Good St. Joseph, pray for us!

“Joseph. He is the man on the outskirts, standing in the shadows, silently waiting, there when wanted and always ready to help. He is the man in whose life God is constantly intervening with warning and visions. Without complaining he allows his own plans to be set aside. His life is a succession of prophecies and dream-messages, of packing up and moving on. He is the man who dreams of setting up a quiet household , simply leading a decent home life and going about his everyday affairs, attending to his business and worshiping God and who, instead, is condemned to a life of wandering. Beset with doubts, heavy-hearted and uneasy in his mind, his whole life disrupted, he has to take to the open road, to make his way through an unfriendly country , finding no shelter but a miserable stable for those he holds most dear. He is the man who sets aside all thought of self and shoulders his responsibilities bravely-and obeys.

His message is willing obedience. He is the man who serves. It never enters his head to question God’s commands; he makes all the necessary preparations and is ready when God’s call comes. Willing, unquestioning service is the secret of his life. It is his message for us and his judgment of us. How proud and presumptuous and self-sufficient we are. We have crabbed and confined God within the pitiable limits of our obstinacy, our complacency, our opportunism, our mania for “self-expression”. We have given God- and with Him everything that is noble and spiritual and holy- only the minimum of recognition, just as much as would serve to flatter our self-esteem and further our self-will. Just how wrong this is, life itself has showed us. As a consequence of our attitude, we have come to abject bondage dominated by ruthless states which force the individual to sink his identity in the common mass and give his service whether he wishes or not. The prayer of St. Paul – do with me what you will- the quiet and willing readiness to serve of the man Joseph, could lead us to a truer and more genuine freedom.”

Another conversion

I received my hearing and my sight back again. My healer is a wise man who recently told me that if I “took those damned things out of my ears” I would hear the best soundtrack the world has to offer.

Since an early morning blood lab experience at St. Mike’s last month, my iPod has been laid to rest on my desk. And maybe it’ll be for good.

“Hello there dear, what’s wrong with you?” asked a tall, disheveled woman with a Russian accent as she ambled over to me (strangely confident that I would answer).

The one thing I really miss since moving to Toronto nearly two years ago from rural Nova Scotia are nosy (and unapologetic) inquiries into my personal life by strangers.

Telling people what you are doing at any point in the day “down home” is to be expected. “Now what brings you to these parts?” if you are recognized as a stranger in an antique store by the beach. Or, “didn’t your Pops have a heart attack last week? How’s he faring?”

Answers (and sometimes highly personal ones) are demanded of you constantly and they often tumble out of your mouth before you even notice the stage being set for such a transfer of information.

I took out my ear buds and smiled up at her politely. “My specialist has ordered some tests for me,” I spewed out far too naturally, “she thinks I may have a recurrence of a disease from my past”.

After telling her far too much (in true Maritime form), she smiled at me with sympathy, and then stared wordlessly for an inappropriate amount of time. Then, as if coming out of a trance, she shook her head and moved onto her next victim. “And you, what’s wrong with you?” I heard her ask the elderly man on my left.

A slow smile crept onto my face as my shock synchronized with my memory and then ceased being shock. And all of this because my senses had been freed from their playlist-dictated bondage; I was letting life happen around me again and it felt like home.

After almost 2 years in this city, I had come to believe that people were content on their independent daily trajectories and that no one really wanted to mingle with anyone else.

I learned that you shouldn’t say “good morning” to the person sitting next to you on the subway and that people don’t really need to know that you like their lapel pin.

Or do they?

After that morning at St. Mike’s, I felt a rebellion rising up within me. I wanted to be an unfiltered-brand-of-human to everyone with whom I came into contact.

“But you’re a young lady,” my Portuguese landlady countered when I told her my plan, “you will get followed home. People are far too desperate in this city and if you show them any attention…”

But all I heard was: people are far too desperate. Too desperate? Why are they desperate? Perhaps because these people see themselves becoming irrelevant at a disturbing speed because they see that people aren’t present when they are present. Maybe these “inappropriate” individuals as we deign to call them are longing for reality, grasping for some humanity, mourning normalcy. I can understand that.

We’ve all prayed that the rancid-smelling old lady who plopped down beside us on the bus won’t turn to us with her disconnected ramblings. Maybe we move to another seat before she even gets the chance. Maybe we plug into iWorld where the rancid old lady population is negligible.

I am realizing that strangers (even rambling ones) aren’t as scary as we’ve pegged them to be. Accept their candy, no, but their anecdotes? Their musings? Chances are their words aren’t poisoned.

“Engage. Take in your surroundings. People have things to say to you and you need to hear them.” This wise man’s words had found a permanent home in my heart.

So for me, this city has changed. It’s now been over a month without my iPod, its neon green body lifeless on my desk like a withered leaf from last season.

When I was still new to Toronto, I would constantly grieve the beauty of the Maritime landscape that I had left behind, but I’ve since realized that Toronto boasts of a landscape of souls. There are unwritten memoirs on every corner, a startling, uncomfortable yet highly-welcome brand of beauty. Decidedly, this substitute might just be enough for me.

In order to acquire tranquility in action it is necessary to carefully consider what we are capable of accomplishing and never to undertake more than that. It is self-love, ever more anxious to do much rather than to do well and this self-love that wishes to undertake everything and accomplishes nothing!

-- St. Francis DeSales (Patron of Writers, journalists and persistence in general)


*and from here I will re-commit to more frequent blogging.

Haiti- The Arcade Fire

Haïti, mon pays,
wounded mother I'll never see.
Ma famille set me free.
Throw my ashes into the sea.

Mes cousins jamais nés
hantent les nuits de Duvalier.
Rien n'arrete nos esprits.
Guns can't kill what soldiers can't see.

In the forest we lie hiding,
unmarked graves where flowers grow.
Hear the soldiers angry yelling,
in the river we will go.

Tous les morts-nés forment une armée,
soon we will reclaim the earth.
All the tears and all the bodies
bring about our second birth.

Haïti, never free,
n'aie pas peur de sonner l'alarme.
Tes enfants sont partis,
In those days their blood was still warm

Revelation of the Day

We hide crouching behind an image of who we think we want to be, often times squashing genuine genius and creativity to fit the mold we have built for ourselves. I just realized that it is meant to be even better than we could have ever imagined. How we imagine ourselves to be "fully realized" is but a meagre, watered-down version of who we will be in reality.

Even in the best daydreams of dream jobs or utopian predicaments, so much 'creme' is missing; we see ourselves in the best possible outcome, true, but these images fall tragically flat. The stuff that truly inspires awe, that is, the wisdom accrued over years of suffering and painful lessons learned (the expansion of the heart, really), coupled with the manifestation of this wisdom is not present in our "when I grow up" fantasies. So there it is, folks, it really is better than you could ever imagine. The best possible version of you is still en route but it must be gently drawn out with the seasons.

a little more "bewildered" than usual

It's been awhile but I still want to try and feign some degree of faithfulness to this blog. I must say, I watched the movie Julie&Julia and gained an inordinate amount of insight on the power of sticking things out for the sake of keeping one's spirit alive in an otherwise disappointing situation.
Yes, I said disappointing! I have a bad case of the September blahs! Does anyone else experience this phenomenon? The only remedy I can figure is higher doses of Taylor Swift and cello music to account for the decrease in vitamin D.
I have many little theories floating around my head with regards to my feelings about September..maybe someday I will commit them to paper. But for now I wanted to commit something to paper.

Be blessed. If you are down, listen to some cello...I swear it helps!

Muse of Fashion: Do not worry me

A Letter I Received

"Am sending you this poem I wrote, with the possibility that it may serve as a stimulus to one of your conversations, especially regarding possibly dignity, or the human worth within, rather than without.
Thanking you if this may be of service." -LL




Muse of fashion: Do not worry me.

Your counsel brings me darkness and despair.

I would your wares were left behind me now

Safe in storage under lock and key.

I have no need for jewels within the hair

Or necklaces of pearl and pins of gold.

You offer me no fortune held in hand,

When in the other grief is what you bear.

You fooled me once when I was young and bold

And found in image scaffoldings of lace .

And built my dreams on owning rich brocades

Skirts of velvet, bodices of silk.

But in my life there was not found a trace,

Of smile, of sparkling eye, or lilt of voice;

But since I've learned to dress in cottons plain,

There is no shadow near the eye or face.

And I have found that simple can be choice,

Since I have been released from fashion's reign.


- L.L. , September 14th, 2000. (copyright)