advantage of my wound and teased me endlessly, calling me Rahona and other names that are best left to the imagination.

I’ve always felt Rhona was a pedestrian sounding name and I wanted a beautiful name that would somehow grant me magical status so I would not be the weird looking kid with a weird name but a beautiful princess with a regal sounding name.

Let’s skip ahead a few decades.. I have now legally changed my name to Katharine Love so that I could finally feel that name magic but what I didn’t know then is that magic is bestowed from the inside out not the outside in.

A few months ago I tried toying with my name again trying to find the right fit. I thought maybe I’d add an a to the end making me sound more like Anna from the animated movie ‘Frozen’ but that too just didn’t fit.

I’m now thinking of returning to my birth surname of Greenbaum. That feels more grounded in truth and I want to honour my dad and to make him proud of how far I have come.

I have healed a decades long eating disorder, went from rarely walking to walking miles a day, writing and publishing a book, to most importantly, finally accepting myself, wounds and all.

I’m now thinking of calling myself Remington Greenbaum. Remington has a certain swagger and I get to keep my initial initials.

I am always a work in progress, as we all are. I am confident I will arrive where I am supposed to be, when the timing is right.

I’m sharing here my deepest wound – my nomad existence, roaming around this world unseen and unnamed and unaccounted for.

I do however have every confidence that I will eventually, call myself home.

Here and Now

here and now

beloved:
i have waited
heartbeat
by heartbeat
for you.

now you
are here,

my fervent prayers
to the goddess
aphrodite
heard
and delivered.

i love
dropping in
to the very
deep of you,
feeling joined
in a way that
feels ancient
yet entirely new,
my own
unified theory.

your sturdy hand
on the small
of my back
reaching
all the way
in
to the ragged
parts of me
soothing
and softening.

then…
like a sorceress
you delicately
use your beautiful
strong fingers,
to release
my long worn
protective
breast plate.

so grateful
to be seen
and received
in all my
broken
entirety,
i give
myself
to you,

your body
covering
my body
shielding me
from all
that could ever
harm.

i feel you here –
a heart without question
someone to watch over
me.

kal

The Birdcage

Tell me dear one, is today the day you decide to break free?

No breaking necessary of course, you have possession of the keys.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you hid them
in a secret compartment underneath
all the bird droppings and old newspapers.

I get it, you feel safe in there.

You share your cage with a turquoise cockatoo you’ve named Celine Dion.

Celine saves her favourite crackers for you, in return you taught her to sing.

You find it strangely comforting when she sings “Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you, that is how I know you go on.”

I understand my friend, I too long for the familiar and the safe.

I’m riddled by fear – of sudden loud noises, of large loping dogs and of overcrowded elevators.

I wake up most nights shaking, after another apocalyptic end of the world nightmare.

Why then would I ask you to
leave your comfy cozy cage?

I shall tell you why…

Because I’ve discovered that despite everything, beauty infuses every centimetre of our world.

Beauty is out there for you to claim
like a prize, like a benediction sent as a directive from the universe directly towards your heart.

Gently open your cage door, and come
fly with me.
Togerher we will open ourselves up to the resplendence
of our world, bird by bird.

KAL

kindred spirits

kindred spirits

i was only
eight years old
the first time i read
the iconic coming
of age novel
anne of green gables

the young orphan
anne
she of flaming hair
was instantly smitten
by her down
the road neighbor
diana –
she with hair as dark
as midnight

anne told
diana that they
would always be
kindred spirits, and
i knew deep
in my heart
that i too
needed
to find my
soul to soul
friend

for i was only
only eight at
the time
but understood
how lovely
it would be
to claim
my person

finally,
finally there
would be
someone here
who I could
tell my secrets
to and even
better
my truths
and they would
never
laugh or be cruel
but say
“of course koko,
i understand why
you did what
you did
and i
would have
done exactly
the same.”

the moment i saw
you standing at
the threshold of
my mother’s
apartment
carrying those
wilted white daisies
wearing that
bright yellow dress
i knew that
at long last
after an almost
interminable wait,
i had found
my very
own diana.

one day
we will be
playing
with our
dogs in the
waning light
of autumn
and laughing
and talking
and talking
and i will point
to the shadow
at the liminal edge
of your property
and say
“look over there,
it’s anne and diana
and they are waving.”

kal

What Love Is: A Poem In Three Parts

what love is: a poem in three parts

part one

it’s 2:30
in the morning
and once more
i’m in the bathtub
trying to unwind,
hoping the heat might
loosen
my way too wired body

so that perchance,
i might fall
back to sleep
when suddenly
i realize how
parched i am

but

i just can’t seem to
rouse myself
from my now
perfectly warmed
rose scented bath.

part two

my thirst intensifies…
if only i had a wife!
then i would
whisper to her
softly
through the open door –
“darling, darling, wake up!
can you please bring me
a tall glass of cool water
along with those
juicy looking figs
that we picked up
from the
st. lawrence market
last friday?”

part three

love is not kissing
your wife’s picture
whilst extolling
her virtues.

love is a verb.

love is getting out
of your comfy
cozy bed at 2:30
in the morning
because you hear
love’s voice
in the guise of your wife
breaking through
your slumber,
imploring you to
please, please bring
a tall icy glass
of water
with some figs
to the bathroom
for your beloved.

k.a.l.

And the day came…

This is one of my favourite photos. So much internal movement even though outwardly everything looks perfectly still. It’s the moment before the moment, the moment before the release, the moment before the flower tight in the bud begins to spread its petals to the light. On this Monday morning I send wishes of hope and of courage to all who are ready to unfurl.

‘And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud, was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.’

Anais Nin